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| Pete Nehl |
During production, make sure that you monitor the signal properly. If you have the money and the production lends itself to it, get a broadcast quality monitor and scope. If you don’t have the money, use the zebra function in the viewfinder. Also, try to use a gray card or a chip chart at every lighting change. It can be a very helpful tool.
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If you are going to color correct later, make sure you leave room for it in your signal, be conservative, don’t push too hard, you can do that later in color correction.
Whatever you do, don’t go into clips, because you can never recover that lost information.
Offline and Online
There are a lot of ways to get in trouble during offline.
To avoid problems, for starters, make sure your offline source tapes are accurate to the original HD sources, particularly in terms of time code. We have seen 24P field masters converted with Drop Frame time code, and getting back to those masters accurately can be a problem.
If you’re working in 24P, work your offline like it's a film project. In an Avid environment, use the Film Composer option, just as though it were a 35mm project. If you don’t, the EDL doesn’t translate and you can get inaccuracies in your online. What we usually do is get a copy of the Avid sequence and generate the lists ourselves, since it can be complicated to make an accurate EDL.
Make sure your offline master matches your offline list. It just takes a few minutes, and can save you hours of head scratching in the online bay.
We have had both Avid and Final Cut Pro lists be perfect, but for one reason or another, the offline video is inaccurate. It’s a vexing problem, and takes some time to figure out after the fact. So before you get into online, just have your offline assist go to a few cuts throughout the show, and make sure they match the list. If they don’t, you have to deal with it before your online.
In 24P, make sure you generate your 30 frame EDL with non-drop record time code. There is no such thing as drop frame 24P time code. We have had offline EDL’s come in with 30 DF time code, and have had to translate that into 24 frame code. We can do it, but it all takes time. People resist using non-drop frame time code since they can’t get a total running time directly from the timeline, but to that, I suggest you find a capable time code calculator.
In general, we upconvert the offline master and then conform the HD video over the upconverted offline video. That gives us an instant indication of problems, whether they be audio or video. After the show is assembled, we split it back to the original offline master to make sure that there has been no drift or missed cuts. It is time well spent.
Conversions
Last year we did a MOW called Jackie O. The major portion was shot on 35mm film and transferred to 24P HD video. Because it was a docudrama, a lot of archival footage was incorporated into the movie including video, 8mm and 16mm film. What we found out was that you need to get all of the footage that you will need converted as early as possible and allow sufficient time for the upconversion process. Make sure you know what formats and aspect ratios you need to convert to in advance.
Don’t use the standard definition material in your offline then upconvert it later; you’ll lose reference to your time code.
Rather upconvert first, and then downconvert the upconversions for use in your offline. That way the time code for the upconverted material is documented and the incorporation of the upconverted footage will be seamless in the online process.
Titling
Make sure your titles will down convert, that the font you choose will down convert without problems. Some won’t, particularly fonts with light structures. If your chosen font won’t convert, you may need to either plan a re-titling session in SD or change your font selection.
Make sure that your titles in HD are in title safe in SD. Look at a down conversion of your HD titles during your titling sessions so that you won’t be surprised down the road.
If you are in 24P, be very careful of title rolls and crawls. If it’s too fast and you will get motion artifacts. You may need to go to cards instead of a roll. This is important, it can change the running time of your show, so you must make careful consideration of this in your planning. Talk to your post house and plan ahead.
Pete Nehl is chief technology officer of The Post Group, Hollywood, Calif.
