Mini Update

Hi there,

So, yeah, I got really discouraged and overwhelmed with all those tech issues.  And I've now been looking for an income far too long -- really stressed out about that -- so it's been a tough month.  But I thought I'd just confirm for those who may yet be there that I have not given up.  I'm still committed to finishing a rough cut by the end of 2012.  Maybe this way, actually, RJ ("Larry") and/or Christine-who-now-goes-by-Vitta ("Marissa") will be on a jaunt east for "the holidays" when I'm done and we'll be able to have a full reunion screening.  We'll see. 

I don't really know how to resolve the tech problems yet, but there are a couple possible avenues that, if successfully traversed, will not mean starting over.  Let's just PRAY for that, okay?

I'll let you know as I do or don't make progress.

REA

Oh PLEASE, oh PLEASE NO!

Well,
Here are the two responses that I got to my tech question, posed on the Apple FCP Basics forum on the great site Creative Cow (.com).  The first is scary because he does kind of say that he thinks I'm going to have to

Re-Edit Everything

but then he sort of back-peddles in a way that gave me hope.  

The second one makes it sound like this will be 

Absolutely No Sweat -- BUT

then when I tried to do what he said, uh, my computer wouldn't let me.  So I need to poke around with that for a bit.

I am not going to freak out 

YET.

I am going to assume there is a solution which will not mean that I have to 

Re-Edit Everything.

o.
m.
g.

Re: Should I be worried?? (importing not capturing .avi files) by Shane Ross on Jul 25, 2012 at 1:56:39 pm

OK...at first I didn't have the heart to answer, but I see that no one else is, so...

FCP doesn't work with AVI files well. It isn't designed to edit them. And the footage might be interlaced...DV is an interlaced medium. But if it was captured on another system and just imported as AVI, the interlacing might not display properly on your system. The idea situation is to capture the tapes on the system you intend to edit it with.

The solution, to get the best quality out of this, would be to recapture the footage on your system. But the issue with that is, well, will the timecode match the AVI files? If you could capture exactly the same way they were on the other system, you could capture the footage in another project, make sure the names are exactly the same as the other files you received...and then try to reconnect to the new media. But the issue with that is that the timecode would need to match exactly, the start and end times of the captures would have to match exactly, and the duration would have to match exactly. Not promising.

But, you said the quality of the footage was fine...so that's seems to be OK...you can work with this. The only issue is that your DVDs are squeezed, meaning they are in CINEMASCOPE (anamorphic) but the TV lacks the ability to unsqueeze it. Older non-HDTVs have problems doing this, where HDTVs do it all the time. YOu need to burn a DVD that is letterboxed, not anamorphic. If I knew iDVD I'd tell you how, but I don't, so you need to see if you can find settings to do that.

All doesn't seem lost. The situation wasn't ideal, but you might be able to save things.

Good luck.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

Re: Should I be worried?? (importing not capturing .avi files) by Rafael Amador on Jul 28, 2012 at 6:55:25 pm

If the footage has been captured from a DV tape, it doesn´t matter if is AVI or QT, will be Interlaced Lower First.
[Rachel Adams] " am I going to have to GO BACK and CAPTURE ALL THESE HUNDREDS of clips now to ensure that?"
No need to recapture, just rewrap the AVI as QT and this is very easy. Open the clips with QT Player and "Save as..".
The new files will be QT instead of AVI and will contain all the original Audio, Video and TC.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

The Ponytail - Pt 1

Okay!  I bought the ponytail!

When we last left our story, Rachel had realized that she was missing a transition shot of Marissa waking up in the morning, showing her fake ponytail not on her head. 

Audience reaction to avoid:  "What?  Why does she have short hair all of a sudden?  Hey wait - why is her hair long again?!  Ha ha!  They f*ed up!"

Hmm. 

She-- er, *I* asked Christine (who may or may not actually go by "Vitta" now - I can't decide) if she could get someone to shoot a short clip her (yes, ten years later - it'll be a dark room - it's pre-dawn) waking up and looking over toward an unseen clock, and then I could stick in a POV shot of the ponytail by the clock with it.  Horrible sentence, but you get the idea, yeah?  Christine, however, knows no one with a video camera, so she diligently set up her digital still camera and did it all by her resourceful lonesome, sending it to me via Drop Box.  Unfortunately, the camera tells her it's 16x9, but it ain't.  However, "ridiculous ice cream" and all that -- the show must go on!! -- I decided not to care (very much) (or at least to let it be, caring notwithstanding).  But then I still had to get a new ponytail that would match the one from the shoot -- match it well enough for five-second shot in a pre-dawn room. 

I looked online -- and they were like $20-100.  Well, I'm unemployed, so I'm not spending no $20 on a ponytail for a 5-second shot.  Christine/Vitta suggested eBay, but after considering shipping costs, I decided to poke around local wig stores and see what was what.

Lo and behold!  I got a cheap cheap cheap thing for $1.99 (!!!!!) at Venus on Prospect Street in Central Square, Cambridge.  Yay!  No shipping!  Nice shop owner named Shirley!  Yay!

Here it is:

So now I have to look at the video a little more closely and try to "age" this one similarly and then shoot some video of it on my dresser, next to a clock that says 4:22 or some such thing.  Fortunately the apartment I'm living in now has that older moulding that Jenny & Mark's house had, so I think it will look like a dresser in that house.  We shall see!  I don't have that nice Sony Whatsit that Greg shot the movie on, but my little Panasonic will do Just Fine. 

So there you have it. 

Tech issues

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine brought up a concern about the way I was importing footage.  She's concerned that my exported final screening product might not be of the highest image quality.

Back when I was going to be working with someone else in Minnesota, the would-be collaborator uploaded all 28 tapes onto a hard drive as 28 avi files.  I have been editing by "importing" (not "capturing") these files and then taking segments from them using in and out points for the timeline sequences.  It plays fine in my computer.  I have thought, though, looking at some of the QT videos that I uploaded for actors to see, that the quality isn't great.  This friend is concerned that this is because avi files are "non-native" to Final Cut, whatever that means. 

So at her suggestion, I burned a DVD of a couple exported sequences (.mov files -- the same ones that I had put up on youtube) and then played them in my DVD player on my old TV.  Aside for the fact that the image was unexpectedly squeezed (not letterboxed, as it should have been, but squished into the 4x3 screen so that everyone is too skinny and tall), the image quality seemed okay.  I think.

For one thing:  it's my roommate's old TV and it's not the greatest image, regardless.  For another thing -- this friend of mine seems to be telling me that .avi is interlaced but other "codecs" (??!!) are progressive scan, and until I play the DVD on a newer TV that uses progressive scan, I won't really know for sure. 

Doing a little research online, it seems like playing the DVD in my computer would expose the problems, but I'm not sure.  The thing is, it's not the greatest image quality, but how do I know if the problem is in the monitor/export or in the actual footage?  How do I know, in other words, that Greg didn't need glasses?????? 

Plus, is this something that can be fixed -- if indeed it is even a problem -- by the way the final sequence is exported (changing settings), OR am I basically SCREWED because I've edited two-thirds of the movie this way, and now I'll have to GO BACK and capture all the hundreds of clips I've chosen FROM THE BEGINNING?? 

I am daunted and discouraged and afraid to edit. 

I suppose I have just two avenues open and I should just pick one: 

1) capture from now on because prior damage is done and we know capturing is good

2) keep importing because this is how I've become accustomed to doing it and I have a system and a rhythm so I'll probably be more likely to do it, and if I'm going to have to go back and do 2-3rds, I might as well have the whole film be the same quality, and go back and do it all at once.

It sounds like the first one is best -- but the issue of being put-off and intimidated by the capturing is real; it really might keep me from doing any editing at all.  ...Then again, the idea that what I'm doing is creating extra work for myself might keep me from editing as well.  Not to mention  all the other things that keep me from doing it, as well. 

ARGH.

Acting for Real (and trailer?)

Hi -
No, I haven't been editing, but I have been making notes for a trailer.  I think that will be my next task.  I'm considering using Kickstarter and I thought a trailer would be a good thing for that, plus a good thing to have in general

Does anyone have a moment that they remember as key, that they thought of as encapsulating of a character or a theme? 

In the meantime, read this article from actor Martin Donovan.  It's pretty great.  I hate it when people rag on actors as self-centered show-offs.  It can be such a profound and important thing to do.  I got some very brave moments from all my actors and I appreciate it immensely.  I hope I earned them. 

Martin Donovan Talks about Acting (and a Little about Directing)