#166 Editing Pt1

Organizing your media

• Keep it simple, keep it lean

Consistent, uncluttered, organization of media that would allow you to return to the project 3 years later and find everything even though you've completely forgotten everything about the job. Although I didn't refer to organization of files on the desktop level, I strongly suggest that you organize all your media in the same hierarchical fashion both in your editing software and your computer's hard drive.

Something else I didn't mention it in the show which I will have to discuss it at length in a later show is that a very important part of organization occurs on the other end of of production, when you're done: consolidation.

Consolidation is the process of saving out the project and all the pieces of media that was used in the projects - in one folder. This is done once you are finished and you're preparing to archive everything and take it offline.

Someday you're going to want to re-edit this video, include it in your reel, or a compilation, or just find a piece of footage that you used and consolidation is a critical, time saving process you can use to do that.

#165 Dream a little dream for me

At the time I recorded this show there were two great new media events taking place in the middle of June. That has changed. Podcamp New Hampshire 2010 was scheduled to take place the weekend of June 20, Father's day weekend, but it has now rescheduled to a yet to be determined date in October. What a pain that decision must have been to the promoters. It's still a great event to keep on your radar and you should seriously consider this once the new date is finalized.

That leaves Podcast's Across Borders 2010, formerly held in Kingston Ontario, now relocated to Ottawa Ontario, June 18, 19 and 20. Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis are the promoters of this even and you can find out more about them at Canadian Podcast Buffet. You can check out shows I've done in the past for both Podcamp NH 2009 and PAB 2009.

By the way, Podcamps take place throughout America and around the world and they're great places to meet helpful, knowledgeable creative people interested in media, social networking and online branding. You can check out the Podcamp.org site for listings of shows in your neck of the woods. Remember, Podcamps are networking seminar events where everyone, including you, is the teacher. Most of these events don't even charge a fee to attend. Don't let the price fool you though, these are top notch gatherings that will help you connect with the top thinkers in the social media and networking world.

The remainder of the show is about self promotion - your own self promotion. After attending a day long workshop about business strategies for the artist, sponsored by the Connecticut Commission for the Arts I came away a number great ideas to consider. I'll talk about the sessions I attended in another show. There were three separate seminars presented in Connecticut this past spring and you can hear the recordings online on their site. Recordings of sessions from the May 1st event I attended have not been uploaded yet, so keep checking.

In the remainder of the show I talked about the power of talking about your plans with other people and how that helps shape and propel your vision. Making your dreams come true is also a creative act and it begins when you speaking them out loud.

#152 4.0 on the Avid MC Scale

A loose review of an event I attended this evening focusing on the launch of Avid Media Composer 4.0, Avid's mainstream digital video editing tool. At two thousand plus dollars it's not for everyone. But for anyone interested in a career in video and especially feature motion picture editing, it's the gorilla in the living-room.

A lot of technical stuff was presented but I've chosen to talk about a few features that I thought were particularly interesting and useful, including an open plug-in format that allows Avid to ingest media directly from AVC, P2, SxS and other solid state camera media cards without converting it to the Avid MXF file format - saving time and space on your drive.

Media Composer now allows you to store files it's using anywhere on your computer, but there are risks involved. The tracking feature allows you to stabilize the picture on the frame and it automatically resizes the image so it completely fills the width of the frame. The remarkable thing about this stabilization tracking feature is that instead of the standard practice of using one or several bright spots in the frame as reference points for holding the image in the same location, it uses the entire screen. This is better because, depending on the footage, reference point objects, usually very bright points of lights, like reflections off shiny objects, can be blocked from view during capture. Not a problem now.

The last new feature I mention is the ability to place clips on the same timeline with different frame rates. Something Apple has been able to do for a number of years. Avid says it does the conversion in realtime, faster and with better results than Final Cut Pro. There's certainly enough settings to adjust to make it so. Providing you have the time and money to figure it out.

#130 Catching the Big Fish - Review

I've just finished a book by David Lynch, writer and directory of many movies, including Eraserhead, Dune and Twin Peaks. Catching the Big Fish is a the author's reflections on how he has and others can find ideas, big ideas through TM, Transcendental Meditation.

But the book isn't about the workings of TM, it's about his experiences as a filmmaker trying to solve puzzles as he worked on his films.

It's a quick read and has a lot of interesting reflections in it. You won't find a lot of practical information, but you will get a glimpse of the man and the way he thinks, and what he thinks about storytelling.

I hadn't finished reading the book before I recorded this episode so I didn't get to mention that he spends a few pages talking about digital video and it's impact on him and the Hollywood film industry. I'm always interested to learn how established filmmakers view this new technology and his response is blunt and pragmatic.

Here are a few links to comments I made about another filmmaker who writes and is written about, Walter Murch. He wrote a great book about editing, In the Blink of an Eye. He was the subject of another book I highly recommend called, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. Finally, though I haven't read it yet, I would suggest you look at, Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema, it's a little dated, written in 2004, but between the history and biography I'm certain it's an interesting read.

Leave a me a comment or send me an an email

#117 Looking back, moving on

I've been spending most of my free time completing the transcription process. This is critical for me to figure out what remains to be shot in order to complete my film, as well as speed up the editing process.

Transcribing is boring, tedious work and there's not a lot of stuff I can say about it, though I try my best. I've tried to speed things up by using transcription software. I started out with iListen from MacSpeech and then, when they came out with Dictate I switched to that, Dictate uses a vastly improved software translation engine that was licensed from Dragon Naturally Speaking on the Windows platform. I think I will have to look into using Dragon on my next project and see if that tops them all.

I've also been using my time to talk with instructors and get critiques on how well my film works. I know it needs improvment. I've spoken to a number of film faculty at CDIA. It's interesting to see how each person views the essentials of filmmaking.

One instructor, who is not a documentarian, emphasized the story elements and how the story is presented. Franco Sacchi, our resident documentary filmmaker was all over the structure of the film and how to use visuals to connect the ideas. I have another critique coming up soon with an instructor who is a strong editing and sound person, so it will be interesting to see how he views the needs of my film.

#112 Room to breathe

Days 5, 4 & 3

Still working on the rough cut, focusing on story pacing, removing things that take you out of the story.

I'm reflecting a lot on the meaning of craft, the subject of my film, and being as tired as I am I'm afraid I'm not completing whole thoughts. I'm gaining spontaneity at the price of coherency when I'm not reading off a script. You tell me if it's worth it!

About five and a half minutes into the show I'm trying to make a point about the life craftspeople try to lead and I'm using a sports competition metaphor and it utterly fails. What I'm trying to say in this instance is that the measure of success is the process of work and learning they're engaged in, their life's journey, not a specific accomplishment or feat.

Trust is a perennial issue for me, and exercising trust in the audience is what I need to do as I continue this edit. Just as Jay Moonah said At Podcaster's Across Borders this past June, the content is the audience. They create meaning out of the context of their experiences, in this case, watching this film when it's done. Learning to trust that people are paying attention and pulling all the disparate pieces and ideas within the film to create a whole that leads them to… what, my way of thinking.

No, this film is not like driving cattle through a narrow, fenced in path (don't know the name of the path, sorry), but I do hope that it will direct people to think about specific ideas with new understanding. Providing some understanding, that's sufficient for me.

Tags:
editing, video, filmmaking, rough cut, craft,

#105 Subclipping Hell

Subclipping is a necessary part of organizing your project, creating structure. Doing that will allow you to rip through your media as you pull the story together. With the deadline I have, about 3 weeks when I recorded this show, what I feel I really need to do is begin editing, but that would be disastrous and lead to chaos with the amount of footage I have to work with.
Editing

I'm using Avid over FCP. I've chosen to use Avid for this project even though I have more experience using FCP. I've discovered a few drawbacks that could negatively affect meeting the deadline.

Finally I have begun editing the footage, starting with discrete topics, keeping a general story order in my head. I find this process works for me. Once I got enough footage cut together I moved the contents of these sequences into a single timeline sequence to see how well everything pulled together to tell a cohesive story. It's still incomplete, but I'm very encouraged.

#95 Wk70 Post Audio

Been at PAB, expected to have posted this and the next show before I left. No time, as usual.

This episode and the next was in the can and waiting for post before I left for Canada last week. I thought about post dating these episodes, but that seems a little dishonest.

Podcaster's Across Borders was a great event, met a bunch of people and got a lot of ideas to chew on. It wasn't a technical conference, it was more about networking and idea sharing. I've never been to the Portable Media Expo, now called New Media Expo, which will be out in California later this summer, August 14, but I have been to Podcamp in Boston.

All three events are different in how they approach social media and there's something valuable to be learned from attending all of them. Podcamp and PAB are within driving distance, but California is too far for me to travel this year. I would say that PAB was the most informal. The schedule was packed though and most conversations I had were short and had to be followed up at the end of the day's sessions.

Give me a few days and I'll have a post up for that, along with some brief interviews I recorded.

Talking about whining. What do you want from me? Well, that's the question this time around.

I would like to know how real I should be reporting the student experience; it's not just the subject matter in class. I believe that how you cope with the demands of school will tell you how you will deal with the pressures of production work in the real world. Just another undocumented learning opportunity in the curriculum of life.

I've reached the point where I have enough material to begin editing and begin shaping the story of my film. I've got a lot of work ahead of me with almost 300 gigs of video, about 12 hours of footage. Organizing this much footage is going to be critical in order to meet the September deadline for the final cut.

Over the past week I had the following shoots and classes:

• Two days shooting a Raku firing
• Shooting B-roll at Sturbridge Village
• Interviewing Dot Burnworth at Sawmill Pottery

• The class this week was the beginning of Post Production Audio
• We're going to score music for a film we've already created
• Using sound effects and foley on a commercial
• Using the audio tools in Avid and FCP
• Outputting the audio form a film to OMF for editing in a dedicated audio application, like Pro Tools.
• The physics of audio, including the inverse square law

• Last day of the week I met with and interviewed Ron Sbardella, a veteran potter of 25 years.

#94 Podcasters Across Borders

I'm attending a new media conference called Podcasters Across Borders in Kingston, Ontario Canada this weekend. There's going to be lots of interesting people to meet and things to hear and learn. There's not much else in this show except my expectations.

I created this episode so that I could pare it down to under 3 minutes and submit it to the PAB site as a teaser for this show. They're taking audio submissions from attendees that represent their own show. I figured I would just use the opportunity to talk about my expectations of the event, how I feel about the potential of new media and tie in what my show is about.

It is an interesting experience cutting down something to meet a another purpose - sort of like creating a trailer of a movie.

Take a look at the teaser page and listen to my audio and compare it to this show. And listen to the other shows, there's a lot of great entertainment and information represented on that page.

I'll give you updates when I get back next week and hopefully include some interviews.

#86 NAB Conference Pt3 Wednesday and Thursday

On Wednesday, the last day of seminars at NAB I attended a series of classes on Flash Video as well as an introduction to the Adobe Media Player. You should google the AMP because I believe it has significant implications to independent content producers.

Thursday was the last day of the exhibition and I chose to look at prosumer cameras from JVC, Canon, Panasonic and Sony in order to see what the state of the art is for filmmakers such as myself and what the future might hold.

There's also been an interesting back and forth between myself and Mike Jones in the comments section of episode # 84 about new codecs and cameras and the larger picture of how to evaluate and choose the right camera for you needs. You'll see a counterpoint on this subject between Mike and a reader on his blog.

I have to confess that after an entire day looking and handling cameras from the above mentioned 4 manufacturers the most important thing I leaned is that I barely have a clue as to what the determining factors of an effective video camera. The debate rages on without a clear winner and I'm just beginning to realize I what it is I need to know.

#70 Wk50 On Location

Get ready for a slew of episodes this week. I'm finally catching up.

I'd like to thank Mike Jones from Digital Basin for leaving a comment in show #68. Check out his thoughts there and on his site. Also Brian from Galway left a comment in show #69. Thanks for the encouraging words Brian. I'll be around for a while. Let me know what you're doing and interested in doing.

Check out the song on Coverville.com - Itchycoo Park, covered in show #393. It was one of the first two podcasts I subscribed to and continues to be in my top 5.

After a brief rundown of my adventures over two weeks of shooting on location I update you on the type of work that's starting to come to me at my day job. It may be a small dream, but it's my dream all the same to become the video go-to guy at my day job. That's the point of going to school in the first place.

Right now I'm working on a project for both web and tape delivery using video I shot here in Massachusetts and footage shot in other places in the world where the standard broadcast TV format is PAL. Quite an adventure figuring the conversion process for that. Thank God for the internet eh?

#67 Wk48 On Location

A brief show this week, describing the many different aspects of filming two scenes. The learning this time around is all hands on. The entire class is working together to shoot two scenes from a script. We've each taken on at least one role, in some cases two. My primary concern is creating the lighting with a secondary responsibility for sound.

Once we determined our roles, we broke into two groups. The technical people: cinematographer, sound and lighting worked together while the producer and director spent their time setting the location, set design and casting.

The cinematographer or director of photography took the lead by creating a shot list or storyboard which came from conversations with the director. Once that was done, sound and light could be configured.

We stumbled a few times, lost some momentum because we didn't really know our jobs well (that's where the learning came in), but we regained our footing and finished the week with some preliminary storyboards, a look at one of the locations and our first casting call.

#61 Howard Phillips Interview Pt.2

The second half of the interview with Howard Phillips, Associate Director of the Filmmaking program at CDIA at Boston University. Lots of talk about the role of technology in creating films and CDIA's goal of developing a filmmaking community.

#60 Howard Phillips Interview Pt.1

Howard Phillips is the Associate Director of the Filmmaking program at CDIA and has been my instructor in a number of classes, including lighting and Avid. No need really, to introduce him though, he does an excellent job himself in this, part one of the interview. Let me just say that his willingness to participate in this podcast is an extension of his generosity of spirit to all students at CDIA.

In this show you'll hear him talk about his own experiences learning production filmmaking techniques as well as some interesting tangents he's followed that gives him a unique approach to teaching. You'll also hear him explain the ideas and goals behind the curriculum.

I'll post the 2nd half in a few days. In that episode he'll talk about the present state of filmmaking, the role technology plays in the process of realizing your vision and the possibilities that lay in the future.

#59 Wk43 PreProduction

Another week in PreProduction. We spent a whole class breaking down a script based on the Hemingway short story, The Killers. We analyzed the characters, locations, figured out props, camera and lighting locations. In a future module we're supposed to shoot this script.

I think I've covered this ground already, so I'm passing on those details and keeping this show shorter. I've included some information on how to cast for actors and also explain how everyone communicates with each other, in both preproduction and once the film goes into production.

We're on break over Thanksgiving week, so there won't be journal entry, but I plan to post an interview with Howard Phillips, the Associate Director of the Film program at CDIA. It's pretty long, so I may break it up into two pieces a few days apart.

Things are good with me, how's it with you?

#50 Filmmaking Manifesto #5

I've come to the end of the series of podcasts about the Digital Manifesto that Mike Jones posted on his blog, Digital Basin. That was earlier this summer and I try my best to explain why it's taken me long to post 5 podcasts.

Throughout the series I've been using his ideas in the Manifesto as a guage to determine how current the curriculum at my school, the CDIA is. It did very well - 9 out of 13. Here are the issues, numbered according to the Manifesto followed by the episode they were reviewed in.

Passed

• 03 Compositing #35
  
• 04 Distribution w/o hierarchy #37
• 05 Owning the entire filmmaking process #37
• 06 Software agnosticisim #37
• 08 Screen Studies integrated into Production #39
• 09 Succeeding despite obstacles #39
• 10 Promoting the story ahead of production values #39
• 12 Collaborative Learning #44
• 13 Teacher as Facilitator #44

Not Passed

• 01 Composing Space #35
• 02 Virtual Camera #35
• 07 Immersive Sound #39
• 11 Personal Stories #44

These episodes were different from what I usually post, they involved big ideas and how they fit into the world of filmmaking. Keeping the idea threads connected from one episode to another, particularly when a lot of time passed between was difficult. Time to think and understand seems to be a constant problem for me.

For all the effort, I enjoyed exploring ideas and that took me to unfamiliar territory
Bear in mind, these aren't my ideas, I'm just having fun poking at them.

I thought of a couple of things to add to the manifesto:

1. Get Teachers and students to better interact between related/linked fields, such as audio, 3D and fx, even web design. I don't think the fringes of our filmmaking experience should be familiar territory.
2. Get more exposure to the supportive technology used for digital distribution.

Collaborative learning tools, such as blogs and wikis have a lot of potential that I hope to explore for sharing ideas and information and for promoting my work.

Towards the end of the episode I talk a little about how all this technology is pushing against the boundaries of a stifling culture of intellectual protectionism. If I sound a little harsh, it's only because I've only recently come to recognize how limiting it is to withhold access to resources that, if they were more available, would result in a great deal more creativity to the benefit of everyone. I'm sure once I get used to it I'll return to lamblike complacency.

#46 Wk32 - Intro to Avid

This is the first week of a new module where we learn how to use Avid Xpress Pro, in preparation for editing the footage we shoot a few weeks ago. Avid doesn't have the mind share among would be filmmakers as Final Cut Pro does, so I spend a little time talking about it's place in the filmmaking world.

It is the premier NLE and there's always talk about how it measures up against FCP, so I've included 1, 2, 3 different articles comparing the two. A very significant difference is that the companies that produce these programs have very different missions. Apple is all about bringing the professional media experience to the consumer, Avid is focused on the production needs of professional media makers thru it's own post production systems and the many companies it has acquired, like M-box, Digidesign and Softimage.

I've got some details about a project I'm involved in along with Laura, who I've worked with in the past on the genetic fingerprint documentary. We're going to shoot audience reaction to the play, The 39 Steps, that will be running at the Huntington Theater during September and October. It's a lot of work in a short time, so it should make for some interesting experiences.

#39 Filmmaking Manifesto #3

This week is another installment of my review of CDIA, the school where I'm enrolled as a film student, where I'm grading the film program using the points presented in a filmmaking manifesto written by blogger and educator, Mike Jones, who writes the Digital Basin. By the way, Mike is in Australia and I make reference in the podcast to a presentation he delivered on Sound and Space at the University of New South Wales. I'm afraid it came out as South Wales, and I don't want you looking for Mike in Great Britain.

Here are the topics for this week:
• Multi-channel and Spatial sound
• Screen studies
• Working with clearly defined obstructions
• Working Lo-Fi but High-Concept

These episodes are independent of my weekly journal and it's been exhausting and enjoyable putting out two each week. There's one more post about the Manifesto and then I'll do a follow up show with my personal thoughts about this topic and how it's impacted doing this podcast.

Do some reading on Neil Postman, he has lots of food for thought.

#37 Filmmaking Manifesto #2

This episode is the second in a series about the current state of filmmaking education, specifically certain concepts which are already a part of the filmmaking landscape, but which are not on the map of most schools.

I'm using Mike Jones' Filmmaking Manifesto as the model for measuring how well schools are keeping current with evolving trends in the real world. Specifically, I'm using the school I'm attending, Center for Digital Imagining Arts at Boson University as a stand in for every school.

Check out Mike's blog, Digital Basin, for lots information about a wide range of topics regarding the production filmmaking world. You should check out the Manifesto on his site, since I'm not going through it in as much detail as him. He also has a number of mp3 files of presentations he's made on subjects covered in the Manifesto.

Finally, check out the comment he left following the previous podcast.

Production note: I'm aware that there is a distinct difference between my introductory section commenting on the last episode and the remainder of the podcast covering the three points below.

• 4-Multi-platform scalable delivery
• 5-Ownership of end to end process
• 6-Software Agnosticism and independent skills

Obviously I recorded them at different times using different devices, different locations. A professional, or even someone relatively knowledge about in audio post production would be able to reconcile the tool and hide, or at least equalize the different sounds. That's not me, not right now. I don't even have the time to rerecord this and post it in time, so I'm settling for the fact that you can at least hear what I'm saying.

I make a few passing comments regarding Danny Kaye, Kahlil Gibran and The Prophet in order to make a point or two, Doesn't that combination make you even a little curious?

#35 Filmmaking Manifesto #1

I recently discovered a blog about filmmaking and filmmaking education called Digital Basin. The author, Mike Jones has written a number of posts about 13 issues that he feels are critical to the success of a film student in today's world, but which aren't getting the attention they deserve in the curriculum at most film schools. He calls it his Filmmaking Manifesto.

Read the posts, he makes a lot of valid points. I've always felt that CDIA was quite progressive and I thought it would be interesting to measure my school using his ruler.

I'm not interested in bashing the school, or promoting anyone’s agenda, but I feel his blogs have given me an external perspective on how well CDIA is preparing me for my future.

I'll continue my weekly journal shows, these will run alongside as a special topic.

I hope your find the ideas interesting and more importantly, it gives you your own ideas.

Submit a comment or drop me a line at videostudentguy@gmail.com