Cloud Atlas

Every once in a while a film comes along that requires a bit of reflection to get the full meaning. Often you need several screenings to find all the clues and story details that you might have missed the first time. Cloud Atlas is such a film. It’s based on the multi-threaded, best-selling novel by David Mitchell and becomes the latest theatrical release by writer/directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix trilogy). The Wachowskis are joined by co-writer/co-director Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run) for a unique three-director production endeavor.

Cloud Atlas was originally thought to be un-adaptable as a film, but thanks to a script that earned the blessing of Mitchell, the three were able to make that a reality. The film is broken into six eras and locations (1849, 1936, 1973, 2012, 2144 and 2346). It features an ensemble cast whose members each play a variety of different characters within different parts of the story. The locations range from the South Pacific to the United States and Europe to a futuristic version of Seoul and finally a post-apocalyptic Hawaii. Instead of telling this as a series of sequential short stories, the different time frames are continually intercut. The audience is following six narrative episodes at once, yet taken together, the flow and story arc really become a single story. It’s as if the film proceeds by weaving in and out of six parallel universes.

Connections

In broad strokes, Cloud Atlas is about freedom, love, karma and the connective fabric of the universe. Each person has elements of good and evil and talents that they use, which come out in different ways. The actors portray different characters throughout the film who may be heroes in one era, but villains in another. The yearning for freedom or love by a character that starts in one part might manifest itself in another character at a different time and place. Cloud Atlas is partially a reincarnation story. It plays on the sense of déjà vu, except that in this story, the experience that the character thinks has happened (like meeting someone) actually happens in a future life.

The scene structure of Cloud Atlas is crafted so that what would otherwise be single scenes in a standard drama are actually split among several different eras. Action that starts in 1849, for example, might be continued in a smash cut to 1936. Although the audience didn’t see the complete linear progression of what transpired in either, the result is that there’s both a carry-over and a residual effect, making it easy to mentally fill in the blanks for each. To help the audience connect the dots, there are several plot points and clues tying one era to another – sometimes in very obvious ways and at other times only as a reference or shot in a montage.

The task to pull this all together fell to veteran German film editor Alexander Berner (Resident Evil, The Baader Meinhoff Complex, The Debt, The Three Musketeers). Berner is a partner in the Munich-based editorial facility Digital Editors, which he helped start twenty years ago as the first all-digital facility in Germany. He had cut Tom Tywker’s film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, but had never worked with Andy and Lana Wachowski before. They hit it off well and Berner was tapped to cut Cloud Atlas.

The film was shot in sixty days at various European locations with the three directors splitting up into two production units. The Wachowskis covered the 1849 ocean voyage, the 2144 rebellion in Neo Seoul and the events “after the fall” in the 24^th century. Tykwer captured the stories of composer Frobisher (1936), journalist Ray (1973) and London publisher Cavendish (2012). For Berner, this meant double the amount of footage compared to a “normal” film, but without any more time to deliver a first cut. With the help of assistant editor Claus Wehlisch, Berner was able to keep up with camera and deliver his first assembly – complete with temp sound effects and score – two days after the shooting wrapped.

Crafting the mosaic

Alexander Berner explained the experience to me, “Andy and Lana had never worked with me before, so they didn’t really know what to expect. I think they may have had some initial concerns, since they hadn’t really seen anything cut up to that point. I had only sent a couple of assembled action scenes to them while they were filming. During the entire first assembly, it was all left up to Claus, a fabulous editorial team and me. We took a Christmas break and then started to do the fine cut in January.  I like to present a first assembly that’s a very watchable movie. I had assumed we’d sit down and review the whole film and then start making changes. When Andy, Lana and Tom saw the first reel they were all relieved at how good it looked and played, so we decided to dive right in at that point.”

The first assembly ran nearly three-and-a-half hours and it only took Berner about ten weeks to lock the picture at its final 172 minute length. Berner continued, “The first cut really followed the script, but the final film is a lot different in actual structure. The script is faithful to the book, but only about fifty percent is the same, as we had to cut out portions and extra characters that would have simply made this film too long. That was all with David Mitchell’s collaboration. I view the script as the ‘color palette’ and the edit is where you ‘mix the paint’. The footage from production came in a very scrambled fashion, so the only way to build the first cut was to follow the script. Once the three directors came in, then we had a chance to re-arrange scene elements or change line readings made necessary by the restructuring. Our main focus was to make sure we maintained the right emotional bow within a scene, even though we might start the action in one era and carry it forward into another. It was important to be able to tell these six stories as one big movie with one big emotional thought.”

According to Berner, every scene that was shot for the film is in the final cut, although sometimes the essence of it only survived as a shot within a montage or as a single, short scene. Just enough for the audience to follow the story or see a connection. I asked Berner his take on working with three directors. He responded, “At first I thought ‘What is this going to be like?’ Maybe each director would concentrate on only their scenes. In fact, it was a collaboration with everyone contributing and really a very harmonious and productive experience. We’d usually watch a scene and if it was OK or only needed a few minutes of tweaking, then we’d proceed to ‘mangle’ it into the bigger picture.”

The musical thread

One unusual aspect to Cloud Atlas is that co-director Tom Tykwer was also co-composer with Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek. A key element is The Cloud Atlas Sextet, the life’s work of the 1936 composer in the Frobisher narrative. This melody becomes a re-occurring piece throughout the film that helps bind eras together. For example, it’s part of the 1936 storyline, but then re-appears on a vinyl LP found by journalist Luisa Rey in a 1973 San Francisco record shop. The music itself becomes the score under these scenes, which binds the emotion together. You linger on the memory of the era you just left, while continuing into the next.

Some editors like to cut to temp scores, but that’s not Berner’s style. He explained, “I don’t like to cut a scene to music. Often this forces a pace that becomes gimmicky. I like to cut based on my internal sense of rhythm and then, with the right music, it all magically works. I try to avoid temp music, because it often doesn’t work well. If I know who the composer will be ahead of time, I’ll often lay in music from his previous scores to get a good feel for how the film will work. With Cloud Atlas, Tom gave us versions of many of the tracks ahead of time. This enabled me to cut in music that was far more representative of the final score than is usually possible.”

Editorial balance

Watching the film for myself with an editor’s eye, it felt that the six narratives were reasonably balanced in their screen time. Berner told me there was no conscious effort to do that though. He continued, “It’s great that it felt balanced to you, but we were just trying to follow the emotion. If you actually measured the time, they aren’t equal. I do use Walter Murch’s trick of posting scene cards on the wall, which helped us greatly. Andy, Lana and Tom liked to re-arrange these to get an idea of the flow and it also helped to see which scenes had been deleted. At the end of the day, we’d always update the positions of the cards on the wall to reflect the current cut at that point.”

Alexander Berner cut the film on a Unity-connected Avid Media Composer system. He initially started on version 6.0 software, but ended up reverting to 5.5, because of reliability issues with Unity. Berner said, “I’ve been cutting on Avids for about twenty years and I generally love the software. In this case, version 6 dropped some color correction features that I needed, so I when back to the previous version. In narrative post, you don’t need a lot of fancy features, so the earlier software version was just fine. I’ve tried ScriptSync a few times, but never really ended up using it. In fact, I drive my assistants crazy setting up for it and then in the end, it just doesn’t fit my style.”

Thirteen visual effects companies tackled the 1,000-plus shots. Although this wasn’t overtly an effects-driven feature, the make-up prosthetics ended up getting a lot of digital love. Frank Griebe and John Toll were the two directors of photography for Cloud Atlas. It was shot on film and ARRI in Munich handled the lab work and the DI finishing, providing a seamless integration of these disparate elements.

Cloud Atlas represented a very unique challenge for Alexander Berner. “Every film has the usual challenges – working with a new director or cutting the film down to time. In this case, I’m probably the very first editor who’s ever worked with three directors on the same film. What’s truly unique, though, is that this film has several different genres and each has to be represented at its best. There’s action, comedy, a love story, intelligent dialogue, period drama and a thriller. Each one has to work as well in this film as if it were a single-genre film. As an editor, that was quite fun and maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I realize though, that young people really respond to this approach, so maybe we’ll see a lot more of this style of film in the coming years.” Alexander Berner’s next film is another collaboration with Andy and Lana Wachowski – Jupiter Ascending – currently in pre-production.

(Additional coverage by Post magazine may be found here.)

Originally written for Digital Video magazine / Creative Planet Networks

©2012 Oliver Peters

The NLE that wouldn’t die

It’s been 18 months since Apple launched Final Cut Pro X and the debate over it continues to rage without let-up. Apple likely has good sales numbers to deem it a success, but if you look around the professional world, with a few exceptions, there has been little or no adoption. Yes, some editors are dabbling with it to see where Apple is headed with it – and yes, some independent editors are using it for demanding projects, including commercials, corporate videos and TV shows. By comparison, though, look at what facilities and broadcasters are using – or what skills are required for job openings – and you’ll see a general scarceness of FCP X.

Let’s compare this to the launch of the original Final Cut Pro (or “legacy”) over 12 years ago. In a similar fashion, FCP was the stealth tool that attracted individual users. The obvious benefit was price. At that time a fully decked out Avid Media Composer was a turnkey system costing over $100K. FCP was available as software for only $999. Of course, what gets lost in that measure, is the Avid price included computer, monitors, wiring, broadcast i/o hardware and storage. All of this would have to be added to the FCP side and in some cases, wasn’t even possible with FCP. In the beginning it was limited to DV and FireWire only. But there were some key advantages it introduced at the start, over Avid systems. These included blend modes, easy in-timeline editing, After Effects-style effects and a media architecture built upon the open, extensible and ubiquitous QuickTime foundation. Over the years, a lot was added to make FCP a powerful system, but at its core, all the building blocks were in place from the beginning.

When uncompressed SD and next HD became the must-have items, Avid was slow to respond. Apple’s partners were able to take advantage of the hardware abstraction layer to add codecs and drivers, which expanded FCP’s capabilities. Vendors like Digital Voodoo, Aurora Video Systems and Pinnacle made it possible to edit something other than DV. Users have them to thank – more so than Apple – for growing FCP into a professional tool. When FCP 5 and 6 rolled around, the Final Cut world was pretty set, with major markets set to shift to FCP as the dominant NLE. HD, color correction and XML interchange had all been added and the package was expanded with an ecosystem of surrounding applications. By the time of the launch of the last Final Cut Studio (FCP 7) in 2009, Apple’s NLE seemed unstoppable. Unfortunately FCP 7 wasn’t as feature-packed as many had expected. Along with reticence to chuck recently purchased PowerMac G5 computers, a number of owners simply stayed with FCP 5 and/or FCP 6.

When Apple discusses the number of licensees, you have to parse how they define the actual purchases. While there are undoubtedly plenty of FCP X owners, the interpretation of sales is that more seats of FCP X have been sold than of FCP 7. Unfortunately it’s hard to know what that really means. Since it’s a comparison to FCP 7 – and not every FCP 1-6 owner upgraded to 7 – it could very well be that the X number isn’t all that large. Even though Apple EOL’ed (end of life) Final Cut Studio with the launch of FCP X, it continued to sell new seats of the software through its direct sales and reseller channels. In fact, Apple seems to still have it available if you call the correct 800 line. When Apple says it has sold more of X than of 7, is it counting the total sales (including those made after the launch) or only before? An interesting statistic would be the number of seats of Final Cut Studio (FCP 7) sold since the launch of FCP X as compared to before. We’ll never know, but it might actually be a larger number. All I know is that the system integrators I personally know, who have a long history of selling and servicing FCP-based editing suites, continue to install NEW FCP 7 rooms!

Like most drastic product changes, once you get over the shock of the new version, you quickly realize that your old version didn’t instantly stop working the day the new version launched. In the case of FCP 7, it continues to be a workhorse, albeit the 32-bit architecture is pretty creaky. Toss a lot of ProRes 4444 at it and you are in for a painful experience. There has been a lot of dissatisfaction with FCP X among facility owners, because it simply changes much of the existing workflows. There are additional apps and utilities to fill the gap, but many of these constitute workarounds compared to what could be done inside FCP 7.

Many owners have looked at alternatives. These include Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer/Symphony, Media 100 and Autodesk Smoke 2013. If they are so irritated at Apple as to move over to Windows hardware, then the possibilities expand to include Avid DS, Grass Valley Edius and Sony Vegas. Several of these manufacturers have introduced cross-grade promotional deals to entice FCP “legacy” owners to make the switch. Avid and Adobe have benefited the most in this transition. Editors who were happy with Avid in the past – or work in a market where Avid dominates – have migrated back to Media Composer. Editors who were hoping for the hypothetical FCP 8 are often making Adobe Premiere (and the Production Premium bundle) their next NLE of choice. But ironically, many owners and users are simply doing nothing and continuing with FCP 7 or even upgrading from FCP 6 to FCP 7.

Why is it that FCP 7 isn’t already long gone or on the way out by now? Obviously the fact that change comes slowly is one answer, but I believe it’s more than that. When FCP 1.0 came on the scene, its interface and operational methodology fit into the existing NLE designs. It was like a “baby Avid” with parts of Media 100 and After Effects dropped in. If you cut on a Media Composer, the transition to FCP was pretty simple. Working with QuickTime made it easy to run on most personal machines without extra hardware.  Because of its relatively open nature and reliance in industry-standard interchange formats (many of which were added over time), FCP could easily swap data with other applications using EDLs, OMFs, text-based log files and XML. Facilities built workflows around these capabilities.

FCP X, on the other hand, introduced a completely new editing paradigm that not only changed how you work, but even the accepted nomenclature of editing. Furthermore, the UI design even did things like reverse the behavior of some keystrokes from how similar functions had been triggered in FCP 7. In short, forget everything you know about editing or using other editing software if you want to become proficient with FCP X. That’s a viable concept for students who may be the professional editors of the future. Or, for non-fulltime editors who occasionally have to edit and finish professional-level productions as one small part of their job. Unfortunately, it’s not a good approach if you want to make FCP X the ubiquitous NLE in established professional video environments, like post houses, broadcasters and large enterprise users.

After all, if I’m a facility manager and you can’t show me a compelling reason why this is better and why it won’t require a complete internal upheaval, then why should I change? In most shops, overall workflow is far more important than the specific features of any individual application. Gone are the differences in cost, so it’s difficult to make a compelling argument based on ROI. You can no longer make the (false) argument of 1999 that FCP will only cost you 1% of the cost of an Avid. Or use the bogus $50K edit suite ad that followed a few years later.

Which brings us to the present. I started on Avid systems as the first NLE where I was in the driver’s seat. I’ve literally cut on dozens of edit systems, but for me, Final Cut Pro “legacy” fit my style and preferences best. I would have loved a 64-bit version with a cleaned-up user interface, but that’s not what FCP X delivers. It’s also not exactly where Premiere Pro CS6 is today. I deal with projects from the outside – either sent to me or at shops where I freelance. Apple FCP 7 and Avid Media Composer continue to be what I run into and what is requested.

Over the past few months I’ve done quite a few complex jobs on FCP X, when I’ve had the ability to control the decision. Yet, I cannot get through any complex workflow without touching parts of Final Cut Studio (“legacy”) to get the job done. FCP X seems to excel at small projects where speed trumps precision and interoperability. It’s also great for individual owner-operators who intend to do everything inside FCP X. But for complex projects with integrated workflows, FCP 7 is still decidedly better.

As was the case with early FCP, where most of the editing design was there at the start, I now feel that with the FCP X 10.0.6 update, most of its editing design is also in place. It may never become the tool that marches on to dominate the market. FCP “legacy” had that chance and Apple walked away from it. It’s dubious that lightning will strike twice, but 18 months is simply too short of a timeframe in which to say anything that definitive. All I know is that for now, FCP 7 continues as the preferred NLE for many, with Media Composer a close second. Most editors, like old dogs, aren’t too eager to learn new tricks. At least that’s what I conclude, based on my own ear-to-the-ground analysis. Check back this time next year to see if that’s still the case. For now, I see the industry continuing to live in a very fractured, multi-NLE environment.

©2012 Oliver Peters

The Bourne Legacy

Fans of the Jason Bourne stories are being treated to an expansion of the franchise with the release of The Bourne Legacy. Unlike other franchise restarts, this film moves off in a different direction, exploring the greater Bourne world through the introduction of agent Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner (The Avengers, Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Hurt Locker) and assisted by Dr. Marta Shearing, played by Rachel Weisz (The Lovely Bones, The Brothers Bloom, The Constant Gardener).

Fortunately for the fans of the series, the film was entrusted to Tony Gilroy (Duplicity, Michael Clayton) as writer-director. Gilroy had written the screenplays for the original Bourne trilogy of films. All three Gilroy brothers were involved in making The Bourne Legacy, so to some, this might seem like a family project. Dan Gilroy (Real Steel, The Fall, Freejack) co-wrote the screenplay and John Gilroy (Warrior, Salt, Duplicity, Michael Clayton) was the film editor.

A family affair

I recently spoke with John Gilroy, as the film was getting its last post production touches prior to release. Asked about how the sibling bond affected the editor-director relationship, Gilroy responded, “Our father was a writer-director, but he moved us out of Los Angeles to upstate New York when we were small children. I believe his hope was that none of us would actually end up in the business. I think he was a bit surprised that we all gravitated, in one way or another, to his line of work. Tony has worked with both Danny and me individually before, but this is the first time we’ve all worked together. I think it was a special experience for all of us.”

“As an editor, I work in much the same way with Tony as I do with other directors. I try to understand the vision of the film they’re trying to make, in big ways and small. I think editors in general are probably pretty good listeners. If we can truly understand a director’s vision on a deep level and embrace it, then we have a real compass that can navigate us through the editorial process. I’ve certainly known Tony longer than any other director I’ve ever worked with or ever will, so there is undoubtedly a short hand to that sort of understanding, but essentially the process is the same.”

Keeping it fresh

The Bourne trilogy picked up several awards and nominations – including a few Oscars – and set a very specific visual style. In fact, these films set the stage for a more believable secret agent – a tone that’s been picked up by others, notably the reboot of the James Bond franchise, starting with the first Daniel Craig version, Casino Royale. With The Bourne Legacy Tony and Dan Gilroy wanted a fresh approach. John Gilroy continued, “Tony and Danny thought of a way to expand the franchise by focusing on another central character. Aaron Cross is a government agent, but he’s also a completely different character with a completely different set of problems. By accessing the timeline of the previous Bourne stories, this film dovetails nicely to reveal a bigger world. The series has always been grounded in reality and that’s embraced in the new film, as well. The previous films, however, had a very kinetic visual approach that grew over the three – becoming faster by the third film. Tony didn’t want to just mimic that previous visual style. Bourne Legacy is an action picture and it’s certainly kinetic, but visually, it has its own signature.”

A fast production schedule

The Bourne Legacy involved a tight production and post schedule, with 89 shoot days. Production took place mainly on location and at the Kauffman-Astoria soundstages in New York City, with additional location production in Washington, D.C., Canada and the Philippines, among others. Robert Elswit (Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Salt, There Will Be Blood) was the director of photographer and shot mainly on Super35mm film. Some digital cameras were also in the mix for the visual effects shots. The production wrapped in late February and was in the final phase of post (mix and finishing VFX shots) by the end of June.

John Gilroy discussed the schedule with me. “This was a long shooting schedule and a short post schedule, so that puts some extra pressure on the editorial process. Our director’s cut needed to be farther along than what’s normally expected. Fortunately, the script was a great blueprint, but as always, you make amendments as you go along. Often, events or actions on the page don’t need to absolutely be on the screen, and they fall away in the process of editing. Writer-directors, such as Tony, tend to be very good in the cutting room, because editing, on some level is like writing, or perhaps re-writing. The finished film is a bit over two hours long. This is a little longer than the other Bourne films, but we’re introducing new characters and setting the table for a larger story, so that’s to be expected. My first cut was only about 15 to 20 minutes longer at the start. Probably the biggest challenge for me was that the film’s most complicated action sequences were shot in the Philippines at the end of the schedule, instead of at the beginning or the middle.  There were all sorts of visual effects that had to be met, so I had to hone some very complex sequences very quickly.”

From the Moviola to the digital age

John Gilroy has seen a number of technology shifts during his career. He explained, “Editors around my age were the last people to begin their careers cutting on Moviolas in the 90s.  The first non-linear, computer-based system I used was Lightworks when I worked on Bill Madison.  A few years later I jumped over to Avid [Media Composer]. Although I’ve thought about trying out other software – like Final Cut, in between films – there was never a real need. I’m happy that Avid has been able to keep improving itself over the years with various small innovations. We used several Media Composer systems connected to Unity shared storage.  The initial editorial team, run by his first assistant editor Jim Harrison, started with four people, but has more than doubled as the film nears its completion. There are hundreds of visual effects shots in this film, all designed to create realism – vehicle effects, guns, explosions and more. [Adobe] After Effects has become an important component of our editorial process these days. We use it a lot to temp certain kinds of visual effects. All of my assistants  know After Effects. Of course, on a movie like this, there is an entire visual effects department who we work closely with.  Hal Couzens and Mike Ellis are our visual effects supervisors and most of  the final, full-quality visual effects were primarily done by Double Negative in London, as well as a number of additional vendors.”

Sound and sound editing are also important to Gilroy. “I probably address the sonic aspects of the films I work on a little more than other picture editors might. How a scene sounds and how it’s sonically designed is important to me, not just for presentation purposes, but many times it actually helps me better understand a scene or sequence. It’s a bigger part of the movie experience than many people realize. On Bourne Legacy we are also working with a fantastic sound team headed by Per Halberg, who has sound supervised all the other Bourne films. He and his team are truly top notch and it’s been a pleasure working with them.”

I asked Gilroy how the preview audiences had received the film. He replied, “We’ve had a couple of preview screenings and they were very helpful and reaffirming. This was the big risk – to take a franchise built around one character and then center around a completely new character, under the same banner. Fortunately, the audiences we screened for totally embraced Jeremy Renner and this new concept. It was quite a relief. There were no plans for a stereo 3D version. People want a good film, first and foremost. 3D does not guarantee success and not all films are right for 3D. Tony felt strongly that Bourne Legacy was better served in 2D. Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3 is doing the DI and he was brought in early to the process. We were able to color-time much of our picture at Company 3, even during our preview period, which is not normally the case. The benefit, of course, is that the picture looks so much better, so much earlier.”

With a tightly crafted script as a template, The Bourne Legacy wasn’t the type of film that needed to be re-structured in the cutting room. Gilroy wrapped up our conversation with his approach to the film. “As an editor you first solve the little nuisances in a scene. Then you step back and solve issues at the scene level and then finally the whole film. My biggest responsibility was to get everything out of Rachel’s and Jeremy’s performances. They were really fantastic and shined in this film. I just had to make sure I didn’t leave anything on the table!”

(Here’s another good interview with John Gilroy at Studio Daily.)

Originally written for Digital Video magazine (NewBay Media, LLC).

©2012 Oliver Peters

Three choices

We now know where the four “A”s are headed. With the dust settling just a little, picking your favored approach to post is shaping up into three choices: the software suite, the all-in-one and the toolkit. That’s not to say you can’t mix these options up a bit, but let me outline each approach.  Before I start, let me clarify that these choices are designed for the needs of small shops that post the average types of projects, including corporate videos, commercials, reality TV shows and low budget indie films. If you only cut studio films or are a high-end VFX specialist, then your world view is likely to be quite a bit different. So, let’s start.

A. The Software Suite

If you wanted to build your facility around a complementary suite of applications as I outlined in this previous post, then Apple Final Cut Studio had been the dominant option. With Apple’s changes, Adobe becomes the logical successor. The new Creative Suite 6 offerings provide many of the advances that Final Cut users had expected in a hypothetical Final Cut Pro 8 or Final Cut Studio 4. If you are looking for a package that can cover all the bases – including logging/ingest, editing, audio mixing, color grading and encoding/authoring – then Adobe CS6 Production Premium is the place to go.

Most Adobe applications may be purchased as standalone applications, as part of a suite or through a Creative Cloud subscription. If you are buying a site license as a multi-seat user, then you’ll likely go with perpetual licenses (the software has no time limit) rather than the Creative Cloud. (Adobe does plan to offer “Team” subscriptions later in the year.) Understand that if you are purchasing Adobe software with the intent of running different applications on different workstations, you will still have to purchase the appropriate suite (or a Cloud subscription) for each workstation. You cannot buy one software bundle license and then pick and choose specific applications to install and authorize on numerous computers for simultaneous operation. For that, you’d need a volume, or multi-seat license. It allows you to deploy bundles like Production Premium onto multiple workstations, using a common license number.

Granted, any FCP/Color editor moving to Premiere Pro or SpeedGrade is probably going to miss a few of their favorite features, but once comfortable with the differences, will find a very comprehensive package. One that lets you do everything you need for creative cutting and finishing – all within the Adobe family. There are links between Premiere Pro and Audition or After Effects or SpeedGrade, so it’s pretty easy to start in Premiere Pro (or even Prelude for ingest/transcode/logging) and then move to After Effects for vfx/motion graphics, Audition for the mix and SpeedGrade for the final grading pass.

Right now, the least-integrated application is SpeedGrade, which was acquired by Adobe only last September. Only the “send to” half of the roundtrip with Premiere Pro is in place. You can’t monitor broadcast output on any card except an NVIDIA with SDI, which most video editors don’t own and which doesn’t work on the Mac. You can, however, view a full screen signal on a second display that’s connected via DVI or DisplayPort. This is likely to change pretty quickly under Adobe control, but if you can work within the current constraints, SpeedGrade is a powerful color correction tool on par with Color or Resolve.

The intent of this post is not to go into depth about the pros and cons of any individual software application, so I’ll leave a discussion of Premiere Pro’s strengths or weaknesses as an editor for another time. Suffice it to say that if you want a powerful and comprehensive set of tools from a single vendor, who has made interoperability a priority, then Adobe is the best option today.

B. The All-In-One Editor

The editor who prefers to have everything at his or her fingertips inside of a single application is going to have to stick with Avid. The best bang-for-the-buck until mid-June is the Avid Symphony cross-grade promotion for FCP “legacy” owners. For $999 you get Symphony, AvidFX (Boris RED integrated into Symphony), the Boris Continuum Complete filter set, Sorenson Squeeze and Avid DVD (PC only). The advantage of Symphony over Media Composer includes advanced color correction tools and the bundling of the BCC filters. Both are cross-platform and work with the full range of third-party i/o hardware.

Naturally Autodesk Smoke and Avid DS editors might consider their favored NLE as more deserving of the all-in-one label, but I see the strengths of these systems in finishing and not offline or creative editing tasks. DS does offer many of those tools (though is typically not considered the first choice for such tasks), but Smoke doesn’t. In other words, if you want a system that can tackle any task from film editing to finishing, Symphony and Media Composer definitely fit the bill. The weaknesses are that you are limited to a maximum of HD-sized frames, the effects modules need a lot of improvement and the color correction tools are also long-in-the-tooth. Nevertheless, in the hands of an experienced editor, 80-90% of all editing and finishing challenges can be tackled inside of Symphony. This includes creative cutting, mixing, finishing and color grading – all accomplished without ever leaving the Avid editing interface.

For folks interested in understanding the differences between Media Composer and Symphony, check out this video at Avid. Furthermore, you can search for “avid fx tutorial” at Google or YouTube to find numerous tutorials on how to use Avid FX within the Media Composer or Symphony interface.

C. The Toolkit

This is where I see Apple Final Cut X fitting. FCP X by itself is not a complete NLE for advanced work and needs to be augmented with many other tools. When I say this, I’m focusing on the small shop, multi-suite user, not the individual videographer or editor who needs to bang out spots and corporate videos on his home or portable system. The work that many editors do requires collaboration with other editors, mixers and colorists. FCP X lacks those tools internally and instead leans on third-party utilities. The mix that seems to work best is some combination of FCP X (creative editing), DaVinci Resolve (advanced color grading) and Autodesk Smoke (visual effects and finishing).

As I watch the rapid expansion of the FCP X-based ecosystem, it’s becoming clear that what appears to be a lack of features is, in fact, spawning innovation to complement FCP X. As a result, the application is becoming more of a platform than the previous version or other editing software. Final Cut Pro X becomes the editing hub that is augmented by other applications and utilities based on your individual workflow needs.

Naturally any purchase of FCP X would be incomplete without Motion 5 and Compressor 4, not to mention that essential media management and interchange tools include Event Manager X, Xto7 for Final Cut Pro, 7toX for Final Cut Pro and X2Pro Audio Convert. I also find that it’s very hard to get through most complex productions without some fallback to the “legacy” Final Cut Studio suite. For example, if you need to generate EDLs or OMF files or prefer Color to other grading tools, then FC Studio (assuming you already own a copy anyway) is the best choice. In fact, you can still buy a Final Cut Pro Studio license from Apple’s 800-number business sales operation. Adobe CS6 Production Premium can also fulfill many of these same functions and there’s no reason not to own both CS6 and FCP X. For the sake of this post, I’m presenting Choice C as a non-Avid, non-Adobe alternative.

Advanced post functions in the toolkit include grading, audio mixing and advanced finishing. There are plenty of options for audio, including Apple’s own Logic and Soundtrack Pro. There’s no clear path from FCP X to either of these, yet. You can export audio streams as Roles, but those are “flattened” tracks without handles. Best to bounce over to FCP 7 and then to STP or Logic. Other solutions include ProTools, Audition and Nuendo. Marquis Broadcast’s X2Pro is designed to send FCP X audio tracks to Pro Tools in the AAF format, but not OMF, so it’s not compatible with some of the other DAW software options, like Logic.

Blackmagic Design has done a good job of integrating FCP X’s XML into DaVinci Resolve, so even the free LITE version works well as a grading companion to FCP X. Resolve can easily be installed on any workstation in the facility and if you want a dedicated grading room, then it’s worth the investment in a proper monitor, scopes and a control surface. Likewise, if you invest in Autodesk Smoke, it is probably with the intent to make this a client-supervised “hero” room. Yes, all of these applications can reside on a single workstation, but that doesn’t make the best business sense.

Another thing to consider is i/o hardware. Final Cut Pro X works with most of the PCIe and Thunderbolt capture/output cards and devices, but Resolve only works with Blackmagic Design’s own hardware. Conversely, Smoke requires an AJA KONA 3G or IoXT. For a facility owner, having dedicated Smoke and Resolve suites makes sense and, therefore, it’s OK to have different cards in different workstations. This does mean you will have to do a bit of planning to best manage your configuration.

This also brings to mind shared storage. FCP X is still evolving in that regard and currently works with Xsan. You can use it with volume-level SANs, but the “Add SAN Location” feature may or may not work at your site. For instance, it doesn’t work with Command Soft FibreJet. You’ll be fine with shared media, as long as your Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders are on locally-controlled volumes, where the FCP X workstation has write permission to that volume or drive.

Last but not least is Adobe Photoshop, which I find essential for all sessions. Other editors disagree and prefer to avoid Photoshop – either for reasons of need or cost. So, alternatives to Photoshop include Corel Painter, Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator.

In closing, remember this is just a simple way to present the options. There’s nothing that says you can’t mix and match After Effects and/or Pro Tools with EDIUS, Media Composer, Vegas, Media 100 or any other variation. My world is headed primarily to an Apple/Adobe witches brew of applications. I hope my little overview makes some sense out of the confusing NLE landscape. It’s still very fluid and will likely continue to change over the coming year. The key is to pick a direction and stick to it. You don’t have to know everything, but pick the right tools for your clients and workload. Learn to use them well and dive in!

© 2012 Oliver Peters

Avid Media Composer Tips for the FCP Switcher

The new (or renewed) interest in Avid Media Composer was fueled by the launch of Apple’s Final Cut Pro X and aided by Avid’s cross-grade promotional price. This move has many experienced FCP editors investigating the nuances of what seems like a completely foreign interface to some. Tutorial DVDs, like Steve Hullfish’s Avid Media Composer for Final Cut Pro Users from Class On Demand, are a great start. With experience, editors start to see more similarities than differences. Here are a few pointers of mine to help you find your comfort zone.

Multiple sequences  – FCP editors like working with multiple, tabbed sequences in the timeline window and find this lacking in Media Composer. In fact, it’s there, just not in the same way. Under the pulldown menu in the upper right corner of the record window (Canvas in FCP parlance), Media Composer editors have quick access to any previously opened sequence. Although only one is displayed in the timeline at any given time, you can quickly switch to another sequence by selecting it in this menu.

Displaying source waveforms and sequences clips – In FCP 7 or earlier, having tabbed sequences makes it easy to use a section of one sequence as a source to paste into another sequence. In addition, when reviewing audio-only clips, the waveform is displayed in the Viewer to easily mark in and out points based on the waveform. A similar feature exists in Media Composer. At the lower left corner of the timeline window is a toggle icon, which switches the window display between the source (Viewer) and record (Canvas) timelines. To use a sequence as an edit source, simply drag it from the bin into the source window. Then toggle the source/record icon to display the source’s timeline. The playhead bar or current timeline indicator will be bright green whenever you are working in the source timeline. If you have an audio-only clip, doing the same and enabling waveforms will display the source clip track with its corresponding waveform pattern.

Multiple projects – Another FCP favorite is the ability to have more than one project open at once. The Media Composer equivalent to this is Open Bin. This enables the editor to access any bin from any other project. Opening bins from other projects gives you full access to the master clips and associated metadata. In turn, that information is tracked as part of your current project going forward. Media Composer’s Find command is also active with these other bins.

Oversized images – Media Composer has traditionally been locked into standard broadcast NTSC, PAL and HD frame sizes. When it comes to dealing with higher-resolution images, Media Composer offers two solutions: the built-in Avid Pan & Zoom plug-in and Avid FX. Both of these function nicely for doing camera-style moves on bigger-than-TV-raster images. If you want to preserve the resolution of a 3500 x 3500 pixel still photo, while zooming into it, Media Composer is perfectly capable of accomplishing the task. Edit a placeholder clip to the timeline, apply the Pan & Zoom filter to it. From the effects editor, access the high-res file, which will replace the placeholder content. Finally, program your keyframes for the move.

AvidFX – One of the “stealth” features of Media Composer is that it comes with Avid FX, an OEM version of Boris RED designed to integrate into Avid host systems. Apply an AvidFX filter to a clip and launch the separate interface to open a complete effects, titling and compositing environment. Not only can you apply effects to your timeline clips or import and manipulate high-res stills, but you can also import other QuickTime movies from your drives that aren’t part of the Avid project. AvidFX also includes its own set of Boris Continuum Complete and Final Effects Complete filters, even if the BCC or FEC products haven’t been separately installed into Media Composer.

Open timeline/frame rate mix and match – FCP is known for dealing with a wide range of formats, but in fact, Media Composer is superb at mixing frame rates and sizes in real-time. For example, freely mix SD and HD clips on an HD timeline and Media Composer will automatically scale up the SD clips. However, you can quickly change the format of the project to SD and Media Composer takes care of applying the opposite scale parameters, so that SD clips appear normal and HD clips are scaled down to fit into the SD raster. In addition, codecs and frame rates can also be mixed within the same sequence. Put 23.976fps clips into a 29.97fps timeline or vice versa and Avid’s FluidMotion technology takes care of cadence and frame rate adjustments for seamless playback and blending in real-time.

Smart Tool – Easy editing within the timeline by using the mouse or keystrokes has long been a hallmark of FCP. Avid’s product designers sought to counter this (and add their own twists) with the introduction of Smart Tool. When enabled, it offers contextual timeline editing. Hovering the curser over the top or bottom of a clip  – or close to the top, bottom, right, center or left side of a cut – will change the function you can perform when clicking and dragging with the mouse. It takes a while to get comfortable with Smart Tool and many veteran Avid editors aren’t big fans. Nevertheless, editors who’ve adapted to it can quickly re-arrange clips and trim edit points in much the same way as FCP editors use the Selection and Rolling Edit keys.

Perforation-slipping – Edit accuracy on either NLE is limited to a one-frame interval, but a little known feature is the ability to trim the sync of audio to less than one video frame. Few editors know how to do that in either application. While FCP allows sample-based adjustments, Media Composer does this with a technique borrowed from its film editing heritage. Start by creating your project as a film project (even for non-film media), which enables the Slip Perf Left/Right commands. Standard 35mm film uses four sprocket holes (perforations) per frame, which equates to quarter-frame accuracy. Using the Slip Perf commands is a great way to adjust the accuracy of sound sync on subclips in double-system recordings, such as when an HDSLR camera and separate audio recorder were used.

AMA – The first instinct of many young editors is to start a project by dragging media from anywhere on the hard drives into the project and start editing. FCP facilitated this style of working, whereas Media Composer traditionally was structured with a rigid routine for importing and capturing media. Avid Media Access (AMA) is a solution to bring more of that “drag-and-drop” world into Media Composer. You may either Link to AMA File(s) or Link to AMA Volume(s), depending on whether you wish to mount entire drives or partitions, such as with P2 cards, or simply want to import individual files. Conceived as a process similar to FCP’s Log and Transfer, AMA also lets you edit directly from native files. The recommended workflow is a hybrid approach: load your clips via AMA; cull down selects; and then transcode just those clips into optimized Avid media. In either case, you have immediate access to native media, as long as there’s an AMA camera plug-in for it. This includes RED, Canon XF, P2, XDCAM and most QuickTime-based camera file formats, such as ARRI ALEXA and Canon HDSLRs.

ProRes – Ever since Apple introduced the ProRes codec family, it has been gaining share as an acquisition, edit and delivery format – thanks to the ubiquitous nature of QuickTime. It has become ingrained into many FCP editing workflows, so media compatibility is important in considering a switch. Media Composer version 6 now supports native ProRes media. Apple ProRes QuickTime files can be imported on both Mac and PC versions, but in addition, Mac Media Composers can render and export natively to ProRes, as well. When the files are ingested using the standard (non-AMA) method, the ProRes files are “fast imported”. This means the media is copied without conversion and the container is rewrapped from a .mov to .mxf format. Avid takes care of maintaining proper levels without the dreaded QuickTime gamma shift. For FCP editors moving to Media Composer, this means easy access to existing media files from past projects using one of two import methods – native ProRes import or AMA linking.

Resolve roundtrip – Both NLEs have good, built-in color correction tools, but Final Cut users who needed more grading horsepower turned to Apple Color. With the demise of Color, DaVinci Resolve has taken up the mantle as the preferred desktop grading tool. It becomes the perfect outboard grading companion when used in conjunction with Media Composer. Even the free Resolve Lite version can read and write MXF media. Start by exporting an AAF file for your edited Media Composer sequence. Make sure the Resolve Media Pool includes the location of your Avid media files. Then import the AAF into Resolve, which in turn links to the MXF media. Grade the clips as usual, render and export using the Avid roundtrip preset along with the corresponding AAF file. The folder of rendered Resolve media (in the MXF format) should be renamed with a number and moved into the Avid MediaFiles/MXF subfolder. When the corresponding AAF file is imported into your Media Composer project, the new sequence will be automatically relinked to these graded MXF files.

Open I/O – FCP users have enjoyed a wide range of capture and output hardware options and that same flexibility came to Media Composer with version 6. Both Media Composer and Symphony run as software-only applications, as well as with capture devices for any of five third-party companies: AJA, Blackmagic Design, BlueFish444, Matrox and MOTU. Plus Avid’s own gear, of course. Set up your Media Composer project as you normally would and the card or external device just simply works. No need to directly alter any card settings. Since the existing hardware from most existing FCP installations can still be used, Media Composer becomes another available application for the arsenal. This has made switching a “no-brainer” for many FCP editors.

Two links for the best 200 Media Composer tutorials for beginners on the web (Mac readers should view these in FireFox, not Safari or Chrome):

Douglas Bruce’s First 100 Basic MC Tutorials

Douglas Bruce’s Next 100 Basic MC Tutorials

Originally written for DV magazine/Creative Planet/NewBay Media, LLC

©2012 Oliver Peters