Episode 111
FCG111 - A New User (feat. Alex MacLean)
If you’re not careful and you spend too much time hanging out with me you may actually want to take a serious look at FCPX. Alex MacLean, my co-host on digitalCINEMAcafe has been hearing me go on and on about Final Cut Pro X for years now and when he recently was trying to streamline his workflow for posting files online for his grading clients I helped him develop a whole workflow around FCPX and Compound Clips. It didn’t stop there though. Now he’s embarking on a giant commercial spot and he’s go the bug. Hear how Alex has turned to FCPX for his main editor on this new project.
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Featuring
- Chris Fenwick
- Alex MacLean - @alexm13
Transcription
00:00.001: I bring that in, I line it up.
00:00.001: Or something.
00:00.001: Obvious, but you know, interior, there wasn't that much interior shot.
00:00.160: And it's sort of the impetus for why he decided to cut the project that he's currently working on in ten.
00:00.160: And I think I've mentioned this in a past episode, but when you find a song that you like, if you click on the name of that song and it kind of loads it into the upper half of the screen
00:00.160: Hey there, welcome to another episode of Final Guide Grill.
00:00.160: You know, I just went and checked that the other day.
00:00.160: And I was like, Yeah, you know, welcome to the 21st century.
00:00.160: Anyway, the point of the story is that, you know, I've been on, was on Final Cut and Avid for a really long time, never really did the premiere thing.
00:00.160: Oh, we cut on Final Cut.
00:00.160: Footage that wasn't used from the original shoot.
00:00.160: Well, why don't you just do that in DaVinci River?
00:00.160: I render out my timeline and I'll just throw a color correction.
00:00.160: I'll just hit render on the luster, which is a 30-second spot or 15-second commercial, or even 30-minute video.
00:00.160: encoder, right?
00:00.160: Preach the workflow of doing that Texas Master because the Texas Master or the full res, full size kick out, the big five.
00:00.160: for all my compressions.
00:00.160: And it starts its compression.
00:00.160: Blah, blah, blah.
00:00.160: Fine, no issues.
00:00.160: It's going to take like 45 minutes to export this, and they're going to say, What, what, to make a po they just want to they'll just say, What?
00:00.160: about how I couldn't even get it to install, but that's a whole other thing.
00:00.160: Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I'm constantly amazed by.
00:00.160: and do a log you know, an emblem replacement.
00:00.160: But that's just not practical.
00:00.160: just did that as a, you know, kind of a dummy test.
00:00.160: It depends, yeah.
00:00.240: So anyway, there's that.
00:00.240: Let me see.
00:00.240: He was telling me this story about something that he needed at their business at Colorado Go over there in San Francisco.
00:00.240: That caused him to spend more time in the application, and frankly, it's kind of cool.
00:00.240: It tells you what dates we're going to be there.
00:00.240: Thing where you can enter in your email address where you can stay informed, and that's just for us.
00:00.240: It's basically like the mecca of Final Cut 10, you know, learning learning all about Final Cut 10 and how to use it in various environments.
00:00.240: About his journey into Final Cut 10.
00:00.240: There's gotta be a lot I mean people kind of use YouTube for listening to music now.
00:00.240: So I've got a a small color and effects company in San Francisco called ColorGogo.
00:00.240: the broadcast editors are saying, You need to cut on Avit.
00:00.240: You have to in the color world, you have to integrate with that stuff.
00:00.240: Deal with that.
00:00.240: And you're dealing with people who are always finishing with you.
00:00.240: a piece of software to be able to make this is before the whole XML EDL, you know, like people like Philip Hodgett made plugins to be able to do this.
00:00.240: Sending markers and doing more anyways.
00:00.240: whatever.
00:00.240: come to me with this job and you know typically we're just doing color in effects and they came to me with this um these car commercials.
00:00.240: And they basically want me to creative direct where it's these commercials were shot, they shot a ton of footage, and the agency wants to repurpose
00:00.240: Juggling probably more projects than they should be.
00:00.240: And then you have a single file, or the the sound fi the soundtrack.
00:00.240: Then you separate it out, and now you're going to put in that compound clip where the picture was, you're going to overlay your version one.
00:00.240: So it's got bars, it's got a slate, it's got etc.
00:00.240: A lot of times I'm rendering stuff with and people aren't knowing, where I can just if someone's asking about something or whatever, I'll just hit render.
00:00.240: I'm actually inserting a whole bunch of metadata.
00:00.240: Well, maybe we'll use Vimeo Pro because Vimeo Pro, that was the original idea, was to use Vimeo Pro.
00:00.240: A compression.
00:00.240: Go through this whole process, and like Chris just said, we've got a Texas master that I can use for anything.
00:00.240: They approved it.
00:00.240: I was working on a ton of different timelines that all had to be kicked out as 64360 WMVs just for approval copies for something that I'm working on for one of our clients.
00:00.240: I've been using this little tiny app that I got off the App Store called I think it's called Anywhere Converter or something like that, HD.
00:00.240: you started digging in through all the files about all the metadata stuff that you can embed.
00:00.240: If you select a file, I guess a pro I guess a project would be what it is.
00:00.240: I drop it into itunes, and then I coll select it in my iTunes window and I hit get info.
00:00.240: It's completely unnecessary.
00:00.240: I'm not sure actually, but that sounds right.
00:00.240: sift through data.
00:00.240: In Final Cut.
00:00.240: Your proxies, you were still kind of thinking, Well, I'm just going to mess around in Final Cut, but I'm probably going to cut it in Premiere.
00:00.240: So I'd already kind of like started thinking about, okay, let me think about I just transcode I just got it ready to go.
00:00.240: Well, that's be but the other thing you gotta keep in mind is this wasn't gonna be cut in Final Cut.
00:00.240: And apply to LUT or not apply to LUT.
00:00.240: A piece for Apple with Joseph Lanaszki, who used to be their head demo guy.
00:00.240: I'm a big fan of keeping a really consistent editorial pipeline where you can predict things like one of my biggest issues with Premiere is
00:00.240: you know, there's a benefit to knowing this is the way the footage is coming in, this is the way the audio is coming in, because you work with like either the same people or within the same walls.
00:00.240: That I'm just going to get 1920 by 1080 ProRes LT, either 2398 or 2997.
00:00.240: tracks of clips that are turned off, you probably want to delete those clips for me.
00:00.240: But they are in this cut.
00:00.240: They'll shoot with the top model car.
00:00.240: three series.
00:00.240: the ability to work extremely fast and tackle multiple things at the same time.
00:00.240: We'll have a couple days to knock out all those shots, color correct, tag it, version it, have it out the door.
00:00.240: So I'm finishing local.
00:00.240: That top 5% or 3% or whatever it is.
00:00.240: You and I were talking about this on the phone the other day, where it's very interesting to come from this Final Cut Classic world.
00:00.240: But most is shift delete.
00:00.240: Yeah, the the magnetic.
00:00.240: I don't think I would be at the comfort level of saying let's do this job in 10 if I hadn't really spent a lot of time with the postings thing.
00:00.240: I wanted to test and see how deep will this go and what can we get away with and not get away with.
00:00.240: Cut.
00:00.240: Got it.
00:00.240: Because by putting a dissolve icon on it, I have to put it in the storyline wrapper.
00:00.240: But it's like it's in a compound clip that I can see what is in it because I can pick up that one thing and move it around my time line.
00:00.240: and do a session about Final Cut 10 and Flame if you would be interested in doing it.
00:00.240: I did not push Alex toward this.
00:00.240: rat holes.
00:00.240: 13.
00:00.240: So anyway, there's a lot of ways to use Final Cut 10 and even hey, Alex, even editing.
00:00.320: I get a call from my friend Alex McLean.
00:00.320: He just again, Alex, welcome to the 21st century.
00:00.320: The convention center there, and we have a special suite set up where we're going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff.
00:00.320: There's two tabs down below, and one of those tabs is show me more songs like this one.
00:00.320: You know, I sort of remember what did I talk about?
00:00.320: You know, music videos.
00:00.320: I decided to do it in 10.
00:00.320: So, you know, I've got a background in editing, and that's like I told the story on if you want to hear the whole story, it's on the first episode of The Cafe.
00:00.320: At version four, Final Cut was still not considered a professional tool.
00:00.320: Express DV or whatever it was called.
00:00.320: You know more about edit systems and edit software than most editors do because
00:00.320: Having to figure out a way to convert those XMLs.
00:00.320: Well, I started getting familiar with 10, like I said, writing that the scripts and program, whatever you want to call them.
00:00.320: So what was the thing that you had just finished doing your reel in Premiere?
00:00.320: Again, in Alex's world as a colorist, most of the time, I think I've said this before in the past, most of the time when I walk into one of your sessions, you know, just to say hey or whatever.
00:00.320: So, quite often in your timelines, you don't even have the audio tracks.
00:00.320: you would have to take the output from your time line, you'd have to marry audio to it, you got to put a slate on it, you got to compress it, and you got to post it.
00:00.320: Create it.
00:00.320: From what do you call it?
00:00.320: And then all you have to do is re-render over that file for each subsequent revision.
00:00.320: And I could put it in the show notes.
00:00.320: How good his compressions look just using the share menu out of Final Cut 10.
00:00.320: lose a couple steps here because the idea is I want to get a posting up for clients as quickly as possible.
00:00.320: Render it out as a flat file to a specific folder with a specific naming convention.
00:00.320: But within that compound, in between that stuff, is a compound clip.
00:00.320: Hey, Mom, check out what I'm working on.
00:00.320: You know, it takes, it's basically, it's real time to render that.
00:00.320: I don't even think you knew about.
00:00.320: Well, what I did is, I went and played with that.
00:00.320: So then the on that machine that's processing postings, like that's basically all that computer does.
00:00.320: What it does is it actually uploads that file.
00:00.320: The way you want it.
00:00.320: you can actually create a compressor preset if you want that will do your H.
00:00.320: you know, it was really unreliable to do the Vimeo Pro posting.
00:00.320: Checks and balances.
00:00.320: It's the second screen that you get to and you actually have to go next, I believe.
00:00.320: It's where you decide whether or not you want to do an audio-video export, an audio-only export, and then there is the when completed.
00:00.320: Choose any other application.
00:00.320: John Davidson.
00:00.320: And it has a setting.
00:00.320: stuff where you could put I'm trying to think of an example but anything you would need if you were to let's say make a T V show and put it on iTunes, just like you would make a song, all those fields.
00:00.320: And it opens up the metadata screen.
00:00.320: If you're like a dude at your desk in the corner of your den and you're like making your one video and you're churning it out
00:00.320: different files to our web server, which is a private back end thing, whatever.
00:00.320: And so having additional metadata with that could be very useful.
00:00.320: But I can totally see some advantages of saying, let's read the metadata on the files that were uploaded today and know who to build that stuff to.
00:00.320: most car commercials are shot with you got a a Cayenne or a Mercedes ML fifty five.
00:00.320: Not only just cutting and not and pretty much having no, we want this, it's just we need stuff for this car.
00:00.320: Because you're driving down the road and you're just rolling, and it's all shot on the Area Alexa.
00:00.320: And a Russian arm is that's that thing that they is on a camera car, and it's basically like a jib on a car, right?
00:00.320: Or assimilate scratch system.
00:00.320: You know, I forget the term reject.
00:00.320: So it really you can get pretty comprehensive there.
00:00.320: Well, we need to make sure the workflow is going to be clean for this job.
00:00.320: Which is, you know, funny to say, but for that kind of stuff, I just had to get it done.
00:00.320: You took it all into Scratch to apply a LUT.
00:00.320: Did you consider or did you realize that you could take all of that red footage straight into Final Cut?
00:00.320: Yeah, I hear what you're saying.
00:00.320: Right.
00:00.320: to finishing, I mean, why hinder yourself with forty seven more than that, four hundred and seventy camera codecs you have to support and figure that out.
00:00.320: a drive of the same thing for every job and not worry about anything.
00:00.320: They export an XML from us.
00:00.320: I know that it's going to take about it's going to take less than five minutes for me to render out a clip or my timeline out of the color system and have it online with a link to the producer sitting next to me.
00:00.320: because that's important to me to make sure it's really easy on everybody else as well, and we can kind of adapt accordingly for those things.
00:00.320: But the smoothest workflows I see are when people are just trying to not overcomplicate things.
00:00.320: I mean, I I wouldn't want to deal with that.
00:00.320: you know, technical limi limitations.
00:00.320: you know, you really like the Final Cut 10 flame workflow.
00:00.320: But then, how many shots are going to need cleanup?
00:00.320: You know, I'm just letting doing creative here, but I'm looking at things like, well, we're using this shot of this car, but the running lights aren't on in this shot.
00:00.320: The lights being turned on.
00:00.320: All of these shots in something like After Effects or nuke?
00:00.320: for the commercial deadlines.
00:00.320: I said that, you know, what I think you sometimes, I don't know that you forget it, but I feel like I just need to remind you.
00:00.320: How long would that take me to go through and premiere?
00:00.320: The best way possible.
00:00.320: I don't know how many clicks in Premiere takes one.
00:00.320: Are the ones that haven't taken the time to get to know how it works for you?
00:00.320: And really understanding not just fundamentally how to make a sequence, but okay, here's how the storyline works
00:00.320: In understanding, okay, this is how, and now I'm comfortable enough, and I got the timelines out, and the compound actually, the compound clips come through into Flame, which is kind of cool.
00:00.320: Right.
00:00.320: editorial is about iterations.
00:00.320: Oh, that's actually that's a great question.
00:00.320: You drop it in above your primary storyline.
00:00.320: Because you have the whole JPEG selected, it's going to put a cross-dissolve at the beginning and a cross-dissolve at the end.
00:00.320: Right?
00:00.320: At any rate, I agree.
00:00.320: It's almost, you know what it is?
00:00.320: And there are times when I want it to do that.
00:00.320: Like the only there's an end tag on it.
00:00.320: Don't put that in the show where you wave me off.
00:00.320: demo um suite at the Renaissance Hotel adjacent to NAB.
00:00.320: It's a good thing this is a radio show.
00:00.320: Right.
00:00.320: At Alex M13 on Twitter.
00:00.400: Really?
00:00.400: XML into basically into EDLs.
00:00.400: A way to get, and it actually was pretty complicated because that, I'm going on this huge tangent, but you know, they have the different types of XML when you export.
00:00.400: graphics, color, obviously finishing, music, you know, everything post for these commercials.
00:00.400: It's kind of a pain for me because if I'm running a session with seven, eight people and I need to stop and render something out.
00:00.400: There's two of them done.
00:00.400: Right.
00:00.400: Vimeo didn't like, it would just reject it, and you'd have to redo the whole process.
00:00.400: there's nothing else happening and the cuts locked.
00:00.400: At Slice, no joke, we probably posted, without exaggeration, at least 15, maybe as many as 20.
00:00.400: I'm when I got the footage, I'm going, Okay, there's a ton.
00:00.400: Okay.
00:00.400: Let's figure out what's going to work for this particular job.
00:00.400: Okay, the model of the car.
00:00.400: Front, rear, left, right, three quarter angle, you know, logos, stuff like that.
00:00.400: And I had to come in for a couple of days because Steve got really, really sick.
00:00.400: When I brought it into Final Cut, it automatically installed a LUT.
00:00.400: in this thing.
00:00.400: Anyway.
00:00.400: you know, we all their footage from the shoot comes directly to us.
00:00.400: All the time.
00:00.400: That all of your offline files were created correctly and that you've got the same time code, source time code, and real name, and clip name, and
00:00.400: You know, that becomes this big manual process.
00:00.400: And to be clear, what Flame is a finishing application, it's visual effects, compositing, timeline-based compositor.
00:00.400: On a crane shot, where you've got at 60 miles an hour.
00:00.400: We could technically do all we could use Final Cut 10 and we could break out all of the elements and farm all those shots out to, you know, all these artists, but how long would that take?
00:00.400: And so what how many I don't even know how many shots are in that rough cut a shitload of cuts.
00:00.400: Well, what I find very interesting is that so we should talk about the editorial process a little bit.
00:00.400: And what am I doing?
00:00.400: Nest or a compound clip.
00:00.400: I'm really liking 10 a lot for this project.
00:00.400: Alex, and you know, he gets really deep into stuff.
00:00.400: And Alex and I talked about this on Digital Cinema Cafe.
00:00.480: If you don't know already, you should be checking out PremiumBeat.
00:00.480: And he was just going on and on.
00:00.480: It may sort of direct which day you want to come by and check out the suite.
00:00.480: I understand you've been doing some flamework recently.
00:00.480: But that you know, that's really what something like Flame is good for.
00:00.480: What's that?
00:00.480: That was, I decided to do that in Premiere, and I hadn't cut anything in a while.
00:00.480: And I just did that myself in Premiere with Creative Cloud and actually cut that on a Windows computer on a Z820.
00:00.480: Quote unquote.
00:00.480: And put a slate on it and put the audio on it and do this and that, 'cause, you know, in my color system, I'm just whether we're you I'm on on DaVinci or Lustre
00:00.480: It's usually the way the schedules are.
00:00.480: But I don't want to.
00:00.480: Is what I had already started doing.
00:00.480: And that timeline can be kicked out.
00:00.480: My idea, and I have a tutorial called I think I called it like Poor Man's Dynamic Link.
00:00.480: And the version number, and then I hit export.
00:00.480: It takes that file, the four by four file, compresses it with my preset, then when which I like, then
00:00.480: And when you click on Do Nothing, the only application that is preset into there is QuickTime 7.
00:00.480: And you can actually edit all the fields of metadata.
00:00.480: Yeah, a lot of it can be ridiculous, but I'll say that, you know, where we are here, I mean, I think today
00:00.480: Yeah, no, it's interesting.
00:00.480: Just handle these for us.
00:00.480: Which is pretty cool, and I'm actually pretty flattered they asked me to do that.
00:00.480: With a camera crane on the roof.
00:00.480: Luckily, I got this stuff early and I really wanted to make sure I could look through this thoroughly to see what I had to work with.
00:00.480: And then you can go even further with that and got things like breaking down the panels of the car.
00:00.480: Put together, strung out like 30 seconds of different clips, kicked out a final Cut 10 XML, brought it into Flame, relinked to the original ProRes files, worked perfectly.
00:00.480: And that's for everything.
00:00.480: So they don't get scared that their footage looks like that.
00:00.480: Most of the time it's 1080.
00:00.480: Yes, we were talking about a controlled work environment, but even or consistent work environment, but even a closed work environment where
00:00.480: et cetera.
00:00.480: And it just baffles me that still in twenty fifteen that producers think that buying the cheapest hard drives for their camera negatives and hiring the cheapest person they can possibly find to manage their data
00:00.480: lots of on a car commercial, you've got a lot of cleanup that typically happens.
00:00.480: Debris on the side of the road.
00:00.480: I worked on a lot of um Jaguar commercials, and one of the things that we had to do for them was they shot with I guess I'm allowed to talk about this, they shot they shot with uh
00:00.480: After effects or even in final cuts.
00:00.480: How long would that take just to prep all those elements?
00:00.480: Try a lot more things a lot quicker and get a better product.
00:00.480: Here's how compound clips work and how to use them, and understanding this whole going a little deeper than just, you know
00:00.480: What was complicated about this job is just the vast amount of footage for this shoot.
00:00.480: On Friday, I think we got like seven versions
00:00.480: Yeah.
00:00.480: I think it's option V, and then I will ramp the opacity of the JPEG instead of putting a dissolve icon on it.
00:00.480: They are in the process of picking out the sessions, I think we're calling them, that we're going to do at their
00:00.480: Alex M13 and let Sam Mestman know.
00:00.480: You are totally putting me on the spot right now.
00:00.480: I'm ready to eat.
00:00.480: And you know, I taught him how to do that.
00:00.560: How much of it do they actually have to watch for it to count as a view?
00:00.560: How you know, is that five seconds or fifty seconds?
00:00.560: I've talked about it many times on the show.
00:00.560: we'll call it Final Cut Classic came out.
00:00.560: So, I've got a long NLE history, and what I talked about on that is that, you know, my mentor
00:00.560: I don't really have to cut things anymore very often.
00:00.560: Right.
00:00.560: the way things now are in the advertising world, people are very busy.
00:00.560: you're listening to Spotify or whatever.
00:00.560: And hit export again on that timeline because the sound is already there, the slate is already there.
00:00.560: Like I use the dynamic poor man's dynamic link, and I thought, okay, well, that's really interesting because after talking, I think it was, was it Alex Gallner we were talking to about?
00:00.560: And basically what I do before my session is, I render out and this is out of the color system to be clear.
00:00.560: it runs my compressions preset, which is automatically watching.
00:00.560: And the thing about this car stuff is that one take could be like 10 or 15 minutes long.
00:00.560: I put it all in the scratch system and I I turned it all into a ProRes proxy and uh put a a viewing lud on it, lookup table on it, just so it wasn't flat looking.
00:00.560: what color card were we going to use?
00:00.560: Then within that, you've got, okay, what are the takes that I like?
00:00.560: Just recently on a job that I kind of got orbited into it.
00:00.560: And I didn't know about this whole grading thing you guys were doing anyway, but I saw the footage.
00:00.560: Why is it going to take two hours to export my three-minute timeline or whatever?
00:00.560: And that's huge.
00:00.560: if they've got several editors, making sure that everybody understands how we like our stuff prepped and how they, frankly, more about how they want to do things.
00:00.560: Which they were, that becomes a big problem.
00:00.560: A giant composite effectively.
00:00.560: You want a box that you can do all that finishing.
00:00.560: I think I did all the prep myself.
00:00.560: And I think we're saving a lot of time on the editorial process.
00:00.560: And for the record, I'm not cutting it.
00:00.560: If you would like to hear more about Alex's, and I'm totally putting you on the spot here, and this is probably going to be one of those things where you can't
00:00.560: Not so much the final, it's the they don't want to understand what we're doing.
00:00.560: So that's it for this episode.
00:00.640: And you called me up the other day and you're like and it was kind of funny actually, because you're like, hey, so I've been working on this car project and
00:00.640: So I was you know I don't think NTSC was invented when I was 12 or 13 years old.
00:00.640: younger kids doing music videos that had never cut on anything else.
00:00.640: And it's kind of, so I just, I don't deal, and I don't do the same thing.
00:00.640: Open it in Anywhere HD, Anywhere Converter, or whatever it's called.
00:00.640: the drop zone window in that app.
00:00.640: To go back to the car spots.
00:00.640: I didn't realize Final Cut did this, but this is footage that was shot about six or eight months ago.
00:00.640: I won't say that.
00:00.640: Actually, shoots on the F55 a lot in 4K and on the Epic.
00:00.640: then it is going to be so much easier for me to do my job, which is editing, not debayering files and oh, this is going to take six and a half hours to export my time line.
00:00.640: Yes.
00:00.640: Oh, we're going to make more money on the editorial of this job because we're cutting it faster.
00:00.640: You can sift through this footage, you can sort through it, you can filter it, you can search through it, and you get access to your media faster.
00:00.640: Is that what I mean?
00:00.640: Yeah, you know, I'm not entirely sure why that has to be.
00:00.640: and get access to the programmers, what feature would you ask them or how would you ask them to change the software?
00:00.640: At any rate, I think it's fascinating that you got that.
00:00.720: FCP Works, FCP Works.
00:00.720: Well, because Final Cut was more accessible.
00:00.720: Recently, we cut our new company reel over Christmas break.
00:00.720: We were just talking about flame.
00:00.720: Chris here actually helped me design a post things workflow that we can briefly talk about.
00:00.720: They'll be at the audio post place next door or up the street another effects company or whatnot.
00:00.720: In our San Francisco office, and the job was an LA job.
00:00.720: Maybe if you have it.
00:00.720: So there's just tons of there's just a lot of footage.
00:00.720: I was looking at some footage.
00:00.720: If you listen to this, I will say that a lot of times I will try Steve would not approve.
00:00.720: Let's say you have, you know, the kind of stuff I do.
00:00.720: Well, it does it because you have the thing selected.
00:00.800: Uncle Alan, he at the time was, you know, you need to be on Avid and learn that.
00:00.800: Which is like That's like the super duper Windows model.
00:00.800: to the session.
00:00.800: I'm trying to figure out a way to do this.
00:00.800: We got something, client says, producer, creative director says, hey, this is looking really good.
00:00.800: And how much information you can get in and out of 10.
00:00.800: I want to back up one thing.
00:00.800: Who they do the cayenne.
00:00.800: I was not.
00:00.800: How am I going to organize this?
00:00.800: Online approvals is what kind of warmed you up or made you at least say, ah, you know, we'll give this a try.
00:00.800: Most of the tagging on my 13-inch MacBook Air.
00:00.800: And so that's kind of where we're at right now.
00:00.800: And when I brought the footage in then, it did I do not believe it automatically installed the LUT.
00:00.800: Studio two, I believe it was, with the Ducati footage.
00:00.800: At any rate, so that was for some I'd seen flat footage.
00:00.800: So what's going to be finished?
00:00.800: For most of the world, for the vast majority of people, myself included, most of the time, I'm finishing right in Final Cut.
00:00.800: The other really cool thing is we're at first rough cut now, so it was a holiday weekend, so that we're going to have to get I sent off a link to the client on Friday.
00:00.800: I got you.
00:00.800: And it's going to be.
00:00.880: And I wanted to use it, and probably also had a lot to do with they were telling me not to use it.
00:00.880: A few years ago when Final Cut 10 came out, some of my the first clients that were using Final Cut 10 were actually
00:00.880: I usually am not putting the audio in there.
00:00.880: What episode number, what album it goes to, the nick, you know, all of that.
00:00.880: You know, I just was kind of thinking, like, well, what if I use Final Cut 10?
00:00.880: And which is, you know, transcoding, where I, because I'm a big believer in this whole, you know, if you're just doing editorial and you're going
00:00.880: Yeah.
00:00.880: Okay.
00:00.960: So basically, what I recommend it doing is create a timeline that already has a slate, that already has the music track.
00:00.960: So, what that means is those frames are kicking into 10.
00:00.960: So that's the back story as to why I started getting into ten and why I was so interested in it is that I really started kind of unlocking all of this metadata stuff and did a lot of reading about how powerful
00:00.960: Excuse me.
00:00.960: Okay, this is pretty cool.
00:00.960: What did I say?
00:00.960: So the main thing is there's just a lot of little things that need to be done.
00:00.960: You know, it's pretty cool.
00:00.960: I mean, but but like I said on the phone the other day, welcome to the twenty-first century, you know.
00:00.960: We hope this is a hopefully that's helpful.
00:00.960: It's always fun to hear how people are using the software.
00:01.040: I'll tell you what the URL is.
00:01.040: Because before we hit record, you were going to say no, it's not it, whatever.
00:01.040: And that's just kind of part of our job, I guess.
00:01.040: And again, this is just the background to what this is what made you, because you wrestled with this problem in Final Cut, this is what made you decide, I'm going to try to cut this new thing in 10.
00:01.040: We need it by this date.
00:01.040: That all the workflow thing worked good.
00:01.040: Yeah, anyway, I mean, it's really like uh at this production we do da we do dailies um for a lot of our clients.
00:01.040: And not the specifics of the project, but we started this discussion because you were saying that
00:01.040: The like I was saying before, having the whole car thing mapped out, I mean, that's extremely specific, but I can see this being useful for any job really.
00:01.120: So, you know, hence the name, we pretty much do color correction and, you know, some light visual effects, you know, two D, not really three D.
00:01.120: Basic extended.
00:01.120: You can either use one of the Apple presets or create your own if you want to get into it that deep.
00:01.120: Really, there's no reason for it.
00:01.120: So I mean, at this point, it's exporting in XML.
00:01.120: Sometimes what I will actually do is go into the video animation panel where it's a comm uh what is it?
00:01.120: Anyway, that's it for this episode.
00:01.200: Because you're not doing editorial.
00:01.200: Correct.
00:01.200: Right.
00:01.200: I don't think I spent more than I definitely didn't even spend an entire day going through all that footage.
00:01.200: I forget what they call it, but it basically removed container and it just broke everything out on my timeline.
00:01.200: And this is the thing that I've been saying all along.
00:01.280: And then the other thing that you should know is I am now official.
00:01.280: There's no point in putting the temp in.
00:01.280: That goes out to the server, to the project folder.
00:01.280: I think in the I know that I deal with this just publishing the podcast.
00:01.280: Just did a real basic color pass on it with the LUT and it and put that all out because I knew I wanted something on my laptop that this was
00:01.280: I did some tests and I just put together like a extremely rough cut.
00:01.280: Now you're saying the original ones that did not have the color letter?
00:01.280: So I was messing with this footage, not actually cutting anything, but I had a lot of time to I got this footage a few weeks ago.
00:01.280: Are you really in but your versioning spots, you've got the three you've got the three twenty eight I, you've got the three thirty and the three hundred thirty five.
00:01.280: There you go, everybody.
00:01.280: Yeah, you would mention that.
00:01.280: I think so.
00:01.360: What version of Final Cut?
00:01.360: I really like that.
00:01.360: On kind of a crazy deadline.
00:01.360: I already had the file sitting there.
00:01.360: Yeah, we were talking the other day on the phone when you called me, and we were talking about, you know, the world of finishing.
00:01.440: I've been editing in Final Cut 10 and I really like it.
00:01.440: Yeah, this is the grill, baby.
00:01.440: You know, I'm an editor.
00:01.440: On that thing in Premiere to see, because I'm cutting from all these different masters and whatnot.
00:01.440: And we were talking about the the the tragedy, I'll call it, that I still have to deliver a lot of WMVs to some of my clients.
00:01.440: And that's, you know, from a finishing company standpoint, we have to be very open.
00:01.440: So now we're going to have to comp in, you know, if that take gets used, we're going to go put light we're going to have to go do, you know, not only a relight, but put in
00:01.440: And it's either work that's being done right in my time line, or it's something from After Effects that I drop into my timeline.
00:01.440: You know, version one that I sent out to the client was actually our version seven.
00:01.520: Remind me, what what is it called?
00:01.520: So I decided to, and actually I'm cutting them.
00:01.520: But upon export in that template, I tell it, when this is done exporting, I want you to open Adobe Media Encoder.
00:01.520: I've got my output from the luster.
00:01.520: Okay, I've got my timeline set up and I need to see what's going to work in this amount of time and how can I shuttle these shuffle these shots around.
00:01.600: So the idea was set the render paths.
00:01.600: So if that upload if I were to, let's say, upload to Vimeo, and you could use Vimeo Pro because you can program encoder to do that, we use FTP instead.
00:01.600: But you could have also let Final Cut do all your proxies.
00:01.600: And I don't know if I'm going to be able.
00:01.680: That thing's got like 12, 1300 views.
00:01.680: It outputs a Texas master.
00:01.680: So it has a little drop window where you drop your files and you choose where I want it to go.
00:01.680: Here I am.
00:01.760: I'm like, yeah.
00:01.760: You were trying to come up with the most streamlined way to export your time line and get it posted.
00:01.760: That file's in there.
00:01.760: So it's really cool to use that open with command in the export window.
00:01.760: Red footage.
00:01.840: It takes a lot of a lot of times, I've got seven or eight clients supervising a session.
00:01.840: The scratch track?
00:01.840: But basically, well, I was trying to do this like I was writing a script basically for After Effect.
00:01.840: First step would be prep a project, and I made a template with a slate and how I like everything laid out.
00:01.840: Okay.
00:01.840: But in Final Cut 10, I was actually able to say, when done, kicking that Texas Master
00:01.840: There's a lot of uses for it.
00:01.840: Now Can I get that job?
00:01.840: That I cut.
00:01.840: You could do that.
00:01.840: What am I missing from the whole you know?
00:01.920: Do me a favor.
00:01.920: Stuff like that.
00:02.000: Well, because the reality is, I don't want to make seven people wait ten minutes for me to put together it doesn't matter that it and yeah, I could set it up before the session and this and that.
00:02.000: I just thought it'd be cool to just enter a bunch of info: year, date, time that file was created, a bunch of just
00:02.000: It basically is just a utility.
00:02.000: So that's one thing.
00:02.000: I don't know why it needs to be there.
00:02.080: You mentioned a couple minutes ago.
00:02.080: It is only QuickTime seven.
00:02.080: But that's not like a service we really offer.
00:02.080: And then they finish, you know, 1080 ProRes 4x4 out of Premiere.
00:02.080: You gotta be able to know.
00:02.080: You know, just stuff like that that you don't even think about.
00:02.080: So, what I'm expecting to happen is we have a lot of alt takes for everything.
00:02.080: He hasn't asked me about this at all.
00:02.160: We're going to be doing shows on April 13th, 14th, and 15th.
00:02.160: Some of the ones I've worked on have a lot of views.
00:02.160: Oh, had you started that?
00:02.160: Yeah.
00:02.160: Through the share menu, which is kind of cool.
00:02.160: I've been using this for two and a half years, and now I find this out.
00:02.160: I'm not worried at all.
00:02.160: He just called me up out of the blue and he goes, Yeah, I'm cutting that thing in 10.
00:02.240: So we're often having to do web postings like you do for editing and that.
00:02.240: And I say, sure.
00:02.320: It's approaching a million views.
00:02.320: Yeah, so a lot of times they're doing both at the same time.
00:02.320: At first, it was okay.
00:02.320: Oh, sorry.
00:02.320: A lot of times they don't want to bring out, you know, like if they're shooting, if you're shooting the BMW
00:02.320: Let's say, oh, I didn't break my con I we would always break down a compound clip or a nest, whatever app you're in.
00:02.400: This is episode 111, 111 of these Good Grief.
00:02.400: And what I did, it was all shot ProRus 444 on the Alexa.
00:02.400: So I started making keyword collections.
00:02.400: Have you messed around yet?
00:02.400: I don't like working that way.
00:02.400: It doesn't bother me.
00:02.400: One of the biggest mistakes I see is this actually happened on a job a couple of weeks ago where people try to cut corners on things like dailies
00:02.400: is a smart thing to do, but apparently this happens all the time.
00:02.400: Yes, and we were talking about this.
00:02.400: Alex McLean says it's perfect.
00:02.400: I forgot about this.
00:02.400: It's almost like a transparent, I'll call it a transparent compound clip.
00:02.400: We'll be back next time with another episode of The Grill.
00:02.480: He's the co-host of Digital Cinema Cafe.
00:02.480: Because we're not doing editing.
00:02.480: and I was just dreading the day for this to happen at the time, I remember.
00:02.480: There's different settings within.
00:02.480: And the reason for having that is that when you do get a real color file, you're just replacing that in your Finder folder.
00:02.480: Now there's a couple of other and now just for the other people who aren't doing quite as who don't want to do quite as many steps as what you're doing, there are other things you can do.
00:02.480: And when that opens, even though the application is already open, it basically is as though I dragged that file and drop it into that Go window.
00:02.480: I just thought it was cool.
00:02.480: You've got you really got to make it look good.
00:02.480: Really?
00:02.480: And what's interesting is setting up 10 in a way using the magnetic timeline to be able to actually do that a lot quicker.
00:02.480: There's the end tags temp right now.
00:02.560: P just pull your mic down about three inches.
00:02.560: So you can say, when I'm done, I want you to open this with.
00:02.560: You told me it was Airy footage, right?
00:02.560: So I try to think about that and how I can make your job as an editor easier.
00:02.640: So then, as I mentioned before, you know, I'm primarily a colorist, but I can kind of jump in and do
00:02.640: They've already been shot for something else.
00:02.640: They also do a mini cooper, too.
00:02.640: When was that?
00:02.640: So the so messing around with the workflow that you and I came up with for your
00:02.640: But if you want to hear more about Alex's Flame Workflow, I happen to know that the guys at FCP Works
00:02.720: That's kind of buried.
00:02.720: Now, if it the upload failed, all I got to do is just re-upload the file.
00:02.800: I'm just trying to get everyone to focus on color.
00:02.800: Yeah, Alexa footage, whatever.
00:02.800: We color correct the raw files.
00:02.800: So things like that.
00:02.800: I probably would have a lot more complaints if we were trying to actually finish the job in there.
00:02.880: fcpworks.
00:02.880: There's like basic XML.
00:02.880: It's something.
00:02.880: So this thing came up.
00:02.880: But that might be something interesting.
00:02.960: He's like, ah, you know, the search engine is so much better than the other websites.
00:02.960: And I, you know, I'm in the, I'm in a world where I finish within my application.
00:02.960: And what's cool about the Luster is the way that I run it is
00:02.960: I think it's only QuickTime seven.
00:02.960: So, like what type of organization?
00:02.960: And maybe I guess you can play Devil's Advocate here.
00:02.960: Right.
00:02.960: Right.
00:02.960: Right.
00:03.040: But so I just started this new project where I had a client
00:03.040: We could have just cut the I mean, we could have just cut the ARI files, no problem.
00:03.040: He was cutting that footage and he was demoing color back then.
00:03.040: Yeah.
00:03.040: And it's just not practical to do in final cut.
00:03.040: So, what was pretty cool is that that actually came through in Flame, and then I could say, like, you know
00:03.120: And then you, I couldn't get you to shut up.
00:03.120: So sometimes I don't, clients we work with a lot, they don't even necessarily get to come in
00:03.120: Actually, you didn't even come to me.
00:03.120: My timeline's green, it's slated, it's lined up.
00:03.120: What you're talking about in terms of your being able to kick out your XML and get it into Flame, that's for that top end stuff.
00:03.200: This was, I think, version four I got on Final Cut Classic.
00:03.200: I've just found, in my experience, it gets very confusing because then the expectations are set.
00:03.200: And you're using the FTP uploader built into
00:03.200: Right.
00:03.200: What shots were good?
00:03.200: So, you know, going back to the finishing thing, it's not practical in a commercial environment where you could go through, yeah, we could technically do
00:03.200: The magnetic timeline is either your friend or it's your enemy.
00:03.200: I mean, it's relatively, it's a simple, I guess it's a simple thing.
00:03.200: If you only want it on the one spot, just select the transition point and hit Command-T.
00:03.200: I could try.
00:03.200: There is going to be a DCC meetup, and we will give you more details about that as we get closer.
00:03.280: Because I think the last episode you're saying that you've just done your demo reel and premiere.
00:03.280: Gotcha.
00:03.280: , all timed properly.
00:03.280: This blew me away.
00:03.280: Yeah.
00:03.280: It's basically I'm the creative on this.
00:03.280: I can't sit there and say, actually, you know, guys, you shot on this.
00:03.280: No, I know, I know.
00:03.280: And also if there's anyone else out there using a similar workflow, I'd love to hear about what you're doing.
00:03.360: Hey, Sam.
00:03.360: Yeah.
00:03.360: And so I just hit Command E, Enter, Enter, and as soon as the Texas Master is done, it automatically goes into Anywhere HD.
00:03.360: Now, no, I will say for publishing the show, the way I do it, the workflow that I do for our shows, is I take the MP3 that I create.
00:03.360: So before I it once I started looking through the footage and really spent any time tagging it, I said, okay
00:03.360: It almost except for the last shot, it's basically the entire spot is one shot.
00:03.360: I got this great editor named, his name's James.
00:03.360: You know?
00:03.360: I mean, I think my comfort level is also that we're not finishing it in there, probably.
00:03.360: But if I'm just butting a couple of clips against each other because I want to dissolve them, do I really have to do that?
00:03.360: One three now?
00:03.360: And I really want to say that you got to understand.
00:03.360: And he was like, he called me like the next day.
00:03.440: So I say, No, I want to use Final Cut.
00:03.440: I'll go on like a 25-minute tangent, but we can do that later.
00:03.440: And that's where I enter in the name of the show, who the host is.
00:03.440: And yeah, it's startling when you, if you don't know what you're about to see
00:03.520: Yeah.
00:03.520: The reference track that the reference kick that they send you.
00:03.520: It was done.
00:03.520: I'm just going to look through some footage.
00:03.520: Within the model of the car, you've got different types of shots.
00:03.520: Right.
00:03.520: Right.
00:03.520: And it was funny because on the phone the other day, you go, Yeah, I've been hearing you say this.
00:03.520: I'm like putting, you know, a keynote slide over somebody talking for 10 minutes, right?
00:03.520: So again, check out Premium Beat.
00:03.600: I'll make all the clips green or red or something like that, just something really distinguishable.
00:03.600: Right.
00:03.600: And we you and I had a discussion once about talking with producers and say, well, how many effect shots are there going to be?
00:03.680: But I wasn't really dealing in Final Cut 10.
00:03.680: Right.
00:03.680: Why not?
00:03.680: Reject shots.
00:03.680: I like working in a very traditional offline to online workflow.
00:03.680: That would have taken me a lot of time.
00:03.680: And Alex, thanks for doing this.
00:03.680: All right, so that's another interview.
00:03.760: What?
00:03.760: Yeah.
00:03.760: There's the audio post place is literally in the same building as us.
00:03.760: You know, if you don't have the same names or even the same time code
00:03.760: Well, you never know until you're sitting there.
00:03.760: But where you have to be able to use a different tool.
00:03.760: I really like.
00:03.840: com.
00:03.840: That's just, that's, I don't know.
00:03.840: And we're like, oh, that's kind of cool.
00:03.840: So this is basically a full full-blown post job.
00:03.840: I'm trying to s fill a thirty second hole or a fifteen second hole, you know, thirty second or fifteen second version.
00:03.840: Like how many times can I can I try this?
00:03.840: Bypassing marketing, bypassing sales.
00:03.920: Okay.
00:03.920: Then I've got my output with my slate and my info.
00:03.920: Well, maybe.
00:04.000: Have I been on this show before?
00:04.000: But the moral the point of the story was so that was kind of my first introduction of Final Cut ten was
00:04.000: Now, before you go down the metadata rat hole, which I want to hear about, because you again, you showed me stuff there.
00:04.000: It wasn't even, like I said, we don't really cut.
00:04.000: Okay.
00:04.080: Yeah, and I think that's all simplified now.
00:04.080: Now, we also, I think.
00:04.080: It was like, okay, great.
00:04.080: So what is the workflow to get a Final Cat ten time line into Flame for finishing?
00:04.080: But sometimes, just because I don't want to see that little black wrapper, that storyline wrapper
00:04.160: I'm Rowley.
00:04.160: Why did you not want to use Avid?
00:04.160: So, like, I'm always getting these calls from you about, oh, I'm kidding, and you're talking about stuff that I don't
00:04.160: I have a ton of uh footage here to go through, you know, eight days.
00:04.160: I was comfortable and said, okay, let's do this.
00:04.160: Right.
00:04.240: So that's FCP Works, and I'm involved in that.
00:04.240: I mean, you you guys just have music playing.
00:04.240: Then I walk over to the Mac, I change the time on the slate.
00:04.240: Okay.
00:04.240: It's right in front of you.
00:04.240: Is that something I could get?
00:04.240: It's kind of funny.
00:04.240: That'll be final down the road.
00:04.320: It's fixing the things, the unforeseen.
00:04.320: Yeah.
00:04.320: Right.
00:04.320: Inside that compound clip, I've got on my bottom track a picture reference with audio attached to it.
00:04.320: And what I did in 10 Commandee is I made a new preset.
00:04.320: So, anyways, this long tangent about my postings workflow.
00:04.320: So I'm pretty much just effectively starting from scratch.
00:04.320: Camera sh stuff, whatever.
00:04.320: I mean, you know, there's people we work with all the time and they'll shoot one of our clients.
00:04.320: And the easy if you want to dissolve in and out of that slide, the easiest thing to do is to select the slide and hit Command T.
00:04.320: And it may not happen, but I do want to say that we have a lot of great stuff that we're working on with FCP Works.
00:04.400: com.
00:04.400: I know that sounds really good.
00:04.400: A lot actually.
00:04.400: We were just talking over dinner.
00:04.400: And I had a bunch of stuff working.
00:04.400: So there's Russian Armed Hero, which there could be 10 cool shots from one take within, right?
00:04.400: So I don't deal with flame.
00:04.400: Where yeah, it sounds simple, but
00:04.400: And I just don't want to sometimes I just don't want to look at the storyline wrapper.
00:04.400: You're not doing thirteen?
00:04.480: And we are going to be at the NAB.
00:04.480: You have a single file that is, you could even make this
00:04.480: But here's the deal.
00:04.480: Because I know what you did.
00:04.480: That's going to make my job a lot easier.
00:04.480: Deadlines were not an issue, and it was just, oh, yeah, you guys can have like three months to compile yeah, sure, we could finish it in Final Cut ten.
00:04.480: I believe his Twitter handle is, I don't know, you know, Sam
00:04.560: So, anyway, this episode is that story.
00:04.560: I am working with FC Goodgrief, I should know this.
00:04.560: com.
00:04.560: Basically, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be having a bunch of shows, a whole bunch of sessions.
00:04.560: And that's part of my preset.
00:04.560: That's I delivered that, which is great because then I did this music video a few weeks ago
00:04.560: Okay.
00:04.560: We did that the other day.
00:04.640: But yeah, Final Cup just made more sense
00:04.640: I'm involved with editing, but I'm not the one driving.
00:04.640: So I told it in my preset, and also
00:04.640: And I'm basically being asked, okay, we want you to do this car, we want this many we want this many spot X number of spots.
00:04.640: This was gonna be cut in Premiere when these dailies were made.
00:04.640: We make them I think we make those guys ProRes LT.
00:04.640: If you're interested in that, tweet Alex and say, Alex, we want to hear more about Flame.
00:04.720: He really digs it.
00:04.720: So that's really cool.
00:04.720: And so because of that, I mean, I will say you know, you do, you know more about edit systems than any editor I know because you have to interface with them.
00:04.720: Well, there was a library XML and a project XML, I believe, or an event XML.
00:04.720: You said the default thing is QuickTime 7.
00:04.720: And there's all kinds of really interesting stuff in there, like copyright info, all the way to like iTunes level, publishing.
00:04.720: None of this footage was used.
00:04.720: I remember the first time I saw flat footage.
00:04.720: So, but the flame workflows were cool, and I did quite a bit of testing.
00:04.720: Or things like I've worked on a lot of car commercials, and one of the most common things is doing emblem removal.
00:04.720: Like, I don't know.
00:04.720: I'm like, Really?
00:04.800: And he says to me, he goes, Hey, man, I.
00:04.800: There you go.
00:04.800: So to post something for review,
00:04.800: And at this time, I still hadn't committed to doing it in 10.
00:04.880: And I was wondering that because it's, I mean,
00:04.880: I'm just being a so why do you think you you were like that?
00:04.880: So and that's how we did that because I it was just a necessity out of, oh, we have like I remember the first time it was what did you guys cut on?
00:04.880: I don't want to distract anyone.
00:04.880: So, what you're getting at here.
00:04.880: And I started just dwindling the footage down.
00:04.880: Yep.
00:04.960: So, anyways.
00:04.960: They are the producer a lot of the producers are kind of really overworked.
00:04.960: So, that means that if someone says, hey, can we post this?
00:04.960: Then different locations, too.
00:04.960: Oh, I know.
00:05.040: It's a tough job.
00:05.040: I'm going, Okay, well, that's interesting because the compressions are actually pretty damn good out of 10.
00:05.040: Why don't you explain what what you found there?
00:05.040: So I just put some nerdy stuff in there, like job number and things that you would never even see if you're, you know.
00:05.040: So, well, a lot of this stuff.
00:05.040: And then you've got a driver, you've got an operator, a couple operators, and you've got the DP riding in there and the director.
00:05.040: I wonder if I could use this project in the demo.
00:05.120: And then I couldn't get him to shut up.
00:05.120: Really?
00:05.200: Hey, happy tax day.
00:05.200: Is that better?
00:05.200: What made you because I didn't even ask you this the other day, I was just like, oh, cool, you're using 10.
00:05.200: I think that's called ID3 tags.
00:05.200: Yeah, very USB 3Drive.
00:05.200: And that was the computer that I had to work with.
00:05.200: Later, later.
00:05.280: You know, that's a good question because, for example,
00:05.280: Navrat and another guy were actually the lead on it.
00:05.280: But I think I got a bunch of people sick from it too.
00:05.280: You know, you don't want to have well, there aren't tracks in Final Cut Ten, but, you know, let's say you've got forty seven
00:05.280: Yeah, and motion blur.
00:05.280: If there's no 3D stuff that needs to happen, let's say we could, it's all 2D, right?
00:05.280: We will see you at NAB April 13th.
00:05.360: I don't know how much.
00:05.360: But so the default on exporting a file, it asks you, do you want to do something after?
00:05.360: It would encode it, but then if there if the internet connection was slow during the middle of the day or if there was something
00:05.360: So I took
00:05.360: Right.
00:05.360: We give them back.
00:05.360: Well, and to be fair,
00:05.440: You have.
00:05.440: And so I, of course, the thirteen-year-old kid, I'm like, I don't want to use Avid, I want to use Final Cut, because everyone's they're all telling me
00:05.440: So I'm cutting them in Final Cut 10.
00:05.440: Gotcha.
00:05.440: Oh, interesting.
00:05.440: That's like a six day shoot, right?
00:05.440: Yeah.
00:05.440: Correct.
00:05.440: No, it's not perfect.
00:05.440: Wow.
00:05.520: So, my name is Chris Fenwick, you should know that by now.
00:05.520: So that'd be normally ProRes 4x4.
00:05.520: But that's twenty different things that have to be tracked and billed
00:05.520: Like, on that's a 30-second spot.
00:05.520: I really want to know the footage.
00:05.520: And when I say saving time, I don't mean like
00:05.520: He's like, oh my God, this is so great.
00:05.600: You were on 76.
00:05.600: Anyway, so hey, welcome to the show.
00:05.600: Yeah.
00:05.600: That's why I always preach the job.
00:05.600: So you could think about that.
00:05.600: Appreciate it.
00:05.680: I was just.
00:05.680: So at any rate, Flame is great for solving problems.
00:05.680: And then I've got my two pop at the end.
00:05.680: Yeah, and actually the original idea behind before the Median Coder thing was
00:05.680: So I colored this thing and
00:05.680: The one I showed you with the guy standing in front of the building.
00:05.680: One three on Twit.
00:05.760: And he was just going on.
00:05.760: I know that Paul and I around the office, we've been watching remember a couple of years ago I did that Seven Lines video?
00:05.760: I mean, like, we're like 20 minutes.
00:05.760: And they just that's what they had, and they cut the red files and they so I had to write
00:05.760: And they go, Oh, Final Cut ten and I'm going, Oh, fuck So Can you send me your project?
00:05.760: So we're sitting over at Chipotle in the financial district, and you're like telling me what you're going to do.
00:05.760: Now that file is brought into Final Cut 10 into a compound clip.
00:05.760: Right.
00:05.760: Yeah, yeah, the original 444.
00:05.760: No, seriously, though.
00:05.840: So you were working on one thing that turned in a little bit of a nightmare.
00:05.840: Which hence the postings thing where they'll schedule
00:05.840: Great.
00:05.840: All of those fields are actually of all in Final Cut 10.
00:05.840: So, you know, I figured, you know what, let's cut these in final cut 10.
00:05.840: Basically, just a lot of shuttling through footage, watching tons of stuff, and then finding takes.
00:05.840: And he actually I don't know if I'm supposed to say this anyway.
00:05.840: So are you really going to farm out fifty shots to ten guys?
00:05.920: Because a couple of months ago he came he was
00:05.920: So, anyway, that's what we're talking about in this episode.
00:05.920: They'll they'll just play a music video, but a lot of times they'll change songs.
00:05.920: And you're like, Yeah, I'm going to write this thing and blah, blah, blah.
00:05.920: Okay.
00:05.920: And then you started getting deeper and deeper into well.
00:05.920: I understand what it look what flat footage means.
00:05.920: So as a result, if the dailies are made incorrectly for offline
00:05.920: That'll be built in flame.
00:05.920: Okay.
00:05.920: Thanks for having me.
00:06.000: NAB 2015 is right on the front page.
00:06.000: Definitely not.
00:06.000: Yeah.
00:06.000: There was other footage for other things in there I know I didn't want.
00:06.000: So you're taking this was all red footage, epic footage?
00:06.000: Oh, really?
00:06.080: Just the other day, I was working with one of my producers that I worked with.
00:06.080: You're never listening to the content 'cause it's because it's irrelevant.
00:06.080: Now, what's interesting, this is something that
00:06.080: Right.
00:06.080: Well, it's interesting with the cut of this thing subconsciously.
00:06.080: Okay.
00:06.160: We're going to be at the Renaissance Hotel, which is adjacent to the
00:06.160: Hello.
00:06.160: We do corporate videos too.
00:06.160: Okay.
00:06.160: Again, I'll put that in the show notes.
00:06.160: I was like, oh, wow, that looks horrible.
00:06.160: And Chris was just talking about this project I did last week where this entire commercial is basically
00:06.240: Yeah, it's know it's understanding enough about all the different things out there.
00:06.240: And some projects were
00:06.240: So you can then say, no.
00:06.240: Now, you know, several months ago, or maybe last year now, well, it was last year.
00:06.240: So the first thing was, I got all the footage, and we actually put it in our
00:06.240: Yeah, you know, you got to put the emblem in you got interior, exterior well, not exterior, that's pretty odd.
00:06.320: And it makes sense because I.
00:06.320: Yeah, so let me just walk through the process here.
00:06.320: The problem is that I found that
00:06.320: Sometimes they actually do deliver 4K, that particular client.
00:06.320: So why do I need to take the why can't I finish this job in Final Cut 10, right?
00:06.320: I'm liking how fast things are coming together with it.
00:06.400: You were also on the 100th episode, which is on YouTube, which, by the way.
00:06.400: Just takes a bunch of info, inserts it, job number, et cetera, hides it.
00:06.400: And and
00:06.400: They called me and they said, you know, hey, do you want to
00:06.400: Apply a LUT.
00:06.400: And I had done this on a previous version of Final Cut last summer.
00:06.400: There's a lot of invisible visual effects work that are done in commercials.
00:06.400: And even just the stuff that I was doing myself where
00:06.400: It's not aesthetically pleasing, Apple.
00:06.480: But I this was right when Final Cut was coming.
00:06.480: So I want you know, it made me want to use it more.
00:06.480: Do you know?
00:06.480: There's multiple render paths.
00:06.480: And I wouldn't know.
00:06.480: And I happen to know that they it's a very good chance they would be interested in having you come
00:06.480: So, at any rate, thanks for being here.
00:06.560: I go, I know, I know.
00:06.560: Now, if you go to, let me, wait, I thought I had a browser open.
00:06.560: Okay.
00:06.560: But to do a web posting for a color job, it's kind of a
00:06.560: We'll bring in, you know, we brought in an editor for this job.
00:06.560: And you made your proxies in Scratch.
00:06.560: Why?
00:06.560: Even though we're only at rough cut here, just what I've found in ten.
00:06.560: I think there are times when it's beneficial to be there, but it's almost like
00:06.640: And anyway, big deal there.
00:06.640: Do you know?
00:06.640: I mean, we use it for other things, but it run ran on there, so I figured I'd cut
00:06.640: From 10.
00:06.640: Now, we have sort of an old school workflow to deal with our tracking and billing.
00:06.640: It had nothing to do with what we actually ended up using, but really rough cut.
00:06.640: You've got reflections of the running car.
00:06.640: So at any rate, it's looking like it's going to be okay.
00:06.640: I'm trying to think about what
00:06.720: Like, literally, for like 20 minutes, I'm just going, mm-hmm.
00:06.720: Well, Ann, it's usually that I mean
00:06.720: Go to the share menu, you can actually right click and show more options.
00:06.720: I would like that job.
00:06.720: There's different areas of where the car was shot and blah.
00:06.720: It's not what we're doing every day.
00:06.720: But, anyways.
00:06.720: We'll be back on the cafe soon, I think.
00:06.720: So much faster.
00:06.800: I pretty much am always dealing with just interfacing it up.
00:06.800: So when encoder launches
00:06.800: You've got all the Russian arm stuff, which is a ton of footage, which is anything on the camera crane.
00:06.800: Things like that, just cleaning up a time line, making sure it's good, making sure that if you are doing an offline to online workflow,
00:06.800: It's more organization as far as it actually going smoothly than the
00:06.800: Yeah, why does it when I add a dissolve, why does it put it on both ends?
00:06.800: They don't want to show people how hard it was to get there.
00:06.880: DCC08
00:06.880: So now you have now I've got three levels of
00:06.880: You don't have to answer me.
00:06.960: And I was really excited when Sam and Noah asked me to be a part of that.
00:06.960: So now I color
00:06.960: Yeah, yeah, we were talking the other day about the benefits of having
00:06.960: I think, I think he and I are going to do a tutorial or something about how he's using Fanovat 10 for his approval cycles.
00:07.040: When I was driving over here, I was going.
00:07.040: Anyways, I'm also inserting a whole bunch of metadata into those files.
00:07.040: Is that what that's called?
00:07.040: Then they don't have to deal with all this unpredictable stuff.
00:07.040: Lots of, you know, it's and it's really quick work.
00:07.040: And I said
00:07.040: So I, you know
00:07.040: I cannot stand that when you put a cross dissolve in, it has to be in that it puts it into that storyline.
00:07.120: I don't have to re you know
00:07.120: See, here's so here's an interesting point: a lot of this stuff seems silly.
00:07.120: And then I was like.
00:07.120: So, let me ask you this last question that I ask people on this show: if you could sneak in the back door at Apple.
00:07.120: I mean, to be honest, I
00:07.120: Spell it out, you know.
00:07.120: So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chat.
00:07.200: It's editorial
00:07.200: Yeah, I think eight eight day shoot on, you know, Russian arms.
00:07.200: So I got to say, I really enjoy chatting with
00:07.280: And I said, Well, you could totally solve that problem with Final Caten.
00:07.280: So I can jump on the flame and do stuff.
00:07.280: Yeah, so if you're, you know.
00:07.280: You started to just use Final Cut just to
00:07.280: And I spend a lot of my time interfacing with the people that are in charge of if it's a bigger company.
00:07.280: Right.
00:07.280: We won't actually use containers for when we online, but
00:07.360: So now this job just started the other day, so we're basically at a first rough cut.
00:07.360: Like I said, you were on the phone the other day.
00:07.440: Oh, yeah, it was much more accessible at the time.
00:07.440: So
00:07.440: I don't want them to have to wait 15 minutes to put a thirty second spot up.
00:07.440: Let's send this off to so-and-so.
00:07.440: So, anyways, these were shot on a cayenne.
00:07.440: As a matter of fact, this is something that I was showing you earlier.
00:07.440: So that's a new feature in Final Cut that I didn't realize it did because we typically do that.
00:07.440: Lots of a ton of compositing is going to have to be done on this job.
00:07.520: So you take that audio, you leave it in there.
00:07.520: And then I've got
00:07.520: So we're cutting on ProRes Proxy because I actually did.
00:07.520: Okay, so we were shooting
00:07.520: Right, Apple color, right?
00:07.520: And they don't want to deal with transcoding all that.
00:07.520: Well, that's not going to happen, but what it's doing from a creative standpoint is we're able to get
00:07.520: And the people who call the magnetic timeline their enemy
00:07.600: I mean, obviously, it's good for a lot of things, but it seems to me like Yeah, no, it wasn't a nightmare at all.
00:07.600: You were going on and on about all the organizational stuff in 10.
00:07.600: And it was something that we just had around, and I had to reaccess it today.
00:07.600: Right, right, right.
00:07.600: And he goes, yeah, it's supposed to look like that.
00:07.600: You know, I want to know exactly, like we talked about with the color postings workflow.
00:07.600: It was an eight-day shoot.
00:07.600: So I ramp the opacity instead of doing the dissolve icon.
00:07.600: I don't know if I could demo this pro.
00:07.680: You might know.
00:07.680: No, it still has it in there.
00:07.680: So I can choose, tell that thing to go into my compressions folder, which is the way I like to work, have a separate folder.
00:07.680: So what I did is I took the
00:07.680: I just figured, you know.
00:07.680: But at any rate, the point being, and I've said this all along.
00:07.680: Right.
00:07.680: Let me I'm gonna say one last thing and then we should wrap this up
00:07.760: So
00:07.760: So anyways, they're actually if you look at the guy the guys that do it in LA are Pursuit Systems.
00:07.760: And for me, from an editorial standpoint, if I know
00:07.760: And that's the only thing I have to worry about is: oh, what's the frame rate?
00:07.760: I showed you a rough cut of this thing I'm doing.
00:07.760: We want a shot like this, we want a shot like that, blah, blah, blah.
00:07.760: Not that it's transparent in its opacity.
00:07.840: I go, mm-hmm.
00:07.840: Yeah, so to backtrack a little bit, you know, first of all,
00:07.840: Let me back up a little here.
00:07.840: And this is why I've always
00:07.840: Yeah, that's why I always preach using the Texas package because that can be all the right in the thing.
00:07.840: Maybe, I probably won't.
00:07.840: Right.
00:07.840: Just did this thing on Premiere, and one of the keyboard shortcuts that I used if I'm cutting myself
00:07.920: Can you see that online?
00:07.920: Bring in the picture reference, which has scratch audio on it.
00:07.920: So, anyway, that's what I wanted to say.
00:07.920: So
00:07.920: Oh, well, one of a couple of the shots are from the Phantom camera.
00:07.920: Or none, really.
00:08.000: This is not what this is supposed to be.
00:08.000: So, you know
00:08.080: And at the time, I thought that was cool.
00:08.080: So for what we do coloring, it's often
00:08.080: Uh basically you've got a really fast SUV
00:08.080: They're on Premiere.
00:08.080: So
00:08.160: Yeah.
00:08.160: And not that it takes longer to render out a thirty second spot, but those frames are overriding in the background.
00:08.160: I think the Final Cut thing was, I don't remember exactly how it happened.
00:08.160: Don't give me those evil eyes right now.
00:08.160: We're going to get there a little early.
00:08.240: All you got to do is change the version on the slate or the time and date, however you want to do it.
00:08.240: So what Alex is talking about is when you hit Command E for your export,
00:08.240: Right.
00:08.320: And we also go into a very interesting thing.
00:08.320: And today I have a very interesting episode.
00:08.320: Right.
00:08.320: And it's on my website.
00:08.320: Alexa footage.
00:08.320: It's just, well, it's a simple edit, but as far as
00:08.320: So I'm not, you know, we're put gonna do temp stuff.
00:08.320: Thanks for all the input and thanks for going down these giant
00:08.400: Yes, so in the share menu, if you select a file I don't have I'm not in front of a computer right now, but
00:08.480: And I said, Well, and to be fair, I could, yeah, everyone's listening going.
00:08.480: And
00:08.480: So you're just kind of autopilot.
00:08.480: Okay.
00:08.480: Just knowing that I can get it out of there.
00:08.560: It was on an avid when I was 12 or 13 years old.
00:08.560: Rebel.
00:08.560: They've got a lot of accounts in their
00:08.560: What do I want in there that I think
00:08.560: Okay, so here's no, no, no, here's something that's quite interesting.
00:08.640: So you'll want to get a schedule from them because it may
00:08.640: When you post something on YouTube and somebody clicks on it to watch it.
00:08.640: But I'll say, I'm going to say this for you: that you are
00:08.640: So, cut on Premiere, I really think Premiere is Final Cut 8.
00:08.640: 264
00:08.640: So
00:08.640: I think we've we've covered it on Cafe before.
00:08.640: Are you really gonna bring all three cars out to shoot?
00:08.640: Or, you know, 30 seconds.
00:08.720: So click on that.
00:08.720: Right.
00:08.720: Yeah.
00:08.800: Yeah, I know.
00:08.800: It's just kind of a special case.
00:08.800: So so at the point that you made all your
00:08.800: Yeah, I see.
00:08.880: We won't go into that.
00:08.880: So like all day to day
00:08.880: He got a bunch of people sick.
00:08.880: No, this was all Alexa.
00:08.880: Correct.
00:08.880: Right.
00:08.960: So those were
00:08.960: And I was like.
00:08.960: And I'm like, really?
00:09.040: So here's
00:09.040: So now
00:09.040: Most of the time, applying a LUT is just purely a client-facing thing.
00:09.040: Do you remember Final Cut?
00:09.040: He
00:09.040: I don't know why.
00:09.040: Yeah.
00:09.040: No, they just don't want to show the car before it's done.
00:09.040: Yeah, I'll do a little wrap-up.
00:09.120: And Chris was just teasing me because last week I had to composite this project together.
00:09.200: That's why Paul allows you in the building here, by the way.
00:09.200: They sent us the footage early 'cause it had already been shot for something else before they even really told me what they wanted.
00:09.280: Yep.
00:09.280: And I think some of those things are for things like
00:09.280: It's not germane to what you're actually doing.
00:09.280: And then on top of that is this file that I just outputted, my green file.
00:09.280: So, then you then
00:09.280: Pretty much a blank canvas with eight days of
00:09.280: It was Monday.
00:09.280: So let's talk about briefly
00:09.280: I guess delete.
00:09.280: So maybe, you know, oh, oh, and the other thing is
00:09.360: A couple of little bits of business.
00:09.360: So I threw out this suggestion.
00:09.360: So tweet me.
00:09.440: So what is qualifying is, yeah, this has one hundred and fifty million views, but
00:09.440: But the point was that
00:09.440: So I had to figure out a way to convert a final cut
00:09.440: They cut it 1920 by 1080.
00:09.440: And that's why, you know, the flame is great because you've got
00:09.520: Is that on your website?
00:09.520: By default, it's actually set to do nothing.
00:09.520: Okay.
00:09.520: The problem is a lot of this stuff people don't want to see.
00:09.600: Mm-hmm.
00:09.600: I'm going to show my mom.
00:09.600: Um a container in flame is effectively a a time line um
00:09.600: Now I know what you mean.
00:09.680: I mean, it had like an Avid.
00:09.680: But a few months ago
00:09.680: So that would be very difficult to do in something like
00:09.760: There's a link.
00:09.760: You got to check that out.
00:09.840: I know.
00:09.840: There's every single shot will get touched, guaranteed.
00:09.920: Well, why isn't the mix that we just did next door in there?
00:09.920: And that default preset
00:09.920: It's like, I've never even seen that screen.
00:09.920: And
00:09.920: It's often used in commercials, and that's mostly what I work on.
00:09.920: And like you said, it's not that you're making more money, but you have more iterations.
00:10.000: You've got things like
00:10.000: How long would that take in premiere?
00:10.080: Today's a holiday, so I did that on Friday.
00:10.080: Okay, whatever.
00:10.080: It's
00:10.160: Okay, so let's go to the interview now with my good friend Alex McLean.
00:10.160: Right, but even when you do a regular project XML, I think they still have
00:10.160: It's just so much nicer when you can get
00:10.160: So like I mentioned before, keyword collections.
00:10.160: And, you know, that's.
00:10.160: I mean, that's my
00:10.240: I love Brimian B.
00:10.240: Sure.
00:10.240: And I'm like, no, dude, crack open Final Cut 10.
00:10.240: But, um
00:10.240: Right.
00:10.240: It was a little bit different than most of the shows, but
00:10.320: And that was the thing that you came to me a couple of months ago and you said, hey,
00:10.320: So maybe I can, you know
00:10.320: So then I broke it down as far as, you know, you've got.
00:10.400: So, a couple of days ago.
00:10.400: What made you decide to want to try to do it in 10?
00:10.400: This is wrong, right?
00:10.400: This is what we do, yeah.
00:10.400: They know they're going to color correct stuff.
00:10.480: Yeah, it's on the website.
00:10.480: So let me ask you this, because this is something that I had to deal with
00:10.560: And we walked through it.
00:10.560: And the effect shots are the ones that they like think about.
00:10.560: I don't know if I mentioned that to you.
00:10.560: I'm cutting so much faster.
00:10.560: You'll keep me posted if you run into if you run into
00:10.640: Mm-hmm.
00:10.640: Couldn't come in, yet you show your mom.
00:10.640: Where something that takes
00:10.640: But that's kind of a I do think that
00:10.640: Well, you take that JPEG file
00:10.720: And we've talked about in the past
00:10.720: I mean, I think we got.
00:10.800: So
00:10.880: Yeah, sure.
00:10.880: Alexa.
00:11.040: Now keep in mind that project is set up
00:11.040: So
00:11.120: And the reason for that is that
00:11.120: No.
00:11.120: And do you have a week to work on it?
00:11.200: And the default option that's unchecked is quick time seven.
00:11.200: And
00:11.200: And it's like fifteen, twenty bucks.
00:11.200: Right.
00:11.280: Yeah.
00:11.280: That seems ridiculous to me.
00:11.280: Invert all the colors.
00:11.280: Um
00:11.280: Yeah, I'm sorry.
00:11.280: I haven't heard anything back yet.
00:11.360: And he and
00:11.440: Number one,
00:11.440: Yeah.
00:11.440: I think there's a little
00:11.440: So
00:11.520: And I think we've talked about this, other guests have talked about it, that
00:11.520: It's very iTunes-like.
00:11.520: Okay.
00:11.520: You're just gonna shoot the three thirty five.
00:11.520: Like, that's that?
00:11.600: I got the footage a while ago.
00:11.680: Okay.
00:11.680: Yeah, it's on the website to check out.
00:11.680: I was talking with
00:11.760: You said.
00:11.840: Yeah.
00:11.920: Chris said, why don't you do this with 10?
00:12.000: We're talking like big budget car stuff.
00:12.000: So it's ProRes, Alexa.
00:12.000: So
00:12.000: No.
00:12.080: But
00:12.080: Because if you've got
00:12.080: You know how it's product.
00:12.160: So, anyway.
00:12.160: It was just
00:12.160: ProRes L T
00:12.240: So I know you can apply a LUT
00:12.240: Of course we don't have a week to work on it.
00:12.320: So
00:12.320: But thanks.
00:12.480: No.
00:12.560: And
00:12.640: They probably haven't looked at it yet.
00:12.720: It's gonna take
00:12.800: So
00:12.960: Right.
00:13.040: and we had to figure out
00:13.120: I know I deal with that all the time.
00:13.280: That just makes no sense to me.
00:13.440: Should we dinner?
00:13.520: Yep.
00:13.680: Right.
00:13.760: So
00:13.840: Right.
00:14.160: And here