"Into The Abyss and Back", an experience diary by Thom Cox

11-10-04 Setting Scratch Disks and Device Control

Looks like there’s a bit of “setup” forethought that needs to occur before actually capturing video from the camera. A good way to proceed seems to be:

  1. Within Premiere, start a new project and create a new folder.
  2. In Windows, create a new folder within that one called ‘Capture’.

12-07-04 Setting Up to Capture Video

The Sony DCR-TRV9 from the media center appears to be capturing at standard 16 Bit/48khz.

Steps:

12-08-04

Important:

The preset you choose should be determined by what material you are going to be working with. If you are working with “new” source material that you will be capturing in Premiere Pro by way of the Canopus system, choose a Canopus preset ( Canopus – DV – NTSC / 16Bit 48k). If, on the other hand, you will be working with clips that were imported by some other means such as the Above Total Training Project File clips, use the standard DV – NTSC 48k preset.

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I have added VST plugins for additional audio processing capabilities within Premiere:

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Source Monitor is where you designate In/Out points for clips that WILL BE used in the timeline.

The Project Monitor is where you see and edit what is going on in the timeline. This is the film

The Timeline Window is the graphical horizontal view of what your movie looks like. This is also where you make overlay edits, etc.

To toggle the target track, use Shift - +. If you are currently working in the Video 1 track and use this key combination, you will have moved up to the Video 2 track.

For audio toggling use Ctrl – Shift +. For both of these, minus (-) does the inverse.

The Lift Command

Within the Project Monitor, you set in and out points just as in source editing. Clicking the “Lift” button or using it’s shortcut (“;”) removes the video from the timeline but preserves the space.

The Extract Command

Same as Lift, except that space is not preserved, material to the left is rippled to the right to close the space.

Play Around Edit

In the Project Monitor window there is a button called ‘Play In To Out’. This is very useful for seeing an in/out edit before committing it. However, you can also use this button to get a pre-roll of wherever the timeline cursor is. If you hold down the Alt key and hit this the movie will play from the cursor point minus the pre-roll amount (designated in Preferences – General).

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Digitizing ‘Gimpel The Fool’:

Wow, it is crucial to plan for changes in direct sunlight. About 40 minutes into the presentation, the sun is in a completely different place than the beginning thus making the lighting setup inappropriate.

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12-09-04:   The Trim Window

Used for precisely editing cuts that occur in the timeline, the trim window shows two video windows – one for the outgoing clip and one for the incoming clip. The goal here is to find the exact point where you leave one clip and enter another.

There are several tools in the trim window that can be used to accomplish the same task. You can use the hot text number fields to drag up and down, the jog shuttle wheels, or the real time left/right ripple and synchronous (middle) tools over the video windows themselves.

You can perform a trim edit based on audio waveforms by turning off the video track in the timeline. You will then see audio waveforms in the trim window.

The Timeline Window:

The timeline window contains the sequence(s) that we are editing. You can think of this as the canvas or virtual videotape. In the top left corner of the timeline window is hot text timeline code. You can click on this and scrub up or down to move the timeline cursor. Below that is the snap button which can be toggled on or off by hitting the ‘s’ key on the keyboard.

Audio:

Some things to keep in mind: once you have imported source material (video, audio, pictures) into the Project window. You can then drag them (individually or by folder) into the Source Monitor window. You can then drag them directly to the timeline or use the insert or overlay buttons. If you choose to drag them directly to the timeline, the default mode is overlay. To disable the default and make an insert edit, press the Ctrl key before you let go of the mouse. Note that the insert edit will insert on all tracks. To do a track specific insert edit and leave all other tracks unaffected, hold down the Alt key as well.

Edit – Preferences – Audio designated how surround files will be mixed down to stereo.

Markers:

Next to that is the marker button which is used to add a maker to the current position of the timeline cursor. The shortcut for this is the asterisk key on the computer keyboard number pad (not the asterisk above the 8 key on the qwerty pad.

Double clicking on the marker allows you to enter information about the marker by way of a pop-up window. You can enter information in the description field and you can include a chapter designation in the chapter field. This is how you split your movie into different chapters for export to DVD. Below the chapter field are fields for entering a web URL and frame target for interactive media involving web content.

To delete a marker, double click on it as if editing, and choose the Delete button in the pop-up window.

12-10-05: 8:59 AM

A word about conformed audio files. When you drag a video file from the project window to the timeline, Premiere creates new audio files for the video clip. It raises the quality of the audio (upsamples) so that it is at a bitrate acceptable for digital editing. When working with large files, this can lead to massive audio files taking up hard drive space. If you delete a project, make sure the Conformed Audio Files are trashed along with it.

The impact of the video preset you choose when creating a new project has a direct affect on playback of video and audio on your system. For instance, if I choose the preset Canopus – DV – Standard48k and then import existing material. I will see the video but will not hear audio from the computer – audio plays from the digital camera only. If the digital camera is not connected, no audio will be heard.

Below are the settings that make up the Canopus – DV – Standard48k preset. These are found in ‘Custom Settings’ tab of the New Project pop-up window:

General:

Editing Mode: Canopus RealTime DV

Capture:

Capture Format: Canopus DV Capture

Video Rendering:

Canopus DV (NTSC)

 

Having the digital video camera installed at times is a bit of a hassle. As is purchasing a small mixer to redirect audio so it can be heard from the computer speakers. Thus, I have created a new preset called ‘Tisch’ which resolves the I/O conflict and has the following settings:

General:

Editing Mode: DV Playback

Capture:

Capture Format: Canopus DV Capture

Video Rendering:

options here are grayed out as the DV Playback choice overrides them.

The above settings experiments pertain to importing existing video from the hard drive. Next I will use the ‘Tisch’ setting and record/digitize new material.

12-10-04 11:55 AM

Ok, I have recorded a short test video of Mike Perriello talking about how he got his prized Pedulla guitar. This has successfully been captured into Premiere Pro and is playing back on the computer desktop and computer speakers (video and audio). Here are the steps:

  1. Connect the digital camera to the Canopus ADVC-100 video converter using the digital firewire cable. This cable should be in the top desk drawer to the left of the computer.
  2. Turn the ADVC-100 on by pushing switch on the left portion of the back panel.
  3. Turn the digital video camera on in VTR mode.
  4. Launch Adobe Premiere Pro and choose New Project
  5. When the New Project pop-up window occurs, you are given a list of presets to choose from. Choose ‘Tisch’ from the Custom folder
  6. Once Premiere Pro has opened and all windows are present on the desktop, hit the F5 key to bring up the Capture window.

    At this point, all of the transport controls and their respective shortcuts within Premiere can be used to control the digital camera.
    Pressing ‘L’ on the keyboard will start the camera playing.
    Pressing ‘K’ will stop playback.
    Pressing ‘J’ will rewind playback.
  7. Press ‘L’ to commence camera playback.
  8. When you arrive at the point where you want your video clip to begin, press ‘I’ on your computer keyboard. Note: You can stop playback first and then use the left and right arrow keys to move one frame at a time to access the exact frame you want to start at. Holding down the Shift key and using the left and right arrows will advance forward and backward by 10 frames.
  9. Continue playback (or resume playback if you have stopped) until you reach the desired end point. Hit the ‘O’ key to enter the out point.

    You are now ready to capture the clip. Before doing so, look at the right panel of the capture window. In the option group called “Clip Data”, enter information about the tape and clip you are capturing
  10. Hit the In/Out button in the Capture option group in the bottom right portion of the capture window.

12-16-04 Demonstration Footage

I’ve been thinking about demonstration footage -- small example films to be shown on the website that demonstrate what we’ve learned regarding lighting, etc.

Lighting:

  1. Video tape an individual giving a brief presentation in the Austin Room.
  2. Shoot first with ambient lighting – sun
  3. Shoot next with ambient and fluorescents
  4. Next, no ambient, just fluorescents
  5. Next, no fluorescents, just domes and ambient
  6. Finally, 3 point lighting example with and without ambient
  7. Find the best, then use it against a black screen. Is there a black curtain or blanket that we could put up to show the impact a background has on the footage. I’d like to do this in the Austin Room.

Notes from Studio Techniques Book:

Using still shots – remember that Premiere video frames have a resolution of 72dpi. If you are bringing in still shots, make sure they are at 72dpi before import

CTI – current time indicator

1/3/2005

More timeline editing

If, when in the timeline, you clip on a clip and drag upwards, you will be doing a lift edit. You move the clip out of the current video track placing it in an adjacent one. Space will be left in the timeline of the original track. If, however, you hold down the Ctrl key first, you will do an extract edit. You move the clip to an adjacent track but clips to the right of the CTI will move to the edit point thus leaving no blank space.

1/5/05

Multi-Camera Editing

To bring multiple camera angle shots to the timeline in sync. First find a sync point in each clip and place a marker on that point. Then, in the timeline, select the first frame and give it a meaningful time reference by selecting Sequence Zero Point in the wing menu of the timeline. Now you can enter something relevant. Entering 1.0.0.2 yields a time code value 01:00:00:02 – first hour, zero minutes, zero seconds, 2cd frame.

Next, you have to make sure that all clips you are using refer to the same timecode! This is not the case by default as the clips will not contain the same timecode while recording. It’s practically impossible for two or three cameras to start recording at exactly the same frame so you must match the timecode within Premiere.

Target your video track (Ctrl+ should advance to the adjacent track)

Press the ‘T’ key – Match key. This will bring the target clip up in both the source and program sections of the Monitor Window. You will see the timecode discrepancy immediately.

1/11/05

Ok. I’m doing the multi-camera edit for Professor Jonathan Wilson’s talk. It looks like auto focus was turned on for camera B. This is producing a 2 second blur-to-focus gap whenever I cut to an audience member asking a question. For the future, it’s important to remember to do a proper manual focus setup for this camera as well.

1/13/05

Ok, major frustration! I’ve been working on audio editing using the Audio Mixer, applying keyframes to raise the volume of audience members during the Q&A session. I saved the file periodically then the machine crashed. When I reopened Premiere it told me that my file was damaged and it can’t open it. So basically I have lost about 3 hours worth of work. I was able to get the previous state of the file back through Premiere’s Auto-Save folder.

Ok, back on track here. I’m working with the Wilson speech which has an introduction by Laurie Sabol. Wilson’s audio was recorded by camera one (a wireless lavaliere mic). Laurie’s audio is coming from camera two (a shotgun style mic). I’m using compression on Wilson’s speech via Premiere’s Dynamics plug-in in the Audio Mixer. I want to use the Denoiser plug-in on Laurie since that recording is producing substantial room noise. However, the combination of the two plug-ins is producing a very artificial tone. This is a good argument for using not combining the audio from two different recordings into one audio track as I had done previously. It is better to leave them on separate tracks so you can address their audio independently.

Here are some good Dynamics settings for spoken word audio:

Compressor:

Threshold -13.40

Ratio 7:13

Attack 0.50

Release 53.45

Make-up Gain 9.48

 

2/10/05

The Adobe manuals and Total Training DVD’s make reference to a feature called “Export To DVD” which is available from the File à Export menu. Neither Neal or I have ever been able to get this to work and both of us followed the directions step by step. I’ve made coasters out of blank DVD’s trying. Had it worked, it would have allowed me to export directly from the project to a DVD without exporting to an AVI or MPEG2 file first. Doing the export and using a professional standalone product like Adobe Encore DVD seems like a much more reliable solution.

The process for exporting to DVD is as follows:

When the project is completely finished, choose File à Export à Movie. Choose either Microsoft DAVI (since we are using digital video) or MPEG2.

3/15/05

Importing and Working with Still Images

As the final cut of the Wilson talk will include cutaways to still images, I’m researching techniques for working with them. The Edit à Preferences à Still Image menu allows you to set the default number of seconds an imported still image will show for when brought into the timeline. Remember to divide by 30 to get the number of seconds as you are working with video that is 30 frames per second. Hence 180 frames equals 6 seconds. By changing this setting as you import images in batches, you can have a variety of still image display lengths in the final video.

Source Monitor Vs. Timeline Editing

You can select the portions of the film you want to use in one of two ways.

Source Monitor:

From the source monitor, you can make In points and Out points and then perform an insert edit or an overlay edit to the timeline (see … for the difference). If you do not mark an In or Out point, you will be using the entire clip. Remember that this edit will occur wherever the CTI (current time indicator) is in the timeline.

Insert – here you add footage (a clip or audio) to the timeline by pushing existing media (if present) out of the way. This “pushing” is called rippling. When you do an insert edit, footage to the right of the insert point is pushed further in time. Once you have marked your In and Out points in the Source Monitor, you can perform an insert edit with the comma key as a shortcut (,).

Overlay – overlay editing does exactly what it’s title infers. You add media on top of, and thus replacing, existing media. If the media you are overlaying is shorter than the media you are replacing, you will see the portion of the original media that is left over. Overlay editing does not change the time placement of existing media. Once you have marked your In and Out points in the Source Monitor, you can perform an overlay edit with the period key as a shortcut (.).

Timeline:

If you prefer to work directly in the timeline as if it were a canvass and you are a painter, the cursor (mouse cursor) will be your best friend. The cursor changes offering different options dependent on what part of the clip it is hovering over.

There are four key concepts you need to be mindful of when editing (especially timeline editing):

Three Point Editing:

A popular term in the professional editing industry is “three point editing”. This simply means that you have a marked portion of your source material that you intend to insert or overlay edit at a specific and marked point in your Program Monitor. For three point editing, both the Source Monitor and Program Monitor windows are utilized.

4/20/05

Crackling Audio! Oh my! There appears to be a bug in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5. Some of our experiments have been plagued by a crackling sound in the audio. This appears to happen when you have chosen “Show Track Volume” or “Show Keyframes” from the Timeline tracks. You have to add keyframes if you adjusting portions of the audio volume – drawing curves, etc. If you export your movie while you are showing keyframes, the crackling is written to the file. This is awful. If you are hearing this noise, turn off the display of track volume and keyframes.