Automatic Duck Somewhat-Almost-Best Practices

In my travels, I’ve had to do a fair number of Automatic Duck project conversions. While I was learning this process, I found that there wasn’t much good information containing tips and tricks about making this process smooth. Especially now with the exodus from Apple because of FCPX, streamlining this process is more essential now than ever. I don’t propose to know all the answers, but I thought it was high time somebody started putting down their experiences so that we can start working towards some kind of a “Best Practices” document. I’m humble about my experience here, but I will say that I’ve done it a fair amount and I think my tips are good. I’d love to hear what you think. Please leave a note in the Comments section and tell me what I got right or wrong. Quick note: What I’ll talk about here is transferring between Avid and Final Cut Pro, because that’s what I have experience doing. However, since Adobe After Effects workflows are prevalent nowadays as well, I’d love to hear about your experiences there. Please, leave comments.

WHAT IS AUTODUCK?

Automatic Duck is shorthand for a number of programs developed by Wes Plate as a way to move editor sequences between Avid/Apple/Adobe products. Now that Wes has joined Adobe, his programs are now thankfully free to download. The apps are basically plugins for Final Cut Pro 7 and Adobe After Effects, so you’ll need one of these apps (as well as Avid Media Composer, if that’s part of your workflow) in order to transfer your footage.

HOW AUTODUCK WORKS:

• You can only send footage between different programs via sequences. There is no way to transfer whole projects at one time.
• Automatic Duck will take your sequence (and if you choose, your media) and convert it into files to import into another editing application. It can retain many simple effect information and titles, but everything must be checked to ensure accuracy.
• You can send media as either sequence information alone (where you’ll import/relink media after), or you can have Automatic Duck convert your media during the export/conversion process.
• When it comes to exporting media, you should figure what stage you’re at in the post process. If you’re still in offline, you should maintain the resolution of something like DNx36/ProRes(LT), if you’re editing in 23.98 FPS. If you are ready to finish your project, I’d transfer at DNx220X/ProRes4444.
• Remember that for every sequence you send, you create new copies of the clips in that sequence. Your new clips will not reference any clip from other imported sequences, even if it's the same clip. So, if you add a locator to one copy of the clip, it won’t appear in another matching clip if it was brought in from a different sequence.

MAKING THE SMOOTH TRANSITION:

• Key to successful transfer: tape names and timecode. Make sure your clips ALL have proper tape names assigned. There is really no substitute for this. Your project HAS TO BE well-logged. The safest way to reconnected media is using the tape name and timecode metadata. This way, you will also associate new media you create with a tape name, so it becomes easier to relink to new imported sequences.
• If you have audio from a separate source, be sure that the proper tape name for the sound roll is assigned to those clips as well.

DEALING WITH SYNCED/MULTICLIPS/GROUP CLIPS:

• Multiclips aka Avid Multigroups are NOT supported via AutoDuck Pro Import FCP or Pro Export FCP. That means you must collapse/remove your multigroups in your sequence before you export your sequence.
• PROTIP: assign locators to the slate mark frames and sync points for multigroups. Locators will transfer over between sequences, so it will be easier to see where your sync points are for re-grouping everything. At least you won't have to actually resync everything.

DEALING WITH BINS OF MEDIA:

• If you are trying to send scene bins, you should take your synced clips and string them out in a sequence. If you have multi-clips, you should take your video with synced audio for EACH CAMERA and drop it into the timeline. Once you bring the media into your other editor, you’ll need to rebuild your group clips, so act as if you never had them in the first place.

ONE WORKFLOW THAT MAY WORK FOR YOU:

• Make a duplicate of your current sequence edit.
• At the tail end of that sequence, add a stringout of all clips from the scenes referenced in your cut. By sending all your clips in one sequence, you can maintain the links between the clips you sort into scene bins and the clips in your sequence. Your sequence will be hours and hours long, but then you’ll have clips that link to each other. Now, editorial tools like Match Frame will work.
• Don’t convert your media with AutoDuck. Just batch import the Quicktimes for your shots in Avid. Too many times I’ve found that AutoDuck crashed overnight while trying to move clips from FCP<->Avid.
• If you’re moving your project from Avid->FCP, you have three choices depending on how your media was imported. If your media was captured to tape, your best bet is to recapture. If your media was imported tapelessly into Avid via AMA, I’d probably suggest just using FCP’s Log & Transfer to convert your media to FCP-friendly flavors, then relink those clips to the clips brought in via AutoDuck. Lastly, if your media was simply imported from Quicktime into Avid, just relink to the original media files!

BONUS: EXPORT AAFS FROM FINAL CUT PRO 7!

• For a long time, FCP7's support for normal ProTools workflows havs been sub-par. But by using AutoDuck's Pro Export FCP, you can now export new modern AAFs for your sound finishing needs. Since Pro Export FCP exports AAFs for Avid to import, and you have all the normal AAF export options available (consolidate whole clips, consolidate to folder, link to media, etc), you are now free from FCP's OMF 2.0 export function. Yay!

FINAL NOTES

• In my experience, transferring projects from FCP->Avid and relinking via AMA has rarely worked. Maybe you’ll get lucky, but I find that it just doesn’t always see the right clips. Your best bet is to batch import, since you can force Avid to recognize a certain clip as coming from a certain movie file.
• Automatic Duck is not a perfect app but it’s better than nothing. As with many “unsupported” workflows, GIVE YOURSELF TIME AND DO NOT EXPECT IT TO WORK RIGHT IMMEDIATELY. I can’t stress this enough. Run some tests. Decide what might be best. Don’t force it.LASTLY, and most importantly, please tell me about your experiences in the Comments section.

GOOD LUCK!

What I'm Working On: Kanye West's Cruel Summer

Edited by Robert Grigsby Wilson. No shit. Check out the reviews here and info about the building here.

What I'm Working On: Iron & Wine - "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" Music Video

When I was in New York in September, I met with the amazing people at Dig For Fire.  I've admired their work for years, from the fantastic live in-store performances they shoot at Other Music to an awesome Band Of Horses video and now to their relationship with Spotify.  I have been wanting to work for them for a long time.  Finally I had the chance. They had just gone into the studio with Iron & Wine to film the re-recording of his classic tune "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" for the new Twilight: Breaking Dawn soundtrack.  To add to it, Marketa Irglova from The Swell Season came in to sing harmony on the the track.  They asked if I thought I could cut the video in the two weeks I was in town.  I said ABSOLUTELY!

Currenlty, Wordpress.com doesn't support VH1 embeds.  So if you wanna see it there here it is. The VH1 link has over 70,000 views already!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIHaNh3jRXg]

What I'm Working On - Everything Is A Remix: THE MATRIX

A new addendum to Kirby Ferguson's web series Everything Is A Remix is up.  I edited it and produced it with Kirby's help and script help from Cynthia Closkey.  Check it out!  I hope you like it.  You can also see the link to the video on everythingisaremix.info. [vimeo 29996808 w=640h=360]

File-Based Basics (c/o Splice Here)

The ever-brilliant Splice Here blog (soon to be Splice Now) by Steve Cohen lays out the perfect list of questions that every production should answer before they shoot one frame.  If you or someone on your production team can't answer this question before you start shooting, STOP! and get it answered.  Not knowing the answer can get you in to trouble.  Original link: File-Based Basics « Splice Here.

1. Production Which camera(s) are you using? Which audio recorder? What kinds of files are you creating? What frame rate, sample rate, timecode rate, raster size are you recording?
2. Dailies Who’s doing them? What do you need for editing, review and conforming? Who syncs and how will they do it? Who backs up and when? How are drives being moved around; where are they stored?
3. Editing What system will you use? What kind of drives/raid? How will you output cut material for review? What are you turning over to sound and music?
4. Conforming Will you roll your own or have a post house do it? How do you handle visual effects created in your editing room? And those created by the vfx team? What kinds of files will you use for color correction? And for television, a crucial question — when do you convert to HD?

Thanks Steve!

What I'm Working On: Indiecade!

Okay, so it's been a while since I've done what I originally intended to do with this blog: keep my various projects aggregated into one site.  I'm slowly getting back into it, and I think I'll start back off by going in reverse order, starting with my project from the last few weeks. Recently, a friend of mine asked me to help her out cutting the video packages for the awards ceremony for the 3rd annual Indiecade Festival.  Indiecade is the International Festival of Independent Games.  In short, it is meant to be a sort of Sundance Film Festival for games produced outside the usual "studio" system.  The project comprised of thirty-two short :15 packages for each of the finalists in the festival and a finalist montage to open the event.   To balance out the work I had the help of fellow editor and USC Interactive Media student Cory Sanford, so I had more time to focus on the important opening montage.

All of our source footage came from each of the different production teams for each game, so you can imagine that all our media came in a nearly infinite amount of flavors.  I took advantage Perian's ability to open nearly any type of video file, and kept with a traditional offline/online workflow in my new version of Avid Media Composer 5. (Thanks Avid!)  Combining these two allowed me to turn nearly every source I was provided with into 10:1 Avid media straight from the source video file, since Avid's Import tool employs every Quicktime codec (i.e. Perian) installed on my editing system.  From there I was able to edit seamlessly without worrying about different codecs and without carrying around with me a boatload of media.  Once the edit was locked, I simply decomposed the Avid sequence and batch-imported the master clips at 1:1 from the original source files of those various flavors.  It worked like a charm.

[vimeo 15752510 w=540h=400]

The event was hosted by Levar Burton of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: The Next Generation, two mainstays of my childhood.  It also featured live DJ sets by 8-Bit Weapon and awesome presenters including Isaiah Mustafah and Seth Gordon, director of The King Of Kong.  The show was at Sony Studios in Culver City.  It was a really fun event and a great festival to be a part of.  Slides below:

[slideshow]

Movie Business = Music Business minus 5 years?

Interesting post from the ever-excellent Silicon Alley Insider: Sorry, There's No Way To Save The TV Business...

As with print-based media, Internet-based distribution generates only a tiny fraction of the revenue and profit that today's incumbent cable, broadcast, and satellite distribution models do.  As Internet-based distribution gains steam, therefore, most TV industry incumbents will no longer be able to support their existing cost structures.

Here's the gist: we're all going to be out of work in five years.  Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the truth is that I don't see much of a future for the industry.  THAT IS NOT TO SAY THAT I DON'T LOVE THE BUSINESS AND WANT TO DO THIS FOREVER, but the fact of the matter is, especially with post-production, job levels are taking a nose-dive and revenue streams are not far behind it.  I mean, we already have internet-equipped televisions, internet video on the rise, and more people then ever on the internet, so the technology is there.  How long before the industry has the rug pulled out from under us, just like the newspaper and record industry?

And things are already dead in this town.  What from the Writer's Strike, the SAG "strike", and the down economy, I can't image jobs ever getting back to the levels they were at when I first moved out here.  I don't want to say that we'll never find a way to work, but if you've got any ideas, I suggest you pick up the phone and call some industry executives, because they want to know.

Quick link to a recent episode of KCRW's The Business: Below The Line and Under The Gun.  It's probably the best description of the job market facing us below-the-line'rs in this town.  Only problem is that it doesn't even address the job market for post-production, because with the addition of technology to all these problems, editorial staffs have gone from double-digit crews to maybe two or three people for multi-million dollar projects! You want to talk about too much supply vs. demand, here is your example #1!

I'd love to hear what anyone has to say about this.  Hell, talk me down if you think I'm crazy.  I would love for someone to make me feel better about this.  Please comment!