| If you are using the CAPTURE NOW function in Final Cut Pro for your capturing needs, then you are missing out on some of Final Cut Pro's most powerful features. This article will explain proper workflow when beginning a project, including logging, batch capture lists, capturing, mini-DV back-up, as well as touch on the concept of matching-back to either High Def video or various formats of film.
Final Cut Pro contains a powerful database to help you organize your media. Take a look at the browser window.
It contains a seemingly never-ending series of columns detailing every aspect of the footage in your project. Behind the scenes, in those mysterious Capture Scratch and Waveform Cache folders, Final Cut Pro is keeping tabs on every piece of media you are importing. After using Final Cut Pro, never again should you need to scratch your head and wonder what tape "that one shot" is on, nor fast-forward through that tape for an hour before finding the clip you're looking for.
Sound appealing? Then move your cursor away from the CAPTURE NOW button and let's begin...
Capture Settings
Well - almost. Take a moment to check your capture settings; usually you'll have them set already for the camera that you own. If you have not already set FCP for the camera you're using, there is an Easy Setup function that you can use. Launch Final Cut Pro and close any open projects. Go to the Final Cut Pro menu > Easy Setup. Check the "Show All" option for the greatest variety of formats available. Choose from the list what you are shooting in, and verify that this is the best format by reading the summary in the Easy Setup window. Once you've found what you need, click Setup.
Go to Final Cut Pro > Audio/Video Settings. The most common settings are the miniDV pre-sets for both Sequence Preset and Capture Preset; this uses the DV NTSC Compressor with Audio set at 48khz. If you shot on miniDV and had your audio set for 16bit, then this is your preset of choice. If, however, you have recently upgraded to an HDV camera, you will need to change this pre-set to the HDV preset. If you are shooting HD you will require a 1080i setting. The main idea here is to set the format of what you have shot to the format of what you will capture and the format that you will edit in. It makes sense; they should all be the same in order to give you native editing capabilities without the need to render before you've even begun to make edits.
The exception to this rule is when you want to compress your incoming footage, something you may benefit from if you have shot HD but desire to save system resources by editing at a lower resolution. This is a choice you'll have to make on your own, depending on what kind of system you are editing on and the scope of your project. The process of editing footage that is different in resolution or format than the resolution or format that you shot on and will be ending up on is called "off-lining".
Log and Capture
The next stage is looking at your raw footage, and to catalogue it. This is the "log" portion of "log and capture". It involves, quite simply, sitting down and watching all of your tapes from 00:00:00:00 to the very end. Having this sort of workprint is a good way to be able to sit down in front of your TV with your laptop, watch the footage and log your clips. It can be relaxing after an arduous shoot. Take good notes while you watch; the log that you create from these sessions will dictate what clips you have to work with later on.
Enter the timecode at which each clip begins and ends in the Media Start and Media End fields, respectively. Of course a clip's "beginning" and "ending" are sometimes nicely defined by a slate or clapboard, and then other times (such as during footage of the kids playing with grandma) it can be loosely defined by your own judgement. The bottom line is that clips should not go on for too long; even 5 minute clips can get overwhelming when you're scrubbing video in FCP for golden moments to include in your final edit. Keeping clips as focused as possible is usually best. Label the clips in the Description column. Numbering clips that are alike with "Scene Numbers" often is extremely helpful; later on, this will help you quickly associate clips with the same settings are similar content.
The Tracks column is usually "1V,2A", referring to one track of video and two tracks of audio. If there are shots that have no sound, it is economical to capture only the video track (type only "1V"). When capturing only the sound, you may enter "2A". How these audio tracks are captured (stereo pair, two mono) will be defined by your capture settings in File > Log and Capture > Clip Settings.
Timecode
While you watch and log the footage, you may encounter timecode breaks. This is caused by breaks in the recorded data on the tape, and serious timecode breaks will cause the timecode to reset to 00:00:00:00. If this happens, you will need to assign a sub-reel number to the portion between the timecode break. So on reel 40, you may have 40_1, 40_2, 40_3, 40_4, and so on.
Both at the head of the tape and at the tail, and at the head of a timecode break and at its tail, you will need a buffer of a few seconds before you log the media start and media end. The Final Cut Pro manual states that you will need 3 seconds, but depending on your deck or camera, you may in reality need 6 seconds.
** A cheat to avoid this from happening if you are using a consumer camera without an End Search is to pre-record your miniDV tapes before taking them out to shoot. This lays down a timecode track that will remain in tact regardless of any in-camera cuts that you make. Another option is to always record ample time at the end of each shot and actually rewinding a few seconds before you start the next shot, thereby ensuring that will be no break in the timecode track.
Capture
You may continue to populate your project with these offline clips. When you are ready to being capturing, select the clips you wish to bring online. Control-click on these clips and a contextual menu appears, with the option to "Batch Capture".
Select this, and you will be greeted by a window asking you to specify the capture settings. This is by default what you've already set at the beginning of this article. Click OK to proceed.
The next window that will open is a list of the reels you will need on hand, and how much footage from each the computer will be capturing. Once you proceed, the computer will request the specific reel number to be inserted into your deck or camera. And the rest is automated. The computer will capture all of your footage, connect it to the offline clips in your bin, and organize it in the capture scratch folder that you designated. You are free to go out, get a cup of coffee, and relax.
...well, almost. If your tapes were riddled with timecode breaks and errors, you may need to do some babysitting. Each time the tape reaches one of the timecode breaks, the computer will stop and ask for a new reel, such as 40_2. This of course is the same physical tape as reel 40, but occurs chronologically after the timecode break, so you will need to fast forward manually through the timecode break, and then tell the computer that the new "reel" has been inserted, and it will continue to capture.
iMovie, interestingly, has an easier time with timecode breaks and many people wonder how it is that a consumer program is able to handle these breaks in the timecode track whereas Final Cut Pro cannot. The answer is that when you are editing properly, you are editing for the long haul, meaning that you want to have a path to everything you have captured. iMovie is not like this; once the media is captured, the path is forgotten and it is tenuously retained on your hard drive and nothing had better happen to it!
After capturing the footage, be sure to return the reels to their safe storage location. This, therefore, has been only the second instance you have ever used or played back your shot reels. Compare this to a workflow in which the tapes themselves are reviewed time and time again, finding good clips, capturing those clips, and possibly re-capturing them in cases of either losing the media or encountering any kind of error while editing or capturing.
You are now free to begin editing! Feel free to experiment as much as you want to, and if anything should happen along the way, rest assured that you have a record of every piece of media you are using within the project and where you can find it again. If you need to recapture something, you can do so without fear of throwing anything out of sync or having to search through piles of tapes. Should you need to send your project to a professional lab or mastering house, you'll always be able to give them full access to your source material so that they will be able to provide you with the very best of results.
Problems and How They are Solved Easily
Although Final Cut Pro is a non-destructive editor, there are times when something goes wrong with the media that you have captured. Maybe it's Final Cut's fault or maybe it's your fault or maybe it's the hard drive's fault, but whatever the case if the footage has gone off line or is not playing back correctly. Re-capturing is easy; since the clip has been logged correctly, you know precisely what reel it is on and where on the reel it is.
All you need do is control-click on the bad clip > Make Offline > Delete from Disk.
Then, control click again on the clip in FCP > batch capture. You will be prompted to insert the proper reel, and the computer will capture the media.
Offline & Online Editing
The same principle is applied when you are working with compressed video copies, off-line versions, of SD, HD, or film. Rarely is there really a do-or-die need to edit at full resolution. No matter what your system, there are always resources to save in that system by editing at a lower resolution. Far more SD footage can fit onto a 120 gb MacBook Pro when it's compressed as Photo JPEG 320x240 video, and HD footage is kinder on even the most robust Mac Pro system at SD resolution.
All of this low-res footage can be matched back to its source footage at the end of the project, when all the scraps that will not be used have been trimmed away (reducing the storage space you'll need) and all that remains to do is export for delivery. (In fact, this is also a concept upon which Cinema Tools was built. Obviously you cannot edit film on Final Cut Pro, as such; you edit "Digital Intermediates" of the film. Cinema Tools is used as, essentially, your batch capture list and an EDL, aligning not only reel numbers but also the edge numbers printed on the film itself so that the negative cutter will be able to match the film back toyour editing decisions.)
So to convert a project from the low-res versions you've been cutting to its original full-res footage, you would select all of your clips in the project > make offline > Leave on Disk
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About DVPA
Bob Donlon
