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An Open Letter to a Good Friend

March 4, 2012 · by bcleggtv

“The tradition of Festivus begins with the Airing of Grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people! And now, you’re gonna hear about it.” ~ Frank Costanza

Back in January I gave my thoughts on the new Avid Media Composer 6, and thanks to the social media networks of the world a lot of people were able to share in that review. In my overall opinion Avid has been moving in the right direction for some time now, embracing 3rd party technologies, the AMA workflow that has made file-based acquisition post faster, and realizing that they are one of many tools in any post-production workflow. For the last 10 years or so, Avid has been my main tool for all things editing. I have used Final Cut Pro, Premiere, linear tape to tape systems and even Media 100 (that was a LONG time ago) but have always felt that Avid was the cream of the crop. In 2002 I got an internship with NAB in Vegas and was reading a review of Avid Xpress 3.0 and Final Cut Pro 3 and remembered this line – “While I would be more than happy taking Final Cut Pro on a date, I would marry Avid.”

Having said that, Avid has a lot of things they could improve on, and I only say this because one big thing Avid has been doing well is listening to their user base, so hopefully my concerns won’t fall on deaf ears.

Avid has a Pan and Zoom tool that allows the user to point to a still image to do flat art moves. It is better than importing the image and using the 3D Warp tool by keeping the same resolution of the original image. The tool has a couple problems though. First, you have to render any filter than gives you optimized results (I exclusively use the Gaussian filter by the way.) Second, there are no rotate handles so all the moves happen on the same plane. If Avid could incorporate still files (.jps, .tiffs, .pngs, etc.) through a link method like AMA and the files would come in at the same resolution of the original image (like how After Effects works), this feature I think would be met with great adulation from the user community. You can watch a quick overview of this tool work here, and as you can see it is useful, but clumsy and outdated.

Avid has two ways of creating titles, the original Title Tool or Avid’s proprietary title software Marquee. One great thing about Marquee is that it saves each title as a .mpq file and you can open them without having to go through the timeline. After that, I don’t really have many good things to say about Marquee. It is an outdated software that needs to be revamped or retired.

A few weeks ago I spent some time with Adobe Premiere. It was a simple job where I was trimming clips from AJA Ki Pro decks and posting to YouTube. If you have edited anytime over the last decade you know that you have be part compression tech. For a while now Avid has shipped with Sorenson Squeeze compression software, and having been a full time compression tech I can tell you Sorenson is a great tool. What I discovered when working with Adobe Premiere is the functionality of Adobe’s Dynamic Link. With this feature I was able to open up my Premiere sequences directly through Adobe Media Encoder and make my files for YouTube. It was fast, efficient, and an eye opener to how it can be done. My appeal to Avid is, if you have a working relationship with Sorenson, is there a way to make this kind of link between the two programs? Having the ability to open Avid sequences in Sorenson would be, well, awesome.

For now I am going to keep it at that, I know sometimes it is hard to hear constructive criticism, but it is also sometimes necessary. I also write the above letter based on version 5.5 of Avid Symphony and Media Composer, and I know Avid has made some great strides in Version 6.0.

Avid Media Composer / Symphony 6

January 18, 2012 · by bcleggtv

Let me first say as much as some may want to hear it, I am going to abstain from any inkling of the Avid vs. Final Cut Pro debate. Over the years I have been involved in many such discussions and I have learned one undeniable fact, nobody has ever watched a program because of what it was edited with. It would be like debating whether you shoveled your driveway with a aluminum or plastic shovel…isn’t the only thing that really matters is that your upstairs neighbor did it before you got up? That is what I thought.

Symphony 6

Having said that I won’t make any secret that I am an editor first, an Avid editor second. For the majority of my time as an editor Avid has been my tool of choice. It is what I know, it is what I like, but it doesn’t mean it is the best tool, just a tool. Tonight I attended the Boston Avid Users Group demo at Avid Headquarters in Burlington, MA, and the following is a recap of the new version of Media Composer and Symphony 6. It isn’t an endorsement or argument for using the software, just my thoughts and info for those that are interested.

BAVUG sign on crystal screen

The group was lucky enough to run into Bob Russo from Avid giving the first part the presentation, a general overview of Version 6 as well as an more in-depth look into the stereoscopic 3D tools now available. If you haven’t seen Bob present I highly recommend it, of all the software evangelists out there I think he is one of the best. Matt Feury is also very good, but I have yet to get a chance to meet him in person although I have seen many of his presentations.

Sterescopic 3D

Last time I ran into Bob Russo I had a lot of questions about the first stereoscopic 3D project I was going to be working on with Cramer. At the time we were shooting with the Panasonic AG-3DA1. The great thing about this camera was that it took all the bulky camera rig setups with beam splitters and parallel rigs and put it into one, more intuitive camera. The camera recorded a left and right eye stream to AVCHD onto two SD cards. After that we used Cineform HD to mux the two streams into a stereoscopic file that was then translated into a side/side stereoscopic image and sent out to a 3D monitor via HDMI.

After many questions answered by Bob Russo about workflow, he said one thing that stuck to me. That if Avid really wanted to take a leap forward they needed to “own” stereoscopic 3D editing. (at this time we were working on 4.0, which had pretty sophisticated 3D tools, but you needed those 3rd party software tools to really make it happen.) Well, after tonight, I can say that Avid must have listened because they have taken a big leap forward in working with stereoscopic material.

Having not worked with the software yet and due to time constraints in the demo I don’t have an in-depth dissertation on the upgrades, but I can tell you the key points. You can mux left and right streams right in Avid. You can adjust and key-frame convergence right in Avid(#awesome!) You can do source material color-correction on one stream in a stereoscopic clip to compensate for color shifts in a two camera beam splitting 3D camera rig. Any and all Avid FX are stereoscopic aware and will compensate the images if you were to do a simple PIP or anything really. AND (this one is really big) there is a built in tool to change legacy 2D footage into 3D. Now, it was somewhat hard to tell how well the 2D to 3D feature worked (we had paper anaglyph glasses) but the fact you could in theory cut in legacy 2D footage onto the same timeline is something that should be pretty appealing. I won’t sit here and think that the end results of 2D acquired material is going to be anything like true stereoscopic 3D, but at least you will get something right out of the box.

So did Avid do what Bob said and “own” stereoscopic 3D editing? Hopefully soon I will be able to test it out and do a comparison to my original project, but lets just say if they don’t already own it with 6.0, they are definitely leasing with an option to buy. (Note: all the above features are in addition to the already built-in stereoscopic tools available since 4.0, being able to pick side/side, over/under, left eye only monitoring, etc.)

Avid Marketplace

I’ll make this brief since I am not totally sold on this concept, but Avid has partnered with Thought Equity and created an in software marketplace to buy stock footage. The over arching concept is genius really, a way to think of it is having an iTunes app right in your editing software, but with video footage instead of music. It integrates right into the Avid and links via AMA with downloaded watermarked comps. After you have done your edit, you can then create a stock footage report that tells you what shots you have used and the ins and outs of your selects. That report can then be sent back to Thought Equity and they then process your order. Sounds great, right? Well, there are some road bumps you have to go over. You may or may not have to deal with a representative on rights usage (depending on the clips you have used) and it isn’t certain how long a clip could take. Basically if you use all royalty free material it is more or less instantaneous, if not, then you may have some red tape on how long it is before you get your footage. The overall great thing here is you can access it right from the Avid software or you can access it through the web if you are a producer. If you want to have all your watermarked footage get replaced automatically, it does appear you have to download the high rez clips on your Avid workstation through the software. All though once you do that, there literally is a button that say “replace all stock footage” so no more match framing re-imports of bought clips. You can also purchase audio packages as well as audio and video plug-ins from the interface.

5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound

The next great new feature is 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound audio capabilities. They work just like the new stereo tracks feature Avid released in 5.0, just now you can pick either 5.1 or 7.1 if you are given a surround track from say a Pro Tools mix session. You will still need a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker and hardware setup in order to hear it, but the Avid will be able to edit those right into the timeline. If you don’t have a surround setup the Avid will “automagically” play it out in stereo. (“Automagically” may be my new catch phrase. Thanks 3rd presenter who said it, hopefully someone will read this who was there and can tell me your name.) And it isn’t just import, you can actually make 5.1 or 7.1 surround mixes in your Avid edit session. My initial thought on this is why…anytime you were doing a surround mix it would go to a post audio designer 99% of the time, right? But, all the tools and pans and fun surround sound stuff gets transferred in an AAF file to Pro Tools, so I can see the validity in being able to do some of that while in the editing process.

That is it for now, the meeting ran late and I wanted to get all this down before I forgot. I am sure I forgot something and I am sure there are plenty of misspellings and grammar errors but it is late, I’ll get to them tomorrow. Here are some pictures from the Avid headquarters, they got some great hardware there, and yes, I am talking about the Academy Awards and Emmys…(you didn’t think I would write all this and not get one little FCP dig at the end, did you 🙂 )

Academy Awards

Emmys

E3 Insider

December 17, 2011 · by bcleggtv

You may be surprised to hear it, but video games are not something that interests me. In fact, the only video game console I ever owned was the original 8-bit Nintendo system. You know, the one that game with Mario Bros and Duck Hunt? One of the projects I was lucky enough to work on in the past was the website/video project called E3 Insider. For those of you like me who may not know what E3 is, it is the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Basically the trade show for video games. On the of the unique aspects of this show is that it is invite only, meaning if you are part of the general public you can’t just buy a ticket or pass into the event like you could say with NAB. E3 is where ALL of the new announcements are made regarding video gaming. The organization that runs the trade show came to Cramer and asked “how can we get the experience of being at the show to the general public?” Our answer, a fully interactive website that gave you all aspects of the event, complete with press releases, blogs, game reviews and, what I am going to go over below, a video program from the show floor entitled “Floored” (clever, huh?)

The week started with the press conferences, which were done by each of the Big 3 (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.) These were held off-site from the convention center and acted as the main PR for each manufacturer. The press conferences is where the major announcements of things like the Wii, PlayStation 3 and XBOX were held.

Once the press conferences were done, we jumped right into the main part of our video program, which was the internet show “Floored.” In the first few years of this project (we did 4 years of the show) we actually did do a show, which aired three times a day. It was packaged with stand ups from our host Stacee Barcelata and usually featured 3 – 4 stories from whatever was covered thus far. What we found out was that by only pushing video content three times a day, our audience was literally just sitting there waiting for content. In our last two years we switched to a story by story format. This way we could push content to the site as it was done, providing our viewers with up to the minute content throughout the duration of the E3 show. Once each video was done, it was published to the web along with a blog post, pictures and other content.

What we did was basically set up a mini production house inside the LA convention center. We had 4 Avid Media Composer stations, an audio workstation and a compression workstation, all connected via a server. We also had a separate network for all the writers, producers and web developers. For shooting, we used Sony DVCAM 570 outfitted with Firestore digital recorders. Props to our two DPs John Coyne and Jim Flis who worked 16 hour days with these beasts. This project was done between the years of 2002 – 2006, so the workflow of digital recording was somewhat of a new concept. I remember the first year we were out there we even said “man, it would be great to not have to digitize all these tapes and instead use some sort of file.” The Firestore was the one of the first manufacturers of digital recorders. We set them up to record OMF files so we could import them right in the Avid, bringing with it all the TC information that corresponded to the tape. It was a great workflow. The stories would come in from the field, the DVCAM tapes were handed off to one of our 3 writers, the Firestore was handed off to Gary our IT tech who would then offload the Firestore to the server. The OMFs were then imported in the Avid. As far as the game play B-Roll, it was coming in a variety of formats, from Beta SP to DVCAM to digital files. Our audio/compressionsist Brian was taking all that and digitizing it in Sony Vegas in order to give us QuickTimes for import to edit with. All the while compressing all our stores with Agility Anystream, recording scratch VOs and doing a final mix for each Floored story. Brian was pretty much the MVP of our whole team, it would have been absolutely impossible to do it without him.

It really was the ultimate in teamwork. We were firing off up to 16 stories per day. I remember getting there around 7am, putting my Sony headphones on, start cutting and at some point I would take them off and it would be midnight.

I have mentioned some of the key players above, but here is a complete list of the amazing team who made this all possible:

Rob Everton – Program Lead
Lisa Ladurantaye-Lynch – Executive Producer
Leah Romig – Senior Producer/Production Coordinator
Dave Lynch – Editor
Kevin Zhang – Editor
Matt Galindo – Executive Web Developer
Colin Henson – Art Director
John Coyne – DP
Jim Flis – Director/DP
Brian Iacobucci – Audio Designer/Compressionist/All-Star
Devin Silberfein – Interactive Producer
Scott Palmer – Writer/FanCam Director
Gary Parker – IT/Network

iPad

December 16, 2011 · by bcleggtv

Well, I am going to make this post the first of hopefully many that are not related to a specific video project. As of today, I am the owner of a new Apple iPad. It actually complete the “i” trifecta for me. iPod, iPhone and now iPad. In reality I am testing out the app for updating this website on my iPad right now. It is very basic and it doesn’t have that instant preview option as the website from a laptop or CPU, which is something I am used to. Although this will be a great way to publish information quickly and on the go…or at least anywhere with a wifi connection.

My initial reaction to the iPad was “what am I going to use this for?” (the iPad I have was a gift, so you can see why I had this reaction instead of the calculated buying process I usually go through with any major product.)

As the owner of a laptop, as a person who works at an Avid workstation all day and, as I mentioned above, the owner of the other Apple gadgets, where does this gadget fit into my day to day needs. To put it simply, it doesn’t fit. I don’t need it, but I am keeping an open mind.

After a full day with the new toy, I have seen some uses that I may not have thought of before. The first being this post right here. One of my goals with this website is to not only showcase the video work I do but also to discuss new technologies. With the iPad, it gives me more flexibility to do this quickly and on the go.

The next major one is one I haven’t really tested out yet, more so because I am on vacation for the next week and won’t be in an edit suite for a little while. What I can envision is the iPad acting as my digital paper work. Scripts, change lists, branding guidelines, etc are all types of things I normally print out to go along with what I am editing. Lately I have been trying to do as much of this as I can on the iPhone, but for me the iPhone is just too small to really be effective. Hopefully the iPad will help me be more “green.”

One thing I would love to see, and not sure if this exists already, but some sort of app that a producer/director could open either on a laptop or iOS device that creates a list of tasks that could then be shared. When I get a list of changes I almost always print it out so I can physically check them off to know what I have done and what I need to do. It would be great to have some sort of shared list with the producer/director that I can go though and process and then send back, hopefully with comments. That way I could send info back such as “this change conflicts with branding guidelines” or “I think this edit is conflicting with our story goals” etc.

Of course there will be other things I can do with the iPad. Maybe my angry birds skills will improve. Not sure if digital books will work their way into my everyday life, but I also said that when iTunes came out. Can’t remember the last time I bought a CD, although I will say I don’t envision using the iPad for music listening.

Feel free to use the comments section to discuss what you use your iPads for, maybe there s something I haven’t thought of yet. I am sure there is.