Today I have finished logging and capturing footage, or perhaps it should be called timeage or something as digital tape is not really measured in feet which relates to the length of film - the 'real' kind. I video, log, capture, edit and produce something serious like this not more than every few years. It's not quite like learning it all again, but can be frustrating as things change.
Now the new Final Cut, iMovie and Quicktime are using a codec called Apple Intermediate Code, which doesn't appear to be backwards compatible with the versions of Final Cut and Quicktime I am using on the ppc machine. So, I've captured HD with the new codec and DVCam with the old... (for those who don't understand this, it doesn't matter - more of a rant than anything else).
I have a few options to make it possible to continue to edit after leaving the country. The first is to get some new RAM for this poor old MacBook to make it compatible with Final Cut Express (which will cost me about $450 all up); struggle through using iMovie (I've already lost all the useful timecodes for the HD anyway); or purchase a new MacBook Pro (now under $2000 or cheaper still if I get it in the UK on a good AUD day).
In any case, I need to make a decision to go with something or other so I can at least move forward over the next few days. Lots to do. Leaving the country in less than a week now. Managed to get superglue on my fingers, but thankfully not on anything else at the same time.
In the meantime, it is interval at the concert at Fremantle Arts Centre. I decided to take up the free ticket tonight as it's a good program of 20th Century classical music. As a former musician I appreciate it and it also gives me a little time out of my own head.
Hire car goes back tomorrow. I'll be back to the laptop on the train gig...
Thursday, March 25, 2010
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Don't try to get everything this week - just a rough cut of the main sequence you speak of in the last post, just clips as reference quicktimes trimmed to the right length [use folders with clips named like 110-opening.mov, 120-briefing.mov, 130-haleyscore.mov so that they stay in order and there is room to add numbers in between - and use reference movies referring to the raw clips which wont be moved or renamed!! - put these folders on the same drive as the real raw material so the associations are kept]
ReplyDeleteThen it is easy to set up things like copying or converting to other formats from the reference movies, it is easy to communicate your needs to anyone helping, things like FCP or iMovie or iDVD can all use the reference movies for quick, easy imports.
When saving the reference movies you can probably make them a bit longer than the shots you will use - i.e. give them handles - but also select the proper part and set quicktime to play selection only so you can preview them easily.
You can probably play the whole thing almost seamlessly using playlists or just previewing directly through finder since the files will be numbered in sequence.
It will be a drag and drop operation to put them on timelines in any version of FCP etc, but you may need to do a little work rendering all to the same format??? it will not be hard to make quicktime copies in a new folder or on someone else's drive with the same format if you want.