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T351 Week 10 - Spring 2013 Misc Announcements / Reality Check
*Treatments Looking through the various project proposals, I noted that some don't know how to write a treatment. Treatments are really helpful in developing the flow of your production. (and for getting a good grade!) Used in all types of audio/visual productions from music videos and cartoon to documentaries and movies. They are much quicker and easier to manipulate than scripts. This is why we work up a treament first, before writing a script. Some people like to use notecards, one for each scene. They can then be rearranged and re-sorted to come up with the best flow. I always use these (and I'm from the school of don't do it if you don't have to) unless it is for something extremely short, like a 60-second commercial. Agenda:
Readings:
What makes a first-rate video?
Advanced Editing Concepts The concept of advanced editing implies an inherent need to work efficiently. Post-production editing suites can cost a thousand dollars an hour to rent. Both producer and editor are under the gun to work quickly and efficiently. The producer shouldn't be in an edit session wondering what shot to use. Most major decisions can be planned in advance and made outside of costly studios or editing suites.
Outside of planning, we can save money and time with proper project management techniques. Project Management Pre-production ------------- Keep the big picture (objective and audience) in mind when developing the treatment and then the script. A strong script and a well-developed preproduction plan is your key to a sucessful production. When working on any large-budget video or industrial for corporate clients, always focus on making a bulletproof script. This is a script that has been carefully scrutinized and has been checked off on again and again. If it isn't in the script it isn't in the video! This way any changes after the script has been approved are billable.
Now is the time to consider graphics, what kjnd of "look and feel" you want and also the sound design. Are you having the music scored, using a production library? Is there a visual design template to follow? Just as you don't want to search for shots while editing, you don't want to spend time wondering what color the graphics should be or what font to use. Test and try fonts and other visual design elements ahead of time. Prepare graphics in advance. (I usually make a few mock-ups of different graphic templates to run by my client before editing) It's also important to develop detailed production schedules. Consider the most efficient way to shoot a production. It's typically not in the order of the script. It also help to take the script and all of the various locations and develop shot sheets. These tell you what shots you need at any given location. When you have multiple locations, talent, a half dozen crew members, and two trucks of people and gear to haul around, it's important to have a solid production plan. It's also important that you know how long it takes to unload gear, set lights, hook up audio and get levels. Otherwise you're going to waste money and people's time. (not good) Check out this example for a special episode of The Friday Zone, which was all about cicadas:
Production ------------
Post-production ----------- After the shoot, the footage needs to be logged and the producer often needs a copy of the reels/footage. This way he or she can select the right takes without taking up an edit room. Window Dub / Timecode print One of the first things you should be able to make for your producer is a window dub or timecode print. This is a copy of the program or footage which has the timecode numbers superimposed on the screen. You can output these in FCP, Avid & Premiere. To make a window dub in FCP:
Ideally when you go into the first edit session you should have:
I usually have a folder containing all of this which lives in the box of tapes for any particular project in the edit suite. This way the other editors or PAs have access to it at all times. My master project folder containing all of this plus the signed releases and anything else gets filed under my client's name in my file cabinet I also maintain an electronic folder that contains the proposal, treatment, script(s), footage logs, text for lower thirds and credits, computer graphics, animation files, and any other files associated with the project. This gets backed up onto disc and saved somewhere safe. Assuming our project management is under control, we can move on to specific techniques. (We can review the shortcuts for these during lab this week.) Logging and digitizing footage & media management: Whenever possible log and transcribe your footage! It really does save time. Keeping track of your media, being able to Identify the reel/card # in the editing application is key to succesful, worry free editing. If you follow the proper procedures while logging, accidents such as crashed hard drives will turn into minor annoyances, not major catastrophes. (The hard drives in WTIU crashed right after I had digitized most of my Elkinsville footage and after I'd spent a week editing. We were able to rebuild the project in a single day.) Importing media Always be sure to copy any media you want to use in your project into your master media folder. Do this before importing the media. If you import directly over the network, or from a mounted ZIP or CD, FCP will expect that drive or disk to be mounted in order to access your media.
Drag & drop to Import footage Often you'll have a whole folder full of pictures, graphics, and/or sounds, maybe grouped into subfolders. You can import a whole folder along with its subfolders by simply dragging it into FCP's browser window. Using vectorscopes, waveform monitors and TBCs: Video signals can be broken down into two components: luminance and chrominance. Luminance is the brightness component & chrominance is the color component. A good editing suite will have a vectorscope and waveform monitor set up, so that the video levels and color can be objectively monitored. It's easy to make graphics in Photoshop too bright, but if you keep your eyes on the waveform monitor, you can tell when the signal reaches 100 IRE. Waveform Monitor - A device used to examine the luminance portion of the video signal and its synchronizing pulses. The scale starts at –40 – goes to 0 then up to 120 IRE Units (IRE = Institute of Radio Engineers). One f-stop translates into about 20 IRE units The major setting to be aware of are:
Vectorscope - A vector display measuring device that allows visual checking of the phase and amplitude of the color components of a video signal. They are especially useful when used with color bars, as the display face has targets that show both proper phase and saturation. NOTE: You can't adjust or manipulate a video signal with just a waveform monitor and vectorscope. They simply let you examine the signal. You must use a TBC, a camera control unit or other device to modify the signal. TBC (time base corrector) - A piece of equipment used to correct instabilities in analog video signals, provide synchronization between video signals, and adjust phase differences in signals to correct color or make them consistent with other signals. TBCs usually have a "proc amp" (short for processing amplifer) which lets you adjust the video's brightness, hue, saturation and setup.
FCP and Avid provide computer-generated waveform monitors and vectorscopes. This provides an excellent way to check levels for graphics and when applying video effects (these are often too bright for legal video). Note that when capturing DV footage in FCP's log and capture tool, you can't control the proc amp settings (color, brightness, setup, etc). You'll find that the "clip settings" are greyed out. This is because you are transferring footage that's already been digitized. However, when you are wokring with a third party capture card (Like an AJA or Cinewave) you can modify the video signal through the proc amp settings. If your miniDV footage is too dark or needs color correction, you must do this by either applying color correction or a filter. Color Bars are electronic reference signals generated by cameras or post-production equipment. They should always be recorded at the head of a videotape to provide a consistent reference in post production. They can be used for matching the output of two cameras in a multi-camera shoot and to set up video monitors. In general there are two types of bars full field and SMPTE (split). The SMPTE bars are more useful. When digitizing source footage, it's always a good idea to capture some of the bars from the beginning of each reel. This lets you check the digitized footage to ensure color accuracy. Timeline Techniques
Exporting footage If you want to use After Effects or some other software to add animation to a clip, you'll need to be able to access the clip from the aniation software. If you're working on the same computer, you don't have to export a clip. Instead use the browser (F9 key) and find what it's called and where it's located. Then you can gop to After Effects and simply import it from where it's located. After Effects won't change your original clip- but will create a new movie which you can import into your project. File Management and Archiving We can't keep all of our data forever. There are several scenarios you need to know how to deal with:
Become familiar with Final Cut Pro's Media Manager. Use it to back up and archive your project. It is a good way to condense projects by getting rid of unused media. I've got a short article on how to use it on my website. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Off-line & On-line Traditionally one of the purposes of off-line systems were to create EDLs that could be brought into higher-end on-line systems. The first non-linear editors (D Vision and early Avids) were sophisticated off-line systems that could not only generate an EDL, but let the editors work with VHS like quality. With advances in technology non-linear editing system got steadily better, and today off-the-shelf PC or Macs are capable of editing on-line video. Time code Time code is an electronic numerical signal recorded or embedded into the signal, which allows videotape and multitrack audio machines to be synchronized with frame accuracy. With time code, each frame or location on a tape is assigned a unique number. This allows us to access that specific frame or location on the tape precisely, again, again, and again with frame accuracy. Here in the US with our NTSC standard, we’ve been taught that video runs at 30 frames per second- actually it’s 29.97. While we count it on a 30 frames per second basis, video runs at 29.97 frames per second. During recording, a videotape recorder (capable of recording timecode) assigns a unique timecode number to each frame of video, which is recorded along with the video information. Its format is like a 24 hour clock xx:xx:xx:xx. "hours" range from 00 to 23, "minutes" range from 00 to 59, "seconds" range from 00 to 59, "frames" ranges from 00-29 (NTSC) There are two ways to count or create timecode (which can usually be selected on the VTR) basic, (non-drop) frame and drop frame. In basic (non-drop) timecode, each new frame of video is assigned the next higher number (06:01:00:29 becomes 06:01:01:00) The problem with basic non-drop timecode is that the frame numbers drift from the actual elapsed time of a program. Imagine you've been asked to assemble one day's worth of programming for a TV station. You could set your timecode display to start at 0, then assemble your programming. When you got to 24 hours you could call it a day (har har) & go home. If video actually ran at 30 frames per second you'd be fine & you'd have a job waiting for you the next day. Let's assume a 30 frame per second rate as our basic timecode readout leads us to believe and look at a day:
But video actually runs at 29.97 frames per second. That's a 3/100ths of a second difference from 30 frames per second. There are actually 2,589,408 frames of video in a 24-hour period.
That's almost a minute and a half too much programming! If you went by your counter and stopped when it reached 24 hours, your program would be cut short almost a minute and a half. However if you were smart you would use drop frame time code totally bypassing real time issues. Drop frame time code is harder to calculate, but it provides a numbering system that is more accurate, timewise. In drop frame time code, the frame numbers 0 and 1 are removed from each minute except for every tenth minute (starting from the first). That is, minute 00, 10, 20, 30 and so on, do not have any frame numbers dropped, but all other minutes do. You can tell when something is drop frame because the time code display has semicolons (06;01;00;29 becomes 06;01;01;02) EDL (edit decision list) Edited programs often need to be rebuilt or re-edited from the raw ingredients or source files they were created from. When a program is edited, you can create and save an EDL corresponding to the master tape or master sequence in the timeline. An EDL is a simple ASCI text file that describes the events. Once created, an EDL can be used to re-edit the project. A good EDL allows sequences to be recreated with frame accuracy, including placement and types of transitions. Most editing systems- both linear and non-linear, create an EDL as you assemble or create the project. Each edit made adds a decision in the list. EDL example:
What’s in an EDL? (Structure) The EDL usually starts with a title, date and the time code information (drop-frame, non drop frame). Comments are preceded by the REM flag. Each edit becomes an event in the list. A single event describes the reel names or source, (BL means black), track type (V, A1, A2), and transition (cut, wipe, dissolve or key) along with the source tape time code in and out points, followed by the record tape time code in and out points. Note that events with dissolves take two lines to describe the event. They might start with a cut, then the dissolve that takes place. Remember that semicolons (;) denote drop-frame and regular colons (:) signify non-drop frame. The EDL created by an editing system is typically unique to that system, but follows one of a handful of standard formats:
Creating Good EDLs
List Management Software Imagine you have a good EDL, but one of your source reels gets dubbed to another tape. During the dub process, the time code wasn't regenerated, but started anew. Assigning a new start time for a reel is just one thing list management software lets you do. You can also adjust your list in a variety of ways. You can also map your EDL from drop to non-drop, add & remove edits, & even remap wipe codes for different switchers. Batch lists Not to be confused with EDLs Good editing or EDL software will let you extrapolate a batch capture
list. Vocabulary (Know and be able to define these terms)
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