Hi, I'm Zach Beckler, I am the Digital Asset Manager on Bad Pixels, which is a UCF graduate
feature.
And I'm going to take you through our workflow, specifically the acquisition of image and sound
from the set to our computer here.
On this film, we are using Canon EOS DSLR cameras.
Our A camera is a 7D and our B camera is a 5D Mark II.
Now they both record to a solid state media in the form of compact flash cards.
For sound, we are using a Zoom H4N memory field recorder, which also records to solid
state in the form of secure disc or SD cards.
When camera changes cards, so does sound, and both cards are immediately brought to
me to be imported into the computer.
Okay, so now I'm going to import the compact flash card and the SD card.
And just give them a moment, and there they are, there's the audio and the video.
Now, as you can see, we are organized by day, we're on day 7, so I'm going to make a new
folder here.
We're going to call that day 7, and the card is B1, and it is the raw footage.
Also going to do another folder of sound.
So basically, we're going to take all the contents of the video card, day 7, and put
it there.
Just take about 4 minutes or so.
Now that the card is imported, this is how I've organized my data.
As you can see, it's by day, and each day has the raw cards, as well as the transcoded
footage in different folders, and a folder for sound.
And that's exactly what we're going to do today.
So let's get the sound off, and that is all the sound they recorded.
Move it into day 7, sound.
Now that the sound and the video clips are imported onto the hard drive, I will now go
about labeling each clip by slate number, both the sound and the video clips.
So let's take our first video clip, it's in the raw, DCM, there.
And it's the first move clip.
These THM files, you can disregard.
They're more for if you're importing through your camera, or using the EOS plug-in for
Final Cut, but we don't need those with our workflow.
Okay, so we preview it.
That is, pause that for a second.
The slate says this is scene 91B, that means if it's in front of the number, that means
they've come up with this scene on the set, and this is take 2 of that scene.
And since we are shooting with two cameras, this is camera A. So the way we would label
this is, if you look over here, B91, take 2A, enter.
Alright, and now we're going to go down to the next one, that is scene 91, take 1A.
Next one, A91, and you're basically just reading the slate, and you just have to know
which camera we're using.
This is the 70 and 70 is our A camera.
Alright, now that I have all my clips labeled, next step is to transcode the footage.
Now the footage is recorded using the H.264 codec, which is a really good distribution
codec, but it's not ideal to edit with in Final Cut.
You get a lot of glitching, a lot of export problems.
So what we're going to do is we're going to convert all this footage to Apple ProRes,
and we're going to use MPEG String Clip to do that.
Alright, and we're going to make a batch list, so we can do more than one at a time.
Add files, and we're on day 7, DCIM, okay, and all these files we're going to put in
the batch.
This is quick time, and it's going to want a destination folder, so what we're going
to do is we're going to make in day 7 a destination folder, and this is card B1, okay.
So all the transcoded footage is going to go into that folder.
Now we go up to Apple ProRes, quality at 100%, and we're syncing audio with this, so we
don't need any camera sound, so I'm going to go no sound, and it's not interlaced.
We shot at 1080p, so unclick the interlaced, and bam, it's gone to batch.
Now you can do simultaneous tasks.
This computer is a Core i7 it can handle for at a time, and right there it is going
to create all these clips.
I use MPake Stream Clip because it's faster, I found the compressor takes about this much
time to do one clip as opposed to four at a time in the stream clip.
Now while that's happening, you can make yourself busy by doing the sound the exact same way.
Just listen to it, and whenever you hear the slate say, you just label it as follows.
Once the footage is still transcoding, what I'm going to do is start prepping the sound
in Final Cut.
Now I'm going to take all the sound files, and just move them to my browser.
I'm going to make this big.
Okay, as you can see in the browser we have every scene we've shot, and we ordered it
by scene here.
Each scene has a bin of the sound, and all the setups and takes.
So how do we prep this?
We double click on it, each sound clip.
Now we're going to pan it to center because of dialogue, and we're going to find the slate
clap, and it's right there, and we're going to press I, or we're going to press this button
right here to set an end point, and then we just move on to the next clip.
Same thing, ma'am, set an end point, ma'am, set an end point for each clip.
Now we're going to sync it up with the sound.
What we're going to do now is close that, go to the folder.
This is all the transcoded footage, and we're just going to take it all, drag it to our
browser.
All right.
Now as you see, they all line up with 162 to the video file, 162a, camera a.
So what we're going to do now, take a video file, and we're going to find where the slate
claps, and that is right where it is.
All these colors match up, and that is where the slate mark will be, so we're going to
put an end point in.
Next thing we're going to do is highlight the corresponding sound clip, and merge the
clips.
Now we've already prepped all our sound with end points, so we're just going to synchronize
you to the end points.
Okay, we've got a merged clip, and I just call it the same thing, and play it to see
if it's...
Hey there, Kiri, just hold on, how are you doing?
Perfectly synced up, and then I take the video clip, and I just take it out of the browser.
We're not going to need it.
I keep the sound clips.
I always keep the sound clips because if they want to use dialogue from a different take,
then they have the sound files readily available, and we're just going to keep doing that with
all our clips.
Okay, end point, corresponding, merge clips.
Okay, now scene 101 is all synced.
So I'm going to make a new bin, and that's going to be scene 101, and inside that bin
I'm going to make another bin just for the sound files.
Okay, now I'm going to take everything here, scene 101, move it in.
Then take the sound files, move it into the sound, and there, they have scene 101 in its
own folder.
So they want to edit scene 101.
They just go to the folder, make a new sequence in there, and start editing.
Now that everything's synced and organized, ready to be edited by the editor, what I want
to do is take this raw card, and before I hand it back to the camera crew, I am going
to copy it onto a separate hard drive.
This is our backup hard drive.
So in case anything happens to the card, we have a backup.
Once I'm done backing it up, I just go to the DCIM folder, and then I'm going to rename
the camera folder, done.
Now this is a method we adopted from ASC cinematographer Shane Hurlbut.
The reason I do that is because once the camera crew gets the card back and puts it into the
camera, the camera won't be able to read the card.
Once it says no image, the camera crew knows that I am done with the card, and they are
free to wipe it and use it again.
All right, everything's been imported, labeled and organized, transcoded to Apple ProRes.
Sound synced and backed up, so it's ready to be sent off to the editor for initial
rough edits.
I have nothing to add with me.
