Before I get to the crux of my post, I would like to explain a few terms that a few people might not know about. Here is the progression of a cut as I do it...when dealing with a documentary project that has a script:
RADIO EDIT - Laying out of narration and sound bytes. Just getting things in script order on the timeline.
ROUGH CUT - Filling in the cut with footage. This is also the time that I start to ad pacing to the cut. Adding slates (title cards) where footage is missing and needed.
FINE CUT - Fleshing out the cut with music and more footage. Deal more with pacing as music is added...give breath to scenes and add montages when needed. Start to get into creating the style of the show, creating transitional moments and unique pacing. Sound effects added at this stage. Perhaps adding lower thirds (ID tags for interview subjects).
FINE CUT 2 - Addressing the producer and network notes. More versions as the notes progress.
PICTURE LOCK - Polishing the transition moments and all segments of the cut. Bringing the show to time, meaning making the duration as long as the network requires. Adding the required act break durations and title/credits.
When it comes to editing a rough cut, I am used to delivering what to many would seem like a "fine cut." What that means is that it has music and transition effects and sound effects. I have gotten used to this because many of the producers and production companies I have worked for have demanded this sort of cut. Many producers can't watch a rough cut for what it should be...just a rough assembly of the footage to get an idea of the story structure. They get distracted when they don't hear music or the cut isn't smooth or a sound effect.
Here's a great audio clip that explains this well:
Last week a producer, who typically wants the "Fine" rough cut just wanted a rough cut. A typical rough cut. I am not used to this. I haven't delivered a ROUGH rough cut in a long time. So I had to try to re-train myself NOT to add music and transitional moments and sound effects. And after a week of cutting I presented the producer with one of the roughest cuts I have done in a while. The other editors also did rough cuts for their segments...well, except for one who had more time to add music and transitional moments.
So I strung the segments together and watched it with the producers as we output it to DVD for the network. While watching it all sorts of story structure issues popped up. We found parts that needed to be moved and other things that simply just didn't work. here are a few paraphrases of the session:
"We have too many subjects in this segment. Two people are fine...the third makes this too long."
"This part is good, but we need to move it earlier so that the rest of this segment makes sense."
"This doesn't make sense...we need to add some narration to explain this better."
"Isn't this (task we are talking about) actually harder when done in this manner? I recall an interviewer talking about this...perhaps we should add that."
"The segment order doesn't make sense...let's try this one, then this, then this, and finally that."
Perfect. Just what we needed. Normally we would have spend a few more days on the edit, making it all fancy and FINE...and THEN be hit with these notes. Meaning that we just wasted days of our time on something that was cut. And sometimes as an editor you feel like "Hey, I spent a long time on that, I'd hate to see it go." The same reason that the director shouldn't edit their film. "But I spent a week shooting that scene...I can't cut it!" If it doesn't work, it needs to go.
Anyway,it was refreshing to go back to a rough rough cut,not spending days cutting something, then to lose a sequence that then messes up the music timing so you have to spend time trying to fix that...something that is very frustrating. Now we can move things around and get the story in order, THEN add music and pacing.
BTW, our first show is at the colorist and will be done VERY soon. No clue as to an air date yet. I'll let you know when I find out.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Jun 1, 2008 at 1:26:27 pm
"A standalone application which prints a list of clips in a bin or markers contained in a clip or sequence. This provides a very useful workflow enhancement when handing off a project to someone else for further work."
"- Displays a list of clips/sequences in a bin or a list of markers found within clips/sequences. - Flexible customisation of columns including thumbnail. - Customise print output with colour of header text and your own company or production logo. - Print marker list to paper or PDF."
Downloading demo now...
Posted by: Shane Ross on May 22, 2008 at 12:13:42 pm
As you output your project to tape, or to DVD...whatever. Or before you encode it for the web or DVD...watch it all the way through. Even if you have seen it three dozen times, it would be very wise to watch your project before you do your final output, or an output that is going out to the network.
Why?
Well...one of the other editors here came to me with a big issue...one that I have never seen nor heard of before.
Last Friday he finished cutting his show...strung all the segments together, checked everything before the final render, then rendered. He did a quick glance through and things looked fine. He started the output (DVD-output to DVD Recorder via a Kona 3) then left. The assistants stopped the output when it was done, duplicated the DVD and sent it off to the network.
Come Monday...today...the editor in and finds that the network has complained that there were three black holes in the show. The editor goes to those spots and yup, there is nothing there but black. All three are stills (tiffs) with basic moves on them. When he matches frame, he sees the still, but there is black on the timeline. He is stumped, and comes to me to see what is going on.
I look at this and must admit that I too was stumped. I did a lot of fiddling...Made sure that the Canvas was set to RGB and not Alpha, but that wouldn't be it because we saw everything else. The scale was right, opacity was 100%. I fiddled with that and BOOM, the clip appeared. Hmmm...I moved it back to 100% and it was still there...but with the typical light green render bar above it. Another hmmm.
I went to another one of the clips and de-activated it (control-b) then activated it again (control-b). Boom...the picture came online. It was a bad render...all three somehow rendered out black, and I haven't a clue why. Re-rendered and all was well.
I bring this up to illustrate a point. The point is that you should watch your show as it outputs...so that you can catch stuff like this before it goes out and you end up with egg on your face.
I too was doing an output on Friday, and I too had a couple issues. About 20 min into a 45 min output I spotted a black hole that I forgot to add two stills into. I fixed that and started the output again. 24 min into the output and I encountered a clip where the filter hadn't rendered properly. I adjusted it, and then started the output again. This was going to DVD so there was no starting where I left off. Third time...DARN IT. 36 min in and there was a small 2 second hole of nothing where I did a pull up but forgot to close the gap. Fixed it and then started again. FINALLY the output was done and clean...at 2:30 AM.
I picked up this habit of watching my outputs when I too did what the other editor did...sent something out that had a couple trouble spots. I didn't watch the output, so I missed them. HUGE bro-ha ha from the network, and quite a chewing out by the post supervisor and producer. So I no longer just let things go...I watch. No matter how many times I have seen it and how boring it might be, I watch my outputs until they are done.
What does the above image have to do with all of this? Well, this is the subway station at Hollywood Highland at 2:45AM...when I realized that the subway stopped running and I needed to ride my bike ALL they way home.
EDIT: My buddy Tom has seen the exact same issue a couple years ago, as he posted here on the Cow
Posted by: Shane Ross on May 12, 2008 at 6:30:13 pm
My producer from The Mexican American War and Andrew Jackson is teaching a 4 week workshop. Time permitting I might see if I can pitch in when it comes to the editing phase. Anyway, here is the press release for this event:
HISTORY/DISCOVERY Channel Producer to conduct summer HVX-200/Final Cut Pro workshop at LA's Citrus College
LA’s Citrus College of the Performing Arts is conducting a 4-week summer INTRO TO PRO HD workshop with Emmy-winning HISTORY/DISCOVERY Channel writer/producer/director Jim Lindsay. One of LA’s best-kept secrets for arts education, Citrus has been the home of the Grammy Foundation’s summer “Grammy Camp”. Having offered terrific “real world” education in the recording and performing arts for junior-college tuition rates, Dean Robert Slack is moving into the video world, kicking it off with this workshop using Panasonic HVX-200 cameras and Apple Final Cut Pro. Jim Lindsay’s daughter Sara (former “Grammy Camper”) attends Citrus in the singing/songwriting track, thus the connection. Lindsay has been responsible for many of HISTORY’s highest profile specials including the 3-hour ALEXANDER THE GREAT, 2-hour MEXICAN AMERICAN WAR hosted by Oscar De La Hoya and most recently the 2-hour ANDREW JACKSON,(edited by Creative Cow Final Cut/P2 guru Shane Ross). Workshop will run Monday thru Thursday, 10 AM to 3 PM, June 23 – July 17, 2008. Cost is $400 per student. (No, that’s not a typo, $400 for 4 weeks, not 2 days. That’s why Citrus is LA’s best-kept secret.) Class size is limited to 24.
Lindsay has “done it all”, from shooting, to editing, to screenwriting (Showtime’s CONVICT COWBOY starring Jon Voight), to directing NBC’s UNSOLVED MYSTERIES all 9 years, and writing/producing/directing 50+ hours of prime-time specials for HISTORY, A&E, DISCOVERY, NBC, CBS, FOX & LIFETIME. So this will be no “academic theory” workshop. It will be classic Citrus “real world”, warts and all. Every student will come out with their own short film, shot in DVCPRO HD on the HVX-200’s and edited in FCP. (Jim will be taking students through the exact same HD workflow that he and Shane use for their HISTORY/DISCOVERY shows.) Jim will be covering every aspect of production: from story/structure, to network pitching, to prepping, budgeting, shooting, lighting, editing, finishing, distribution, the whole enchilada. Depending on their schedules, several members of his production team, including Shane, may be contributing as well. Overall, a rare opportunity to learn from folks who really “do it” for a living at levels of very high standards both creatively and technically.
For information on Citrus College, go to http://www.citrusarts.org/ or call the sign-up office at 626-914-8580. The workshop brochure page can be viewed here Jim Lindsay’s website is Jimfilm.com. Specific questions can be directed to Jim directly at jim@jimfilm.com Digital Content Producer also featured the Lindsay team and their workflow in this article
Posted by: Shane Ross on May 7, 2008 at 11:25:40 pm
On Wednesday my old G-Raid...the one I bought four years ago...finally gave up the ghost. It had begun clicking over the weekend when I was copying footage to and from it, which is not a good sign. It did this before, when I owned it for about a year. But, I took it to G-tech in Santa Monica and in two days, I had it back in my hands. The same thing happened back then...clicking when copying.
Well, after a few days of the clicking...it decided not to show up on my desktop at all. Nor in the Disk Utility. And the warranty expired. So I cracked open the case, pulled out the two PATA drives and connected them both directly to the computer via a spare PATA firewire case I have lying about. One worked, the other did not. Dead drive. Fine, I relegated it as a Clone Drive for my G5 and tossed the bad drive in the trash.
Then comes Saturday.
I need to work one day this weekend on my current show, and I had copied all the media used in that project to my main S2VR Duo from Caldigit. I was editing fine on it with this project for weeks now. But on Saturday, it was acting up. Well, to be totally honest, it had been acting up for a while. A few months ago, I would try to copy large files to it and it would get only so far before it would hang...all the activity lights would stop, and one of them would remain solidly on. I would turn it off, back on, try again...hang. Since I always have a backup of my footage, I reformatted the drive, rebuilt the raid, and tried again. Nope...same error. I called CalDigit, they ran me through the paces of doing all that again, but also updating their drivers...tried again in vain. They figured it was a bad power converter and sent me a new power cord and brick. That did solve the issue.
Then it started again. Three weeks ago. Same issue. Any file larger than 2GB caused the drive to hang. Again, called CalDigit, directed to remove drivers, download and install new ones, in specific order. It worked. For a a couple. Then it was hanging again. So again, reformat, copy footage. Got it working...until the current issue this weekend.
I thought it might be the card, as my Dark Tower homemade RAID (my backup unit) had an issue starting up once...said the drives weren't recognized. A restart solved that. Then I was gone all day today...at the beach. Came back, worked on m project for an hour...no issues. I thought all was well when...render caused the drive to hang. It seems that the drive needed to warm up before it decided to stop working.
Well, this is why I have backups. The Unit is under warranty, and drives do fail...fact of life. Time for a call to tech support to get this replaced. Thank goodness for warrantees. And...that goodness that I back up my footage. I do this because the Duo is a RAID 0 box, meaning one drive goes, they all go. If I had a nice fancy RAID 5 unit in here (a product on the horizon), then I wouldn't be backing up like I do. But, I have the space, and I am paranoid.
This is just to let you all know that this stuff happens. Drive technology, as good as it is, isn't infallible. I'm not mad, I'm not pulling my hair out...OK, I am a little miffed. But I have backups in place, so little time was lost on this.
MORAL? Always have a backup plan.
EDIT: Just got off the phone with Jon at CalDigit and a replacement plan is in place. Shipping back the Duo and the card so they can figure out what is going on.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Apr 28, 2008 at 3:23:26 pm
As you may or may not know, RED is set to announce their new "pocketcam," code named SCARLET, at the upcoming NAB Show. This announcement has generated quite a bit of buzz, and many people, myself included, are looking forward to this camera.
I have a few friends who work on the RED project and one of them has been secretly chatting with me about it. They said that they were impressed with the camera design as it lends itself to being inconspicuous...so that you can get those much wanted candid shots without drawing too much attention to yourself. Unlike the main RED camera that looks like a weapon out of Star Trek, they took a different approach with this camera. My friend snuck a quick snap of this camera with his iPhone and e-mailed the picture to me last night. I'm so impressed with this design I had to post it.
Last week, on Thursday (March 13th for those who really want to know) we needed to output the rough cut of the first show and send it to the network. In actuality it was the SECOND show, but episode one was still being edited...but that's besides the point. So on Thursday I was pulled off my editing of a segment for show one (EP 101) and assigned to cut the tease for show two (102).
"Cut the tease"....sorry, that always makes me giggle a little.
Anyway...this was the beginning of a series of "missteps" that caused a couple complications with the assembly of the show. For the record, we are editing DVCPRO HD footage mainly shot with the Varicam, at 720p 23.98 This footage was captured via the Kona card and not via firewire, as firewire capture throws the audio off sync by two frames...audio leading by two frames. Instead of adjusting the sync on each and every clip we drop in the timeline, we captured via HD SDI from the Kona 3 ensuring perfect sync. Because of this, the Easy Setup we chose was AJA KONA 3-720p 23.98 DVCPRO HD Varicam:
OK...that in mind, let's move on to the series of events that caused a few complications.
We are in an XSAN environment. Each machine connected to shared storage, with multiple editors editing sections of the final show. One editor handling two segments, another on the third, and me working on the tease. When we were all done and ready to "stitch the show together," something odd happened. The lead editor opened our projects on his system, copied the contents of our sequences then pasted them into his main sequence and...the aspect ratio and dimensions of the clips were off. They were wrong from both me and the editor working on the third segment. The image was squished and stretched. And when we looked at the MOTION tab of one of the clips, the scale was 133%, and it was distorted at -33. Hmmm...odd. Why was this? Well, I looked at my sequence settings, and they were...well...wrong:
1280x720...not 960x720. Square pixels...compressor was 8-bit uncompressed. What the...? How did this happen? Well, I looked at my Easy Setup...I chose the wrong one. AJA Kona 3-720p 23.98 8-bit Varicam...8-bit UNCOMPRESSED, not DVCPRO HD. That means square pixels, uncompressed timeline. And that any clip dropped into this timeline would be scaled to fit that timeline.
But you ask "how could this be when FCP 6 prompts you to change the sequence settings to match the clip settings? Surely THAT would have made the sequences right...right?" Well...yes, that does happen, but only when you CUT or OVERWRITE footage into the timeline. This DOES NOT occur when you copy and paste footage into the sequence, like I did. I was cutting the tease...meaning that I culled scenes and soundbytes from the main sequences from each segment...copy and paste. And then we have the great OPEN TIMELINE of FCP 6. Because of this, I can put footage that doesn't match the sequence settings into said sequence and NOT have to render. No more RED render bar...dark green. A very unnoticable dark green I might add. So I copy and pasted merrily along blissfully unaware that I was doing anything wrong.
THIS is the proper sequence settings I should have used:
The other editor was in the same boat. Apparently he too had the same Easy Setup (I believe I set up that computer as well...ahem...) and he took bits and pieces of a couple sequences full of selects to start building his cut. So too did not get the "settings" warning.
Whew. OK then. Now we need to fix this.
We fixed one clip...scaled to 100%, distort back to 0. Then we selected the clip, hit Apple-C to COPY, then highlighted the other clips and hit OPTION-V, Paste Attributes, and chose BASIC MOTION and DISTORT. This fixed the other clips. We had to do this carefully, as not all the footage in the sequences were DVCPRO HD. We have plenty of archival footage that was captured at DV resolution, and loads of stills with moves applied to them. Fixing the DV clips was easy, just did the same Paste Attributes thing. But the stills...the moves were now all wrong, so we needed to fix those.
Needless to say, editing went on longer than anticipated and we missed FedEx (started the final assembly at 5PM for a 5:30 PM output to be gotten to the LAX FedEx drop off with a late drop of deadline). Since we missed the deadline, we took a little longer to tweak the show and then output it as H.264 that we then uploaded to an FTP site for the network to download and view.
Oh, and when I say "we did this" and "we did that," I mean the OTHER editors did most of this fix and output. I had to leave at 6PM sharp to get home to watch the kids as my wife had an important meeting to get to. So I got to miss out in all the fun. At least locally. I was on the phone for a bit of this.
This is the sort of thing that happens when one is deep in the "creative" aspect of cutting. You attention is so focused on story and content that you aren't really paying attention to the technical. When I was an assistant I'd notice this a lot in the other editors. They would render to the wrong drive, or mix AVR (Avid Video Resolution) formats in the timeline, typically titles rendered in the wrong format, causing the WRONG FORMAT error to pop up. Now that I am the editor, I am the one not paying attention causing the WRONG FORMAT errors.
Needless to say I won't make THIS mistake again.
COMING UP: On the next episode of Little Frog in High Def...
Shane's edit station goes from the occurance a few small minor annoyances to a complete system meltdown.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Mar 19, 2008 at 12:31:06 am
Avid announced today that they will be rolling Avid Express Pro into Media Composer cutting the price of the software version of Media Composer from $5000 to $2500. This means that Avid Express Pro will be discontinued by the end of Q2, 2008 (meaning by the summer). This also means that the software will now be in a more competitive price range with Final Cut Pro. I know that now I will be getting it...as soon as I wrangle up $2500 (I did just buy a new system after all).
AND...Avid is starting a new is revamping their support community that will have has users helping other users with the software. It used to be lacking in many ways, including the interface, but it looks much improved. Much like what Apple does on their forums, and what you can get for FCP at Creative Cow, LAFCPUG, DVXUser. Although the Creative Cow also has a great Avid forum as does DVXUser.
Quick thoughts? I am excited about this. I am a huge Avid fan (avid fan...always like that expression) and find it not only viable, but often the only solution for many workflows...just like I think that FCP is the only solution for other workflows. And I think that lowering their price will only help them gain back some market share and footing they have lost in the past.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Mar 17, 2008 at 8:58:44 pm
Here is the Kona KBox mounted on the back of my IKEA "rack." I had to add an extra piece of wood to the side, but the 2U rack brackets fit nicely.
Now...onto TIME MACHINE. In my MacPro I have 5 drives. The system drive is in Bay 1, I have three Seagate 500GB drives in the other 3 bays. One stands alone as a work drive, where I store show exports, imported footage and other odd and ends that I transfer to the server. The final two are RAIDED as RAID 0 and I use them to capture media too before I transfer it to the XSAN.
I have a fifth drive installed in this MacPro. The fifth drive resides in the normally empty second optical bay. It is connected to the computer via one of the two spare SATA connections on the logicboard (accessed by removing the fans) and a 3.5" to 5.25" adapter kit. I use this drive as my TIME MACHINE drive, since I am using Leopard. Already this has saved my behind.
There was a small bit of temp footage that we had in the system that was accidentally ripped from the DVD as h.264. When I added this to the timeline, it required rendering...a clue to me that it was not an editing codec. So I copied the file to my computer, used Compressor to convert it to DV, and copied the DVD file back to the XSAN. I then went to reimport this clip and dropped it into the timeline and..it STILL recuired rendering. HUH? I looked at the clip and it STILL said it was h.264. Somehow it was still referencing the clip on my desktop, or in the trash...somewhere. So I dragged the clip to the trash and tried to empty it. It couldn't...FCP was still referencing it. So I quit FCP and then emptied the trash. To make sure that it linked properly, I also trashed the converted file on my drive. Then I opened FCP and...and...the clip was offline. I looked at the file I copied over and it was corrupt...zero KB.
It was gone.
Crap. Here I am, Sunday night and hour 10 into a 12 hour shift, and I lost media and I don't know where the DVD is, and it is footage I need. Crap crap crap.
Then I remember that I have Time Machine running. What the heck, I'll check. So I open my desktop folder and then hit TIME MACHINE. I go back one notch and...YUP, there it is...on the desktop. So I copy the DV file over...RESTORE it...and drop it on the XSAN. Import that into FCP and all is good.
I like Time Machine.
But this also points to an issue with my connection with the XSAN. I know something is up because I have to type in my password any time I want to copy footage to it...AUTHENTICATE it. And I can't create folders on it, nor set it as my scratch disk. I gotta call the IT guys and get them to look at it.
Posted by: Shane Ross on Mar 11, 2008 at 11:21:25 pm
