Episode 106
FCG106 - Cutting Animation (feat. Paul Newmann)
Pirates Passages is a feature length animated film that was completed by PIP Animation Services. Paul Neumann was a technical advisor and responsible for training all the relevant people in the inner workings of FCPX for the entire workflow for the film, from the earliest animates thru the final assembly. Hear what worked great, and what worked, ok in this episode of The Grill.
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Featuring
- Chris Fenwick
- Paul Newmann - http://www.pipanimation.com - @ferdewyn
Transcription
00:00.001: Hang on a second.
00:00.001: Like, we have to basically say to the animators, look, hook up the end of your shot to the beginning of this shot.
00:00.001: Oh boy, how are we going to do this?
00:00.001: It's cheap to animate.
00:00.001: And you know, what's interesting, she told me at Christmas, I was with her over Christmas, and she goes, you know,
00:00.001: I mean, and I have a crazy hand all.
00:00.080: Never used it or not.
00:00.080: you know, you throw numbers on anything, you won't know what the production point is, right?
00:00.160: Premium Beat in the middle of the piece, so I won't say too much about them.
00:00.160: Oh, I'm it's honored.
00:00.160: To Donald Sutherland to read this book, and he jumped all over it because he grew up in that area, and it became a passion project for him to get this thing produced.
00:00.160: When Final Cut 10 was released, I decided to try it out on my own at home.
00:00.160: So, this initial animatic was, and I'm just again, my apologies.
00:00.160: A childhood here, almost uh maybe like speed racer-like with a lot less frames, just so you could see some of the general action that was going to come with the full animations.
00:00.160: I love that about this business.
00:00.160: Interesting.
00:00.160: Have to wrangle events and stuff like that.
00:00.160: You can have by titles.
00:00.160: and and they'll have some some revelation or something they found.
00:00.160: which is keyworded with things like thuds and zips and dings and bangs and whatever.
00:00.160: You know, I need ah, all right.
00:00.160: And they he had diagrams and maps.
00:00.160: So the other day I went to look for this job and I scanned a file name.
00:00.160: To go ahead and open up version four because it was the highest version number in the project, or rather in the library.
00:00.160: Yeah, yeah.
00:00.160: Or whatever, it says, Oh, yeah, there's an issue here that needs to be fixed.
00:00.160: uh the scenes against that was that was up to another person uh jeff harris who by train and uh he he took care of all that stuff and uh
00:00.160: Okay, you got your color channel, your transforms channel, your trim channel, your storage channel, and then you get a compositing for the opacity.
00:00.160: Dude, that was four years ago.
00:00.160: the metadata world and definitely go check out what those guys are doing over there.
00:00.160: And do me a favor, leave a comment, give us some stars.
00:00.240: Anyway, I love Premium Beat.
00:00.240: And just a couple of days ago, you sent me something.
00:00.240: And that's it.
00:00.240: Yeah, you know, as an editor who edits live action all the time, you know, you're sifting through footage and you're saying, oh, this is the best.
00:00.240: about how I deal with versions and iterations in in Final Cut X.
00:00.240: From final cut 10 back to 7, I discovered it worked using X to 7 and 7 to X.
00:00.240: with the kind of stuff that I've seen just in the video that you sent me, there's got to be some Adobe licenses there.
00:00.240: It's still called Final Cut.
00:00.240: This should probably be called something totally different.
00:00.240: For duration of shot, you only might have four drawings that would show like mean key poses for that whole scene.
00:00.240: And that goes that gets sent back to the people who are using Flash because that sound file is the exact length of the shot, they'd line it up along with all the assets that needed that are needed for
00:00.240: start coming back, they get dropped into the master timeline.
00:00.240: I found myself working more with keyboard shortcuts 'cause those were more responsive.
00:00.240: And that thing is it's lovely.
00:00.240: Certainly help a lot.
00:00.240: If you started at 10 one, you would have done about four months or four or five months on 10.
00:00.240: That's the benefit I get from not getting any of your truckloads of money.
00:00.240: Sure.
00:00.240: He or 10.
00:00.240: Yeah, you're right.
00:00.240: Yeah, I'm hearing words and I'm hearing sentences, but I don't totally get it.
00:00.240: That was pretty cool.
00:00.240: when you license their music, whether it's the full cut or the shorts or the loop pack, it's a one-stop shop.
00:00.240: Oh, then you I was using it.
00:00.240: stuff at home on your laptop in 10 and then kick out a file that you could open up in in 7 or import into 7.
00:00.240: So yeah, I think I've said this before in the past.
00:00.240: It's invigorating.
00:00.240: I think I tweeted one time, says, Oh man, Chris Fenwick, Michael Garber, you guys with the shift command R, that's awesome.
00:00.240: In the Photoshop file, we would have a background with the sky, and then the plane would be its own element on
00:00.240: And animate that.
00:00.240: And then you name that my tenthings.
00:00.240: Any time you need something like that, that's where you quickly find instead of finding your crazy clip with the car in the dark, you know, and it's looking all snazzy.
00:00.240: This guy's on a boat.
00:00.240: That's how you do it.
00:00.240: and describe something of a technical nature.
00:00.240: You just shoot the guy from multiple angles, and the multicam feature is so easy to use that you can just slap together a little multicam of him.
00:00.240: Yeah.
00:00.240: Yep.
00:00.240: So like, for example, shot number, you know, one from sequence one might get versioned, you know, version two, version three, version four.
00:00.240: A PP or something for Pirates Passage.
00:00.240: All the files are good.
00:00.240: And as it turned out, what ended up happening was the project was copied off of the portable drive onto one of our raids, but nobody marked
00:00.240: These things happen once in a while.
00:00.240: I'm like, oh, that's the answer.
00:00.240: C number.
00:00.240: The plug-in.
00:00.240: I think we had one for time the time code.
00:00.240: you know, capture the look and and pitch the thing.
00:00.240: Yep, and then there's also the other gentleman who did all the timing on the animatic Scott Fiander got him up to speed and then our
00:00.240: And hurry, we're done.
00:00.240: I don't want it to be above my titles.
00:00.240: you know, clean it up, tighten it up a little bit.
00:00.240: Some stuff with motion.
00:00.240: I listened to the Final Cut show, but I gotta tell you, I don't understand a lot of it.
00:00.240: All right.
00:00.240: So, anyway, great to hear about that.
00:00.320: And I started looking.
00:00.320: And he helped them transition from Funnel Cut 7 to Funnel Cut 10.
00:00.320: I I can't imagine you listen to the show and you haven't yet.
00:00.320: So you guys aren't necessarily the producers of the film, but you're the production company to see through all the technical aspects of it, correct?
00:00.320: you can actually you could, I think, theoretically say, oh, yeah, this reaction shot needs to be two seconds in seven frames.
00:00.320: Oh yeah, we have to figure out all the nuances of all the actions, the proper amount of delay between dialogue for reactions.
00:00.320: Here is and and actually let's break this down.
00:00.320: So is each cell being hand drawn?
00:00.320: Either the animators or the directors will review it and say, okay, this needs to change, this needs to change.
00:00.320: I don't know if you saw my little link that I forwarded you earlier.
00:00.320: maybe we should switch to Final Cut 10 and being as the only guy that had any real exposure to it, I was the go-to guy for it.
00:00.320: we'd render out a big giant quick time of what we'd call the Leica and then drop that against the main time line and
00:00.320: I figure we probably had somewhere between eight to ten thousand images we were referencing along with somewhere in the neighborhood of eight hundred
00:00.320: So and then from there, you said you kick out a big giant Texas Master, and then you'll make a new version of your timeline, and then you'll start with that MOV.
00:00.320: That's yeah, that's right.
00:00.320: You know what?
00:00.320: I would imagine oh, what was the total running time?
00:00.320: Well, how is it long form?
00:00.320: I don't know that anybody has ever made a definitive statement as to, yep, it was bad code that caused a RAM leak or whatever.
00:00.320: Yeah, I use it on my laptop, but we haven't installed it yet on or we haven't upgraded to it on any of the machines that work yet.
00:00.320: I think five.
00:00.320: Yeah, no, I'm backups.
00:00.320: And then we're like, ooh, this thing needs more power.
00:00.320: Seems hard, but okay.
00:00.320: Is that stuff that all gets tracked and data based and passed around to the production team so you can say this shot number needs to be eight frames longer?
00:00.320: Producer's best friend.
00:00.320: And because it's not sort of like one of those things that's in my wheelhouse, uh I kind of like, yeah
00:00.320: And it'll show frame counts.
00:00.320: You know, actually, that's a really interesting problem.
00:00.320: And Philip, thank you for making producer's best friend, but you will not need that feature of it if you're using your premium beat music.
00:00.320: Timing and Apple, they build accents and stuff.
00:00.320: Yeah, no, I mean, I think I think there's that hurdle point, you know, that learning wall as I've described it.
00:00.320: for you to train all the other editors or people that had to use the software?
00:00.320: Keyboard shortcut stuff, you know.
00:00.320: Time line behavior.
00:00.320: But now everyone's pretty much copacetic with it.
00:00.320: You know, or and sometimes it's like, you know, you find something that's so cool, and you're like, I got to share this.
00:00.320: Portion of learning software.
00:00.320: That made our process a whole lot more fun were some of the things that your guests have discovered.
00:00.320: I basically, I think I've learned something from every one of these interviews that I've done.
00:00.320: Okay, now that's an interesting step.
00:00.320: That's a feature that or that is a capability, I guess you'd say, that's been around in Final Cut for a long, long time, back in probably Final Cut 1 or 2 or something like that.
00:00.320: And I think it probably holds over from early Premiere.
00:00.320: We pull in the handles for each layer, they'd slip down onto their own line so that, okay, at frame 10, the plane tilts a little bit, continues on, and so forth.
00:00.320: be kind of cool if I dissolve between two of those poses.
00:00.320: You can't click back into it.
00:00.320: From bundle to bundle.
00:00.320: And this is where the head scratching thing was.
00:00.320: So I'd range select that, drop it on a keyword with that word or whatever, or leave a little note in a note column.
00:00.320: But we did.
00:00.320: Drawing and stuff, and then I edited together a little multi-cam thing for reference for all the artists and directors to look at.
00:00.320: Drawing or pointing or gesturing or just his facial expression while he's describing various aspects of sailing
00:00.320: You know, help set up a multi-cam clip.
00:00.320: Yeah, we'd have uh we'd have a certain amount of shots assigned to one uh certain animators.
00:00.320: Everything went through After Effects.
00:00.320: Pull out my special mouse and I get to work and I worked all day.
00:00.320: So until we absolutely double check that the copy is legit, we just rename the original version
00:00.320: I brought it into my desk and I started to work.
00:00.320: So immediately, because of good file names and good, you know, I'm being fastidious about that.
00:00.320: And just make the changes.
00:00.320: You know, that's kind of the sign of a professional.
00:00.320: As the version numbers come in, how are you replacing them in the timeline?
00:00.320: No, we would still lay it against the primary storyline.
00:00.320: And then once we're confident and happy that that was the final, final shot and that there was no mistakes, then it would get dumped out.
00:00.320: Okay, so you have sent me and you've posted some frame grabs, pretty amazing, by the way, of your timeline.
00:00.320: And it's looking pretty tall.
00:00.320: But what do you have?
00:00.320: Yeah, the titles are actually this actually learned from one of your tutorial sections on your website.
00:00.320: But yeah, now that I think about it, it's like, oh, geez, I could have done that.
00:00.320: But yeah, this this uh this timeline is pretty pretty serious.
00:00.320: What could you possibly say about it?
00:00.320: basically had to handle all the final delivery and packaging to the broadcaster.
00:00.320: Yeah, well, we had to I used um Logic Pro 10 to kick out an AAF for the post house that did all the mixing.
00:00.320: Let's say you got a clip, okay, and you do your control fee, and your video animation comes up.
00:00.320: Channel is the only one that has this little disclosure icon on the side.
00:00.320: You get a series of ramps.
00:00.320: A really good point.
00:00.320: Just a better or cleaner output to Logic Pro when it comes to stuff.
00:00.320: There's a lot of buzz about what are we going to see, what are we going to get?
00:00.320: And I think there's going to be more and better tighter integration with logic and possibly even
00:00.320: Love the show with your mom.
00:00.320: I think everybody would admit 10.
00:00.320: And I will have to say that it seems like the lion's share of the editorial process, Paul was on that version.
00:00.320: So that's it for this episode of The Grill.
00:00.320: And one last thing I want to ask you, do me a favor, go to iTunes.
00:00.320: We'll be back next week with another episode.
00:00.400: And we're going to talk with the other Paul Mummy.
00:00.400: Oh, droopy mic.
00:00.400: Uh and we can't uh yeah, that's the that's the mic.
00:00.400: Hello.
00:00.400: and had written a piece of fiction based on his knowledge and was based in Nova Scotia, and someone had suggested
00:00.400: handholding the entire project for pirate passages through Final Cut 10.
00:00.400: Punch it down into the main storyline, getting rid of all the references of the images.
00:00.400: They do all the lip sync matching to the sound file.
00:00.400: Actually, my buddy Jeff, who also worked on this, he collected all that stuff.
00:00.400: 10.
00:00.400: Yes, there was much gnashing of teeth trying to finish that Leika.
00:00.400: Yeah.
00:00.400: You know, we got to, you know, basically, we all got to do that together because that was a major and the 10.
00:00.400: And yeah, it it got pretty crazy.
00:00.400: It probably didn't get used the way we hoped or intended it would, but it helped us track a lot of things like, okay, which version of a particular shot was on the timeline.
00:00.400: Alts, a set of selects of all the reads of lines that the actors read.
00:00.400: You know, for whatever license that you purchase, and I will say that I believe most people can get away with the kind of $40 license.
00:00.400: X to seven to port the work I've done on my laptop to the workstation at work.
00:00.400: A new piece of software, and you have multiple editors in multiple rooms, and they're all sort of like, you know, exploring and learning.
00:00.400: I always find that if it's not like around the lunch table where somebody goes, hey, did you know that you could?
00:00.400: Yeah, and that's sort of the same thing.
00:00.400: Oh no, this actual bug.
00:00.400: your layers into quote unquote one layer, which is fine, that's not what breaks it.
00:00.400: Okay, each let's say for episodic shows that we work on, which is usually in 11 minutes.
00:00.400: 10 minutes and 20-some seconds long.
00:00.400: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
00:00.400: Oh, that's really interesting.
00:00.400: But you've only done one pass of sweetening in After Effects.
00:00.400: I had a a project that I had done remotely in a client's office, and I had done it on a portable Thunderbolt drive.
00:00.400: There's another one someplace, and then they know to go look for it.
00:00.400: This file is on the portable drive number nine.
00:00.400: Like, okay.
00:00.400: The old copy, the one that was on the portable drive, as do not use.
00:00.400: And would it then key?
00:00.400: On its own layer, that you could even turn on and off, maybe even with, dare I say, roles?
00:00.400: feature sets that when you sort of discovered them or cracked them open or started to apply them, that they saved you a lot of time?
00:00.400: Yeah, and that's and let's face it, I mean, that's a big advantage when you can say, here's all the dialogue, here's all the music, here's all the effects.
00:00.400: You know, I'd love to see that on transforms.
00:00.400: I haven't discovered it, or someone never explained it to me, or it's so weird that I never, or it's so simple that I could kick myself.
00:00.400: The key command section for like, oh, what's that command I won't let?
00:00.400: If I wanted to drop a new clip, you can't just bring your playhead to where you want them and hit the Q button and oh, it'll connect to the right spot.
00:00.480: Oh, that's okay.
00:00.480: Interesting.
00:00.480: Forgive me, and I know I'm going to say a whole bunch of wrong words here, and I don't mean anything in any slightest bit of disrespect, but it looked a little
00:00.480: I'll say flash-like in that you were making individual like cells for the mouth and then you could link those together.
00:00.480: Then when we came to detailing of the production, it's like, oh, okay, well, Final Cut VII is quickly becoming legacy
00:00.480: Lines of dialogue, not including any kind of placeholder effects by effects, I think sound effects that we cut.
00:00.480: it seems like the f one of the first things that people go toward and they start asking about is
00:00.480: At that point, there's really no there's not too many things that got extended.
00:00.480: Please send me more bags of money when you get done, you know?
00:00.480: And then you open that XML file in producer's best friend, and it generates a report, correct?
00:00.480: assisted editing has or I'm sorry, no, intelligent assistance.
00:00.480: Well, I can teach you a few other things, but they're basically just useless bugs that you don't won't care about.
00:00.480: Its own layer.
00:00.480: Layered Photoshop documents.
00:00.480: whatever.
00:00.480: So that actually we had we had our 3D guys in there like, okay, this is how the boat has to be built.
00:00.480: SQ02 and then we usually include a short form of which production it is because it's like
00:00.480: Now, at that point, we have two copies of that job.
00:00.480: Hyphen do not use in all in caps.
00:00.480: I know, I know.
00:00.480: So then, uh w what were the d do you recall the names of all the various roles that you created?
00:00.480: The actual, like when things really started, I think it was just a little over a year.
00:00.480: Interesting.
00:00.480: Oh, what's this?
00:00.480: It was all it was pretty easy.
00:00.480: We're very excited about what 10.
00:00.480: But I think that the cards are laid out in such a way that I think we're very likely going to see some really cool stuff.
00:00.480: live action, but fascinating to look at the way other people work.
00:00.480: Capital F and I don't know, it sounds like for the wind, but it's spelled in a way that makes me look like I'm some kind of crazy Welsh princess.
00:00.560: It's probably Wednesday morning when you're hearing this or when it's posted.
00:00.560: I just got lazy, so I apologize for that.
00:00.560: I believe it's Pirate Passages.
00:00.560: Beginning of the production.
00:00.560: what you would think of as an invisible cut where you hook up gestures, those are all heavily, heavily predetermined
00:00.560: Yep, it was exactly done in Flash.
00:00.560: And then we just render out a sequence or even the whole thing, and then
00:00.560: So I taught basically every guy in the studio how to use it.
00:00.560: You had told me that the the initial animatics were first cut in in Final Cut X.
00:00.560: That particular shot, you know, this character, this character, at this location with this prop and that prop.
00:00.560: exported individually and that's what each shot gets built against, and then as those animated bits
00:00.560: It's a single license thing.
00:00.560: It's there for constant use for whoever's finessing it.
00:00.560: And the solution the answer to that is we used it for compiling what we call a Walla library.
00:00.560: For the guy responsible for doing all the stuff in 3D.
00:00.560: If you wanted to, sure.
00:00.560: For sure.
00:00.560: You know how many iterations.
00:00.560: There was a little bit of work that was done on that project when it was still on that portable hard drive.
00:00.560: We had made we needed something to create a frame counter and scene indicator.
00:00.560: Michael did.
00:00.560: That apparently we're still not supposed to say the name, I apologize.
00:00.560: Which was a little bit too voodoo for me, but I said, Oh, yeah, rolls.
00:00.560: But just right clicking and seeing that, I'm like, oh, okay, cool.
00:00.560: That's a very clever idea.
00:00.560: Amazing iterations in the last three and a half years.
00:00.560: I'll be the first to admit that 10 from 10.
00:00.560: Find me and they go, Good grief.
00:00.640: Version upgrades on those shots.
00:00.640: It's just because that's what we're used to, or at least the Final Cut product.
00:00.640: This is how long a reaction needs to be.
00:00.640: And read their licensing agreement because it's actually very simple, and they have tried to make that be
00:00.640: Well, I gotta thank him for the other plugins that he's made.
00:00.640: Figure out the importance of roles.
00:00.640: You have to turn it into a secondary storyline.
00:00.640: that layer will automatically be made into a separate file that matches that extension.
00:00.640: And then you can also add those extensions to what Photoshop calls a layer group, or I would have called it a folder, where you have a little folder with 10 things in it, or whatever.
00:00.640: That show was famous for having, you know, too many and extended reaction shots.
00:00.640: To the next number.
00:00.640: A little over 1,500.
00:00.640: And it's one of our clients where we actually leave an edit system there because I got tired of carrying one in and out all the time.
00:00.640: And somewhere along the way, that entire project job folder rather got copied onto one of our raids.
00:00.640: So red flags go off like crazy.
00:00.640: Yeah, it's like that's ever happened.
00:00.640: There's no easy way to just glance at your timeline and say, are these things turned on or turned off?
00:00.640: And in retrospect, do you think Final Kut X was the right choice for the project?
00:00.640: I got our project manager or project coordinator up to speed.
00:00.640: Okay, like there should be a rule saying, oh, this is a video clip.
00:00.640: So now it's beginning of 2000.
00:00.640: 1D.
00:00.640: plenty of different plugins for many different things.
00:00.720: Good morning, good morning, welcome to another episode of Funnel Cut Grill.
00:00.720: The only difference was it hasn't been done on paper.
00:00.720: The changes.
00:00.720: Explain uh what what is the word you just said, walla?
00:00.720: Versions.
00:00.720: Oh, yeah.
00:00.720: Oh, several features actually.
00:00.800: Yes.
00:00.800: What was the hardware for the master edit station and drives?
00:00.800: But uh yeah, this is the awkward part that you can edit out.
00:00.800: But it's very interesting and comforting to hear you say that this eighty eight minute time line was okay.
00:00.800: Ten point one, I believe.
00:00.800: I found the specs here for you.
00:00.800: It's fine.
00:00.800: Yeah, picture lock act actually took quite a while.
00:00.800: We had fun doing that sort of stuff too.
00:00.800: it would go through a sweetening process in After Effects, where we'd add other effects and then we'd have a version number for the amount of passes that we'd had to go through in After Effects.
00:00.800: And so it's like one of those little lessons where you go, yeah, there's a reason why, like you called it, what'd you call him a file name Nazi?
00:00.800: Is there any way to apply the plug-in to an adjustment layer?
00:00.800: So if how do I want to say this?
00:00.800: Take care, man.
00:00.880: So, anyway, it's fun to hear it's fun to hear it, you know, like kind of from the back room.
00:00.880: your dialogue, this is the point where I'm assuming where editorial is adjusting for timing and music and stuff and say, yeah
00:00.880: I don't know.
00:00.880: something that is accessible to everybody.
00:00.880: Okay.
00:00.880: Okay.
00:00.880: In conjunction, I think that Michael Matzdorf was involved in creating that with Alex for the film that he worked on.
00:00.880: Thanks, mom.
00:00.960: It's perfect.
00:00.960: Okay, so Paul, welcome to the little show.
00:00.960: Okay, so now we're into, you got the animatic done.
00:00.960: Uh actually not in this particular project, but I've used them for other things.
00:00.960: Um boy.
00:00.960: It, you know, surprise, surprise, it becomes easy to do, and you can actually do it more often.
00:00.960: when you open up a first when you first open up a a logic file with with an imported XML from Filecat, it's like
00:01.040: It's a story based on a book by a gentleman called William Gilkerson, who was a well, still is, he's an expert on pirates.
00:01.040: I think it was discussed, not with me, but I think the obvious choice was Final Cut 10.
00:01.040: So that 88 minutes, is that playing, is that a single timeline that you play this off of?
00:01.040: It would bog down fairly quickly.
00:01.040: It doesn't matter if you use 10 seconds of that song or the whole song, or you take the whole song and you loop it a bunch of times and use it a bunch of times.
00:01.040: Okay, let's say I've got a shot where characters are traveling in a plane and they're flying through the shot.
00:01.040: In another room.
00:01.040: Of other workflow issues, it was really apparent to me that I was about to start making changes to an old version and not what the client would have considered the current version.
00:01.040: And a time code generator.
00:01.040: correct the problem.
00:01.040: And did you find that there were did you find that there were
00:01.120: It's just basically Photoshop files or TIFF images.
00:01.120: Or as close to storyline as you can.
00:01.120: And when he has to open up an old project that he cut in, say, you know, 10.
00:01.120: 09, whatever, I can't remember.
00:01.120: It also showed a list of all the the takes of audio.
00:01.120: It's handy for producers who want to track how much of a piece of music they've used so they know how much to pay out for.
00:01.120: No, it's just them trying to get over the whole track list thing.
00:01.120: I'm not the guy that handles the drawing.
00:01.120: Oh no, we've got our final Nazis too.
00:01.120: It shows as frame one.
00:01.120: Not just opacity.
00:01.120: They can go to our website, pipanimation.
00:01.200: I was like, wow, that's pretty crazy.
00:01.200: No, I mean, it's fascinating.
00:01.200: It's to each their own taste.
00:01.200: The version that's on the portable drive.
00:01.200: You have your primary storyline, which is the the Leica, you called it.
00:01.200: Instead of showing like time code, I would have it showing by frame.
00:01.200: Okay.
00:01.200: Which aren't really available to translations and all that.
00:01.280: I would actually spend a lot of time turning shockwave files into animation codec quick times and cut those in.
00:01.280: You know, it never happens like that.
00:01.280: And a lot of people have said, you know, that Franco Ten made editing fun for them again.
00:01.280: There you go.
00:01.280: Okay.
00:01.360: Cool.
00:01.360: You can add every little audio roll you want.
00:01.360: Unconsoled layer.
00:01.360: I see what you're saying.
00:01.360: I'm just drawn a blank.
00:01.360: Changes and iterations of individual files as they would come in.
00:01.360: And how do you how did you keep track of whether or not something had been or needed to go through After Effects or not?
00:01.360: So anyway, um I'm sorry for my little uh rant there, my file naming rant.
00:01.440: Generate an animatic, and that's where we decide the length and order of the shots.
00:01.440: That's actually an interesting comment that I don't normally hear.
00:01.440: I think there's a piece of software, and I'm wondering if you had heard of it or used it.
00:01.440: Yeah.
00:01.440: One was once the animation was approved and the director was happy with all the action on the screen
00:01.440: So version one from the animator, version one from After Effects.
00:01.440: So I open up the project and there's no version five.
00:01.440: And to be fair, we're starting to go down a giant rat hole here when we start when we just did I tell you that I was repressing a lot of these memories, Chris?
00:01.440: No, that's kind of hard to tell.
00:01.440: I wasn't directly involved with the entire thing.
00:01.520: It came to us.
00:01.520: Now, as you've pointed out to me already, editing animation is much different than editing live action.
00:01.520: So then it gets crazier than that.
00:01.520: Has anyone done an animation production in this program?
00:01.520: I mean, any time line did throw them for a loop, that's for sure.
00:01.520: And I film I filmed that from two different angles.
00:01.520: I think at one point I begged Alex Gawler, dude, I need a plug-in that can do this.
00:01.520: He's put something together, you know.
00:01.520: Toggle on the composite version.
00:01.520: And off it goes.
00:01.520: Okay.
00:01.600: That's as close to editing as I get to what you're used to.
00:01.600: 1.
00:01.600: I gotta say this, and you know, the shows you did where you kind of like don't talk about Final Cut 10.
00:01.680: That was someone who said that's a like.
00:01.680: We really didn't, at least not in terms of the feature, but we'd have people come in.
00:01.680: So you're using let me get this straight.
00:01.680: Wow.
00:01.760: I have to lean over and it's all acrobats and stuff.
00:01.760: Okay.
00:01.760: Well, I'm just trying to gauge.
00:01.760: You've broken the expandability of the stack.
00:01.760: Oh, that's really cool.
00:01.760: Where are you, Matt Storf?
00:01.760: So but at any rate, you could take all of your overlays and you could toggle those on and off at once.
00:01.760: It's like, oh, yeah, this is the best software ever because that's what I know.
00:01.760: If you notice when you kick when you bring up the clip animation, there's only one channel that has the little disclosure window that lets you do speed changes to the ramp.
00:01.840: With earlier productions that we've been working on, we're all done in Final Cut 7.
00:01.840: There's so many little buzzwords and things.
00:01.840: You know, how does it handle a long timeline?
00:01.840: Oh, do this, use this keyboard shortcut to do this.
00:01.840: I mean, I've done a tutorial about it, and it's really powerful.
00:01.840: Okay, I'm going to feel bad now if I don't tell you what episode it was on.
00:01.840: Because it sounds like you're done, correct?
00:01.840: I can't remember where I'm going with this.
00:01.920: Animation is requires a lot of heavy, heavy preproduction work.
00:01.920: Oh, yeah.
00:01.920: Right.
00:01.920: Okay, cool.
00:01.920: Okay.
00:01.920: 14 brought in terms of its acceptance of various codecs and whatnot.
00:01.920: All right.
00:02.000: You'll hear me talk about that in a very kind of fun, organic way in the middle of the interview.
00:02.000: So I get it.
00:02.000: I don't know.
00:02.000: How the story unfolds.
00:02.000: Okay.
00:02.000: So the video card helped.
00:02.000: Save you save the money in the budget for like the handful of money shots.
00:02.000: So I'm like, oh, how am I going to do this?
00:02.000: So, and we render that out, and you know, when you're looking at it, I'm like, oh, geez, there's a mistake at frame twenty-eight of shot whatever.
00:02.000: I gotta say, it's one of the things I really like about this is there's so many ways to skin the cat.
00:02.000: You know, and I do that with color coding and move stuff from one track to another and then and then kick out an AAF from that and
00:02.000: Exactly.
00:02.000: Yeah.
00:02.000: I just found this show.
00:02.080: Oh, yeah, I know.
00:02.080: So let's say there's a bit of dialogue and they want to extend a few reaction shots or something, or delay a response.
00:02.080: You can reuse it all the time.
00:02.080: But see, those changes were based on what the client had seen on version 5.
00:02.080: So it didn't show up in the database.
00:02.080: It would be up it might be the top uh the top video file of the ones that are there, but at least it would be underneath the titles.
00:02.160: So, in that, the parts I saw were people doing and
00:02.160: The entire thing was animated in Flash.
00:02.160: Sure, let's say that.
00:02.160: If we find that there's some assets that we use a lot, we actually just create an event that gets copied from
00:02.160: Okay.
00:02.160: So explain can you explain a little bit about I mean, I get the audio.
00:02.240: So and what how long have you been working on this and what version were you working with?
00:02.240: Yeah, so you know, it's half the time.
00:02.240: Cool.
00:02.240: F-E-R-D-E-W-U-Y-N.
00:02.320: We started on iMac.
00:02.320: And frankly, this is one of those reasons why I don't like using
00:02.320: He's coming in during a storm.
00:02.320: Okay.
00:02.320: Good night.
00:02.400: We'll talk about it in the interview.
00:02.400: Okay, so so that was really the answer to the beach balling, the better video cards.
00:02.400: Yeah.
00:02.400: Uh Paul, have you have you heard the um uh me talk about the um
00:02.400: He's like, Whoa, dude, I wish I had this when I was working on my TV show way back when.
00:02.400: And I got to tell you, there's nothing more frustrating than doing a whole bunch of work on the wrong version of a project.
00:02.400: Okay, so uh let me just uh I think I understand what you're doing, and I understand your comment about
00:02.400: I don't know.
00:02.400: Thanks for listening.
00:02.480: So let's talk a little bit about that.
00:02.480: So basically what you're doing with this is you're and correct me if I'm wrong, you kick out an XML from your timeline.
00:02.480: I mean, I need to clean up the timeline into a way that the other dude was used to using it.
00:02.480: I don't actually do that.
00:02.480: Okay, let me hear.
00:02.480: I'm probably speaking out of turn here because what you ideally you want to have it
00:02.480: I actually did it up as a throwaway account because I didn't expect to do anything with it.
00:02.560: This is how long before another character jumps in with a line.
00:02.560: Yeah, do it right at the tail end of a big production.
00:02.560: Yeah, I had saved, I think, ten oh nine and uh and now it just seems kind of weird to
00:02.560: And if you haven't looked at Premium Beat, I would really recommend that you go take a look at that.
00:02.560: Okay, well, since everything's pre-edited, there's no real use for keywords here, is there, or at least range selections?
00:02.560: I mean, you know, I'm listening to your podcast.
00:02.560: You'd like to have a keyboard shortcut to push things up and down.
00:02.640: You you might think twice by the end of the hour.
00:02.640: So from the script, they do a breakdown, design work is done, and then from there, the storyboard is produced, and then that's where I jump into action.
00:02.640: I mean, this podcast is a little bit of like, you know, yelling down the hall, hey, try this one, you know, and it's a little bit like that because I mean, I find, you know.
00:02.640: Or maybe even separate poses of the plane would be on separate layers, and then
00:02.640: Everything copied over.
00:02.640: Why are all these tracks of like similar stuff spread out?
00:02.640: No, I totally understand.
00:02.640: It's so awesome.
00:02.720: Okay, and then uh we stopped at ten point one three interesting, okay.
00:02.720: Why not?
00:02.720: It's called Create Asset Feature in Photoshop.
00:02.720: And then once you turn on the Create Asset tool, which is underneath the File menu.
00:02.720: So uh I'm gonna guess, I don't know, let me t tell y I'm sure you could tell me.
00:02.720: Shot sequence number and then the animation version number and then the compositing version number.
00:02.720: Not really.
00:02.800: Hello.
00:02.800: Right, right.
00:02.800: 1, which I mean, I'll be the first to admit, and I know I've said it many times on the show, there were some issues there.
00:02.800: I'm like, okay, I got to solve this problem.
00:02.800: It's like, yeah, you can make all the mistakes in the book, but when you start making them multiple times, I don't think you get to call yourself a professional.
00:02.800: So there was there was some lead-up time to that that you could kind of tag.
00:02.800: 12 on, and now we're on 10.
00:02.880: Thank you.
00:02.880: 1.
00:02.960: You go, Hey, you got to check out what's it called?
00:02.960: And that's where it got a little crazy.
00:02.960: Well, you could do what Alex Golner does.
00:02.960: 10.
00:02.960: I'm totally uh lost on exactly what you're talking about.
00:03.040: He went through a bunch of other people and then finally came to us.
00:03.040: So there's obviously a lot of types of animation.
00:03.040: I guess so.
00:03.040: It I mean, that was one of the funnest eras in just doing this show that
00:03.040: Okay.
00:03.040: Right.
00:03.040: I don't know I've repressed all that, Chris.
00:03.040: I I find it really um kind of exhilarating when you are dealing with um
00:03.040: Did you know you could just push that stuff in the down in down in the primary storyline with command option down arrow?
00:03.040: Actually, I really enjoy that.
00:03.040: The wind's coming from this direction.
00:03.040: And I got to tell you, I had a really interesting, I'm going to tell you a little side story here because I had an interesting thing that happened on one of our projects here.
00:03.040: So I would create a compound clip with just a title.
00:03.040: We'll be back next week.
00:03.120: So you're pretty far from the mic, yeah?
00:03.120: But at any rate, it served you well.
00:03.120: Okay, well, that's great.
00:03.120: Oh, I want this to be ease in, ease out.
00:03.200: Anyway, Paul contacted me via Twitter and he said he you may have seen this.
00:03.200: I mean, you know, you work your work and it's fine, and then it just slows down.
00:03.200: I can't draw to save my life.
00:03.200: png, and it's going to be a PNG that you can then kick out to your timeline, which is really useful.
00:03.200: Well, that actually makes me think of, you know, again, old speed racer animations from the sixties because
00:03.200: So 1,500 shots and they all have, I'm assuming, a shot number.
00:03.200: Now, technically, we should be able to just delete that.
00:03.200: Anyway, Paul, thank you for taking the time to talk.
00:03.280: If you haven't, then oh my goodness, I gotta get better at doing uh these little these little uh commercial drop-ins.
00:03.280: Now, you've used that term, I think you said Laika.
00:03.280: I'm like, okay, I'll believe you.
00:03.280: That thing was beastly.
00:03.280: You know, if you started at 10.
00:03.280: You know, if you hold one drawing for 20 frames, you saved yourself a shitload of money.
00:03.280: Okay.
00:03.280: Thank you, Alex.
00:03.280: So, anyway, tell people about the show if they haven't.
00:03.280: Leave it later.
00:03.360: Thanks for being a part of the grill here.
00:03.360: 09, 10.
00:03.360: I'm curious.
00:03.360: And the other stuff is I think you discussed it with your audio buddy.
00:03.360: Good grief.
00:03.440: Just do it.
00:03.440: Yeah, when you 'cause when you make something that you know was so difficult, and not so difficult, but just time consuming, when you make it easy to do,
00:03.440: Okay.
00:03.440: I would love to see that.
00:03.520: Hello, Paul.
00:03.520: You know, those are pretty important things.
00:03.520: So half the time, or most of the time, it's, yeah, here's your PNG, your PNG file with the alpha
00:03.520: And then the animator knows exactly where to look, or the composer knows exactly where to look at what frame to where the issue happens.
00:03.520: 1 was a little buggy.
00:03.600: But go check out premiumbeat.
00:03.600: And end of the day, I came home with that portable hard drive.
00:03.600: Well, you've heard me talk about the scanning software that I use, Disk Tracker.
00:03.600: So I'd lay that against the beginning of the shot, so then it would read the correct frame and correct.
00:03.600: Here we go.
00:03.600: And I think that there was a bit of disappointment in what 1014 represented.
00:03.680: And he said, Yeah, yeah, I'll come talk about it.
00:03.680: We were going to cut that up and export the WAV file from each clip.
00:03.680: You know, this answers a question.
00:03.680: So did you use?
00:03.680: Yes, nice thing.
00:03.680: Because all of that information, the information contained in that, I mean, that's essentially metadata.
00:03.680: Yeah.
00:03.680: So, Paul, last question.
00:03.680: You know, at the end of last year when 10.
00:03.680: It's going to be four years this summer.
00:03.760: I don't know.
00:03.760: What do you mean bundle?
00:03.760: Walla, yeah, it's basically things like hmms and ha's and and and little things people might say during during sentence.
00:03.760: And that worked for the animation part.
00:03.760: So if somebody were to open that, they'd see that and they'd go, oh wow, this is not the current version of this job.
00:03.840: So I contacted him and I said, so do you want to come on the show and talk about this project?
00:03.840: And the length of a shot is basically predetermined at
00:03.840: I did, and I'm going to put that in the show notes.
00:03.840: It's like, what does that mean?
00:03.840: It was the 3.
00:03.840: I that part wasn't so much up to me, but that's that's about as close to organizing as we did.
00:03.840: And actually, I think he's using Fonoca Cut 10 home now, too.
00:03.840: Well, i and Jeff was one of the guys that you that you had to get up to speed and train?
00:03.840: Yeah, that's that's Russia.
00:03.920: There's certain elements that we reuse all the time.
00:03.920: And I'm like, okay.
00:03.920: Okay, fine.
00:03.920: It helps other people find the show.
00:04.000: This is episode 106 with Paul Newman.
00:04.000: Okay, well tell me no, no, no.
00:04.000: And I'm just going to segue here because it's so natural.
00:04.000: Like, it depends on how complex the file is.
00:04.000: There was the one that was on the portable drive, and then there's the one that's on the RAID.
00:04.000: It's awesome.
00:04.000: I'm like, oh, that's kind of handy if that existed for translations.
00:04.000: When you bring that up and you have something keyed, if you right-click on the line between two keys,
00:04.080: And I'm a little bit behind schedule because, you know, it's the beginning of the year and.
00:04.080: It's like any cartoon or animated feature you've seen in the theater.
00:04.080: I get to say what I want.
00:04.080: 08.
00:04.080: So explain Producer's Best Friend and how it got used on Pirates Passages.
00:04.080: Okay.
00:04.080: It should always go under a title.
00:04.080: Also, I'll say if you have not looked at Philip Hodgett's website, Intelligent Assistance.
00:04.160: Oh, really?
00:04.160: Okay.
00:04.160: Let's see now.
00:04.160: Just sneak in there and do it.
00:04.160: But it's that stuff is important.
00:04.160: Title I would turn into the scene number and the timecode generator I changed to
00:04.160: And, you know, again, I'm going to try and do these on Monday.
00:04.240: That's right.
00:04.240: Yeah, against like and then once we're happy with that final version, it gets more or less punched down into the main story.
00:04.240: What would he do on his boat?
00:04.240: Right, right.
00:04.240: So it might be version four something, After Effects One or something?
00:04.240: Didn't get any corruption.
00:04.240: I think if you put your mind to any piece of software that you're going to use, you know
00:04.240: Do that.
00:04.320: And I've never really worried about that in my world because my for me, the longest things I do are about eight minutes long.
00:04.320: I'm assuming getting up to 10.
00:04.320: But yeah, there were lists, there were XL files.
00:04.320: You're talking about bringing in a multi-layer Photoshop file?
00:04.320: And while he's describing it, so that you don't have to bring all the animators off of their post
00:04.320: I I know it's weird and it's it's kind of obsessive, but I really get into file names.
00:04.320: So it's still a layer or two above of the main storyline.
00:04.400: Picture lock should have actually happened at the Leica stage, but no.
00:04.400: I'm sure Philip would love to hear that.
00:04.400: So commercial over.
00:04.400: Episode 83 of Final Cut Grill.
00:04.400: But anyway, it was all cut in Final Caten, and Alex Golner created this plug-in.
00:04.400: I wasn't when we did daily when we did daily versions of cutting
00:04.400: 1,500 shots, 88 minutes, all done in Final Cut 10.
00:04.480: You're using multicam because you're shooting you have a consultant come in.
00:04.560: Yeah, it sounds like it.
00:04.560: It'll generate a report of all the length and type of transition you have.
00:04.560: I don't know.
00:04.560: I think I actually tweeted about it, but it involves using Photoshop files in the timeline.
00:04.560: The boat's here.
00:04.560: I don't know.
00:04.560: No, no, no, you know.
00:04.560: Anyway, Paul, if people want to find you on Twitter or follow or find out more about Pip Animation, how do they find that stuff online?
00:04.560: Go to iTunes.
00:04.640: Now was there was there talk of going to I mean, I'm assuming
00:04.640: Okay.
00:04.640: This is how you do roles.
00:04.640: The first one would be please give us better keying tools
00:04.720: How are you doing, Chris?
00:04.720: Okay, wow.
00:04.720: He has those disk images.
00:04.720: Okay, so let's talk about some of the other things that
00:04.720: Well, actually, three.
00:04.720: So I went walking around the office and I found that drive.
00:04.720: I opened up the project, I started working on it.
00:04.720: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
00:04.720: Boom, done.
00:04.720: And I said, Oh, I wouldn't expect you to understand much of it, Mom.
00:04.800: Like, because Paul was involved in training all the different editors and all the different people that worked on this project.
00:04.800: Or are there some computer trickery with keyframes and in between frames?
00:04.800: But Paul, you you had told me that you were involved in sort of kind of a
00:04.800: So we got a Mac Pro, we got the six core Intel with 32 gigs with the D700s in it.
00:04.800: But that's not going to work.
00:04.800: 1.
00:04.880: Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
00:04.880: So hey, so I n I've recognized your face and your icon.
00:04.880: Alex Golner is very interesting.
00:04.880: I've never done it for multiple reasons, but why don't you explain how you guys would use that?
00:04.880: But it was an effect, and then there was no easy visual feedback for me to see when it was on or off.
00:04.960: No crowd.
00:04.960: And oh, okay, that's faster.
00:04.960: Then V zero one underscore A E zero
00:04.960: Are you literally just dragging them in and dropping them down on the timeline?
00:04.960: And then I saw your tutorial on how to do time code window dubs.
00:04.960: But Philip has been was one of the first people to really jump on the Funaka 10 bandwagon in terms of adopting
00:05.040: Maybe I'm sick that way, but it's fun.
00:05.040: I'm like, oh, wow.
00:05.040: But he's got this now little multi-cam presentation that this expert gives that he can re-reference over and over.
00:05.040: It popped up on Disk Tracker and I scrolled down the list and it said, oh.
00:05.040: If you could sneak in the back door and talk to the boys at Apple and get them to build you a feature, what would it be?
00:05.040: I don't know that, but I think that clearly we have seen this application go through
00:05.040: 4 at the at the time of this recording, much, much different experience than 10.
00:05.120: com if you have not.
00:05.120: 5 gigahertz Intel Core i7 with 32 gigs of RAM.
00:05.120: 1 and finished on 10.
00:05.120: There were no resources for me to work with.
00:05.120: It's hard to say.
00:05.120: There was some sort of a memory thing and beach balling.
00:05.200: He had to like check with his boss, you know, because he's not like the lead editor.
00:05.200: And I figured I could try and swap projects
00:05.200: Turn it off.
00:05.200: It's hard to take.
00:05.200: Well, thanks for having me, Chris.
00:05.280: Okay.
00:05.280: I don't know.
00:05.280: I apologize to my friends at Apple, but hey, I'm just you know
00:05.280: What were some of the gotchas that or the aha moments that you came across as you were training everybody?
00:05.280: Yep, just delete that.
00:05.280: com.
00:05.360: Pirates' Passages?
00:05.360: Yeah, no, there was definitely some problems there.
00:05.360: I mean, animation is an expensive thing.
00:05.360: What are some of the other plugins that were used extensively in this project?
00:05.360: Yeah, no, it's definitely performing a lot better.
00:05.360: We had some we had some pre-design stuff where we were trying to like
00:05.360: I just three and a half years, it's been that long now.
00:05.440: Anyway, a lot of interesting stuff in this piece.
00:05.440: Uh uh hmm I'm doing this over my iPad, so that's what you want to do.
00:05.440: Well, thanks for having me and Happy New Year.
00:05.440: And then from there, you output what, like ProRes files that you can put in that you can edit?
00:05.440: Interesting.
00:05.440: You should too, Chris.
00:05.440: It's just it's fun to learn.
00:05.440: Yep.
00:05.440: We had one, I think, for the positive charts.
00:05.440: It took well over a year, but I think the actual
00:05.440: com, search for FCPX Grill.
00:05.440: And tell your friends.
00:05.520: Gotcha.
00:05.520: It's kind of sort of a walking tour through this.
00:05.520: And it sounds like for you there was a bit of a comfort zone in the fact that it was the same name.
00:05.520: Now, the moment you do that and then click out of it
00:05.520: Right, right.
00:05.520: And I started asking around the office
00:05.520: Okay.
00:05.600: Actually, I got my face right on it.
00:05.600: A lot of people, I find it interesting that a lot of people, when they start talking about an edit system,
00:05.600: And essentially, when you're in Photoshop, all you have to do is add an extension to the name of a layer.
00:05.600: See what I'm saying?
00:05.680: I found that with the database referencing so many images, in the case of a feature like that.
00:05.680: He has to do this and this and use this kind of knot.
00:05.680: Let's see the original animation version.
00:05.680: He'd edited before, so I showed him a few things on Final Cut 10, and then our technical director who
00:05.680: Oh, I want this to be linear.
00:05.680: I absolutely enjoyed that show.
00:05.760: Hello, hello, hello.
00:05.760: What could possibly go wrong?
00:05.760: 9.
00:05.760: Yeah, and you can you can select by how you want done.
00:05.760: And you stand up from your desk and you walk down the hallway and you're like, hey, hold on, let me show you this.
00:05.760: Oh, interesting.
00:05.760: How would he come in safely to the pier?
00:05.760: I had two static cameras up from opposite angles.
00:05.760: Gotcha.
00:05.840: Anyway, let's go now to Ottawa, Canada, PIP, or Pip Animation Studios.
00:05.840: That makes perfect sense.
00:05.840: You know, whatever.
00:05.920: Right.
00:05.920: So, what was the
00:05.920: I I want to hear this.
00:05.920: 13.
00:05.920: This is where the ropes are.
00:05.920: Yeah, I know the feeling great.
00:05.920: It's really hard to say.
00:05.920: Gotcha.
00:05.920: And also, you know, Paul, Paul mentioned it.
00:06.000: Yeah.
00:06.000: You know, it took another person to
00:06.000: You're touching on something that I want to explore here.
00:06.000: We actually had two different stages of
00:06.000: It looks like you have one or two shot layers above that.
00:06.000: Now, what was the other thing?
00:06.000: Well, either that or please give me a smart role-based layering.
00:06.000: Boom, done.
00:06.000: Wow.
00:06.080: Okay, so the MOV gets caught up.
00:06.080: Don't ask me.
00:06.080: A little over eighty eight minutes.
00:06.080: 12 upgrades were major things for this software.
00:06.080: So we knew which line was used at what time.
00:06.080: Well, hold on.
00:06.080: So now let's talk.
00:06.080: And in film, video frame zero is film frame one.
00:06.160: But any time you did any kind of mouse action involving the dragging of clips, it's like, Hey, Mr.
00:06.160: So there's like a couple little things that kind of fell through the cracks and didn't work right.
00:06.160: Right.
00:06.160: Great, great stuff.
00:06.240: And I can imagine that.
00:06.240: Right.
00:06.240: So he can go, okay, I just, it's like, really?
00:06.240: It because it's above the main storyline of this quote unquote compound clip
00:06.240: Yep, I got it over here.
00:06.240: But I didn't see a version 5, I only saw a version 4.
00:06.240: No, there was we had put uh a couple of layers up where they wanted to see the difference between two two versions of the shot, like you know
00:06.240: Great.
00:06.320: And then we get
00:06.320: He'll save a disk image of every iteration of the software.
00:06.320: Thank you, Premium Beat, for helping us and being so generous and sponsoring the grill.
00:06.320: Okay.
00:06.320: Yes.
00:06.320: The explosions or the real payoffs.
00:06.400: 7 or whatever, he has it.
00:06.400: Like when we got audio, we got a series of
00:06.400: Compound clips, that sort of thing, or just general, you know.
00:06.400: It's
00:06.480: It's circuit chalet over here, buddy.
00:06.480: Which, you know, a lot of people have said that, you know, that was actually kind of a turn off.
00:06.480: How did you keep track of
00:06.480: Gotcha.
00:06.480: People still bitch about it.
00:06.560: We'd string them all up, lay in the audio, and then eventually once everyone was happy with how it was
00:06.560: Where does that term come from?
00:06.560: So, on an iMac, I got the numbers here.
00:06.560: But a lot of the other guys, I'm sure, have heard you talk about it.
00:06.560: And I'm like, wait a second, there's only a version four.
00:06.560: I mean, if there's a way to do it.
00:06.640: Do you know that stuff?
00:06.640: 1.
00:06.640: Man, I really wish I had a useful multicam clips.
00:06.640: Or did you find yourself saying, uh, what was I thinking?
00:06.640: It was real pleasure.
00:06.720: Let's see if I pan you in the right direction.
00:06.720: Yes, sir.
00:06.720: Interesting.
00:06.720: It got you through the project.
00:06.720: It sounds like it was a little bit more a slower frame rate, almost like, say, I'm going back to my child here.
00:06.720: And some of the beach balling stuff did cause it was some cause for consternation.
00:06.720: They'd they'd do the first pass on it, then the animation director would say, Yeah, this needs these changes, so bump up the version
00:06.720: You know, he's done this, right?
00:06.800: Lack of a better word.
00:06.800: Did you use that for this project?
00:06.800: Like prior to us adopting Final Cut 10, I used
00:06.800: So you could work on
00:06.800: You know, once when I rough stuff, I'd hand him the file and he does all the finesse.
00:06.800: So that's pretty cool.
00:06.800: We do the same thing for sound effects library that
00:06.800: I get that.
00:06.800: Well, the notes that I got from the client were like, here's some things that we want you to do and change on version five.
00:06.800: No digging around and
00:06.800: That's what I'm going to do.
00:06.880: Was there not any discuss a discussion to use Premiere?
00:06.880: 1.
00:06.880: At some point, there's a, I'm assuming there's some semblance of a picture lock, although we know everybody changes their mind.
00:06.880: No sun flares happened while the most important file was transferring or whatever.
00:06.960: I just, I love this.
00:06.960: Oh, yeah, because you've you've heard this show.
00:06.960: We had to do that for all the audio, the post-audio stuff that
00:06.960: Well, they're not really spread out, but there's like way more tracks than there need to be.
00:06.960: 1.
00:07.040: And we were tasked with seeing it through.
00:07.040: And
00:07.040: 4, you said no, you said 10.
00:07.040: So what was the process like?
00:07.040: Are they bugs or are they ways to work around bugs?
00:07.040: If it's pretty simple, you know, we're not going to do that stuff.
00:07.040: Yeah.
00:07.040: I mean, I don't know.
00:07.040: And in a lot of broadcast deliverables, that's what they want.
00:07.120: Here we go.
00:07.120: Why don't you start at the beginning and talk about some of the earliest things you did and the earliest hurdles that you had to get over?
00:07.120: It may be you.
00:07.120: Now you have multiple animators working on shots, correct?
00:07.120: Um so now
00:07.120: I'm not really a Twitter user.
00:07.200: Those worked out really nicely.
00:07.200: Okay.
00:07.200: And yeah, that would have been a really bad period of time, I would imagine.
00:07.200: Or just general
00:07.200: And for example, this plane, we have an event with PNGs with alpha channels and
00:07.200: So now I don't know.
00:07.200: Yeah, no, we definitely use roles for that.
00:07.200: 4 came out, I know that there was a lot of
00:07.200: All right.
00:07.200: It amazes me that Hardcore Final Cut 10 editors
00:07.280: Hello, hello, hello, hello.
00:07.280: And at that point, you're still just you're dealing with the TIFFs and the sound files.
00:07.280: I'm not trying to soft sell anything.
00:07.280: That was another thing, too.
00:07.280: Back up again?
00:07.280: Okay.
00:07.280: You know, just a better.
00:07.280: So too bad that he had to deal with that.
00:07.360: And 10.
00:07.360: We kicked out so many XMLs with dates and times, and this happened in this XML.
00:07.360: I'm sure you've heard, you know, Premium Beat sponsors this show.
00:07.360: Ah, that's a clever idea.
00:07.440: Eighty eight minutes, and I forgot.
00:07.440: And how many seats do you have?
00:07.440: Yeah.
00:07.440: They everything's figured by the cost of the frame.
00:07.440: But it's like all of a sudden you decide, oh,
00:07.440: And we have another
00:07.440: But until you like really open a job and really take a look at it and really scrub through it and go, okay, yeah.
00:07.440: But when it happens to you a couple of times, you realize: okay, I don't ever want to have this problem happen again.
00:07.440: And he talks about a film that he worked on.
00:07.440: You know what?
00:07.440: But I can be found at Ferdwin.
00:07.520: So
00:07.520: And so, and so basically, a gesture being like.
00:07.520: And I have my own ways.
00:07.520: So that's really where the editorial
00:07.520: So, okay, done.
00:07.520: I mean
00:07.520: Have you ever looked into possibly utilizing that in what you do?
00:07.520: I I want to talk a little bit about how you would manage
00:07.520: So I walk in with this hard drive and I sit down and I
00:07.520: Yeah, there's a lot of audio in an animation.
00:07.520: Okay.
00:07.520: And yeah, no, I'd learned a lot of stuff.
00:07.520: It was great.
00:07.600: I know that there's something really wrong.
00:07.600: You know?
00:07.600: What was the duration of the project from beginning to end on Pirate Passages?
00:07.600: Okay.
00:07.600: No, it sucks.
00:07.600: Well, Paul, thanks again, and we'll be in touch.
00:07.680: So a lot of planning goes into
00:07.680: And then that gets sent off to the animator, and they actually animate
00:07.680: That's what it is.
00:07.680: Use the Chris Fenwick approach.
00:07.680: Well, I'll tell you this, Chris.
00:07.680: And when I showed one of our guys, like
00:07.680: Yeah.
00:07.680: Oh, by the way.
00:07.680: And a nice guy, one of the nicest guys.
00:07.680: I know we always call it the Grill, but it's FCPX Grill.
00:07.760: How would you describe the type of animation that Pirates Passages is?
00:07.760: So, so you drag those TIFF files out for those key poses.
00:07.760: Uh well, absolutely.
00:07.760: So I was like, okay, all right, I think we know how we're gonna plan out this sequence.
00:07.760: Okay.
00:07.760: Yeah.
00:07.840: I wasn't sure.
00:07.840: Okay.
00:07.840: Yeah.
00:07.840: But, you know, thanks for bearing with me and letting me take a couple days off because of the holidays.
00:07.920: Happy New Year.
00:07.920: Yeah, I think that also included, I think, commercial black slugs.
00:07.920: Now, the way we normally deal with that is we'll take the
00:08.000: No, not that Paul Newman.
00:08.000: He posted this frame grab and it was he goes, Hey, here's what a feature like the animation piece looks like in Final Cut 10.
00:08.000: So the project is called
00:08.000: Oh, that's much better.
00:08.000: There really isn't.
00:08.000: Maybe by turning the opacity of the adjustment layer down, it also kills
00:08.000: I've had a lot of people say that they very much enjoyed that.
00:08.000: And I think we all experienced that.
00:08.080: So that's an animated project you've been working on.
00:08.080: He goes, Yeah, it made all the other editors listen to the show.
00:08.160: Oh, let's try another take or let's trim a couple frames.
00:08.160: Is that what they actually do?
00:08.160: Yeah, let me look it up here.
00:08.160: 14 is very solid.
00:08.160: Oh, wow.
00:08.160: So if you put PNG, it will have all the appropriate alpha channel, et cetera, et cetera.
00:08.160: Uh eighty eight minute production.
00:08.160: Yeah, that's great, but the wrong level.
00:08.160: You know, it was interesting, as we talked about.
00:08.240: That's right.
00:08.240: Don't question me.
00:08.240: You know, you're right.
00:08.320: Let's see.
00:08.320: W how did you do that?
00:08.320: That discovery process is really
00:08.320: Alex's plugin, which I believe he made
00:08.400: Now, you're going to hear me mention.
00:08.400: This is what the boat needs to do.
00:08.400: And probably somewhere in there it has like a
00:08.400: Interesting.
00:08.480: So.
00:08.480: And, you know, I talked about it, but
00:08.480: So we just winged it, you know.
00:08.480: Okay.
00:08.480: Yeah.
00:08.480: She goes, It's really great if I need to go to sleep.
00:08.560: Yeah.
00:08.640: I do a lot of editing.
00:08.640: Yeah.
00:08.640: This line contains this, find that here, and then
00:08.640: And that other drive had not been scanned.
00:08.640: Yep.
00:08.720: So, yeah, welcome.
00:08.720: Well, we animated everything, we put it all together and
00:08.720: You've probably heard me talk about them.
00:08.720: That's really.
00:08.720: You can just have video
00:08.720: Really?
00:08.720: What are you talking about?
00:08.800: And do you pronounce it Pip Studios?
00:08.800: 3.
00:08.880: If you go summer of 2011
00:08.960: He's just like one of the tech guys that was involved in the whole
00:08.960: But I noticed that I had a lot of beach balling with 1011, and you would have done
00:08.960: Oh, absolutely.
00:08.960: There's certain keyboard shortcuts that just stick with me now just because of that.
00:08.960: So where do I use that power?
00:08.960: The compositing
00:08.960: Because we use a lot of layers.
00:08.960: I don't even know if round tripping is what I'm looking for here, but
00:09.040: Here we go.
00:09.040: We started with
00:09.040: You know, I've never thought of that.
00:09.040: So
00:09.040: We had a naval expert who we consulted with, like, okay.
00:09.120: But it still happened.
00:09.120: Oh, update?
00:09.200: Let's go.
00:09.200: So it was monstrous and it could bog down really, really quickly.
00:09.200: But I know nothing.
00:09.280: And nobody was the wiser that you weren't using Final Code 7 at home.
00:09.280: And I had my iPhone.
00:09.360: Yeah.
00:09.360: They sent us back all the mixed stuff and we matched that against the picture and then
00:09.360: Is there one D in there or two?
00:09.440: It's going to be fine.
00:09.440: Exactly right.
00:09.440: I actually wrote this stuff down.
00:09.440: Yeah.
00:09.440: Oh, yeah.
00:09.520: Speedy, you know, just like it was kind of ridiculous, actually.
00:09.520: And it also looks like there's a lot of titles.
00:09.520: Just, you know, better
00:09.600: So here's the story.
00:09.600: Cutting animation is totally different than cutting.
00:09.600: I mean, I enjoy it.
00:09.680: What were the problems that you did come across?
00:09.680: I mean, for that
00:09.680: You know, I got some of the guys to listen to your podcast and a lot of the stuff that
00:09.680: I don't know.
00:09.680: I think that there are some people that
00:09.680: It's shit.
00:09.680: Anyway, great big Australian laugh.
00:09.760: I tested this with my buddy, and he's like, Oh, dude, do this, do that.
00:09.760: First show of 2015.
00:09.760: I've seen you tweeting about the show for quite a while now.
00:09.760: What were you working with?
00:09.760: And it would have been very easy for me
00:09.840: Hit this button.
00:09.840: Amazing.
00:09.840: Yeah, that's what we did.
00:09.840: Yeah, I mean, there's a reason why I'm like this because.
00:09.840: Okay.
00:09.840: No, there's no, we had just the standard ones, title.
00:09.920: Yes, please.
00:10.000: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10.000: I just don't know if they
00:10.000: And that was the big deal for them.
00:10.000: So I did a one frame offset.
00:10.000: Okay.
00:10.080: Okay, so in there is
00:10.080: And I don't know what it was.
00:10.080: I haven't had any issues myself that I've noticed.
00:10.080: And it's from Philip Hodgetts at
00:10.080: Okay, let's hear about it.
00:10.080: I'm looking for little audio clips.
00:10.080: So I'm right with you here.
00:10.080: Now, so let me ask you this about that.
00:10.160: They need to have that stuff broken out.
00:10.240: I think we're doing okay.
00:10.240: I mean, I showed the guys, you know, that's how you break it, but
00:10.240: Yeah.
00:10.240: So I have to like.
00:10.320: A mix of everything, actually.
00:10.320: I don't know why, but it did
00:10.400: Or
00:10.400: You got to kind of rein that stuff in.
00:10.480: I'm like filming this from above.
00:10.560: I'm guessing you have, I don't know, a thousand shots, five hundred shots.
00:10.640: Yes, it's a little late.
00:10.640: You know, really, really big deal.
00:10.640: And I find that.
00:10.640: I really can't remember.
00:10.720: Yes, sir, it is.
00:10.720: He's the guy that knows how to do all the proper
00:10.720: That allows me to know
00:10.720: And she's a great lady, and she's at home.
00:10.800: All right.
00:10.800: You know, going into this, I I was like,
00:10.800: We said like zero zero one underscore
00:10.880: We crop out the panels.
00:10.880: You go back, you go back to the animator
00:10.880: Very cool.
00:10.880: 1.
00:10.960: Do it.
00:10.960: If everything changes, well
00:11.040: Even less than that, you're just having like
00:11.040: Like, you know, this this little shot could use a hm or a huh.
00:11.120: They're like, no, this is so much different.
00:11.120: Yeah, that's a good machine.
00:11.120: And one of the things that I like about Premium Beat is.
00:11.120: 1 was.
00:11.200: I forget how long those are two or three seconds.
00:11.200: Right.
00:11.280: So, um, okay, now.
00:11.360: Give me a level.
00:11.360: And we got it done.
00:11.360: Because I've heard about this.
00:11.360: Or did everything go through After Effects for additional sweetening?
00:11.440: So, anyway, thanks for that.
00:11.520: Pip Animation.
00:11.520: Beach Ball, you're my old buddy
00:11.520: Yeah.
00:11.520: That's it.
00:11.520: All right?
00:11.760: But yeah.
00:11.840: Give me a little synopsis of what the project is.
00:11.920: How does it differ?
00:11.920: So all of a sudden, you've collapsed.
00:11.920: Yes.
00:11.920: That's uh that's actually a really
00:12.000: Okay.
00:12.000: But because
00:12.000: I've said this many times.
00:12.080: It's straight up classical animation.
00:12.240: So that's cool.
00:12.320: Pip Animation.
00:12.480: This is how it's gonna happen.
00:12.560: Yeah.
00:12.560: Oh, there's a reason for that because A, it's.
00:12.640: And I think.
00:12.720: I've heard Philip talk about it.
00:12.720: You know what I mean?
00:12.960: That's a real machine.
00:13.040: I'm like, oh.
00:13.200: Okay.