documentaries

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.

The official title of the History Channel Series I am working on is STRANGE HISTORY. The stories will mainly deal with taboos, cultural and sexual, and strange cultural practices from around the world. There, now you know.

The first week there I was working on one of the rental systems. Because my computer hadn't come in yet and because they didn't play on renting my system for a few weeks yet. Now, this rental system was a bit lacking. Sure, it had the Octo Mac 3.0Ghz and a LARGE Mackie Mixer (that you would find on an Avid system) with 16 channels, 4 of which we use. Two for FCP, two for the deck...oh, 5...one for the microphone (temp VO). It had a Kona 3 card, was on one of those HUGE editing desks, was nestled in a rack, and had big HD LCDs. Not color correctable ones, but an early model Sony Luma series that was fine for producers to look at. The computer monitors? Lacking....WAY lacking. 17" square LCDs...brand I haven't heard of. SMALL, to say the least. I suffered on these for two weeks. The third week I was on my system. The rental didn't start on it until THIS week, but I wouldn't allow myself to suffer any more.

About the mic. We had it plugged into the Mixer, but then, how to get that audio from the mixer into the computer? The Kona 3 cards only have AES EBU audio in, so what do we do? Well, I happen to have the Griffin iMic, a device that takes an audio input via RCA and plugs into the computer via USB. This shows up on the INPUT list in the VO tool just fine. ISSUE...I had one, but Griffin no longer made the iMic. So for 3 weeks we have been shuttling back and forth from bay to bay. I finally searched EBAY and found a few. We will be getting them in soon. Why not get a USB mic and be done with it? Well, we already had mics, and to control them from the mixer is a breeze, so why not just get the $20 tool that allows you to use that?

Now for the types of footage we are working with. Plenty of Varicam DVCPRO HD 720p24 footage. A few 32GB cards worth of P2. Then comes the temp footage. DVDs with screener footage, temp stills, FLASH MOVIES from the internet...VHS screeners. Hoo boy...where to start. DVDs we are ripping using DVDxDV. I find it much more stable than MPEG STREAMCLIP, and the encode process is fast and very clean. I have the PRO version on mine, because one show I worked on had DVD as a master, and I needed to encode it uncompressed SD to match everything else.

The flash video (odd that we have to do this, but the clearance people said that is where they were directed) presented a problem. We tried FFMPEGX but that didn't do it. And we tried iSquint, but that didn't encode to an editable format. I could have gone with Visual Hub....but our budget was tight, and we had other fish to fry. OH, and FIRST we had to get them off the web using a few website services that did this. SO I did a test capture using iShowU and that worked out very well. I took the result into Compressor and used the Advanced Conversion presents (DV/NTSC) to upscale it and make it into a workable codec and all was good. And because of the open format timeline, we could mix DVCPRO HD and DV just fine without rendering.

Mind you all of these DVD rips and internet downloads are ALL temp. WE are putting reel numbers that indicate that they are TEMP only. When we lock picture, THAT is when we order the master footage and capture it properly.

OK...now on to how I spent my days. The first 3 days I spent looking at footage of female boxers. Figuring out how to use markers to mark and name the footage, then use those markers to subclip the master tapes. The other editor just went with the markers, but I liked the actual subclips. Of course this presented me with a few issues in dealing with these subclips...which I talk about on the Apple forums. Then I was presented with a script...well, semi OUTLINE with interview soundbytes paraphrased...and no transcripts. So I then spend the next two days listening to interviews and making a few selects. The BIG producer came in and said that this segment wasn't going to be in the first episode anymore, they have changed the order of a few things, so I was asked to start looking at footage for another segment. Again, no script, just interviews, so I listened to them.

The next week I was told to move onto yet ANOTHER segment, as it had more stuff to get into. And it did, the other one had no b-roll, it was all interview. It had to be, the story takes place in communist China in the 1970's. There would be generic b-roll, but we didn't have any yet. This other segment had more, and the producer had more of an idea about what points he wanted to hit, so I moved onto that. I spent the rest of the week cutting up the 3 hours of interviews into a 15 minute story. On Friday, I was handed a script. I was off.

Did I mention that the first rough cut for the first show was due the FOLLOWING Friday? I didn't? Oh, well either did they. I find this out on Tuesday.

Well, I can't go into details, but the delivery was pushed until Monday, then after a screening it was pushed to Tuesday, because huge structure changes needed to be addressed. What looked good on paper didn't on TV...which is typical. So I came in on Sunday and worked for 12 hours, then came in on Monday and worked hard until I finished my segments at 3. WHEW. All we needed now was a quick tease, to tie the segments together and find a bridge...or leave that alone for now. Just need to get the network something to show how we want to approach things. Then I come to find that we need more changes, and delivery was pushed until this Friday.

WHEW.

So today I was back on boxing girls until I get a new script. Mind you, this is all very typical for this kind of work. I grow to expect it. And I know that all the effort I put in on the weekend might get tossed aside in favor of a new approach. BUT, that work still served a purpose. To find out what works and what doesn't. Knowing what doesn't is a pretty big thing. Now all we need to do is find out what does work.

Last December I was asked to edit a trailer for a documentary.  This trailer would be used to solicit finishing funds.  And while they couldn't pay much, they could pay.  Since I wasn't doing anything in January and halfway thru Febuary, I took the job.  

The client asked how they should deal with the payment  I said that I would like half up front, and half when I deliver the final.  That sounded fine to them, so I received half the payment and the tapes to begin editing.

I worked on the project for about 3 weeks, and delivered a rough cut.  Then I waited...and waited...and waited.  Finally two weeks ago I received word from the director (the guy who hired me).  The producers partnership had split due to philosophical differences in the way they wanted to approach the documentary.  So not only was it on hold, but it might be shut down altogether.  At least the one that I was asked to edit.  The producers might end up with separate docs...but for me, the project was done.

Now, I am glad that I got half up front, because the doc was DOA.  I am darn sure that trying to get partial payment after what happened would be darn near impossible.  Who would want to pay for nothing?  This is a lesson I learned the hard way on a previous project.  Getting paid is VERY important.  If you don't arrange weekly payments, you need to arrange some sort of payment so that you can have something to live off of while you work.  

A couple posts ago I pointed out the great PSA "Indie Fever" that Scott Simmons of the EditBlog made.

In what seems like perfect timing, I found myself watching a great short documentary on IFC on Monday called Failure. I stumbled on this by accident. My wife and I always watch the Henry Rollins Show and before I could change the channel, I saw the lead in to this documentary. I watched it...and it was hilarious. It was a documentary all about this guys attempt to make an independent film. In short, it was a disaster...and from the scenes he showed, I wondered what the heck it was about, because none of the scenes made sense. And he seemed to fall into every single pitfall that beginning filmmakers make...well, there was no "dream sequence," so he avoided one. But it showcased a lot of the points made by the Indie Fever PSA...and what was really neat is that the documentary was VERY GOOD. The movie he was doing was so bad, yet this was great. He spent three years making this, and it shows. Lots of time to fine tune it. Pure joy to watch. Because I have made a

or two in my time and this seems all to familiar to me.

While I am linking like a mad man, I might as well link to the FAILURE Myspace page.

Do you feel driven to making Independant Films? Do you watch art house films...and actually LIKE them?

Then you might have INDIE FEVER. Indie Fever is a crippling addiction that effects people nationwide...heck, GLOBALLY. But don't worry, there is help. The first step is to admit you have a problem. Once you do that, then please visit the Indie Fever website to find out how you can get help.

And you better not miss the Indie Fever PSA.

Please spare yourself and your loved ones from further pain and misery from your independent filmmaking addiction.

(Thanks to Scott Simmons of the EditBlog for bringing this to light, and for making the PSA)

Until this weekend I have avoided the Media Manager, which has been dubbed the "media mangler" for good reason. In the past, when you used the Media Manager to do anything, it would produce varying results....none of them the correct ones. It still has issues with SPEED CHANGES, but that is because actual media isn't made. But other than that, its reputation has improved.

So, here I am working on a project, that documentary trailer that was shot HDV and that I captured as ProRes and DVCPRO HD. I settled on editing it using the DVCPRO HD captures, because I get more real time performance with effects and layering, faster render times...and because this is only going to DVD. Now, this week I am scheduled to fly to New Jersey for a P2 Bootcamp at Panasonic. A trip that will shut me down for 3 days on this project, and I really cannot afford to lose 3 days. The flight will take 6 hours and that is time that I can use to work on this project, even though the most I can squeeze out of my Powerbook battery is 4 hours. But, if I had an external firewire drive attached...bus powered and fast enough to handle the 1080i footage...my battery would last at most an hour and a half. So...what to do...

RECOMPRESS.

Yup...recompress the footage into a smaller file size that I can then store on my main hard drive. I looked at my options and there was on called OFFLINE RT HD. That seems like it will do the trick. So I dove into the Media Manager. The first thing I did was highlight the two folders of footage I wanted to recompressed and copy. Then I right clicked on them and chose MEDIA MANAGER (or you can go to the FILE menu and see the same option):



Now I wanted to recompress my exisiting footage into a smaller size, and retain the timecode, so I chose the following options:



Now...this took time. 24 hours on my Dual 2Ghz G5 (I know...upgrading soon). But I started it on Friday night when I was done, and it went into the weekend, when I wasn't working. And I'm sure an Intel Mac would do MUCH better.

The end result was 16.1 GB (from 435GB) and easily fit on my Powerbook. I could play it without dropping a frame, and when I brought over the cuts I already had, I could reconnect to the sequences pretty easily. I figure when i am done and bring the sequences back to the main project, they will reconnect as well. I base this on testing I did where I cut random shots into a sequence, put that into it's own project, brought that back to the main computer and reconnected. It all connected fine and matched up.

Nice to see things have much improved.

I saved posting the airdate until the time was close.  Well, it is close.  And it will air THREE times very close to one another...so you will be sure to catch it.

<a href=http://www.history.com/shows.do?episodeId=251189&action=detail target=_blank>Andrew Jackson.</a>

Sunday, November 18  08:00 PM
Monday, November 19 12:00 AM (that's right...MIDNIGHT)
Saturday, November 24 05:00 PM

Not sure if these are Eastern or Pacific times...there have been times when it was set to air at 8PM and I find that it is on a 5PM...so 8PM eastern, 5PM Pacific.  But then it re-aired later that night.

Anyway, this is my third History Channel high def show cut with FCP...and since I have maybe 4 shows that air a year (specials...all of them specials) announcing when one airs is a big thing.  Now, when I get a SERIES, I can be more casual about it and say "catch this every Tuesday at 8:00 PM" and it won't be such a big deal because you see it all the time.  Well, it will still be a big deal, just not a quarterly event.

ONE of these day's the network will publicize a show I work on...one of these days.  Until then I have to shout it from the street corner...

"HEY!  WATCH MY SHOW!  IT'S REALLY COOL!"

When my SURGERY SAVED MY LIFE episode airs on Discovery Health (gah, they HAD to move it from the main Discovery channel for some reason)...I'll let you know.  That will be my...2nd show this year?  The third I am working on now.  MAN, I need a series.

I saw something when we were setting up at IBC that I wanted to mention.  Because it directly relates to something that I do on all the shows that I work on.

At one booth I saw the face of the host of a Discovery Channel show I worked on...a series really.  It was a freeze frame image of this host with burned in time code and no background, so I couldn't tell which show it was from.  They were busy setting up, so I didn't have a chance to ask the guys (and gal) what it was right away.  I waited until the show was running and they weren't so busy.

The guy is a historian named Dan Martinez that hosted the UNSOLVED HISTORY series I worked on.  I was one of many editors assigned to work on those shows (typically three of us on a show, up to five for the two hour ones) and was curious if this was one of the ones I worked on.  I spoke to the guy doing the demo and discovered that it was indeed one of the UNSOLVED shows...the one on PEARL HARBOR.  Now, I didn't work on that one, but I was at the company that did.  The man doing the demo, Tao, was delighted to find out I was one of the editors of these shows.  He worked on the international version of all of them.  I asked him to run me through the demo...what did he do?  INTERNATIONAL VERSIONING and MIXING.  He took the international master that we provide and remixes the audio and re-does all the text for the various countries it airs in.  

OK, a quick note on what we provide for International versioning.

We provide a textless tape (no lower thirds...interviewee name and title...or map names) with split track audio, a DA88 audio tape with 8 separate tracks, time code information as to where the lower thirds and map text resides, and additional footage, called PLUS ELEMENTS, that is to be added for countries who have shorter or no commercial breaks.

One of the things this man did was add translation VO over the interview bytes by ducking the audio and adding in the translation (German, French, Italian, whathaveyou).  He also remixed the music when needed as well.  For example, the PEARL HARBOR episode used music that was in the feature film, that the show had bits and pieces of throughout.  They didn't want to license that for international, so he composed and scored new music and replaced it.  They also cut out the feature film footage and added the plus elements to make up the difference.  And then noting our time code information from the texted master, and utilizing a low res QT file for reference, he would locate the lower thirds and map text and replace them with German or French or Italian (again, whathaveyou) language versions of the titles.  

But I noted something when I was watching TV in my hotel room in Amsterdam.  I found that they aired National Geographic and Discovery Channel, and did so in English.  The titles were still in English, and the show was subtitled.  I asked him why in this case they didn't do Dutch translations.  "Ah, that is because most of the population here speak English.  And those that don't, read the subtitles."  Very true.  Every person I ran into spoke very good english.  And I mean everyone.  I could see that.  He did point out that he still noted our text time code numbers for when he adds the subtitles.  So they would appear higher on the screen as to not cover the lower third information.  Handy.

It was very nice to see what happens to the international masters that we prep.  I would liked to have seen a show fully realized in German or something.  But...next time.