The annual Editors Retreat is coming

If winter is the time for a bit of R&R in Florida, then it’s time to consider the annual Editors Retreat, now in its fifth year. This is an opportunity to spend a few days with a select group of editors for professional training, an exchange of ideas and just plain fun. The Editors Retreat has its origins loosely in the Avid Master Editors Workshop, but has morphed into the Retreat thanks to the efforts of Future Media Concepts. The 2010 Retreat will be at the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach, January 13 – 16. (On a historical note, the Beatles taped their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show from the Napoleon Ballroom at the Deauville on February 16, 1964.)

Attendance to the Editors Retreat is limited and registration is for professional editors with five years or more experience. It doesn’t matter which platform you use, because there’s something for everyone. Sessions are handled by FMC trainers and guest editor/speakers, but one unique aspect is the Peer Presentations. Up until December 1, FMC is offering a discount to attendees who are willing to prepare a Peer Presentation of their own. These should be on a technical topic related to a project that they’ve done commercially.

Past examples include:

Producing from the Editor’s Chair: The Hurricane Katrina Project by Stig Daniels

Cutting the Independent Film by Abba Shapiro

Documentary Work and Workflow by Steve Audette

The whole point of the Retreat is to bring together editors from various disciplines and editing platforms and give them the opportunity to learn and share – not only from official training sessions – but also from their own collective experiences. Of course, there is plenty of formal training, including expert tips on Photoshop, Avid, Final Cut, After Effects, mixing and color correction.

One Editors Retreat highlight is a keynote presentation by a leading industry veteran. This year, the keynote speaker will be Christopher Nelson, who is an Emmy-nominated television series and movie editor. Nelson’s credits include episodes of LOST, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, House and Madmen.

I had a chance to make it to the Editors Retreat the last time it was in Miami Beach and I’ve got to say that it was a blast. In addition to the sessions, there’s plenty of casual time to compare notes with other editors, instructors and speakers, as well as to rub shoulders with product managers for many of the products that we use on a daily basis. So, needless to say, I’m making plans for January. Hope to see you there.

©2009 Oliver Peters

NAB 2009 – 10 goodies you might have missed

By now you’ve probably caught up on all big announcements from NAB 2009. If not, then hop over to Videography or DV for the NAB coverage supplied by my colleagues and me during our blogs and wrap-up stories for the magazine. In this post I’d like to focus on 10 relatively inexpensive items that will improve your productivity.

 

 

AJA Video – The AJA Ki Pro was the hit of the show for many, but don’t forget the Io Express. The new little brother of the IoHD follows on the heels of the older IoLA and IoLD, except that it now handles HD. Io Express connects via PCIe instead of FireWire and is ideal for laptop monitoring and mastering.

 

 

Automatic Duck – The Duck is known for timeline translation, but has brought back a popular application from the past. Media Copy 2.0 reads an Avid AAF or OMF 2.0 file or a Final Cut Pro XML file, figures out which media files are used by that sequence then copies the media to a location you specify. This is a great way to consolidate media and helps out where FCP’s own Media Manager is deficient.

 

 

Blackmagic Design – Lots of buzz about their UltraScope waveform monitor, but check out their DVI Extender. I’m not a big fan of the Gefen extenders so I’m glad to see BMD’s product, which uses standard BNC connectors and SDI cables to extend computer monitor signals. The DVI Extenders can also be used for DVI-to-SDI video conversion at HD and SD resolutions.

 

 

Boris FX – Boris Continuum Complete 6 – Always a winner, BCC continues improving and covers nearly every host system on the market. BCC6 for After Effects is out and BCC6 for FxPlug (FCP & Motion) is in beta and will hit the market soon. New effects include extruded 3D text using the Boris Blue engine and reflections. The FxPlug version will have a few extra twists, such as an interactive preset preview browser.

 

 

Chemical Wedding – Location crews will welcome the Helios Sun Calculator, which is available through the iTunes Store as an iPhone application. This convenient tool provides accurate information about the path of the sun and how that may influence the planning of a shoot.

 

 

CoreMelt – This has been a popular set of effects filters and transitions available in Noise Industries’ FxFactory toolset. New this year are the V2 filter sets that run independent of the FxFactory filter management tool. CoreMelt V2 packs can be purchased either as a complete collection for FCP or After Effects, or as individual modules. For example, if you only want color correction filters or only glow filters, then those can be purchased without buying the whole collection. I especially like their color correction filters, which use intuitive sliders and feature a heads-up-display for grading curves.

 

 

Euphonix – I love control surfaces and if you hate to mix in FCP, Pro Tools or Logic with the mouse, then the Euphonix Artist Series is for you. These modular panels include MC Mix, MC Control and the new MC Transport. You can mix-and-match modules depending on whether you just want fader control or more panels with programmable hot keys.

 

Matrox – They are one of three strong hardware suppliers for FCP and Premiere Pro editors. MXO2 has become quite popular, so take a look at the new MXO2 Mini, if you’d like something even more portable. It can ingest and output HD via HDMI or analog connections plus analog-only for NTSC and PAL. It is a cost-effective monitoring and conversion unit for the laptop user. Even better, Minis will include the MAX encoding option. For an additional cost, MXO2 Minis can be purchased with onboard, hardware-accelerated H.264 encoding, adding more functionality to the unit. This means all three MXO2 products with MAX can be used to accelerate any H.264 files using Compressor. The NAB demos provided considerably faster-than-real-time performance.

 

 

Noise Industries – You’ve got to love FxFactory. The 2.0.7 update is available as a free download and every release adds a few more free effects plug-ins. FxFactory filters are supplied by Noise Industries as well as other development partners like iDustrial Revolution. iDustrial just released its own update to their really cool Volumetrix filter set. If you do a lot with type also check out Motype. A new partnership has been announced with Boinx for a series of tile and shatter filters.

 

 

Singular Software – PluralEyes was the simplest, yet most amazing FCP companion at the show. It’s essential if you do a lot of multicam editing in FCP. PluralEyes automatically synchronizes multiple sources without the use of timecode. If you shoot a concert with pro-consumer camcorders, there is no longer any need to hand-sync each clip. Instead, PluralEyes will analyze the audio tracks and line up the various sources in sync with each other based solely on the alignment of the audio.

 

Check out DV and Videography writers’ commentary during the show at DV’s (Almost) Live from NAB blog: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

NAB – Yes or No?

With the economy in the dump a number of major manufacturers have decided to reduce their presence at large trade shows. For folks in the film and video business, that means some of our favorite vendors might not be at the annual NAB Convention and Exhibition in Las Vegas. Companies like Apple, Quantel and RED have decided to skip this year – each for a different reason. This has many folks wondering whether they should go either.

 

First, a little perspective. The NAB equipment exhibition is the tail that wags the dog. The point of the annual gathering is really as a place for NAB members to convene for various sessions and conferences related to the business of broadcast radio and television. The equipment display started as a sidelight to the rest of the convention and as one of the ways in which the NAB funds its ongoing activities. If you are not an NAB member – and most of the production and post production people who attend are not – then you generally have attended as an “exhibitor’s guest”. This is a great way to see the toys for free, but you need to realize that a lot more goes on at NAB than just the equipment display at the LVCC.

 

For example, NAB, in conjunction with Future Media Concepts, has conducted the NAB Post Production World sessions. These are training sessions (available at an additional cost) that cover a wide range of informational and training sessions for different post production products and techniques. The LA Final Cut Pro User Group – together with other FCP groups – has organized the annual SuperMeet. Quite a few other user events for many different manufacturers dot the calendar for NAB week. These various events are a great place to meet friends, share ideas and even on occasion, pick up words of wisdom from such editing luminaries as Walter Murch or Hughes Winborne.

 

But what about the equipment exhibition itself? Many companies complain about the cost and offer that customers today can get the same information online, at a retail outlet or a touring road show. I will certainly acknowledge the expense. Quantel pointed out that their investment in NAB floor space is over $1 Million. When you look at the investment in past years from companies like Avid or Sony – who send a large support force in addition to what you see at the booth – that cost can easily tally into several million dollars. I, for one, feel that booths have generally become too grandiose and would rather see a convention that is more “human-scaled”, like IBC.

 

On the other hand, I do feel that a convention like NAB is one of the only places in the world where you can see everyone together, kick one set of tires and then walk across the aisle and kick the other. If you don’t live in a major market, then you don’t have access to an Apple store or a big reseller and road shows don’t stop in your town. Furthermore, if you need to find out about microphones or grip and lighting equipment or distribution amplifiers, then the NAB show might be the only chance to actually see and maybe test out a product without making a sight-unseen purchase. NAB provides one of the few central places were you can go and get touchy-feely with the gear. It’s also the place where you often run into the key providers of tomorrow. Avid and EditShare, to name two companies, started in the back of the hall with the smallest possible presence. I don’t think RED would have done as well without the mystery generated by their red Alpine tent at the NAB show.

 

I certainly can’t fault a company for making prudent financial decisions, but these decisions can also be wise in the short term and poor for the long run. Avid made such a decision two years ago, but then decided to return this year. Obviously they’ve found value in being at NAB. For better or worse, it’s a great place to hear directly and in person from your customer base. RED decided not to go because they aren’t ready with working versions of their newest cameras. I can’t help but think that they have missed an opportunity to focus this year on a display built around the various post production solutions. After all, the post workflow is the single biggest question mark for most current and potential RED One users.

 

This year will be the most inexpensive year in recent times to travel to Las Vegas. There are plenty of deals to be had in this down economy. So if you plan to go, I’m going to make it even easier with a free pass to see the exhibition. This pass includes access to the exhibit floor and the opening keynote (a $150 value). Simply visit nabshow.com/passport, register and use the Passport Code TP01 to redeem a free exhibits pass. And be sure to check out the Post Production conference, too.

 

© 2009 Oliver Peters

Dealing with a post facility

The do-it-yourself filmmaker might view the traditional lab or post facility as a place of last resort. That belief stems from a fear that – like a visit to a doctor or lawyer – every minute is billable. Most finishing facilities are actually easy to deal with and have the producer’s best interests at heart. They have been forging new workflows with file-based formats and are often the best-equipped to give a producer the desired creative and technical result.

 

Reasons to rely on outside resources include various advanced post services, like conforming a project for higher-quality or higher-resolution deliverables, color-grading and the production of digital intermediate masters. Sometimes, clients simply don’t know where to start, what to ask, or what’s expected of them. I posed some of these questions to a roundtable of post professionals, including Terence Curren, owner of Aphadogs (Burbank), Mike Most, chief technologist at Cineworks (Miami), Brian Hutchings, freelance colorist (Los Angeles) and Peter Postma, US product manager for Filmlight.

 

OP: Many clients don’t realize that post houses may offer up-front consultation as part of their sales effort. How do you approach that?

 

CURREN: We absolutely offer that service! Any post house that has the client’s welfare in mind does this. We find ourselves consulting on everything from cameras and recording formats, to file naming conventions. Every system has issues. We handle both FCP and Avid extensively and are familiar with a lot of potential pitfalls on either platform. When a client contacts us in advance, we can help to steer them clear of problems with their intended workflow. That can save them a lot of money in the long run.

 

HUTCHINGS: As a freelance colorist, I take on the roles of educator and salesman. Clients are increasingly making the transition from daVinci sessions to [Apple] Color. I do color timing on daVinci, Final Cut Studio and Avid systems and don’t have a financial interest in any particular piece of gear. Therefore, I can give a fairly unbiased opinion on the different paths available.

 

MOST: Clients these days often try to self educate. They read a lot on the Internet or elsewhere, or talk to others who have used the equipment they’re planning to use. Sometimes the knowledge they gain is accurate and useful, but often it’s either inaccurate or based on production or post conditions that differ from theirs. We try to steer them in a direction, so that what they do, how they do it, and the formats they use, flow easily into the finishing steps that we provide. Basically, we try to minimize surprises and make the process smoother, more efficient, and in many cases, more economical.

 

OP: What should the producer be prepared to supply for an online edit or a DI conform?

 

MOST: In general – if there is still such a thing – we need the original materials, an EDL, some visual copy of their offline cut as a reference, title copy (or graphics files, if they’ve created their own) and some idea as to how they’re finishing the sound. If the program is cut on an Avid, it’s useful to receive a bin with the final sequence in addition to a traditional EDL. Many less-experienced Final Cut editors use techniques, such as nesting, speed effects and other visual embellishments, which do not translate to an EDL in any kind of useful form. So with Final Cut, it helps to have a copy of the project file.

 

CURREN: Mike has covered the bases; however, with the new file-based formats that offer higher resolutions at smaller file sizes, we often receive the project with the media already attached. In this case our work starts by fine-tuning effects, adding any graphics, color correcting and the final mix of the audio. This saves money in the capture time and in double-checking against the offline for accuracy.

 

MOST: I do find that many users of newer formats, such as RED, are very confused about what they do and do not have to deliver to us to achieve the best quality with the least difficulty. They do a lot of work themselves to create elements that serve no purpose for us. This actually lengthens the amount of time it takes us to complete the conform. Hopefully in the future, there will be more communication prior to picture lock between clients and finishing facilities and much less bad guesswork.

 

OP: What are your guidelines for preparing the media and timelines before you start? How much time should be allowed for finishing and color grading?

 

CURREN: Our process is to re-import any files, then recapture any media from tape. With older analog formats like Betacam, we will actually ride levels on recapture to avoid any clipping of the video, which cannot be retrieved later in the process. Generally speaking, we figure about 100 clips captured per hour on Avid and about 90 on FCP. The more clips in a show, the longer this process takes. We will check the new timeline shot-by-shot against a copy of the offline output to verify that is correct, in sync and that effects properly translated. Next comes the color correction pass, titling and graphics. At this point we will watch the show with the client and then address any notes.

 

POSTMA: A commercial can be done in a day, though several days may be used for creative reasons. A feature film – including scanning, color correction and recording – can be done in three weeks. Again, it may be longer if you want to spend more time making creative color-correction decisions.

 

CURREN: An important side note about color correction needs to be made here. There are really three parts. Part one is to make it legal for whatever your distribution is going to be. Part two is to make it even, meaning all the shots in a given scene should look like they belong together. The first two steps are fairly objective. Part three is purely subjective. That’s where the magic can take place in color correction. Giving a slight green tint to a scary scene or a slight blue tint to two lovers silently arguing are examples of subjective choices. The creative part of the process can take a long time if allowed.

 

MOST: I can speak more to the feature film side of this question, because the time factors – once the conform is complete – are usually dictated by things like budgets. For a feature shot on film, we usually allocate 3-5 days to scanning (perhaps a day or two less for file restoration on a file based electronic feature), 2-3 days to conform, 5-10 days for color correction, 1-2 days to do final renders and create the HD master, and about a 5-7 days to do a film recording. All of those time factors can vary in either direction, depending on editorial complication, show length, creative choices, and, once again, budget.

 

OP: How do you handle grading of the same project for TV, digital cinema projection and film prints?

 

CURREN: Many post houses are claiming they are DI houses, but shouldn’t be. The trick with DI is to have tight control over the entire process, including the film lab. If you don’t, there are too many places where things can go wrong. Most of our work at Alphadogs is grading for television. We don’t claim to be a DI house. When we do feature work and the client plans to do a film-out, we will color correct the same way as for TV, but avoid clipping whites or crushing blacks. Afterwards, the client takes it to the lab they have chosen for a film-out, where a final scene-by-scene color pass is done. They save money by not having to color-grade every shot, since the scenes are already evened out.

 

MOST: Cineworks has a DI theater that’s specifically calibrated to Digital Cinema (P3) color space. We use a film print preview lookup table for projects going to film. During the session we’re basically looking at a preview of the eventual film print. The files are created in 10-bit log, film print density color space, and are used directly by a film recorder. We then use various custom lookup tables, along with minor color tweaks, to derive all other deliverables from those same files. The look remains consistent across all platforms. We usually generate an HD video version, which is then used for all other video deliverables – HD24, HD25, NTSC, PAL, full frame, letterbox, etc.

 

POSTMA: Filmlight’s Truelight color management system handles these conversions, so a DI facility that uses it should only need to color correct once and Truelight will handle the color conversion to the other spaces. It usually makes sense to color correct for the medium with the most color range (film or digital cinema) and then downconvert to video, web, etc. There may be some different creative decisions you’d like to make for the more limited mediums of video or the web. In that case, you can do a trim pass to tweak a few shots, but the Truelight color conversion should get you 90% of the way there.

 

OP: Should a producer worry about various camera color spaces, such as Panalog, REDlog or the cine-gamma settings in Sony or Panasonic cameras?

 

CURREN: This is a great reason to talk to post first. I’m a fan of leaving things in the native space through to your final finish; however, that can make for a very flat looking offline, which is disturbing to many folks. If so, you might need two versions of the files or tapes. One version – the master – should stay in the native space. The second – the offline editorial working files – should be changed over to video (601 or 709) space.

 

MOST: Color space issues should be for finishing facilities to deal with, but the use of custom gamma curves in electronic cameras presents some educational issues for shooters. We usually try to discuss these during a pre-production meeting, but they primarily affect dailies creation. For finishing, we can deal with all of these color spaces without much of a problem.

 

OP: If the intended distribution is 2K or 1920×1080 HD, should the producer be concerned about image sequence files (DPX, TIFF, etc.)?

 

MOST: No, not unless that’s the way the program is being recorded – as with an S.two or Codex recorder. It’s easier for editors to deal with wrapped movie files, QuickTime in the case of Final Cut or OMF and MXF in the case of Avid. We use the original material – in whatever form it was captured – for finishing. With film, of course, that’s obvious; but, for RED, we work directly from the .r3d files in our Assimilate SCRATCH system. That gives us access to all of the information the camera captured.

 

CURREN: DPX files hog a tremendous amount of storage space. If you capture digitally, with the RED camera, for instance, why not stay with the native RED codec? You won’t gain any quality by converting to DPX, but you will have to bake in a look limiting your color correction range later in the process?

 

OP: Who should attend the sessions?

 

MOST: For conforming, nobody needs to physically be there, but the editor or assistant editor needs to be available for any questions that come up. For color correction, we really want the director of photography to be with us, as the one who is really responsible for the look of the picture.

 

POSTMA: Cinematographer and director. You definitely don’t want too many people in the room or you can burn up time in a very expensive suite making decisions by committee.

 

CURREN: Who is signing the check? I’m not trying to be cheeky, it is just that someone makes the final decisions, or they have authorized someone to make the final decisions. That is who should be there at the end. For feature work, often the DP will get a pass at the color correction. In this case, it is wise for the producer to set some guidelines. The DP is going to try to make his stuff look the best he can, which is what he should be wanting. The colorist also wants the best look they can achieve. There is an old saying that applies here, “No film is ever done, they just run out of time or money.” There has to be a clear understanding of where the cut off point is. When is it good enough? Without that direction, the DP and the colorist can rack up quite a bill.

 

®2009 Oliver Peters

Originally written for DV Magazine (NewBay Media, LLC)

Impressions of Las Vegas – NAB 2008

If you’ve casually been following the NAB news, you most likely think that the biggest press is the lack of participation by Avid and Apple. It’s true that neither had a booth, but both were there at customer and reseller events, including Avid’s roll-out the new DX product line. If this is your take away, then you might surmise that NAB was a rather lackluster event for post. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find that NLEs have reached a certain level of maturity and it’s hard to keep rolling in new features. In fact, camera manufacturers have been driving the show with the latest and greatest file-based formats. The editing system manufacturers have had their hands full simply adding support for each new camera record option. Whether or not your favorite NLE supports P2, XDCAM-HD, REDcode and so on will impact far more users than whether Avid improves color correction or Apple improves media management.

 

If you’re looking for true edit system innovation, then that news came out of Quantel. Not only are they adding significant features, but they’ve wholly embraced the tools to edit and color grade the left and right eye views of stereoscopic imagery. We’ll see if that proves to be a good business model, but right now in the wake of quite a few 3D movies in the theaters, Quantel is betting that the market is there for more than a select few. Autodesk likewise had its own news with the continued unification of the user interfaces between Smoke and Flame. The products each still have a distinct and unique role to play, but Autodesk is integrating across both product groups such common modules as the timeline and batch (Flame’s process tree for effects).

 

As far as Avid’s DX line is concerned, so far the main news is new hardware connected via the PCIe bus and new pricing. This ties in with improved GPU and CPU power as well as Leopard and Vista support and even optimization. In total this will result in more streams of true real time horsepower. Unfortunately, this also means that Avid has to update the system, while staying with the familiar GUI that its user base likes. It might be different under the hood, but on the surface looks and feels the same. Many will applaud this, but it won’t sway the critics and certainly won’t bring back those who’ve left for other NLEs, like Final Cut Pro.

 

 

Trends 

 

If you’re looking for trends, however, it’s become pretty obvious – if you didn’t know already – that the industry is moving away from videotape and towards a myriad of file-based solutions. When Panasonic jumped in originally with P2, Sony made no bones about detracting from their competitor. The funny thing about this is that Sony has now wholeheartedly embraced the concept with its EX1 and now EX3 cameras, sporting their own style of solid state storage, the SxS cards. Users are riding the learning curve, as many still don’t understand the differences when it comes to containers (P2 cards, XDCAM-HD discs, SxS cards), file wrappers (MXF, OMF, QuickTime, AVI, MPEG4) and codecs (DVCPROHD, AVC-Intra, MPEG2). Of course, eventually it will all get sorted out, but what’s worth noting, is that the only new videotape-based VTR introduced at NAB 2008 was an HDCAM-SR player by Sony. Meanwhile Sony and Panasonic both released quite a few VTR “replacement” products that use each manufacturer’s card scheme. Panasonic is growing a product ecosystem around P2 and likewise Sony growing one around the SxS cards.

 

Many experienced video pros look at this in horror, fearing that a few years down the road, it will be hard to mount the hard drives to which this media has been copied after the shoot. I appreciate this sentiment, as you can still readily find decks to play Betacam-SP and even Umatic tapes that are now over two decades old. That isn’t universally true however. In my market, you’d be hard pressed to find decks to play such once-popular formats as D1, D2, D3 or D5. The are only a handful of one-inch Type C VTRs in the market and their reliability is questionable. So the truth of the matter is that you probably aren’t any safer with content on tape as on hard drive, assuming you establish a viable approach to archiving the media. Generally this takes the form of redundant copies on multiple hard drives or at best, data tapes, such as the LTO3 format.

 

With this as a trend, quite a few NAB vendors were showing solutions for lower cost and simpler shared storage as well as asset management software. Some products to look into include Apple’s Final Cut Server, Laird Telemedia’s LairdShareHD, Focus Enhancements’ ProxSys, Gridiron Software’s Flow and Tiger Technologies’ MetaSAN and MetaLAN. In addition, the average cost of local storage is getting cheaper than ever; so, those editors working with P2 or similar technologies will have no problem just dumping all the media at full resolution to their local drives straight from the shoot and cutting happily away.

 

 

RED

 

It’s hard to talk about NAB and not mention RED Digital Camera. Yes, they announced two new cameras (Scarlet and Epic), but more importantly is the fact that the post support structure is growing around them. Even if RED is ultimately not super-successful (unlikely), they will have changed the way many work with images. I believe the camera raw workflow is bound to be adopted by others in the future. Today, Apple and Assimilate are the only official RED partners. They are the only companies with access to the .R3D files. Avid is also able to provide some editorial support through XML list conversions. In the RED booth, a beta version of FCP’s Log and Transfer module was shown that imports and transcodes .R3D files. FCP editors can natively import raw files, transcoding them to another codec, like Apple ProRes 422 on the way in. There was also a technology preview of .R3D files being graded directly in Apple Color, through the addition of a RED-oriented RED Room tab within Color’s interface. 

 

Assimilate introduced its RED-specific SCRATCH CINE, the only full-featured finishing product geared strictly for a RED workflow. But the story doesn’t stop there. Quite a few companies are chomping at the bit to release their own products for RED. At the moment, they are held back by RED Digital Camera’s agreements with its original partners. These are expected to expire soon, with RED releasing an SDK for its REDcode codec. Once that’s done, expect to see companies like Cineform and IRIDAS quickly jump into the game. In fact, these companies already have raw workflow products that are ready for RED, which were developed using existing (but not final) versions of the codec. So just as in the digital still photo world, camera raw will be a concept to which videographers will need to become accustomed.

 

Look for more of my NAB 2008 post production analysis in the June print edition of Videography magazine and also online at DV magazine.

© 2008 Oliver Peters