An HDV / VT 4.6 experience

[fboulene]

Hello,
I finished a few weeks ago a production for the french TV channel "Comedie"
of the Didier Gustin Show entitled "Ca manque pas d'air". We shoot with 6 Sony Z1 cameras and did all the video editing and post in VT 4.6. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks Andrew Cross for his help and Bob Tasa for his Multicam plugin who made this edit a walk in the park.
If the choice of HDV format could be a questionable one at first glance, it turned out a real wise one as one of our camera operator ( it was the large security shot of the stage, of course ) went crazy with the pan head and zoom control ( shooting iso cam I could'nt see what he was doing ). It turned out that we tracked and stabilized about 150 shots in Mirage. It came out very well and on the final SD ouput you can't tell the difference with the other cameras, and it is still sharper than an original DV shot.
If you're in France, this program should be aired in a few weeks and you can grab a few extracts every saturday on France3 around 2.00 PM starting next week ( sorry I do not recall the name of the show) . A DVD will come later.
If you do have any questions about this production I will be more than happy to answer them.
Have a very nice sunday.

[Jim Capillo]

If you're in France, this program should be aired in a few weeks and you can grab a few extracts every saturday on France3 around 2.00 PM starting next week ( sorry I do not recall the name of the show) . A DVD will come later.
If you do have any questions about this production I will be more than happy to answer them.
Have a very nice sunday.

Congratulations !

Would it be possible for you to upload a portion for us to look at ?

[fboulene]

Thank you.

How do you do that ? What codec do you prefer?

[Jim Capillo]

Thank you.

How do you do that ? What codec do you prefer?

You would have to edit a little piece together then encode it with either Windows Media Encoder (which I have) or Quicktime (which I don't).

Thanks !

[fboulene]

Yes but how do you upload to the forum ?
There is always the choice of the free upload sites but they have a limited bandwith.

[Jim Capillo]

Yes but how do you upload to the forum ?


You will have to have a place to put it or perhaps someone here with some excess space will allow you to show it for a while.

[radams]

Bonjour,

I think that there a many who would like to know your workflow...

Starting with how did you get the HDV into your system to edit? then how did you convert it to something that VT edit would work with....etc...

What format did you finish your show on...and how did you deliver it?

Also why even thou you did iso cams...not take feeds from each camera and do an onsite live switch and then do the finish edit later ?

then you could have set it up to know what your wacky safety shot cameraman was doing...BTW, did you do anything to him afterwards...What pain to have to track and stabilize to get usable footage...Grrrrrrrrr...

If I had been the Dir. or Production Supervisor on the job...that cameraman would have had to PAY for the time to stabilize it...Grrrrrrrrrrr...


I hope that you don't use him again...

Cheers,

[fboulene]

Hello,
my workflow was not the easiest one I think, but it worked.
HDV tapes were transfered to the PC to MPEG files using the free JVC app.
The MPEG files were transfered to PAL NT25 using VIRTUAL DUB MPEG, these were called "proxies" and I did the entire edit with. I did another transfer to HDV size HUFFYUV codec for conformation ( same names as the proxies but different folder ). This took place at night so it did'nt take any time, VIRTUAL DUB runs in batch mode. When everybody was happy with the edit I just had to rename the "full size" folder as the "proxie" one and the confo was done. Color correction, inserting the stabilized shots from MIRAGE ( could have been done in AURA, but I like MIRAGE better ). I did a render to PAL .rtv HQ ISS and off to Digi Beta. Actually I forgot but we did some sound post, because the sound mix was too perfect, I mean it sounded like a studio session, so I resynced the camera audios ( they were recording audio during the show from the mic, I used that to sync them up ) and picked up the crowd laughs and applauses from them.

This was done on a shoe string, so no money for a live mix, also I am doing the hand held on stage ( I love to do that ) so I can't sit by the mixer.

The cameraman is ( and still is ) a close friend of mine. He just blew a fuse, too much pressure, this can happen to all of us I guess, I just made some nasty remarks once or twice, I think he got very hangry at himself, he did'nt deserve more. We got a nice show on tape, everybody is happy and I will never use him again as a cameraman.
Thanks for reading this.