The trick isn’t simply cutting, coloring, and compressing your film for independent internet distribution. The real trick is keeping your post production pipeline managed so you can cut the sequel while simultaneously finishing an extended director’s cut of the first film in Edit 2 (be it your MacBook Pro on the coffee table or a DaVinci suite with bells on it).
Or maybe you want to collect all your media from thirteen diferent internal and external hard drives and place it in a new Shared Acces Network box. Or move all of day one’s P2 media on drive 67 and day five’s XDCAMmedia on drive 32. Or whatever else your entreprenurial, independently film made heart desires. Media management is your ticket.
The principles I discuss in episode 5 can be applied to all types of HD and SD media formats including footage acquired by the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Nikon D90, Canon HV30, Panasonic HVX-200, Sony EX-1, RED ONE, etc. I highly recommend clicking through for the HD version in case you want to see FCP’s UI properly.
Hope this to0t helps with managing all those Terrablocks, G-RAIDs, and bus powered LaCie hard drives out there.
proactively • managing our medium • peter
Hey Peter,
Thanks for episode 5, very good stuff! You mentioned that you have a Canon 5D Mark II, well, well do have a ton of questions i’m hoing you can answer. True or false the 5D will record 12 minutes continous and stop recording even if you have a larger capacity CF card in the camera?
The 5D doesn’t record timecode, so how do you work with this footage within FCP? Can you create timecode for the footage or how does that all work?
Will an older MacBook Pro 2.16Ghz intel core duo, 2GB RAM, be able to edit the h.264 footage from this camera?
I have more, but I won’t push my luck!
I apologize in advance if these questions seem ridiculous in nature or have been asked of you four million times prior. I’m in the market for a new camera, I love what I see coming out of the 5D, but it’s such a different animal, I don’t know if it’s for me….yet!
I appreciate your insight.
Thank you,
Steve M.
Hey Steve, your questions are totally awesome and not ridiculous at all. Alas, I do not have a 5dmarkii… yet. Might be getting one in time to document the inauguration next week, we’ll see.
As soon as I do get one I’ll be sure to post as much info as I find out. In the meantime, a great resource to check out is http://canon5dmkii.net/.
proactively • peter
Alright Cool! However you have edited some of the Reverie footage in Final Cut haven’t you? Curious if you converted this to Pro-Res? The more I read about the workflow for the 5D the more confusing it all gets. Some say you can’t edit the native h.264 files, others say you can? I wished someone who has this camera and has edited in FCP would post some guidance. I’m very patient, all in time.
Thanks
Awesome question Steve! I’ve got a FCProse tutorial that addresses converting to H.264 to ProRes right here:
http://petersalvia.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/fcprose-editing-eos-5d-mark-ii-footage/
To be clear, I recommend working with the source h.264 footage until sending your picture locked sequence to Color. Once you’ve performed your grade in Color, render your footage out to ProRes. Now you have a broadcast quality final sequence that you can print to HDCAM SR tape or create any number of compressions for the web. To boot, I’ve got a follow up tutorial walking through this process of cuting, coloring, and compressing 5dmarkii footage for the web here:
http://petersalvia.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/fcprose-episode-4-cut-color-compress-5dmarkii-footage/
proactively • peter
Thanks Peter! Okay, I’ve watched both those tutes and very interesting. I’ve played around with those RAW Reverie files and I see a lot about what you’re talking about. My MBP won’t play those clips in RealTime, but will play them in RT when converted to Pro-Res. One big question I have is what difference does it make if you convert first to Pro-Res then Color grade as opposed to editing in it’s native H.264….,or I should say TRY editing in native H.264, then export from Color to Pro-Res?
What are the specs of your MacBook Pro? And do you have the Reverie h.264 media playing back from an external firewire 800 or faster hard drive? These are some of the factors to consider why you are experiencing real time playback issues.
You may want to convert all footage to ProRes for your initial edit to support real time playback. Once you have picture lock, match frame back to the original h.264 media before sending to Color. This way you will maintain the original gamma for your Color grade. Then render your Color project out as ProRes and you will have a broadcast quality HD final Quicktime.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Peter! The specs on my MBP are 2.16Ghz intel core duo, NOT a core 2 duo, 2GB RAM, which is maxed, and yes using a Lacie 500GB external connected via Firewire 800. I also have a GTech 1TB RAID, perhaps I should put the footage to that drive and see what happens. I think the bottom line is I need a Mac Pro tower that has some serious horsepower to tackle all this new codec. I see JVC just dropped a bomb on the market with a new camera that shoots 35mbs to CF @ a native QT codec. This Canon still has my attention with the ability to shoot with prime lens.
Steve M.
Interesting discussion Peter, Steve,
I’m in conversation with an Apple tech guy at this moment (internal, not support) as the next generation of MBP to yours(2.4Ghz core 2) only just manages to play back 5D II footage as H.264, and it necessitated a complete re-install to do it. It will still drop the odd frame, and any significant app open besides QT drops frame rate to 25/26 fps. I tried this from internal (160Gb / 7200 disk, powered FW800 and now a 2 disk raid, but no difference.
Interestingly, an off-the-shelf MacBook unibody, will not only play at the full 30fps from its 5400 rpm internal disk, but also at double speed, 60 FPS. Not even my Quad MacPro will manage that with the raid.
One thing that crosses the mind – the MacBook runs the updated graphics card, but also Quicktime 7.5.7, only available to unibody Macs. Is there something that we are not being told?
Any further thoughts you have would be interesting.
Nick WB