Peachpit Press
Editing with Avid® Media Composer® 5 Published by Peachpit Press. For information on Peachpit Press books, contact: Peachpit Press 1249 Eighth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 510/524-2178 Fax: 510/524-2221 Find us on the Web at www.peachpit.com To report errors, please send a note to errata@peachpit.com Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education Copyright © 2011 by Avid Technology, Inc.
Contents Introduction . ........................................................................................................... viii 1 Introducing Tools and Workflow 1 The Core Workflow . .................................................................................................2 How Media Composer Works: Files and Relationships . ................................3 How Media Composer Works: System Hardware. ...........................................4 Starting the System. ......................
iv Contents 3 Timeline Editing 71 Extracting Top and Tail . ........................................................................................72 Working with Tracks . .............................................................................................75 Editing Segments in the Timeline Using Segment Mode . ...........................76 Useful Editing Tools and Techniques. ................................................................85 Review Questions . ...............................
Contents v Horizontal Effects . ..............................................................................................185 Using Keyframes . .................................................................................................196 Direct Manipulation Handles . ...........................................................................198 Saving and Applying Effect Templates . .........................................................201 Creating Vertical Effects . ........................
vi Contents 11 Working with File-Based Media 299 Working with File-Based Media . ......................................................................300 The Avid Media Access Workflow . ..................................................................301 Working with P2 Media . ................................................................................. 306 Working with XDCAM and XDCAM EX Clips . .......................................... 308 Working with RED Media . ...........................
About the Author Ashley Kennedy is a passionate, experienced video editor with a focus in documentary post-production and an additional background in narrative and commercial formats. As former Principle Instructor and Certifications Program Manager at Avid Technology, Inc., she taught and developed the Avid Certified curriculum, creating more than a dozen in-classroom and e-learning courses. She also managed the Avid Certified Instructor worldwide program.
Introduction Congratulations on taking the first step to becoming a proficient editor using Avid® Media Composer® 5. When you’ve finished the lessons in this book, you will be able to edit and refine multitrack video sequences with a good sound mix, add and manipulate effects, correct color issues, and add titles. You’ll also learn great customization and navigation techniques, as well as how to input and output material between Media Composer and a wide variety of file formats and devices.
Introduction ix Using the Enclosed DVD The DVD included with this book contains the project and media files that you will need to complete the exercises within the “Practice Your Skills” sections. Most of the footage is from the documentary Urban Nutcracker: Anatomy of a Ballet, © 2009, written and produced by Gonca Sonmez-Poole of Mediation Way, Inc. (a 501c3 nonprofit company based in Massachusetts).
x Introduction Footage Format The footage used in this book is in NTSC format. Those of you editing in PAL-based countries will still be able to edit this footage in an NTSC (30fps) project. Working with this footage, you’ll learn proper video-editing skills in Media Composer, but you should be aware that several differences exist between the NTSC and PAL formats. For example, frame rates and resolutions in NTSC footage are not the same as in PAL footage.
Introduction Avid Marquee title versions folder Text (.txt) document for Marquee AutoTitler exercise xi Located in its own folder: Media (Avid MediaFiles folder) You can place the first four materials anywhere you like. (We recommend keeping them together in the Avid Exercise Files folder and storing them on your desktop or on a separate hard drive.) The Avid MediaFiles folder, however, must be placed in the root directory of your media drive, or Media Composer won’t be able to read the media.
xii Introduction Acknowledgments The author would like to acknowledge the following people for contributing their time and knowledge: Trevor Boden, technical editor. Trevor’s sharp eye and laser-focused expertise were greatly appreciated in checking for accuracy and precision in both the writing and the exercises. Bob Lindstrom, development editor. Bob’s keen way with words allowed the passages in this book to be expressed in the cleanest and most efficient way possible.
1 Introducing Tools and Workflow Welcome to the world of digital nonlinear editing using Avid® Media Composer®. Objectives: Understand basic editing workflow Identify the hardware components of This book will be your guide as you join the worldwide ranks of Avid editors who the system use Media Composer to construct the widest array of projects—from supersized Hollywood blockbusters to local newscasts ships of project-related files to basic wedding videos.
2 Introducing Tools and Workflow The Core Workflow The basic postproduction workflow within Media Composer is very simple— you have three steps to perform when converting raw footage to master tape: input, edit, and output.
How Media Composer Works: Files and Relationships 3 How Media Composer Works: Files and Relationships Before starting Media Composer, it’s important to know where everything “lives” within your Avid project and how Avid interacts within the entire editing system. The Avid Project Folder Hierarchy An Avid project is not a single file; rather, it is a file within a folder that contains the main project components. Don’t worry, Avid automatically creates all these files every time you set up a project.
4 Introducing Tools and Workflow Sequence: A sequence is your edited program. You create a sequence by editing clips together. A sequence is stored in a bin, and it holds references to its clips. Clip/Media File Relationship The project components (clips, subclips, and sequences) are information files that refer to the raw physical data that lives in your system as media files. To edit, you need both the information file and the physical data.
Starting the System 5 Computer Monitors Shared storage Mixing board Source device Local storage Speaker I/O hardware Regardless of your particular editing procedure, the basic components are the same: A robust Windows or Macintosh computer that meets Avid’s system requirements for CPU, RAM, graphics card, and operating system.
6 Introducing Tools and Workflow 1. Turn on all peripheral hardware such as Avid Nitris DX or Mojo DX, monitors, and speakers (or use a power strip to power them up simultaneously.) 2. Turn on all external drives. Wait about 15 to 20 seconds for them to spin up to speed. 3. Turn on the computer, and log into the system (if necessary). 4.
Creating and Opening a Project 7 To open an existing project, select the Private, Shared, or External button. Private: Only you (based on your system login ID) have access to these projects. Shared: All users on the system have access to these projects. External: Use this option to navigate to a project that is external to the Avid Projects folder (such as in another folder on the system or on an external media drive or thumb drive).
8 Introducing Tools and Workflow Opening an Existing Project 1. When you want to work on a project that already exists, you need to locate it and select it. If the project is located in the private or shared Avid Projects folder, click the appropriate button in the Select Project dialog box. If the project is located elsewhere, select the External button, and then click the Browse button to navigate to your project. 2. In the navigation screen, locate your project, and click Choose.
Creating and Opening a Project 9 Click the User Profile menu, and choose one of the following: An existing user profile listed in the menu. Create User Profile. If you choose this option, follow these steps: 1. Type a name in the Create User Profile dialog box, and click OK. The new user appears in the User Profile menu. 2. Modify the User settings to your own specifications (see Chapter 6). Import User or User Profile.
10 Introducing Tools and Workflow Working in the Project Window When Media Composer opens, your user interface will look like this: N O T E Media Composer appears like this figure on a single monitor system. If you have dual monitors, the Project Window (the small window in the lower left) will be displayed on the left monitor, while all other windows will be displayed on the right monitor.
Working in the Project Window 11 Six tabs appear across the top of the Project window: Bins, Settings, Effect Palette, Format, Usage, and Info. Using Bins One of the most important parts of the Project window is the Bins tab, which lists all the bins created in the current project, their sizes and status (open or closed), folders for organizing bins, and—if you have deleted any bins—the Trash icon.
12 Introducing Tools and Workflow Using the SuperBin Media Composer enables you to maximize your screen real estate using a SuperBin. A SuperBin lets you open multiple bins in a single bin window and keep them open with only one bin visible at a time. The SuperBin is turned off by default. If you’re working on a single-monitor system, you may want to turn it on. To enable the SuperBin: 1. In the Project window, click the Settings tab. 2. In the Settings list, double-click Bin.
Working in the Project Window 13 6. To view a previously opened bin in the SuperBin, click the SuperBin icon, and select the bin from the menu of open bins. You can also click the open bin in the Project window. 7. To move bins in and out of the SuperBin, double-click the open bin’s icon in the Project window. Creating a New Bin Practicing good bin management will keep you organized and make you a more efficient editor.
14 Introducing Tools and Workflow 2. To name the bin, click the bin title, type the new name, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh). It is important that you give each bin a unique name. When you rename a clip in a bin and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh), the next clip name is highlighted. An accidental keystroke will erase it.
Working in the Project Window 15 2. Type a new name, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh). To open or close a folder: Click the triangle (pointing to the side) next to a folder to view its contents. Click the triangle (pointing down) again to close the folder. Closed folder Open folder To move a bin into a folder: Drag the Bin icon to the folder triangle. When you release the mouse, the bin appears in the folder.
16 Introducing Tools and Workflow To remove a bin or folder from the Trash: Drag the desired items out of the Trash to an empty area in the Project window. Double-click the bin or folder to view its contents. To empty the Trash: 1. In the Project window Fast menu, select Empty Trash. An alert box appears. 2. Click Empty Trash to delete the bins from the Trash. The Trash bin disappears from the Project window. When you empty the trash, the contents of the Trash bin are removed from the system.
Working in the Project Window 17 Bin Fast Menu The Bin menu is duplicated within the bin as the Bin Fast menu. Instead of using the Bin menu at the top of the menu bar, you may prefer to use the bin Fast menu, located in the bottom-left corner of each bin. Bin Fast menu Displaying a Bin View You can display the bin in four views—Brief view, Text view, Frame view, and Script view. Each of these tabs shows different information. To display a specific bin view, click the appropriate tab.
18 Introducing Tools and Workflow or sequence)—and an Offline column (to indicate that the clip’s associated media is offline). Text view: Text view lists clips and sequences along with statistical information and provides fast access to data about your clips. Text view provides several default views of information that you can access by clicking the italicized Untitled menu at the bottom of the bin. It is possible that instead of Untitled, it will display the name of an already-existing bin view.
Working in the Project Window 19 2. From the Choose Columns menu, you can select any information that you want. These columns will then appear in your bin when in Text view. 3. To rearrange the column order (for example, Start should be displayed before End), drag the headings with your mouse to the desired locations. 4. To save this view, click the italicized Custom.1 title at the bottom of the bin, and select Save As. 5. Enter a name for your view, and click OK.
20 Introducing Tools and Workflow Frame view: Frame view displays the head (first) frame of each clip and sequence in the bin. This view is handy for getting a quick glimpse of the content of each clip. You can also use Frame view to create storyboards. You can click and drag the frames around in the way that you anticipate you will be editing the shots. (Later, you will see how to edit these shots straight to your sequence.) Download from www.wowebook.
Working in the Project Window 21 You can alter the way Frame view displays the frames in a variety of ways. To make your frames smaller or larger: 1. In the upper-left of the bin, click the Frame tab to place the bin in Frame view. 2. Choose one of the following: To make the frames bigger, select Edit > Enlarge Frame or repeatedly press Ctrl+L (Windows) or Command+L (Macintosh). To make the frames smaller, select Edit > Reduce Frame or repeatedly press Ctrl+K (Windows) or Command+K (Macintosh).
22 Introducing Tools and Workflow Script view: Script view allows you to insert comments about a clip or sequence. It also displays frames, along with information from the Text or Brief view. (The column arrangement in the tab you last viewed prior to switching to Script view determines which columns are shown.) The frames are displayed vertically on the left side of your screen, and there is a box next to each for typing in a portion of the script.
Working in the Project Window 23 To open a bin from another project: 1. With the Project window highlighted, select File > Open Bin. The Select a Bin dialog box appears. If you do not see the name of the bin you are looking for, look in other Project folders. 2. When you locate the bin in the dialog box, click it, and click Open. The bin opens in your project, and an Other Bins folder appears in the Project window.
24 Introducing Tools and Workflow 5. Take a few moments to get to know your footage. Click the Brief view tab at the top of the bin. Expand the bin so you can see all five columns of information. Notice how long each clip is (Duration), as well as the number of video and audio tracks in each clip. 6. Click the Text view tab. Here, you will create a Custom view for your clips. 7. Click the bin Fast Menu button, and select Choose Columns from the menu. 8.
Working in the Project Window 25 9. Click OK. 10. Drag the columns into the order that you’d like them displayed. (For example, you should probably have Start before End, and so on.) 11. Name this bin view by clicking the italicized name and selecting Save As. Download from www.wowebook.
26 Introducing Tools and Workflow 12. Name the bin view Edit View. 13. Next, click the Frame view tab. You should see all your clips displayed as thumbnails. If the thumbnails are too small, you can enlarge them by repeatedly pressing Ctrl+L (Windows) or Command+L (Macintosh). Make them big enough so that you can see what is going on in each frame. 14. To tidy up Frame view, select Bin > Fill Window. This arranges the clips so that you can see most, if not all, of the clips in your current window.
Working in the Project Window 27 Using the Settings Tab The Settings tab in the Project window lists the customizable features. Most of the settings within this list are user settings that you can alter to change your user profile. Others are project settings (specific to a particular project) or site settings (settings for the computer on which you are running Media Composer). To view or change settings: 1. In the Project window, click the Settings tab. The Project Settings window opens. 2.
28 Introducing Tools and Workflow Exploring the Editing Interface We've introduced you to the world of Media Composer. Now it’s time to dive into the exciting part: playing, marking, and editing clips to assemble a basic sequence. Source monitor Timeline window Record monitor Composer Window The Composer window is where you review clips in preparation for editing them into the Timeline to create a sequence.
Loading and Marking Clips 29 Timeline Window The Timeline window is a graphical representation of your sequence. It is also where you perform edits. The Timeline window shows your sequence as bars of audio and video, along with a timecode track. Loading and Marking Clips The basic editing procedure starts with loading a source clip into a monitor and playing the clip so you can decide what portion you want to add to your sequence. In this section, you’ll learn the fundamentals of making a basic edit.
30 Introducing Tools and Workflow The Track Selector panel appears in the Timeline window, indicating the video or audio tracks that the loaded clip contains. In this example, the clip’s source tracks are V1, A1, and A2. Playing and Stopping Clips You will notice a blue line in the progress bar below the source image. This is the position indicator, and it shows you where you are located within the clip. You can drag (or scrub) the position indicator through the clip to review it.
Loading and Marking Clips 31 To define a shot that you want to add to the sequence by marking IN and OUT points in a clip: 1. Press the space bar to play the clip, and stop playback when you reach a point where you want your shot to begin. 2. Press the I key (Mark IN shortcut) to place an IN mark. 3. Press the space bar to continue playing the clip, and stop when you reach a point where you want your shot to end. 4. Press the O key (Mark OUT shortcut) to place an OUT mark.
32 Introducing Tools and Workflow 5. At the end of the section you chose, mark an OUT point (press O). 6. Press the 6 key (the Play IN to OUT shortcut) to review the marked clip. If you want to change your IN and OUT points, simply reenter them at the desired location. 7. Go through the Montage Selects bin clip by clip, and repeat steps 3 to 6 for each clip you choose. Make sure to select the most interesting portions of the clips and mark them accordingly.
Making Your First Edit 33 Leave the Sequences bin open so that it will be in an accessible location for the newly created sequence. 2. When you’ve decided which portion of the clip you want to use, it’s time to make your first edit. Media Composer includes two types of edits: Splice and Overwrite. In this example, you’ll briefly explore the Splice command. 3. To make an edit, click the Splice button, represented by the yellow arrow icon between the Source and Record monitors, or press the V key.
34 Introducing Tools and Workflow Practice Your Skills To begin editing your sequence: 1. Click in the Project window, and press Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Macintosh) to create a new bin. Name the new bin _Sequences. Move the bin to the Chapter Exercise Material > Chapter 1 folder, and leave it open. 2. Double-click the Audio bin to open it. Load Dance montage audio into the Source monitor. 3. Mark an IN point at the beginning of the Dance montage audio clip and an OUT point at the end of the clip. 4.
Making Your First Edit 35 Your Timeline should look like this: 7. From the Montage Selects Chap 1 bin, load the Swing Dancers Group clip into the Source monitor. 8. Select the V1 Source Track Selector, if it is not already selected. 9. On the Record Track Selectors, select V1, and deselect A1 and A2. You should now have the V1 source track selector patched to the V1 record track selector. 10.
36 Introducing Tools and Workflow Undo/Redo Media Composer allows you to undo and redo up to 100 previous editing changes. You can undo one previous operation or a series of operations. Thus, if you perform a series of operations on a sequence and then change your mind, you can easily revert to the sequence as it was before you went down that path. To undo/redo the previous operation: To undo the previous operation, select Edit > Undo, or press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Macintosh).
Review Questions 37 Auto-save: By default, Media Composer automatically saves changes to your work every 15 minutes. During the save, any open bins are updated with changes you have made since the last save, and copies of these bins are placed in the Avid Attic folder (which you’ll learn about later in the book). All open bins are also saved when you quit the project. Manual save: A manual save is when you explicitly save your project.
38 Introducing Tools and Workflow 6. Which dialog box appears when you close the Project window? 7. What are the Source monitor and the Record monitor? 8. How do you load a clip into the Source monitor? 9. How do you mark a portion of a clip for editing? 10. What is the keyboard shortcut for Splice? 11. How do you know whether a bin is saved? Download from www.wowebook.
2 Basic Editing Congratulations! You’ve learned how to create and begin a project in Avid Media Objectives: Play clips your knowledge and acquire basic editing Mark edit points techniques to further construct and manip- Understand editing methods Create a new sequence Splice and overwrite in a sequence Remove shots from a sequence by Composer. In this chapter, you’ll build on ulate your sequence.
40 Basic Editing Playing and Marking Clips In Chapter 1, you learned how to play and stop clips using the space bar. In addition to this basic method, Media Composer includes a wide variety of ways to play and step through footage at multiple speeds and in multiple directions. Play and Step Methods To play or view clips, you can use either the Step (Jog) buttons that appear under the Source monitor or the keyboard shortcuts.
Playing and Marking Clips 41 Go to Last Frame: To go to the end of a clip, move the position indicator to the end of the position bar below the Source monitor, or press the End key.
42 Basic Editing One-quarter speed: Press the K key while holding down the L or J key to play forward or reverse at approximately one-quarter speed (6 or 8 frames per second depending on the project type). Release the L or J key to stop playback. One-frame speed: Hold down the K key and tap the L or J key to move forward or back one frame. Also, you can rock back and forth over an area of a clip by holding down the K key and alternately pressing the J and L keys.
Playing and Marking Clips 43 K EY B OAR D G E O G R AP HY: N AV I G AT I N G AN D M AR K I N G C L I P S On a QWERTY keyboard, the J, K, and L keys are placed directly below the I (Mark IN) and O (Mark OUT) keys. This placement allows you to use three fingers to navigate with J-K-L and then extend your middle two fingers to the I and O keys to mark footage. In this way, you can play and mark footage within a very focused area of the keyboard.
44 Basic Editing Locating an Audio Edit Cue Many times when you’re navigating through your footage, it’s useful to be able to hone in on a specific moment of audio, such as on a specific word, a sound effect, or the exact beginning or end of a musical phrase. Media Composer provides several tools to help you locate audio cues. Monitoring Audio Before locating specific moments in audio, it may first be useful to isolate the tracks of audio to which you are listening.
Locating an Audio Edit Cue 45 Digital Audio Scrub The digital audio scrub feature helps you locate an audio edit cue in the source clip or the sequence. When you jog through footage using this feature, you can hear each frame of audio as an isolated digital hit, which gives the scrub function a stuttering quality. To enable digital audio scrub: 1. Press the Caps Lock key to activate digital audio scrub (or press and hold the Shift key for temporary access to digital audio scrub).
46 Basic Editing Displaying Audio Waveforms Waveform plots can help you visually locate points in an audio track for editing. In Media Composer, the type of waveform plot available for display is called a sample plot, which shows the entire amplitude of the audio waveform. You can display the sample plot waveform in several ways, depending on whether you want to view the waveforms for all tracks or just selected tracks.
Locating an Audio Edit Cue 47 To modify the size of the audio waveforms: Press Ctrl+Alt+L (Windows) or Command+Option+L (Macintosh) to increase the size of the audio waveforms. Press Ctrl+Alt+K (Windows) or Command+Option+K (Macintosh) to reduce the size of the audio waveforms. Displaying Audio Data for Source Clips Many of these methods for accessing audio data (such as displaying audio waveforms) apply to sequences only.
48 Basic Editing Practice Your Skills 1. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter Exercise Material folder to open it, if necessary. 2. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter 2 folder. This is the folder you will be using for the exercises in this chapter. (Three bins are included in this folder: _Sequences Chap 2, Interview selects, and Magician B-roll.) 3. Open the Interview Selects bin. 4. Load the clip named Tony interview 1 into the Source monitor. 5.
Locating an Audio Edit Cue 49 9. When you’ve found the precise frame, mark an OUT point. 10. Press the 6 key to play this marked clip from IN to OUT to make sure you marked it correctly. If you need to move an IN or OUT point, you may do so by Alt+dragging (Windows) or Option+dragging (Macintosh) the point. 11. Repeat steps 5–10 to navigate with J-K-L, and mark an IN and OUT around the following sound bites: Dr. Shannon’s sound bite (from Dr.
50 Basic Editing Creating a Sequence As described in Chapter 1, a sequence is created automatically when you make your first edit. You can also create a sequence and save it prior to making edits. To create a sequence using the New Sequence command, do one of the following: Select Clip > New Sequence. Press Shift+Ctrl+N (Windows) or Shift+Command+N (Macintosh). Right-click inside an open bin, or inside the gray area of the Timeline window, and select New Sequence.
Creating a Sequence 51 You have two ways to splice a shot into the sequence: splicing using track selection (which was covered in Chapter 1) and splicing by dragging. To splice a shot into the sequence using track selection: 1. After viewing and marking a source clip, place the position indicator in the Timeline where you want to splice the shot into the sequence, and, optionally, mark an IN.
52 Basic Editing As you drag, a white outline of the clip lets you know where the segment will be spliced into the Timeline. The outer frames represent where the clip will be spliced The inner frames indicate the first and last frames of the spliced clip The yellow Extract/Splice-In button is enabled Cursor changes to the yellow Extract/Splice-In arrow when dragging clip into the Timeline White outline in Timeline indicates where clip will be spliced 3.
Creating a Sequence 53 Overwriting When you overwrite, you replace existing sections of the sequence with new material. Overwrite edits do not change the length of the sequence unless the new material is added to the end of the sequence. You can overwrite a shot into the sequence by overwriting using track selection or by overwriting by dragging. To overwrite a shot in to your sequence using track selection: 1. Load your clip into the Source monitor. 2.
54 Basic Editing 3. Click the Source Track and Record Track buttons for the tracks you want to use for the edit (and deselect those not needed in the edit). This three-point edit is set up so that V1 (source) will overwrite V1 (record) between the IN and OUT points set in the Timeline 4. Click the Overwrite button, or press the B key on the keyboard. The shot has been overwritten on V1 in the place where the IN and OUT points were set 5.
Creating a Sequence 55 The outer frames indicate the first and last frames of the segment you are dragging The inner frames represent where you will overwrite the segment The red Lift/Overwrite button is selected Cursor changes to the red Lift/Overwrite button when dragging clip into the Timeline White outline in Timeline indicates where clip will be spliced 3. When you decide on the placement for the clip, release the mouse button. The clip is overwritten into the sequence.
56 Basic Editing U N D E R S TA N D I N G T H R E E - P O I N T E D I T I N G As you’ve probably noticed, you have the ability to selectively mark IN and OUT points in both your source material and in the Timeline with a variety of results depending on your choices. Here is a brief primer on the fundamental principles of three-point editing and some other variations in placing IN and OUT marks: 1. Define the starting and ending points of the source clip.
Creating a Sequence 57 To snap to a transition point in the Timeline, do one of the following: Ctrl+click (Windows) or Command+click (Macintosh) near the desired transition to snap to the head frame of the shot (or IN or OUT mark). If you’re dragging a segment in the Timeline, simply Ctrl+drag (Windows) or Command+drag (Macintosh). Ctrl+Alt+click (Windows) or Command+Option+click (Macintosh) near the desired transition to snap to the tail frame of the shot (or IN or OUT mark).
58 Basic Editing Practice Your Skills Here, you will begin assembling a rough cut of the interview portion of the “transformation scene” in the Urban Nutcracker. The first things you will lay down are the interview segments. As a reference, here is the order you should edit the interview segments in the Timeline: 1. First shot: Tony interview (1): “You have the mentor and the apprentice: Drosselmeyer and Minimeyer. And that’s one of the themes in the story...
Creating a Sequence 59 To begin assembling the rough cut of the transformation scene: 1. Open the _Sequences Chap 2 bin in the Chapter 2 folder (within Chapter Exercise Material). 2. Right-click in the bin, and select Create New Sequence. Name the sequence Transformation Scene rough cut. 3. Load the Tony interview 1 clip into the Source monitor. If you created IN and OUT points for this clip in the previous exercise, they will already be marked.
60 Basic Editing Removing Material from a Sequence You can remove footage from your sequence and either close or retain the gap that results. Extracting and Lifting Extracting removes material from the Timeline and closes the gap left by its removal. This action is the inverse of splicing. Both extracting and splicing affect the length of the sequence.
Removing Material from a Sequence 61 To lift or extract material from the sequence: 1. Select the appropriate record tracks. 2. Mark the portion to be removed by doing one of the following: Mark an IN and OUT at the start and end of the material that you want to lift or extract. (The marks don’t have to coincide with edit points, although they often will.) Click the Mark Clip button (or press T) to quickly select an entire clip for removal.
62 Basic Editing Practice Your Skills If you edited the string of interview selects from the previous exercise, you should use that sequence (“Transformation Scene Rough Cut”) in this section. If you did not complete the previous exercise, you should just quickly splice the Tony interview (1) clip into the Timeline, marking an IN and an OUT around the following sound bite: Tony interview (1): “You have the mentor and the apprentice: Drosselmeyer and Mini-meyer. And that’s one of the themes in the story...
Removing Material from a Sequence 63 4. Open the Magician B-roll bin, and load the Magician and Assistant clip into the Source monitor. The Magician and Assistant clip has one track of video (V1) and two tracks of music (A1 and A2). For now, let’s edit only the video. (Later, when editing with multiple audio tracks, you can edit music too.) 5. Select V1 and deselect A1 and A2 on the source side. Select V1 and deselect A1 and A2 on the record side. 6.
64 Basic Editing Creating Subclips Subclipping divides portions of a master clip into shorter clips, called subclips. The original master clip remains intact. In addition, a subclip edited into a sequence can be expanded to include more material from the master clip. Subclipping is a great tool for organizing your footage into manageable units and for creating storyboards. To create a subclip: 1. Load the clip into the Source monitor. 2. Play the clip. 3.
Creating a Storyboard 65 Creating Subsequences Subsequencing from the Record monitor divides the sequence into shorter sections and turns each of these sections into a discrete sequence. This technique is useful when you want to store part of a sequence in your bin for future use. To create a subsequence: 1. Load a sequence into the Record monitor. 2. Mark an IN where you want the subsequence to begin and an OUT where you want the subsequence to end. 3.
66 Basic Editing 3. Arrange the clips in your bin—from left to right and top to bottom—in the order you want them to appear in your sequence. If you need to make more room available in your bin, reduce the size of the clips by pressing Ctrl+K (Windows) or Command+K (Macintosh). 4. Create a new sequence or mark an IN point in an existing sequence at the location where you want to add the storyboarded clips, and turn on the desired Record Track buttons. 5.
Creating a Storyboard 67 To splice or overwrite the clips directly into the Record monitor: To splice the clips, Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) the clips into the Record monitor. Release the mouse button and then release the modifier key. To overwrite the clips, drag the clips into the Record monitor, holding the Shift key after you have started dragging. Release the mouse button and then release the modifier key.
68 Basic Editing Practice Your Skills The Dr. Shannon interview 1 clip is long—almost eight minutes. To better organize it, subclip this interview into the most important sound bites, and arrange these clips by creating a storyboard. Then, make a sequence from the most usable material so that it will be readily accessible. (You can always load the sequence into the Source monitor and use it just like a source clip when you need to use it.) To subclip and storyboard the Dr. Shannon interview 1 clip: 1.
Creating a Storyboard 69 7. Arrange these four subclips within the bin in order (1–4). 8. Create a new sequence by right-clicking in the Interview Selects bin and choosing Create New Sequence. Name the sequence Dr. Shannon soundbites. 9. Drag the four subclips into the empty Timeline. 10. Load the “Dr. Shannon soundbites” sequence as source material by dragging it from the bin into the Source monitor. You can now edit it just like any other source clip.
70 Basic Editing Review Questions 1. Explain J-K-L navigation. 2. What’s the difference between splice and overwrite? 3. If you just edited a shot by splicing it and now want to remove it but leave filler in its place, which of the following should you do? a. Select Edit > Undo. b. Mark the clip; then extract. c. Mark the clip; then lift. 4. How is extract similar to splice? 5. How is lift similar to overwrite? 6. How do you solo an audio track? 7. How do you create a subclip? 8.
3 Timeline Editing In addition to enabling the basic editing techniques you have already learned, Avid Objectives: Media Composer allows you to further Extract Timeline footage using Top and Tail refine your rough cut by manipulating and rearranging segments in the Timeline. This Add and patch tracks is important because after you’ve assem- Edit segments in the Timeline using bled a sequence, you don’t necessarily Segment mode want to rely upon your source clips to make further changes.
72 Timeline Editing Extracting Top and Tail One of the main ways to manipulate material edited in the Timeline is to remove entire shots and parts of shots. In Chapter 2, you learned how to mark IN and OUT points to define the area to be removed. In this section, you’ll learn how to use the Top and Tail commands to quickly extract footage. Click the Top button to extract footage from the start of the clip up to the position indicator.
Extracting Top and Tail 73 4. (Option) If mapping to the keyboard, click the Settings tab of the Project window, and select the Keyboard settings. 5. Click the Top and Tail buttons, and drag them from the Command palette to the Keyboard palette. (Editors who use the I and O keys to mark IN and OUT points will often map the Top and Tail command to the E and R keys.) You can also map Top and Tail to a location on the user interface, such as below the Record monitor or above the Timeline.
74 Timeline Editing Practice Your Skills 1. If necessary, click the triangle to the left of the Chapter Exercise Material folder to open it. 2. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter 3 folder. This is the folder you will be using for the exercises in this chapter. (This folder includes two bins: _Sequences Chap 3 and Magician B-roll.) 3. Open the _Sequences Chap 3 bin, and load the sequence called Montage - Top/Tail. The Russian dance music from the Urban Nutcracker is edited on A1.
Working with Tracks 75 Working with Tracks When you splice and overwrite material into a sequence, at some point you may need to add more tracks than you have in your sequence. (So far, you’ve been dealing with sequences with just one video track and two audio tracks.) You’ll need to add these tracks to your sequence manually. In addition, you will probably need to patch video or audio from tracks on the source side to different tracks on the record side.
76 Timeline Editing Patching Tracks Patching tracks enables you to edit a particular source track onto a different record track in the sequence. To patch a track from a source clip to a different track do one of the following: Click the source track, and drag the arrow to the record track on which you want to make the edit. The source track you selected jumps next to the record track and is highlighted.
Editing Segments in the Timeline Using Segment Mode Segment Mode (Lift/Overwrite): Represented by a red arrow, repositions a segment in the Timeline, leaving black filler or silence at the original location, and places the shot at the new location. Extracting and Splicing In Segments 77 C A U T I O N Although these buttons look similar to the Splice and Overwrite buttons, do not mistake them for Splice and Overwrite.
78 Timeline Editing In addition to using the Extract/Splice-in Segment Mode button, you can also select segments using the multiple-segment selection buttons (Select Left, Select Right, and Select In/Out). You should use these buttons if you want to select multiple segments on one or more tracks. To select segments on enabled tracks using the multiple-segment selection buttons: 1. Move the position indicator to the first or last segment you want to select. 2.
Editing Segments in the Timeline Using Segment Mode 79 2. Release the mouse button, and the shot is spliced into the new location. When you release the mouse button, the shots are switched Shot B Shot A Media Composer extracts the selected segment from its old position, closes the gap left by its removal, and then splices the material back into the sequence at the new location. 3. To disable Extract/Splice-in Segment mode, click the Extract/Splice-in Segment Mode button again. Practice Your Skills 1.
80 Timeline Editing Drag the “Urban group dancers feet CU” shot after the “Ballerina duo 1 LS” shot; a white outline will show you where you will be splicing the shot 5. Play this section of the sequence to make sure that everything looks good. 6. Two more shots at the end of the sequence should be switched. (They’re also marked with yellow locators.) These shots are not adjacent but have one shot between them. (Our producer sensibly wants to have the “Final bows” shot placed at the end of the sequence.
Editing Segments in the Timeline Using Segment Mode The total duration of the sequence is unaffected unless you place the segment you’re moving beyond the end of the sequence. Combining Segment Modes Media Composer also offers a way to turn on the Extract/Splice-in and Lift/Overwrite functions as one Segment mode function. By clicking both arrows in the Smart Tool, you can enable each of these functions, and depending on where your mouse pointer is, it will enable one or the other.
82 Timeline Editing Additionally, you can snap to the tails (last frame) of each transition point by holding Ctrl+Alt (Windows) or Command+Option (Macintosh) while dragging. Finally, if you hold Ctrl+Shift (Windows) or Command+Shift (Macintosh), you can drag segments up and down through tracks, constraining the motion to move vertically, not horizontally. The motion mode indicator at the bottom of the Timeline changes to indicate the operation being performed.
Editing Segments in the Timeline Using Segment Mode 83 3. Press Delete to extract or lift the selected material (depending on which Segment mode button you selected). 4. Click the Segment mode button again to deselect it. Using Add Edits to Define Segments Repositioning or removing material in Segment mode will allow you to affect only whole segments, not portions of segments.
84 Timeline Editing Practice Your Skills 1. Load the “Transformation Scene Rough Cut Part 1” sequence (from the Chapter 3 folder) into the Timeline. If you completed the entire exercise in Chapter 2 (creating the rough cut with interview segments and B-roll), this sequence should be quite similar to yours, with just a few additional tweaks. 2. You will need to add music to this sequence, and to do so, you’ll have to add some audio tracks.
Useful Editing Tools and Techniques 85 9. You should now have three seconds of filler placed between your segments. 10. Repeat steps 4–9 to add three seconds of filler between the sequence’s last two interview segments (“Dr. Shannon interview 1” and “Yo-el interview 1”). Now that your pacing is set, you’re ready to add music to the sequence (which will go onto tracks A3 and A4). The music that you need to add actually accompanies the video (B-roll) clips you’ve already edited into the sequence.
86 Timeline Editing include one extra frame within your IN/OUT duration. Therefore, you would have to step backward by one frame before marking your OUT point. When you mark an OUT, one extra frame is included at the snap location Using Locators If you’ve completed the exercises in this chapter, you’ve already used locators to identify shots that need attention in the Timeline.
Useful Editing Tools and Techniques 87 In the position bar below the Source or Record monitor. In the Timeline, if you marked a locator in the sequence. Locators are inserted at the bottom of the image in the monitor, in the position bar below the monitor, and in the Timeline on the uppermost selected track The Locator dialog box opens. 4. Type a comment, if desired. 5. (Optional) Select a different color from the Color menu. 6.
88 Timeline Editing To select a locator, it’s easier to click it in the Record (or Source) monitor than in the Timeline. (You can also double-click a locator name in the Locators window to advance to it.) To move a locator: 1. Park the position indicator on top of the locator you want to move. 2. Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) the locator to a new location. Sometimes, you may want to play your sequence and add locators on-thefly.
Useful Editing Tools and Techniques 89 To use the Source monitor’s Clip Name menu: 1. Do one of the following to load the Source monitor: Drag each clip from the bin to the Source monitor. In Text view or Frame view, lasso the clips, or Shift+click the first and last clips in a sequence of clips, and drag them into the Source monitor. To select individual, non-adjacent clips, Ctrl+click (Windows) or Command+click (Macintosh) each of the clips and drag them into the Source monitor.
90 Timeline Editing Center Duration The Center Duration box appears in the upper center of the Source/Record monitor. This box will display the IN to OUT duration of clips on either the source or record side, depending on which is active. Viewing the center duration is a great way to quickly see the exact length of a sequence or to verify that you have enough material to overwrite a gap in the sequence. N O T E Center Duration is enabled by default.
Useful Editing Tools and Techniques 91 You can also display other types of timecode information.
92 Timeline Editing To adjust the Record monitor timecode display: 1. Click the first (or second) row of the timecode display. A nested menu with three panes appears. 2. Select the type of timecode information you want to display. If you want to display sequence timecode information, select the appropriate sequence data from the expanded view in Pane 1. Whichever type of information you select (timecode, footage, or frames) will populate your choices in Pane 2.
Useful Editing Tools and Techniques 93 Seeking Frames After loading a clip or sequence into a monitor, you can go to a specific frame by typing its video timecode. You can also move forward or back from your current position by entering a frame offset. To find a specific frame in your source clip or sequence: 1. Load a clip or sequence into a monitor. 2. Make sure the monitor is active. (An active monitor has the brighter position bar.) 3.
94 Timeline Editing 3. Enter the number of frames for the offset by doing one of the following: Type a number of frames from 1–99. Type 100 or greater to move forward or backward a specified number of seconds and frames. With Caps Lock disabled, type f after a large number to enter it as a frame count. For example, to enter 200 frames, type 200 and then f. To use this method to mark a duration, enter one less frame than desired because the system places an OUT at the end of the last frame. 4.
Useful Editing Tools and Techniques 95 To perform a match frame of a subclip: 1. Load the subclip in the Source monitor. 2. Click the Match Frame button to load the master clip into the Source monitor. Finding a Bin With a clip or sequence loaded into a monitor, you can use the Find Bin button to find the original bin in which it is stored. This command finds the bin, opens it, and highlights the clip or sequence within the bin.
96 Timeline Editing 5. The “Magician and assistant” clip will load in the Source monitor, and Media Composer will place an IN point at the exact frame where your position indicator is located. Media Composer matches the video frame in the Source monitor to the location of your position indicator in the Timeline. You now have a clip loaded in which you can use the sync sound to accompany the video B-roll that is already edited in the sequence. 6. Deselect V1 on both the source and record track selectors.
Review Questions 97 11. Press the B key to perform the overwrite. 12. Play the sequence from the beginning. You’ll notice that because you performed a match frame for this edit, the music is in sync with the video. You will also notice that the music is far too loud when Tony begins talking! Don’t worry about that; you’ll fix that when you learn about audio mixing in Chapter 5. 13.
This page intentionally left blank Download from www.wowebook.
Fine-Tuning the Sequence When editing a rough cut, you’re defining the general order and assembly of the vari- Objectives: ous elements in your sequence. It’s usually 4 Move a transition point between two shots a good idea to focus first on these bigpicture items and then go back to fine-tune Fine-tune shot length your sequence to get everything flowing Smooth the continuity of movement exactly the way you want it.
100 Fine-Tuning the Sequence Understanding Trimming Trimming is probably the most important part of editing. Why? Well, anyone can string together shots in a sequence, but that doesn’t really make you an editor. Rather, it’s through trimming a sequence to affect timing and pacing that you breathe life into a scene.
Trimming Types Incoming handle 101 Outgoing handle Trimming Types When you trim, you can add or remove frames from a transition point in one of three ways: A-side single-roller trim B-side single-roller trim Dual-roller trim Transition between A-side segment and B-side segment A-side segment B-side segment A-Side Single-Roller Trim A-side single-roller trim isolates the A-side of the transition and either adds or subtracts frames at the transition point. Download from www.wowebook.
102 Fine-Tuning the Sequence When you shorten the edit on the A-side: The edit point moves earlier. Frames are removed from the tail of the shot. The sequence is shortened. Single-roller trim: Shortening the edit on the A side Duration shortens, subsequent shots move back When you extend the edit on the A-side: The edit point moves later. Frames are added to the tail of the shot. The sequence is lengthened.
Trimming Types 103 When you shorten the edit on the B-side: The edits downstream move earlier. The transition is not affected. Frames are removed from the head of the shot. The sequence is shortened. Single-roller trim: Shortening the edit on the B side Duration shortens, subsequent shots move back When you extend the edit on the B-side: The edits downstream move later. The transition is not affected. Frames are added to the head of the shot. The sequence is lengthened.
104 Fine-Tuning the Sequence When you perform a dual-roller trim: When you trim earlier, the trim removes frames from the tail, adds frames to the head, and moves the transition earlier. The sequence length does not change. When you trim later, the trim adds frames to the tail and removes frames from the head, and the transition moves later. The sequence length does not change.
Performing Trims 105 The second video-centric pass, on the other hand, is usually performed using dual-roller trim because you want to maintain sync and leave your perfected audio timing unaltered. Performing Trims Now that you know what each trim technique does, let’s explore how to trim in Media Composer. To enter Trim mode: 1. In the Timeline, place the position indicator near the transition you want to trim. 2. Click the Record Track buttons for all tracks that you want to trim. 3.
106 Fine-Tuning the Sequence Trim Interface Changes When you enter Trim mode, the interface changes. You are no longer looking at the Source and Record monitors; instead, you are looking at the A-side Trim monitor (which represents the last frame of the A-side clip) and the B-side Trim monitor (which represents the first frame of the B-side clip). The picture shown here depicts other such trim-related changes that occur.
Performing Trims 107 Performing a Dual-Roller Trim When you enter Trim mode, you automatically are set up for a dual-roller trim, indicated by the presence of trim rollers on each side of the transition point. In addition, both trim boxes (between the A-side Trim monitor and B-side Trim monitor) are highlighted in pink. And finally, when you hover your pointer over the transition, it turns into a dual-roller trim icon. To perform a dual-roller trim using the Trim buttons: 1.
108 Fine-Tuning the Sequence 3. To analyze the result of your trim, you can loop the playback by repeating step 1. This transition was trimmed 22 frames to the right. The 22 frames were added to the A-side clip and removed from the B-side clip. The duration of the sequence and all other clips remained the same. You can also trim by dragging the trim rollers in the Timeline. To trim by dragging the rollers: 1.
Performing Trims 109 Practice Your Skills 1. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter Exercise Material folder to open it, if necessary. 2. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter 4 folder. You will use this folder for the exercises in this chapter. (It contains just one bin: _Sequences Chap 4.) 3. Open the _Sequences Chap 4 bin, and load the “Transformation Scene rough cut Trimming” sequence into the Timeline.
110 Fine-Tuning the Sequence 6. While in dual-roller trim mode, trim right to fill the gap. (You already know that this gap is 90 frames long, so you can click the Trim Right 10 Frames button nine times (or press the Backslash key nine times.) 7. Now, place the position indicator at the next section with B-roll and music (Dr. Shannon’s second sound bite, at 01:00:54:02). Here, you will trim the music (on tracks A3 and A4) to the beginning of Dr. Shannon’s sound bite. 8.
Performing Trims 111 11. Now, place the position indicator at the end of this music clip. 12. Enter Trim mode on tracks V1, A3, and A4. 13. Trim the B-roll and music to the right, covering up the second gap. This will take two separate trims because, in the process of performing this trim, you will be covering up the shot of Dr. Shannon speaking at the end of the section.
112 Fine-Tuning the Sequence Performing a Single-Roller Trim Performing an A-side or B-side single-roller trim is very similar to performing a dual-roller trim, but you first have to choose which side you want to trim. To perform a single-roller trim: 1. Click the picture of the outgoing (A-side) or incoming (B-side) frame. The dual pink Trim mode rollers in the Timeline turn into a single yellow roller that moves to the side of the clip to be trimmed.
Performing Trims 113 To use Ripple Trim: 1. In the Smart Tool, click the Ripple Trim button. 2. Select a transition in the Timeline. To perform an A-side single-roller trim, click to the left of the transition. To perform a B-side single-roller trim, click to the right of the N O T E To perform a dual-roller trim while using a Smart Tool trim button, click in the middle of the transition. transition. 3. Perform the trim by clicking the appropriate Trim button.
114 Fine-Tuning the Sequence Combining Ripple Trim and Overwrite Trim Media Composer also allows you to enable both Ripple Trim and Overwrite Trim in the Smart Tool. Then, depending on where you place your pointer in the Timeline, you can enable one or the other. To combine Ripple Trim and Overwrite Trim into one trim function: 1. In the Smart Tool, click both the Ripple Trim and Overwrite Trim buttons. 2.
Additional Methods for Adding and Removing Frames 115 Additional Methods for Adding and Removing Frames In addition to using the Trim buttons and dragging trim rollers, you can add and remove frames while trimming in several other ways. You can use any of the following methods to trim: To trim using the numeric keypad, do one of the following: Type a plus (+) sign and the number of frames (from 1–99) that you want to move the transition forward, and then press Enter.
116 Fine-Tuning the Sequence Practice Your Skills For this exercise, you’re going to depart from Urban Nutcracker to explore a dialogue-intensive scene from Pearl, a film based on the true story of America’s youngest aviator, Pearl Carter. This sequence needs quite a bit of work fixing the timing and pacing, and you will achieve this by trimming. (As you trim, remember to make it easier on yourself by zooming in to each transition. Also, display the audio sample plot in the Timeline if necessary.) 1.
Additional Methods for Adding and Removing Frames 117 9. When you’re satisfied with your edit, click in the timecode track to return to Source/Record mode. 10. Continue to play through the sequence, transition by transition, and trim each edit as necessary using single-roller trim. For the sake of practice, let’s do one more, and then you can do the rest on your own. 11. Wiley’s line, “There’s not a timid bone in her body,” is cut off on the A-side. Also, George Sr.
118 Fine-Tuning the Sequence Slipping and Sliding Segments In addition to trimming and Segment mode editing, Media Composer has two additional functions that allow you to alter the position or contents of various shots within your Timeline: slipping and sliding. Slipping and sliding are forms of dual-roller trimming, where two consecutive transitions are trimmed simultaneously. Because they are a type of dual-roller trim, using slip and slide will not affect the duration of a sequence.
Slipping and Sliding Segments 119 The first picture is the outgoing frame before the selected shot; the last picture is the incoming frame after the selected shot. The middle two pictures are the head and tail of the shot you are slipping. 2. In the Timeline, click one of the selected heads or tails (it doesn’t matter which you click). With the tail of the Trim mode pointer directed toward the center of the segment you are sliding, drag the selected material to the left or right.
120 Fine-Tuning the Sequence To slide a shot: 1. Do one of the following to show the slide display: While in Source/Record mode, Shift+Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) a lasso from right to left around the material you want to slide. You can use this method to slide multiple clips. This is useful, for example, when you need to change the position of an entire montage.
Slipping and Sliding Segments 121 Practice Your Skills 1. Load the sequence _Transformation Scene Slip and Slide into the Timeline. (This sequence is just a subset of the sequence you’ve been working with.) 2. Play through the sequence. You need to fix three moments: When Dr. Shannon says, “...she holds her arms up, you know, to Drosselmeyer, can you do something?” Clarice should reach her arms up to match his words. Currently, she holds her arms up too early.
122 Fine-Tuning the Sequence 6. Shift+Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) a lasso around the second “Transformation scene rehearsal” shot from right to left. Make sure that you begin the lasso in the gray area above the sequence and encompass the entire segment as you drag. This sets up a slide trim. 7. Press the trim keys to slide this shot to the right about 20 frames. 8. Play the shot to make sure Yo-el has finished his action in his interview. Tweak as necessary. 9.
Basic Audio Editing Now that you have done some basic video editing, you’re ready to address another Objectives: important aspect of the postproduction 5 Adjust audio level and pan using the Audio Mixer tool process: audio editing. Building rich and well-edited audio is crucial.
124 Basic Audio Editing Understanding Audio Level and Pan When fine-tuning audio, two of the most important types of adjustment are level and pan. Audio Level Audio level is a measure of the sound intensity. This value, which is calculated in decibels (dB), is gauged relative to a reference audio level, which is typically set at the threshold of perception of human hearing.
Understanding Audio Level and Pan 125 In the Timeline window, audio level readings are displayed by the VU meter. If audio levels are supposed to exceed normal levels, it’s acceptable for them to peak within the yellow section of the Audio tool. However, you should never let the audio peaks extend to very high levels because it will create distortion, called clipping. When this distortion occurs, the clipped audio level is displayed as a brown bar, and the audio channel status box turns red.
126 Basic Audio Editing If a source clip has only one audio track, the Audio tool will measure the single track, usually panned to the left. When monitoring multitrack sequence audio, the Audio tool monitors all odd-numbered tracks in the left channel and all even-numbered tracks in the right channel. Therefore, unless you have mixed your sequence as a one-channel mono track, the left and right channels will often play at different levels as part of a stereo pair with independent audio content.
Understanding Audio Level and Pan 127 When monitoring pan values, you have several ways to measure the left and right channels: Most common scenarios: The left channel is panned 100 percent left and the right channel is panned 100 percent right. Both channels are panned to the middle (MID) at 50 percent. Less common scenario: The left and right channels are panned at some other percentage besides 100 percent or 50 percent. Practice Your Skills 1.
128 Basic Audio Editing Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool N O T E The Audio Mixer tool also contains Auto and Live modes. You will look at the auto function later in this chapter. Within Clip mode of the Audio Mixer tool, you set the levels and pans for a clip, sequence, or multiple clips within a sequence. Changes made in the Audio Mixer affect the entire clip in the Source monitor or the entire segment in which your position indicator is located in the sequence.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 129 Remember, the Toggle Source/Record in Timeline button allows you to view audio waveforms when setting levels and pans for the source material. Using the Audio Mixer Tool Once you’ve loaded and prepared your clip or sequence, you can begin manipulating the audio level and pan using the Audio Mixer tool. 1. Select Tools > Audio Mixer. The Audio Mixer tool appears. The window is divided into 4, 8, or 16 tracks.
130 Basic Audio Editing 3. Click the Number of Mix Panes button to display 4, 8, or 16 tracks. 4. Click in the Source monitor to adjust a source clip, or click in the Record monitor to adjust a clip within the sequence. If you’re adjusting sequence audio, place the position indicator within the exact audio clip that you want to adjust. Be careful. Because you do not need to select the track in the Timeline, you could easily adjust the wrong segment’s audio. Download from www.wowebook.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 131 5. (Optional) To link (gang) tracks together so they are adjusted in unison, click the Gang buttons on the desired tracks. Gang buttons to adjust tracks in unison 6. Click the Play Loop button. The system loops playback through the selected area as follows: If you have IN and OUT marks in your sequence, it loops over the selected area.
132 Basic Audio Editing To type a number in the Volume Level display, click in the Volume Level display, and press a number on the numeric keypad. (You can type a negative number to decrease the level.) N O T E To center a pan at the MID (50 percent left/ 50 percent right) point, Alt+click (Windows) or Option+click (Macintosh) a Pan slider. 9. To adjust pan, click and hold the Pan Value display to open a slider, and then drag the slider left or right. Practice Your Skills 1.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 133 4. Mark an IN and an OUT within a five-second portion of the Tony interview 1 clip. 5. In the Audio Mixer, click the Play Loop button. The clip will loop from IN to OUT. 6. Look at the level readings on the Audio tool. Based on the answers to the following questions (which you may have already answered if you did the first exercise), begin thinking about how you will tweak the level and pan values.
134 Basic Audio Editing 7. First, let’s take the “bad” audio out of the equation. If you solo the left channel by clicking the Solo button above track A1, you will notice that the audio is echoey and generally poor quality. It’s probably best to remove this content altogether. Therefore, drag down the A1 level slider down to the bottom (negative infinity). 8. Now, on track A2, Alt+click (Windows) or Option+click (Macintosh) the box that reads R100.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 135 Setting Pan and Level for an Entire Track or a Marked Segment The Global Pan and Level options allow you to apply the current pan or level settings to all clips on one or more tracks in a sequence. You can also set pan and level for clips contained within specific IN and OUT points or from the beginning of a clip with an IN point to the end of a sequence. To prepare for the global or IN-OUT adjustments: 1.
136 Basic Audio Editing Practice Your Skills 1. Open the _Sequences Chap 5 bin, and open the “Transformation Scene rough cut Audio Part 1” sequence. If you completed all the trimming exercises in Chapter 4, this sequence should be in the same state as the sequence you edited. 2. Open the Audio tool and Audio Mixer, if necessary.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 137 10. Continue adjusting audio level and pan for each of the four remaining interview segments on A1 and A2. Remember to do the following: Address any poor audio traits (echoey, muffled, too quiet) by bringing down the level of the inferior audio tracks to the bottom (negative infinity) Pan the audio to the middle (MID). Set your audio level to peak within the range of -20 dB to -14 dB (analog) or 0 dB to +6 dB (digital).
138 Basic Audio Editing 3. Adjust the pan or level for each new segment in the Audio Mixer tool. Almost always, you will then add a dissolve to smooth the change (as you’ll learn in the next section). Adding Audio Crossfades T I P If the crossfades add undesired audio or cut off desired audio, you can tweak them individually. An audio crossfade is a dissolve applied to an audio transition.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 139 Position: The position of the dissolve in relation to the cut: Starting, Centered, or Ending. You can also adjust position by dragging within the purple box (the cursor becomes a hand). 5. Select the audio tracks to which you will apply the transition. 6. Select the target drive where you want to store the media for rendered dissolves (although in most situations you will not render audio dissolves).
140 Basic Audio Editing Practice Your Skills You have several ways to adjust audio within a segment in a sequence. The technique you just learned involves inserting Add Edits and placing dissolves between the adjoining segments, but you could use one of two other methods. So, to compare the add edit method with the other methods, let’s try all three, starting with Add Edits. 1. Open the _Sequences Chap 5 bin, and open the “Transformation Scene rough cut Audio Part 2” sequence. 2.
Adjusting Level and Pan in the Audio Mixer Tool 141 7. Ctrl+drag (Windows) or Command+drag (Macintosh) to the left. The position indicator should snap to the end of the last Tony interview 1 segment (on A1 and A2). 8. Add an edit in this location on A3 and A4. Now, you should have three music segments, as in this figure: Three separate audio segments 9. Place the position indicator in the middle segment. 10. In the Audio Mixer, gang the tracks on A3 and A4, if necessary. 11.
142 Basic Audio Editing 14. When the Quick Transition dialog box appears, assign the following values to the dissolves: Set Add to Dissolve. Set Position to Centered on Cut. Set Duration to 90 frames. Set Start to 45 frames before cut. Apply to All Transitions (IN –> OUT). 15. Click Add. 16. Two 90-frame dissolves (three-seconds in 30 fps NTSC format) are added to these transitions. Play this area of the sequence around the adjustments.
Adjusting Audio Gain Using Keyframes 143 Adjusting Audio Gain Using Keyframes Audio gain automation (also called audio rubberbanding) allows you to change a segment’s audio gain by adding and manipulating keyframes in the Timeline. When you add a keyframe, the system adds the point at the level currently set for that track in the Audio Mixer tool. Adding multiple keyframes allows you to ramp the gain up and down within any segment. To prepare tracks to add and manipulate keyframes: 1.
144 Basic Audio Editing 4. From the menu that appears when you click the keyframe button in the Track Control panel, select Auto Gain on each track that you want to apply the Auto Gain function. A straight line appears in the selected audio track to indicate the current gain level for that track in the Auto Gain tool. When you make your first adjustment, the light gray line turns black. 5.
Adjusting Audio Gain Using Keyframes 145 To add a keyframe to the sequence: 1. Place the position indicator where you want to add a keyframe in the sequence. 2. Select the tracks where you want to add keyframes. 3. Click the Add Keyframe button, or press ‘ (the single quote key) on the keyboard. Audio keyframe Adjusting Keyframes Use the following methods to adjust the gain on one or more selected tracks. To raise or lower the gain: 1. In the Timeline, click the Audio Keyframe button . 2.
146 Basic Audio Editing To snap to the audio gain lines, Ctrl+drag (Windows) or Command+drag (Macintosh) the keyframe. To move the start or end position of a ramp: 1. Hover the pointer over the keyframe you want to move. N O T E You cannot move one keyframe on top of or past another keyframe. 2. When the pointer becomes a hand icon, Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) the keyframe earlier or later. To delete a single keyframe: 1.
Adjusting Audio Gain Using Keyframes 147 T Y P I CAL S C E NAR I OS F O R A DJ U S T I N G GAI N WIT H K E Y F R AM E S Here are a few typical scenarios for adjusting the gain on a selected track or tracks. Add a single keyframe to adjust gain evenly throughout a segment: Add a single keyframe in the segment, and then drag the keyframe up or down to increase or decrease the gain within the entire segment.
148 Basic Audio Editing Practice Your Skills When you performed the previous exercise, you saw how adding edits and audio crossfades let you adjust levels within a segment. You can also do this using rubberbanding with keyframes. 1. Open the _Sequences Chap 5 bin, and open the Transformation Scene Rough Cut Audio Part 3 sequence into the Timeline. The first segment of music on A3 and A4 has been mixed using add edits and crossfades.
Adjusting Audio Gain Using Keyframes 149 5. Mark an IN and an OUT around the first and the second keyframes. 6. In the Timeline panel, click the Audio Keyframe button. 7. Hover the pointer over one of the keyframes between the IN and OUT points until it becomes a hand icon. 8. Ctrl+drag (Windows) or Command+drag (Macintosh) the keyframe down. It will snap to the audio gain lines. If you drag it down two gain lines, that will drop the level by 15 dB, which is just about right for this situation. 9.
150 Basic Audio Editing 12. Assign the following values to the transition: Set Add to Dissolve. Set Position to Centered on Cut. Set Duration to 60 frames. Set Start to 30 frames before cut. Apply to All Transitions (IN –> OUT). 13. Play the entire segment, and tweak levels, keyframes, or dissolve duration if necessary. 14. Repeat the rubberbanding process for the final audio segment. You will need to fade it up, keep it fairly low throughout the interview, and then fade it out. 15.
Audio Gain Automation Real-Time Recording 151 Audio Gain Automation Real-Time Recording Adjusting audio using the Audio Mixer or keyframing is a great way to make sure that your levels and pans are within acceptable limits. However, you may have noticed that both of these strategies are “mark-and-park” approaches—that is, you play the audio to see how you’d like to adjust it, make that adjustment, and then play it to determine whether you got acceptable results.
152 Basic Audio Editing During recording, the system adds audio gain keyframes to audio tracks in the Timeline. Because every movement of a slider is recorded, you usually have more keyframes than you need. To decrease the number of keyframes: 1. In the Audio Mixer window, click the Track Selection button to enable the Fast menu. 2. From the Fast menu, select Filter Automation Gain on Track – Global (or In/Out).
Audio Gain Automation Real-Time Recording 153 Auto Panning Auto panning is also available for changing pan settings on-the-fly. The procedure is similar to audio gain automation real-time recording. The workflow is as follows: 1. Set up the Audio Mixer, making sure to click the Auto button. 2. From the Timeline Fast menu, select Audio Auto Pan. Keyframes at the bottom of the track indicate pan right; keyframes at the top indicate pan left. 3. Click the Record button. 4.
154 Basic Audio Editing 4. Gang the A3 and A4 tracks, if necessary. 5. Select the A3 and A4 tracks (and deselect all other tracks). 6. In the sequence, prepare the A3 and A4 tracks as follows, in order: a. From the Timeline Fast menu, select Audio Data > Allow Per Track Setting. b. From the Timeline Fast menu, select Track Control Panel. c. From the Track Control panel menu, select Auto Gain on A3 and A4. A thin gray line should appear in the audio tracks on A3 and A4 7.
Review Questions 155 Review Questions 1. What does it mean when you gang audio tracks? 2. Where in the Audio Mixer tool would you go to apply a level to an entire track? 3. What is the decibel range in which “normal” sounds reside (displayed via the Audio tool)? 4. When you use Add Edits to define areas of different audio levels, what do you usually need to use in between the resulting two segments to smooth out the transition? 5. What is a keyframe? 6.
This page intentionally left blank Download from www.wowebook.
Customizing Settings You’ve learned how to use several Media Composer shortcuts, which is a great way Objectives: 6 View and change settings Use the Command palette to map to build efficiency and speed in editing. However, the real key to streamlined edit- buttons and menu items ing is using the customization tools, which allow editors to tailor the Media Composer Configure the Timeline Use and customize tool sets environment to their own workflow.
158 Customizing Settings Viewing and Changing Settings The Settings tab in the Project window displays settings that you can customize to build a personal editing environment. You’ve seen a number of these settings in previous chapters; but now, you’ll use them to customize your workspace. First, realize that all changes you make to the user settings alter the current user profile.
Viewing and Changing Settings 159 Double-click a setting to open its Settings options Using Shortcuts to Access Settings Besides using the Settings tab in the Project window, you can use keyboard shortcuts to access some settings that relate to Media Composer’s user interface, such as settings related to the Composer window, Timeline, or bin. To access interface settings with a shortcut: 1. Click part of the user interface, such as the Timeline, Composer window, or bin. 2.
160 Customizing Settings 5. Rename each setting by clicking the custom name and typing a new name of your choice. 6. Double-click the setting to open it, and reconfigure as necessary. 7. Activate the setting by clicking once in the check mark column on the left side of the Project window. Practice Your Skills 1. Click the Settings tab of the Project window. 2. In the Fast menu, verify that All Settings is selected. 3.
Viewing and Changing Settings 161 6. Double-click the Basic setting, and deselect every Composer setting. Click OK. 7. Move the check mark between the Edit setting and the Basic setting to watch the Composer window change its appearance. Edit Composer setting Basic Composer setting Copying and Transferring User Settings You can copy user settings to a removable disk (such as a flash drive) or transfer them via a server or the Web to use them on another Media Composer system.
162 Customizing Settings 2. Click the Browse button to select a location to save your user profile. Select Personal, and click OK. N O T E If you want to transfer settings between a Macintosh and a Windows system using a hard drive, you will need a FAT32-formatted drive so that both systems can read it. Most flash drives are already formatted with FAT32. Also, when you move settings from a Macintosh to a Windows system, you will lose any function mapped to the F1 and F13–15 keys.
Viewing and Changing Settings 163 Site Settings You can add settings to the Site Settings window to specify the default values that new users and new projects will start with when working on your system. Site settings are related to a specific system, rather than a user or project. In certain cases, site settings are useful for overriding system default settings. To create site settings: 1. Select Special > Site Settings to open the Site Settings window. 2. Click a setting in the Project window.
164 Customizing Settings To transfer a site setting to an existing user or project: 1. Open the desired user profile or project to which you want to transfer the site settings. 2. Display the Settings tab in the Project window. 3. Select Special > Site Settings. 4. Click the setting or settings you want to transfer from the Site Settings window. 5. Drag the desired user or project settings from the Site Settings window to the Project window.
Mapping Buttons and Menu Items 165 Mapping Buttons and Menu Items In Chapter 3, you learned the basics of mapping buttons from the Command palette to your keyboard and user interface using the ‘Button to Button’ Reassignment command. In this section, we’ll go into a little more detail on mapping button commands, as well as mapping menu commands to various buttons and keys.
166 Customizing Settings You should know several other facts about ‘Button to Button’ Reassignment: If you Shift+drag a button to the Keyboard palette, you can map it to a Shift+[key]. Some commands have an alternate function that you can access by combining the Ctrl or Alt (Windows), or Option (Macintosh) keys. For example, by pressing Alt+6 (Windows) or Option+6 (Macintosh), the usual Play IN to OUT command becomes Play Loop from IN to OUT.
Mapping Buttons and Menu Items When the Command palette is open, you can move buttons from one location to another as necessary; you don’t need to retrieve all buttons from the Command palette. For example, you can drag buttons from a place on the user interface to the keyboard, or vice versa. The Command palette must be closed for the assigned button to work in its new location.
168 Customizing Settings Mapping Menu Items You can also map menu items to the keyboard, user interface, and Tool palette—including any main menu items or Fast menu items. Mapping menu items is very efficient because it reduces the amount of time an editor must use the mouse when selecting user interface elements. To map a menu item to the keyboard, user interface, or Tool palette: 1.
Mapping Buttons and Menu Items 169 Using Command Palette Buttons as an Active Palette You can also use the buttons from the Command palette as an active palette of buttons. To use the Command palette as an active palette of buttons: 1. Open the Command palette. 2. Select the Active Palette button. 3. Click the button you want to use. Although this is an option, editors rarely use it because often-used button and menu items are best mapped to keys. Practice Your Skills 1.
170 Customizing Settings Top (Edit tab)—if not already added from previous chapter Tail (Edit tab)—if not already added from previous chapter Match Frame (Other tab) Toggle Source/Record in Timeline (Other tab) 8. Now, map some often-used menu items to the Edit keyboard. Change the command assignment type to ‘Menu to Button’ Reassignment. 9. Click the Up Arrow key on the keyboard. It currently has a command mapped to it, but you will change it. 10.
Configuring the Timeline 171 13. Close the Command palette and the keyboard, and begin practicing the commands that you’ve mapped. As you proceed through this book, continue to map additional commands to increase your editing efficiency. Configuring the Timeline While editing in the Timeline window, you can select from a wide range of display options via the Timeline menu. To display the Timeline menu, click and hold the Fast menu button in the bottom-left corner of the Timeline panel.
172 Customizing Settings Clip Text: Provides a submenu of identifying information for displaying data about each shot. Options are additive, and all can be selected to display at the same time, if desired. Dupe Detection: Automatically locates every instance in a sequence of duplicated frames on video tracks. Audio Data: Provides a submenu of options for customizing audio tracks with waveforms or volume gain automation.
Configuring the Timeline 173 Track Color or Background Color: Allows you to specify colors for tracks (if tracks are selected) or to specify a background color for the Timeline if no tracks are selected. Show Locators: Allows you to display locators based on color. More Detail/Less Detail: Allows you to zoom into and out of the Timeline by incremental amounts. Zoom Back: Returns the Timeline display to the most recently zoomed level.
174 Customizing Settings Often, editors make Timeline views to focus on different tasks, as shown here: This video Timeline has been configured with clip frames and larger video tracks This audio Timeline has been configured with larger audio tracks and a waveform display Timeline views are also displayed in the settings within the Project window. To change a Timeline view via the Project window, you can select the check mark in the left column.
Configuring the Timeline 175 Practice Your Skills 1. To the left of the Chapter Exercise Material folder, click the triangle to open the folder, if necessary. 2. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter 6 folder. This folder includes only one bin, _Sequences Chap 6. Open the bin. 3. Load the Transformation Scene Chap 6 sequence. You won’t be editing this sequence, but because these customizations call for Timeline manipulations, it’s necessary to have a sequence loaded in the Timeline. 4.
176 Customizing Settings 7. Save this view as Edit. Now, make a Timeline view that will be associated with your general audio editing workflow. 8. Return to the Basic view by selecting Basic from the Timeline menu. In so doing, you won’t have to disable all the changes you just made. 9. Make the following changes: Reduce the size of the V1 track, and enlarge the size of the A1, A2, A3, and A4 tracks.
Using Toolsets 177 Using Toolsets You can use predesigned work environments, called toolsets, to set up your desktop to perform frequently used tasks. There are six predesigned toolsets: Color Correction Editing: Displays the Color Correction tool, tri-monitors for color correcting, and the Timeline window. Source/Record Editing: Displays the Source and Record monitors and the Timeline window. Effects Editing: Displays the Source and Record monitors, Timeline window, Effect Palette, and Effect Editor.
178 Customizing Settings Linking Toolsets to Settings One very powerful feature of toolsets is the ability to link it to other Media Composer custom settings (such as Keyboard settings, Interface settings, or Timeline settings). To link a toolset to another setting: 1. Give the same name to all settings that you want to associate. For example, you might want to associate the Audio toolset with one or more other settings, which you would name Audio in the Project window.
Using Toolsets 179 4. From the Links to Current Toolset menu, select Link to Named Settings. 5. Type the name of the other settings to which you want to link the toolset. 6. Click OK. The active toolset is linked to the custom setting you specified. Practice Your Skills 1. Select Toolset > Source/Record Editing, if necessary. 2. Choose Link Current to. 3. Choose Link to Named Settings. 4. In the text box, type Edit, and click OK. Download from www.wowebook.
180 Customizing Settings If you completed the previous exercises, this selection should have linked the Source/Record Editing toolset to the Edit Interface, Edit Keyboard, and Edit Timeline you created. 5. Select Toolset > Audio Editing. 6. Repeat steps 2–4, but type Audio in the text box. If you completed the previous exercise, you should have linked the Audio toolset to the Audio Timeline you created. 7.
Introducing Effects After you’ve built and refined your sequence, the next phase in the editing workflow will 7 Objectives: Understand various types of effects Apply transition effects using the Quick often involve adding effects. Whether you use effects to change, enhance, or correct Transition dialog box footage, Media Composer includes many ways to achieve stunning results.
182 Introducing Effects Effect Types You can break down every visual effect design into three basic types: horizontal, vertical, and nested. Horizontal Effects Horizontal effects are applied across individual video tracks. The three types of horizontal effects are: Transition effects: Applied at the transition point between two clips, often to emphasize a change of time or theme. Transition effects include dissolves, fades, dips, wipes, pushes, squeezes, and spins.
Accessing and Applying Effects 183 Nested Effects Nested effects are applied “inside” other effects to change multiple visual elements simultaneously. For example, you might want to apply a color effect within an existing picture-in-picture effect. To do this, Media Composer allows you to step inside, or nest, a single-segment effect to manipulate the results of an effect you’ve already applied. You can apply unlimited nested effects.
184 Introducing Effects Opening the Effect Palette The Effect Palette is available as a tab within the Project window or as a floating window. To display the Effect Palette within the Project window: Click the Effect tab at the top of the Project window. To open the Effect Palette as a floating window: Select Tools > Effect Palette, or press Ctrl+8 (Windows) or Command+8 (Macintosh). Applying an Effect From within the Effect Palette, you can apply an effect. To apply an effect: 1.
Horizontal Effects 185 Horizontal Effects Horizontal effects are probably the most common type of effect because both vertical and nested effects often contain horizontal effects within the effect designs. They are also usually the most straightforward to apply and manipulate, so it’s good to master horizontal effect design strategies. Transition Effects All transition effects span the cut point between two clips.
186 Introducing Effects (Optional) If you mark an IN and an OUT around multiple transitions, the Quick Transition dialog box will allow you to apply the dissolve to all transitions between the IN and OUT. 2. Choose an option from the Quick Transition dialog box (see “Quick Transition Options” sidebar for a breakdown of these options). From the menu, choose the transition type Q U I C K TRAN S ITI O N O PTI O N S Dissolve: Blend images from the outgoing video with the incoming video over time.
Horizontal Effects 187 Because all options in the Quick Transition dialog box are real-time effects, you should simply choose to add the effect, rather than to add and render the effect, so that you don’t needlessly create extra media files. If you attempt to add a dissolve where you do not have enough handle, the system automatically adjusts to give you the longest possible transition. You can then modify the duration or position within the Quick Transition dialog box.
188 Introducing Effects 5. Select both the V1 and A1 tracks. 6. Press the backslash (\) key to open the Quick Transition dialog box. 7. Design a dissolve (which will emulate a fade because it’s positioned at the beginning of the sequence). It should use the following criteria: Set Add to Dissolve. Set Position to Starting at Cut. Set Duration to 45 frames. 8. Click Add. 9. Place the position indicator at the end of the sequence, and make sure that V1 and A1 are still selected. 10.
Horizontal Effects The following categories contain one or more transition effects: Blend Peel Box Wipe PlasmaWipe Avid Effects (All) Conceal Push Edge Wipe Sawtooth Wipe Film Shape Wipe Illusion FX Spin Key Squeeze L-Conceal XPress 3D Effects Matrix Wipe 189 N O T E Many of these categories contain effects that can be used as either transition or segment effects.
190 Introducing Effects When you enter Effect mode, the Effect Editor appears. The Effect Editor is a window that shows an effect-specific set of parameters corresponding to the effect that was current when you entered Effect mode. Effect Parameter group The Effect Editor organizes the effect parameters into groups. Each parameter represents a way to manipulate the image.
Horizontal Effects Position bar Effect preview 191 Keyframe Changing Transition Duration and Position Besides changing the effect-specific parameters displayed in the main window of the Effect Editor, you can also adjust the duration and position of the transition effect. Tools to change these values are available at the bottom of the Effect Editor. To change a transition effect: 1. Park the position indicator on the effect, and enter Effect mode. 2.
192 Introducing Effects WO R K I N G W IT H PA R A M E T E R G R O U P S Each parameter represents a way to manipulate your image. Here are the basics on working with them. To open and close parameter groups: To open a group, click the triangular opener next to the category name, or double-click the category name to open a group and view its parameters. To close a group, click the triangular opener, or double-click the category name.
Horizontal Effects 193 Insufficient Source When you add a transition effect, enough handle (source media) must exist on each side of the cut to last for the duration of the transition. If you attempt to add a transition effect where you have insufficient footage for your handle, an Insufficient Source dialog box appears.
194 Introducing Effects 3. Play the transition in the Effect Preview monitor. You’ll notice that Media Composer added a 30-frame (one second) transition, peeling the image away from the bottom-left corner to the top-right corner. It looks fine; but because it’s revealing a slower and wider shot, the peel might look a little better if it was slowed down slightly. 4. Park the position indicator on or near the transition effect, and click the Effect Mode button to open the Effect Editor. 5.
Horizontal Effects 195 Also, it’s fine to practice applying transition effects and then remove them when you’re done. Many transition effects are often viewed as unnecessary or silly—except under the right circumstances—so it’s OK if you keep effects to a minimum! Working with Segment Effects Applying segment effects is similar to applying transition effects. However, rather than apply the effects to transitions, you apply them to entire clips.
196 Introducing Effects For example, a Resize effect does not change the appearance of a clip until you begin manipulating its parameter values. In other words, Media Composer doesn’t “guess” how you’d like the clip resized; rather, it waits for you to input values. Using Keyframes N O T E The effects that contain default Start and End keyframes are categorized into the set of effects that use “standard keyframes,” which means that all effect parameters are adjusted by one set of keyframes.
Using Keyframes 197 Unless you change the parameter values at a keyframe, the effect does not change over time. When you change a parameter at a keyframe, the system interpolates the parameter values between that keyframe and the neighboring keyframe. To select a keyframe: Click a keyframe to select it. All other keyframes are deselected. A selected keyframe is shaded pink to indicate that the system will save any parameter changes for that keyframe.
198 Introducing Effects To move a keyframe: 1. Click the keyframe to select it. (The keyframe turns pink). 2. Do one of the following: Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) the keyframe to the left or right. Press the Trim buttons on the keyboard (m, comma, period, and forward slash) to move the keyframe one or ten fields to the left or right. To copy and paste attributes from one keyframe to another: 1. Click the keyframe to select it. The keyframe turns pink. 2.
Direct Manipulation Handles 199 Direct manipulation handle D I R E C T M A N I P U L AT I O N H A N D L E S A N D K E Y F R A M E S In certain situations, new keyframes are created when you use the direct manipulation handles. The following rules determine whether or not to add a new keyframe: If you are parked on a selected keyframe, the values of the selected keyframe are modified, and a new keyframe is not created.
200 Introducing Effects Normally, only the wireframe position adjusts as you move a direct manipulation handle. Hold the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (Macintosh) to update the actual image as you move a handle. Practice Your Skills You will still be working with the Dance Montage Effects Part 1 sequence in this exercise.Your task is to add some slight zoom-ins to a few long shots in the montage. These shots are marked with blue locators.
Saving and Applying Effect Templates 5. With this middle keyframe selected, make the following adjustments: Scaling: Enabled X = 120 Y = 120 Position: X=0 Y = -60 6. When you’ve made the parameter adjustments and with the keyframe still selected, press Ctrl+C (Windows) or Command+C (Macintosh) to copy this keyframe’s attributes. 7. Select the last keyframe and then press Ctrl+V (Windows) or Command+V (Macintosh) to paste the keyframe attributes.
202 Introducing Effects 3. Name your saved effect templates to easily identify them later. Any bin that contains templates also appears at the bottom of the Effect Palette, along with the other effect categories. Applying Saved Effect Templates You can apply a saved effect template and all or some of its parameters to other transitions or segments in your sequence.
Saving and Applying Effect Templates 203 Drag the “Resize – zoom in and out” effect to the Scaling parameter The scaling is adjusted (first keyframe only), and all other parameters are unchanged Saving Effect Templates with Source You can save an effect along with the source, which saves both the effect and the part of the source clip to which you applied the effect. This technique is especially helpful if a certain clip is always used with a specific effect applied.
204 Introducing Effects Practice Your Skills 1. If you performed the previous three exercises, you can use your own sequence for this exercise. If you didn’t, open Dance Montage Effects Part 2 into the Timeline to complete this section. 2. Create a bin called Effect Templates. Move it into the Chapter 7 folder, and make sure it stays open. 3. Park the position indicator on the first clip in the sequence, “Ballerina snow LS.” 4. Click the Effect Mode button to open the Effect Editor.
Creating Vertical Effects 205 12. (Optional) If you want the zoom to occur faster or slower, Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) the middle keyframe to the left (faster) or right (slower). Drag left to make the zoom happen faster Drag right to make the zoom happen slower 13. Close the Effect Editor. Play the clip within the sequence, and see how you think it works. If you want to tweak it, reopen the Effect Editor and tweak as necessary.
206 Introducing Effects The following categories contain one or more possible vertical effects: Blend Peel Box Wipe PlasmaWipe Avid Effects (All) Conceal Push Edge Wipe Sawtooth Wipe Illusion FX Shape Wipe Key Spin L-Conceal Squeeze Matrix Wipe XPress 3D Effects Adding a New Video Track Because vertical effects contain more than one video track, you must create a new video track above existing tracks before you can add another vertical elemen
Creating Vertical Effects 207 Zooming Out and In in the Effect Preview Monitor Because many animations created with vertical effects involve moving the image on and off the screen, it is often necessary to zoom out in the Effect Preview monitor to show the area outside of the frame. By default, the toolbar below the Effect Editor contains buttons that zoom the image in the effect display in and out.
208 Introducing Effects Monitoring a Track Monitoring refers to the tracks you are viewing when you play an edit. The Monitor icon in the Track Selector panel determines which tracks display when you click the Play button or view a single frame of an effect. All tracks below and including the track with the Monitor icon will display as the resultant image. Therefore, when previewing, make sure to monitor the highest track in the effect.
Creating Vertical Effects 209 4. Ctrl+Shift+drag (Windows) or Command+Shift+drag (Macintosh) Clip A to the original location of Clip B. Creating a Picture-in-Picture Effect We won’t have time to go into all the vertical effects Media Composer has to offer, but to get you started, we will touch on one of the most popular: the picture-in-picture (PIP) effect. A PIP allows you to layer two clips on top of one another and adjust the size, position, and opacity of the top clips.
210 Introducing Effects P I C T U R E- I N- P I C T U R E PAR AM E T E R S The parameters listed here are nearly universal in most vertical effects. Crop: The Crop parameter is one of the most important parameters in any vertical effect. This parameter trims information from the top, bottom, left, or right edges of the video image. Cropping must be used to remove horizontal and vertical blanking (which is part of the video signal and lies on the outer edges of the video image).
Creating Vertical Effects 211 8. An IN point should already be located at the head of the Spanish dancers 2 MSL shot. To add an OUT point on V2 above this clip, Ctrl+Alt+click (Windows) or Command+Option+click (Macintosh) near the tail of the shot until the position indicator snaps to the edit point. Mark an OUT. You now have a three-point edit set up with an IN and an OUT in the Timeline and an IN within the Source. 9. Press the B key to perform an overwrite edit. 10.
212 Introducing Effects When you play this clip, you will notice that the same action plays on V1 and V2; but on V2, the frame is smaller and off-center, the image is transparent, and it has a soft border that blends into the background. It looks OK, but it would be better if it faded up and faded down. 13. To do this, insert two keyframes near the beginning and end of the effect.
Nesting Effects 213 This method works fine as long as you plan to add individual elements to a vertical design. However, sometimes you need to change a single element within a vertical effect rather than add other elements on additional video tracks. To do this, Media Composer allows you to step inside, or nest, effects to change effects you’ve already applied. The following sections describe two ways to step into a nest.
214 Introducing Effects To step out of a nest: Click the Step Out button . The arrow on this button points up, indicating that you are stepping out to a higher layer. Method 2: Expanded Nesting When you use expanded nesting, you observe and apply effects as part of the larger composite. That is, you are able to view the contents of the nest and the rest of the sequence (including audio tracks) and then patch source tracks to record tracks that exist inside or outside of the nest.
Nesting Effects 215 The second number indicates the track number at that layer of the nest (video track 1 within the nest, video track 2 within the nest, and so on). Each level of the nest is assigned a different track color to differentiate it from other nest levels. To step out of an expanded nest: Alt+click (Windows) or Option+click (Macintosh) the Step Out button.
216 Introducing Effects 2. When you release the mouse button, the effect order changes in the Effect Editor and in the Timeline. Changes to the image appearance are reflected in the Effect Preview monitor. Deciding Whether to Layer or Nest You can create many effects by layering or nesting. However, you should follow a few general guidelines when deciding which method to use: The Color effect has several complex parameters that will not be discussed in detail in this book.
Nesting Effects 217 4. Drag a Color Effect (Image category) to the “Spanish dancers 2 MLS” clip. 5. Enter Effect mode to open the Effect Editor. 6. In the Effect Editor, set adjustments as in the following figure: 7. Step out of the effect by clicking the Step Out button at the bottom of the Timeline. 8. Play through the PIP. If you need to tweak any values, step back in and adjust as necessary.
218 Introducing Effects Review Questions 1. What is the difference between horizontal and vertical effects? 2. What are the three types of horizontal effects, and how are they different? 3. What is handle, and why is it important? 4. How do you create an effect template? 5. How do you create an effect template with source? 6. What is a composite? 7. How do you solo a video track? 8. How do you reorder video tracks? 9. How do you create a picture-in-picture effect? 10.
Introducing Color Correction Color correction is another essential part of the postproduction process, because it 8 Objectives: allows you to adjust your footage’s luma Understand the typical color correction workflow values (light and dark) and chroma values (color, such as hue and saturation).
220 Introducing Color Correction Getting Started with Color Correction As with most editing processes, color correction gives you the best results if you follow a proper workflow. Although this chapter primarily discusses automatic color correction techniques, good workflow practices also benefit manual color correction methods. Color Correction Workflow The following is a typical workflow for color correction: 1.
Getting Started with Color Correction 221 2. Remove color casts from your image: Make sure that the neutral colors in the image (black, white, and neutral gray) are actually neutral and do not exhibit a color cast. If a color cast exists, you should remove it to neutralize the image. These values can be measured using the RGB Parade monitor, which is part of the Color Correction toolset in Media Composer.
222 Introducing Color Correction Saturation values increase outward from the center of the circle. An empty graph exhibits no color information and signifies a blackand-white image. A graph with values that extend to the outside of the circle are very saturated. Values that extend beyond the outside of the circle exhibit saturation levels that are illegal for broadcast. One very useful function of the Vectorscope is to match flesh tones against the flesh tone line.
Color Correction Toolset 223 Automatic color correction tends to function well in the following situations: When you primarily need to open up the tonal range (contrast) of an image, setting accurate black and white values. When you need to correct a minimal color cast. While you’re learning color correction techniques. If you are having difficulty manually correcting an image, it may offer you a helpful approach.
224 Introducing Color Correction W HAT ’ S T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N H S L A N D C U R V E S ? The primary difference between the HSL and Curves group is that Hue Offset controls are based on the hue, saturation, and luminance (HSL) color space, whereas curves are based on a red, green, and blue (RGB) color space. As a result, you adjust the controls differently. For example, when you adjust values in the HSL color space, you manipulate luma and chroma separately.
Color Correction Toolset Below the middle color correction monitor is the Dual Split button . Click this button to view a “before and after” display of the image. The four white triangles surrounding the “before” frame can be dragged and reconfigured to display any area you desire. 225 N O T E One popular workflow is to expand the Dual Split view to display the entire frame and then toggle the Dual Split button to display a complete “before and after” comparison of the whole image.
226 Introducing Color Correction Using Manual Controls in Combination with Automatic Controls As mentioned, it’s usually best, and often necessary, to perform automatic color correction in combination with manual color correction. This section will cover a few of the most important manual controls that you’ll use to modify automatic color corrections.
Performing Automatic Color Corrections 227 Manual Color Balance Controls When you alter the color balance of an image, you are actually adjusting the levels of red, green, and blue that are added to parts of the video signal (shadows, midtones, and highlights). The ChromaWheels in the Color Correction tool allow you to offset the chroma values in each of three luma ranges.
228 Introducing Color Correction white. In effect, it adjusts the Setup and Gain controls to maximize the tonal range in the image. 5. You should examine parts of the interface directly after an Auto Contrast adjustment as follows: Look at the image itself. Did the automatic color correction correctly identify what should be white and what should be black? Does the contrast of the image look good? Look at the Y Waveform monitor. Notice which parts of the image it adjusted.
Performing Automatic Color Corrections 229 4. You should examine part of the interface directly following the Auto Balance adjustment as follows: Look at the image. Did the automatic color correction correct the color cast in the image’s neutral color areas of black, white, and neutral gray? Look at the RGB Parade monitor. Find the black and white areas of the image, and then locate these areas in each of the red, green, and blue channels. They should measure equal levels of red, green, and blue. 5.
230 Introducing Color Correction Practice Your Skills 1. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter Exercise Material folder to expand it, if necessary. 2. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter 8 folder. You will use this folder for the exercises in this chapter. It includes one bin: Color Correction sequence. 3. Open the bin, and load the “Color Correction sequence Part 1” sequence. Place the position indicator on the first segment, “Rehearsal CC.” 4.
Performing Automatic Color Corrections 231 Removing a Color Cast Using ChromaWheels You can also remove a color cast semiautomatically by clicking a Remove Color Cast button and using its eyedropper to identify an image area that you want to make color neutral (black, white, or neutral gray). Think of this operation as an “assisted automatic” function since you use the eyedropper to direct the system to the area you want to correct.
232 Introducing Color Correction To measure a color via the Color Match controls: 1. In the upper-right corner of the Color Correction tool, hover the pointer over one of the Color Match control boxes until the pointer becomes an eyedropper. Drag to the image. 2. Navigate to the part of the image you want to sample (a white, black, or neutral gray area). 3. Release the mouse button. The color is sampled, and the red, green, and blue values of the selected color appear in the Color Match control box.
Performing Automatic Color Corrections 233 All human flesh tones should reside along the flesh tone line. Because flesh tones most often fall into the midtone luma region, you will probably use the Midtones ChromaWheel to tweak chroma values, rather than use the Shadows or Highlights ChromaWheels.
234 Introducing Color Correction 5. Now, click the eyedropper below the Highlights ChromaWheel, and click an area of the frame that is supposed to be white, such as the back wall. Watch as both the RGB Parade and the image adjust to remove the color cast from the whites. 6. Click the Dual Split button to display the “before and after” view.
Selecting AutoCorrect Options 235 Selecting AutoCorrect Options An effect exists within the Image category of the Effect Palette called the Color Correction effect. When configured, you can use it to perform up to three automatic color correction functions in a single action. You control how the automatic corrections are applied from the Effect Palette by selecting options on the AutoCorrect tab in the Correction Mode Settings dialog box. To set AutoCorrect options: 1.
236 Introducing Color Correction Applying Automatic Color Corrections from the Effect Palette to Segments You can apply automatic color corrections from the Effect Palette to a single segment in editing, Effect, or Color Correction mode. You can also apply automatic color corrections from the Effect Palette to multiple segments in editing or Effect mode. To apply automatic color corrections from the Effect Palette: 1.
Review Questions 237 Practice Your Skills 1. Load “Color correction sequence Part 3” into the Timeline. 2. From the Settings list in the Project window, open Correction settings. 3. On the AutoCorrect tab, configure the options as follows: HSL Auto Contrast, then HSL Auto Balance 4. Click OK. 5. Select all the segments in the Timeline by parking on the first segment and clicking the Select Right button . 6. In the Image category of the Effect Palette, double-click the Color Correction effect.
This page intentionally left blank Download from www.wowebook.
Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Titles are an essential part of most projects—whether they are simple lower thirds Objectives: for identification purposes, artistic title 9 Understand the different parts of the Marquee interface slates that add both information and design elements to your sequence, or 3D animated Create and format text for titles title sequences that tell an entire story.
240 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee About Avid Marquee Marquee is a separate title and graphics animation program that opens within Media Composer. It can function as a 3D motion graphics creation tool; however, it can also be used for designing simple titles with text and shapes, which is how you’ll use it in this book. To open Avid Marquee: 1. Place the position indicator within the shot where you want to place your title. 2. Select Tools > Title Tool. The New Title dialog box appears.
Working in Marquee 241 Working in Marquee After you open Marquee, you’ll see an entirely new user interface on the screen. Media Composer minimizes, but you can switch between Marquee and Media Composer as necessary. Toolbar Toolbox Monitor window Marquee displaying a reference video frame from Media Composer. The Monitor window displays the workspace in which you create and modify the title contents.
242 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Edit tool Text tool Rotate tool Light tool Shape tool Rectangle tool Ellipse tool At the left of the Monitor window, a toolbox includes buttons that let you switch between the tools that you use to manipulate title objects. The Marquee toolbox includes features similar to those found in many graphics applications.
Creating Title Text 243 The safe title area is the inner box. All text for television broadcast should remain within this inner box so that it will appear well within the visible area of standard television sets. To activate safe action/title: Select View > Safe Action/Title, or in the toolbar above the Monitor window, click the Safe Action/Title button to display or hide the safe action and safe title boxes. Creating Title Text When you first open Marquee, the Edit tool is selected by default .
244 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Starting with a Bounding Box You can also create a bounding box first (which produces a fixed boundary for your title) and then type in the box. The border dictates where the text wraps to the next line. This is handy for entering several lines of text. To make a text bounding box: 1. Select the Text tool. The pointer becomes an I-beam cursor. 2. Click where you want to place the top-left corner of the box, and drag down and to the right.
Creating Title Text 245 3. To select multiple objects, lasso them, or Ctrl+click (Windows) or Shift+click (Macintosh) them. To select a range of text using the Text tool: 1. Select the Text tool, and drag the pointer across the text to select it. To select all the text, press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Macintosh). 2. Select the Edit tool. Any adjustments you make to these individual text boxes will be performed at the character (letter) level, as opposed to the global (word) level.
246 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee If you drag a text object toward the safe title area, the borders will attract one another, and the bounding box of your text will snap to the safe title line. To delete a text object: With the text object selected, press the Delete key. Practice Your Skills This exercise is intended to start you practicing some techniques in Marquee; you won’t necessarily save your title, so you needn’t worry about using title-saving methods. 1.
Formatting and Enhancing Text 247 Formatting and Enhancing Text If you’re familiar with word processing programs such as Microsoft Word, you probably already use many of the text formatting tools (font, font size, text style, text justification, kerning, and leading) that are available in Marquee. Most of these tools are accessible in the toolbar above the Monitor window.
248 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Aligning Text In most word processing programs, the text alignment function aligns text within the page’s boundaries. In Marquee, it aligns text within the bounding boxes. To align or justify the text: 1. Select the Text tool, and then click the text that you want to align or justify. 2. Do one of the following: In the toolbar, click a text alignment button. Right+click (Windows) or Control+click (Macintosh) in the column of text, and select Align > alignment.
Formatting and Enhancing Text 249 To kern text characters: 1. Select the Text tool. 2. Do one of the following: To kern the distance between two text characters, click between a character pair. To kern an entire range of text, select the text using the Text tool. 3. Press Alt+Left Arrow (Windows) or Option+Left Arrow (Macintosh) to decrease the kerning, or press Alt+Right Arrow (Windows) or Option+Right Arrow (Macintosh) to increase the kerning.
250 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee If you need to create paragraph breaks, press Shift+Enter (Windows) or Shift+Return (Macintosh). Pressing only Enter or Return creates a line break, not a paragraph break, so all text is formatted as a single paragraph. To change the leading in a paragraph: 1. Select the Text tool, and then do one of the following: To adjust leading in a single paragraph, click in the paragraph.
Saving the Title as an .mqp File 251 Saving the Title as an .mqp File When you’ve been working on your title for a bit, you’ll want to save it as an .mqp file, which is the Marquee file type. (Marquee does not autosave title files, so you need to do this manually whenever you want to save.) To save a title as an .mqp: 1. In Marquee, select File > Save As. 2. Type a name for the title, and navigate to the location where you want to save it. (It’s a good idea to save your title files on your media drive.
252 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Using the Edit tool, snap these text boxes to the left border of the safe title area. 6. Using the Edit tool, drag each of these bounding boxes to the right side of the safe title border. Each bounding box should now extend across the entire length of the safe title area. 7. Using the Edit tool, Ctrl+click (Windows) or Command+click (Macintosh) both of the text boxes. From the Font list, select Helvetica. 8.
Using the Quick Title Properties Window 253 Using the Quick Title Properties Window To the left of the Monitor window is the Quick Title Properties window, where you’ll find controls for many visual adjustments such as color, opacity, lighting, gradients, and shadows. Each of these controls allows you to add important aesthetic touches as you’re building your titles. Adjusting Color Often, you’ll want to change the text color of your titles. Marquee offers you several options to select title colors.
254 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Here you can specify an exact color by selecting from a color wheel or adjusting sliders. The sliders give you additional controls over hue, saturation, brightness, and opacity. U S I N G S P E C I A L C H A R AC T E R S Sometimes you’ll want to add special characters and symbols to your titles, such as a copyright sign, a fraction, or an accent over a vowel. You have several ways to access these special characters on Windows and Macintosh systems.
Using the Quick Title Properties Window 255 U S I N G S P E C I AL C H A R AC T E R S ( C O N T I N U E D ) To access the Macintosh Character Palette, navigate to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard, and select Show Keyboard and Character Palette in Menu Bar. Then, from the shortcut in the Macintosh menu bar, select Character Palette. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to access special characters.
256 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Changing Object Opacity You can give your titles an element of transparency by changing the opacity of all or part of your title. Introducing some transparency may be useful when you want to see the video play underneath the title or when you’re stacking multiple objects in Marquee to make a composite. N O T E When you adjust the master opacity, you adjust the opacity for everything (text, shape, shadow, or edge) within your selection.
Using the Quick Title Properties Window 257 3. To change the color of the start or end of the gradient, right-click the left or right color triangle to display the Color menu, or double-click the color triangle to open the Color Picker. 4. Select the color you want to use. Right-click the triangle to change the gradient color 5. (Optional) To adjust the opacity, click in the Opacity ramp of the Color menu, or drag the A slider in the Color Picker dialog box.
258 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Gradient Rotation and Mapping When you apply a gradient, it is mapped locally by default (which means that the gradient progresses across each letter), and its orientation is vertical (which means that the gradient progresses from left to right). You can change both of these defaults, if you desire. To control gradient mapping: N O T E Reflection will not be discussed in this book. From the mapping list, select an option: Local, Container, or Reflection.
Using the Quick Title Properties Window 259 Radial applies the gradient from the inside out. You can also rotate the way the gradient is mapped (in degrees) by entering a value in the Rotate text box or dragging the value shuttle. Applying Drop Shadows You can add drop shadows to your titles to help separate them from the background video. Drop shadows can be opaque or partially transparent and can be any color. To create a drop shadow: 1. Select the object to which you want to apply a shadow. 2.
260 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Using Shadows to Simulate Glows The Quick Titles Properties window doesn’t have controls to create a text glow. However, you can use shadows to create a glow-like effect. To simulate a colored glow: 1. Select the text object that you want to glow. 2. Apply a drop shadow by selecting Show Drop Shadow in the Quick Titles Properties window. 3. Adjust the following shadow property values: Opacity: 50 or higher Shadow opacity depends on the shadow color you use.
Using the Quick Title Properties Window 261 2. If you didn’t complete the previous exercise, you can begin working from titles saved in the Avid Marquee title versions folder, located on the DVD provided with this book. To do so, first copy the Avid Marquee title versions folder to your media drive. Then, select File > Open, navigate to the TW_lower_third_1.mqp file, and click Open. 3. Using the Edit tool, select the Tony Williams text box.
262 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Working with Shapes You may want to include shapes in your titles to accent text or to help separate text from a background video. Shapes can assume all of the same visual properties available in the Quick Titles Properties window: color, opacity, gradient, shadow, and glow. You can also stack multiple shapes to design a creative composite. You have two shape creation tools: rectangle and ellipse. To create a rectangle (or square) and ellipse (or circle): 1.
Working with Shapes 263 To place an object in front of (or behind) another object: 1. Select the object. 2.
264 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee 3. Drag the rectangle across the entire area between the left and right safe title borders. Make it equal to the height of the Tony Williams and Artistic Director text boxes. (If you need to resize and reshape the boxes, select the Edit tool, and drag the bounding box handles until you get the desired size and shape.) 4. Using the Edit tool, select the rectangle shape, and from the Object menu, select Send to Back. 5.
Working with Shapes 265 7. Click OK. The gradient should now progress from a very transparent gray to a transparent yellow. The shape serves as a nice accent for your title. 8. Select File > Save As. When saving this title, name it TW lower third 3 because it will serve as the third, or final, stage of this title’s development. 9. Repeat steps 1–8 for each of the other two titles (Dr. Michael Shannon and Yo-el Cassell). When you’re finished, you should have three stages of this title’s development saved.
266 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Saving the Title to Your Bin After you’ve created a title, you should save and render it using the Save to Bin command. When you do this, a new title clip is saved in your bin in Media Composer, and a new media file is created. 1. (Recommended) In Media Composer, create a bin for your titles and open it. 2. In Marquee, select File > Save to Bin, or press Ctrl+B (Windows) or Command+B (Macintosh). 3. In the Title Name text box, type a name for the title. 4.
Editing and Revising the Title 267 8. In the Save Title dialog box, choose a bin, drive, and resolution from the menus. 9. Click Save. A two-minute title is loaded into the Source monitor and placed into your target bin. The media is stored on the drive you specified. Editing and Revising the Title After you’ve saved your title to a bin in Media Composer, your title is loaded into the Source monitor, ready for you to edit it into your sequence.
268 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Fading a Title Most titles are faded up and down, so they don’t abruptly pop on screen. You already know how to use the Quick Transition dialog box to set up dissolves and fades, but you should use another method for fading titles. To add a title fade: 1. Place the position indicator in the title segment. You can fade multiple titles in the sequence by selecting them all in Segment mode. 2. Select the track that includes your title. 3.
Editing and Revising the Title 269 To revise a title in Marquee: 1. Place the position indicator on the title icon in the sequence. 2. Make sure the video track for the title is highlighted in the track panel. 3. In the Tool palette, click the Effect Mode button to enter Effect mode. N O T E The parameters for basic title manipulations are available in this window when you want to make small adjustments within Media Composer. 4. Click Edit Title. The title opens in Marquee. 5.
270 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Practice Your Skills 1. In Media Composer, open the Titles bin in the Chapter 9 exercise folder. 2. In Marquee, select File > Open or File > Open Recent to retrieve your version of the finished TW_lower_third_3 title file. If you did not complete the previous exercises, you can open the TW_lower_third_3 title in the Avid Marquee title versions folder provided on the DVD that accompanies this book. 3. When the title loads, select File > Save to Bin.
Creating Autotitles 12. From the Tool palette Fast menu, click the Fade Title effect button 271 . 13. In the dialog box, set the Fade Up and Fade Down values to 8. 14. Click OK. Play through that portion of the sequence, and make sure everything looks good. Make any additional changes to suit yourself. 15. Repeat steps 5–14 to edit the DMS_lower_third and the YC_lower_ third titles above their corresponding segments in the Timeline.
272 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee To create the model title for your template: 1. After you’ve made your title template (you should usually use generic fillers, such as Name and Title for your text entries), make sure all text bounding boxes are extended to the right edge of the safe title perimeter. This will ensure that long names and titles will not be truncated. 2.
Creating Autotitles 273 b. When you click the Name text box, the corresponding text box in the Layers list highlights accordingly. Rename this Text Box 1. The Text Boxes are listed in order from the bottom to the top; the first line of text is the bottom Text Box. c. Click the next higher Text Box in the Layers palette, and rename this text Text Box 2. Repeat for any additional text lines in your title. To prepare a text file for lower thirds: 1.
274 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee 4. Save the text file (retaining the line breaks). If you’re saving the file in Microsoft Word, select Save As > .txt, and then select Other encoding > Western (ASCII). Under Options, select “Insert line breaks.” To run the AutoTitler: 1. Select File > AutoTitler. The “Choose input file for AutoTitler” dialog box appears. 2. Navigate to the text file that contains the text for your titles, and click OK (Windows) or Open (Macintosh). 3.
Creating Autotitles 275 The titles begin to automatically create. A message box tells you when all possible titles have been created, and the last created title is displayed in the Monitor window. All the titles created by the AutoTitler are now open in Marquee. 5. You can view each title by choosing it by name from the Windows menu. 6. To save the titles to your Media Composer bin, choose File > Save All to Bin. Practice Your Skills 1. In Marquee, open the title called “AutoTitler Title template.
276 Creating Titles with Avid Marquee Review Questions 1. What are the ways you can increase the size of text? 2. What is the difference between kerning and leading? 3. How do you edit a title so it is keyed over video? 4. How could you increase kerning between the N and u in Nutcracker? 5. If you wanted the color of the text “Urban Nutcracker” to match the color of something in the scene, what would you do? 6. How do you simulate a glow using a shadow? 7.
Capturing Tape-Based Media So far, you’ve been working with media that has already been brought into Avid 10 Objectives: Prepare the system to capture content this point, however, we’re going to back Set capture options in the Capture tool up to the first stage of the editing process Capture clips on-the-fly and capture Media Composer, ready for you to edit. At to discuss how to input media into your using IN to OUT points system.
278 Capturing Tape-Based Media A N OT E AB O U T E X E R C I S E S This chapter discusses strategies for capturing media from tapes using a deck or camera. Because each user’s source tape will be different, this chapter does not include media-specific exercises. However, the capture processes will be described in general step-by-step terms so you can follow the procedure using your own source tapes.
Getting Started 279 Open an existing project; then in the Project window, click the Format tab, and from the menu, choose the related standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) format of the media you want to capture. When you choose an HD project type or format, also make sure to choose the appropriate raster type. If you are unsure about the raster type, Media Composer advises you on the media formats that match the raster type you have selected.
280 Capturing Tape-Based Media N O T E Both MXF and OMF are industrystandard, platformindependent file formats that let you exchange media- and sequenceediting information between applications. These formats are essentially wrappers for media files; your format choice will not affect the quality of the media. Your choice will, however, affect which additional applications can use your media. Most Avid assets are captured as MXF files.
Getting Started 281 Working with Audio Settings In the Audio Project Settings dialog box, you select input and output options and check the current configuration of your audio hardware. You need to set the following audio project settings for capture: Audio sample rate Audio file format Audio input source To set audio project settings: 1. Double-click Audio Project Settings, or select Settings tab > Audio Project Settings. 2. Make selections within each menu.
282 Capturing Tape-Based Media N O T E The values you set in the Audio Project Settings dialog box are saved as project settings. You can also save the settings in the Audio Project Settings dialog box as site settings so that all of your projects open with the same audio settings. For more information, see the discussion of site settings in Chapter 6. Your selection of audio input source (located within the Input tab) depends on how your deck is connected to your system.
Working with the Capture Tool Trash button Record tally light Record button 283 Capture/Log Mode button Toggle Source button Audio Tool Launch button Video and audio track selectors Audio Channel Grouping button Power warning (present only if your computer’s power settings are set to spin down hard disks) Timecode track selector Video and Audio Input menus Text boxes to name and comment on capture clips Bin for captured clips Resolution for captured clips Single/Dual Drive Mode button Time remaining
284 Capturing Tape-Based Media N O T E Most video cassette formats incorporate timecode—including Beta SP, Digi-Beta, and MiniDV. VHS cassettes do not use timecode. Media Composer also captures timecode (TC) that helps to keep track of individual frames of video. Each video frame captured into the system is assigned a timecode number of hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. (For example, 01:03:45:15 is read as 1 hour, 3 minutes, 45 seconds, and 15 frames.
Working with the Capture Tool 285 This strategy is helpful in two ways: The bin becomes a source tape database. A printout of the bin can serve as a useful archiving tool. Any scenes that were not logged and captured when the project was initially mounted will be easier to find because of visual associations with the clips in the bin bearing that tape’s name.
286 Capturing Tape-Based Media N O T E Saving audio and video to different drives was more useful when hard drive capacities were smaller and data transfer rates were slower. You really don’t need to select this option with today’s larger, faster drives. Drive destination settings may also be selected in the Media Creation Settings area.
Capturing Footage 3. When the tape name appears in the list, select it by clicking the black square to the left of the tape name. 4. Click OK. The tape name appears in the Source Tape display button in the Capture tool. 287 N O T E When creating a tape name, use a unique name for each tape, and write the same name on the physical tape and on the tape box. The flexibility of Media Composer relies in part on its ability to correctly associate clips with their physical tapes.
288 Capturing Tape-Based Media 2. Enter the IN and OUT points for the clip you want to capture by clicking the IN and OUT buttons at the desired locations within the clip or by entering the appropriate timecode into the text box. 3. Click the large red Record button T I P Always set loose IN and OUT points so you have extra handle for trimming and transition effects. (or press F4). 4. Type a name for the clip, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).
Capturing Footage 289 To stop capturing: 1. Click the red Record button again, or press the Escape key. The clip appears in the bin. 2. Click the Stop button in the Deck Control tool to stop the tape. 3. If you haven’t already done so, name the clip by highlighting it in the bin and typing a new name. Logging and Batch Capturing An efficient way to input media into the Media Composer is to log all your shots first and then use batch capture to capture the material automatically.
290 Capturing Tape-Based Media 4. Mark an IN point by doing one of the following: Click the Mark IN button. From the deck controls, mark an IN point. The timecode for the IN point is displayed. Additionally, the Mark IN button turns into a Mark OUT and Log button , ready for you to mark your OUT point. 5. Shuttle or play to the place where you want to mark the OUT point of the clip. Then, do one of the following: Click the Mark OUT and Log button. From the deck controls, mark an OUT.
Capturing Footage 291 LO G G I N G I N D I V I D UAL S H OTS O R G R O U P S O F S H OTS Do you log individual shots or log groups of shots? Here is a critical evaluation of three methods: Method 1: Log each shot. Each shot is logged as a separate clip. Advantage: The log is the most accurate representation of material on the source tapes. Advantage: It’s the best method for sorting and sifting, so you can easily locate clips in the bin. (Sorting and sifting are covered in Chapter 12.
292 Capturing Tape-Based Media N O T E You can stop the batch capture process at any time by clicking the Trash icon in the Capture tool. If you do this, you have the option to keep or discard the clips captured to that point. 4. Select Clip > Batch Capture. N O T E When “Offline media only” isn’t selected and some of the chosen clips have media files, the system deletes the media files and recaptures new media files. 5. Confirm that “Offline media only” is selected.
Capturing Footage 293 Capturing from a Non-timecode Source Sometimes you have to capture from a source such as VHS, DAT, or DVD that does not have timecode. Or you may have to capture from a satellite or remote feed, where you have no deck control. Or you may choose to capture without timecode simply to acquire video across a timecode break. In these cases, Media Composer generates timecode based on the time of day.
294 Capturing Tape-Based Media 2. Click once in the Tape Name box. The Select Tape dialog box appears. 3. Choose an existing tape name; or, click New, enter a new source tape name, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh). We recommend naming this NTC for “no timecode” and including a reference to the date, content, or both. 4. Click OK to return to the Capture tool. 5. From the Timecode Source menu, select an option: Internal (default): The system’s internal time-of-day (TOD) timecode.
Capturing Footage 295 DV Scene Extraction DV Scene Extraction allows you to automatically generate subclips and locators while capturing material in the DV, DVCAM, and HDV video formats. Discontinuities in the DV time-of-day (TOD) data indicate each place where a new take was initiated on a DV camera. Using this feature, you can capture an entire DV tape as a single master clip and have the system automatically locate all the takes for you, eliminating the need to log manually.
296 Capturing Tape-Based Media N O T E To use DV Scene Extraction after capturing, select the clips for which you want to create subclips or locators, select Bin > DV Scene Extraction, and choose the desired options. 4. Click OK. 5. Click the Record button to start, and click the Record button again when capture is complete. 6. When capturing has finished, subclips are created with the same source clip name and the extension exercise.sub.01 where TOD information breaks occurred.
Review Questions 297 2. Why should you give each tape a unique tape name? 3. Where can you quickly set the video resolution for all media, including captured media and titles? 4. After you log several clips in the bin, how do you specify which clips to batch capture? 5. What is DV Scene Extraction? Download from www.wowebook.
This page intentionally left blank Download from www.wowebook.
11 Working with File-Based Media In addition to capturing from source tapes, you have several other ways to bring con- Objectives: tent into your system. An increasingly pop- Understand and use Avid Media Access Avid® Media Access® ular way to input material is to import from or link to file-based media.
300 Working with File-Based Media Working with File-Based Media N O T E You cannot import GFCAM media into the Avid system. You must use the AMA workflow with GFCAM media. To bring file-based media into your system, you have the option to use the Avid Media Access (AMA) method, which links the media directly into a bin, or to use the non-AMA method, which imports the media onto your system, creating new Avid media files.
The Avid Media Access Workflow 301 The Avid Media Access Workflow Avid Media Access is a plug-in architecture that allows you to link directly to a third-party volume, without importing files to your media drives. AMA populates a bin with master clips that link directly to media on the device, letting you browse and edit content directly. Using AMA In the AMA Settings dialog box, you can choose to turn AMA on or off, automatically mount your volumes, and customize your bin. AMA is turned on by default.
302 Working with File-Based Media N O T E Depending on your AMA settings, every time you insert a P2 card into the reader, a new bin is created whether or not the card has been previously inserted. 5. To customize your bin, click the Bins tab. By default, the system links your clips to a new bin using the project name as the bin name. If you want to change the bin name or link to an existing bin, you can do so in the Bins tab. 6. Click OK. To automatically link clips with AMA: 1.
The Avid Media Access Workflow 303 Using Virtual Volumes You can also use a virtual volume to copy media to your system from a P2 card, an XDCAM optical disk or an XDCAM EX card. This allows you to move the files from the card, and then re-use them as necessary. Because the folder structure is retained after moving, a virtual volume can be placed in a number of locations, such as a folder on your media drive on a server.
304 Working with File-Based Media To unmount a virtual volume: 1. Choose File > Unmount. The Unmount dialog box opens. 2. Select the virtual volume you want to remove. 3. Click OK. The virtual volume is removed from your system and clips linked to the virtual volume appear offline. If you leave the clips in the bin, Media Composer will bring the clips back online after rescanning the system’s virtual volumes when you restart the application.
The Avid Media Access Workflow 305 5. Select “Video, audio, and data on same drive(s)” to determine the destination for your consolidated media. 6. Choose options for handling the media. You can choose to delete or retain the original media files when done. You can choose to skip media files already on the drive.
306 Working with File-Based Media You can also consolidate subclips or a sequence in the same way. It is best to specify a specific handle length so that each clip or subclip in the sequence is consolidated with additional media at its beginning and end. Consolidating a sequence results in less stored media but also less flexibility with respect to altering the sequence in the future. If time and storage are available, the preferred method is to also consolidate the subclips.
Working with P2 Media 307 Panasonic P2 devices write individual MXF audio and video media files for each clip’s individual video or audio tracks. For example, a P2 clip that includes one track of video and four tracks of audio is stored on the P2 card as five individual files. Within Media Composer, the five media files are represented as a single clip with audio and video.
308 Working with File-Based Media Working with XDCAM and XDCAM EX Clips Sony XDCAM and XDCAM EX media is recorded to an optical disc (with a capacity of 23.3 GB or 50 GB). XDCAM EX records to solid state cards SxS and SDHC. This lets you work with the compressed or low-resolution media in an offline editing session and later conform or link the compressed media to the corresponding high-resolution media.
Working with RED Media 309 Working with RED Media With Media Composer 5.0, RED ONE camera files can also be read and edited using AMA. The RED ONE is a very high-performance digital cine camera with the quality of 35mm film and generates a 2K to 4.5K full-resolution REDCODE RAW (.R3D) file. Media is stored on a REDFlash card or a RED drive.
310 Working with File-Based Media Adjusting RED Source Settings When an R3D file links into Media Composer with AMA, it is a REDCODE RAW file. Color value information is encoded with the R3D file. These clip files retain the camera’s original color values. You can change a clip’s color values (color balance, exposure, and contrast) in the Source Settings window. The Clip Parameters in the Source Settings panel has three color spaces to choose from: REDSpace, Camera RGB, and REC.709.
Working with QuickTime Media 3. Drag the video slider to the frame you want to view. 4. Set the appropriate options regarding the desired color value information. 5. Click Apply. The changes are applied to the clip. You can continue to make additional changes. If you click Cancel after you click Apply, the Source Settings window closes with the changes you made. 6. Click OK to save your changes and close the window. The system updates the bin column metadata with the new parameters.
312 Working with File-Based Media 3. Navigate to your QuickTime movie file, and then click OK. N O T E QuickTime files use the .mov filename extension. After you link a QuickTime file using AMA, the .mov extension is removed. QuickTime media is linked at the data rate at which it was recorded. The clips appear in the bin with a yellow highlight. Download from www.wowebook.
Importing Image or Video Files 313 Importing Image or Video Files Often your projects will require images (such as graphics and photographs) and video clips that were created without the Avid QuickTime codec. When you import an image or video file into Media Composer, the file is converted to an MXF (or OMF) file and is stored with the rest of your media files on your media drive. To import image or video files: 1.
314 Working with File-Based Media N O T E Many important variables are found in the Import Settings dialog box that determine whether images and video files are sized and shaped correctly and whether you have accurate field order, alpha channel, and color mapping. You can explore all of these settings in the Avid Media Composer Editing Guide > File Format Specifications and Avid Media Composer Editing Guide > Import Settings. 4.
Importing Audio Files 315 To import audio files: 1. Locate a bin to import the audio files into within Media Composer. Then, select File > Import, or right-click in the bin and choose Import. 2. In the Audio tab, select “Apply attenuation/gain effect on import,” and set the level to -12. If you are importing monophonic audio, you can select “Automatically center pan monophonic clips.” Click OK. Set attenuation/gain effect to -12 Pan mono audio tracks to center, if desired 3.
316 Working with File-Based Media Review Questions 1. What are the primary benefits of AMA? 2. How do you unmount a virtual volume? 3. Why is consolidating recommended as a final step when working with AMA? 4. Where can you set your format, resolution, and target drives for imported media? 5. Before using AMA to bring QuickTime files into Media Composer, what do you have to do with regard to Avid QuickTime codecs and AMA plug-ins? Download from www.wowebook.
Managing Your Project and Media Organization is important at every stage of the postproduction process.
318 Managing Your Project and Media Customizing in Text View You’ve already been introduced to Text view in which you can customize columns for display using the Choose Columns command. Within Text view, you can also access one of the preset bin views that are accessible from the menu at the bottom of each bin: Film: Use this view when working with 24 fps material. Information such as camroll and pull-in frame is displayed.
Customizing in Text View 319 To add a new column: 1. Navigate to the Text View tab. 2. Click an empty area to the right of all the headings. 3. Type the column heading you want. Column headings must contain fewer than 14 characters, including spaces. N O T E You can also drag a column heading to move any existing column to the right or left and create an empty area. Type the name of the custom column in a blank area in the headings bar 4.
320 Managing Your Project and Media Modifying information in Text View You can use a number of tips and shortcuts to modify Text view bin data. The following table provides some helpful tips for entering, displaying, and hiding information: When you want to: Do this: Repeat information from another cell Alt+click (Windows) or Option+click in the same column. (This modification (Macintosh) in the cell where you applies only to custom columns.) want the text to appear.
Customizing in Text View 3. Type a name for the view, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh) and click OK. This retains the bin view name as part of your user settings. 321 N O T E Your bin view will be lost if not saved. Therefore, it is good practice to save as soon as possible. Practice Your Skills In this exercise, you’ll practice creating bin views to better organize your metadata. 1. Click the triangle to the left of the Chapter Exercise Material folder to open it, if necessary. 2.
322 Managing Your Project and Media 6. In a blank area to the right of the “Shot size” column, create another heading called Quality. 7. At the bottom of the bin, click the Custom.1 name, and select Save As. 8. Name this bin view Shot size and quality, and click OK. 9. Open each clip in the Source monitor to examine its composition, as well as how much you like it. Then, label the shot sizes and quality appropriately. 10.
Sorting and Sifting Clips You sift by creating filters to display only clips that meet specific criteria. For example, you can sift your Description column for “ballerina” shots and your Quality column for three-star shots, and Media Composer will filter all three-star ballerina shots and display them in the bin. In this way, you can quickly zero in on exactly the clips you need. To sort clips: 1. In Text view, click the heading of the column that you want to sort to highlight the column. 2.
324 Managing Your Project and Media N O T E You should usually store clips of varying types (such as interview, B-roll, and so on) in separate bins, as shown in the preceding figure. However, editors will often capture each source tape into a bin to serve as a database of the clips on each tape. Then, the contents of that tape-specific bin can later be copied into typeand subject-specific bins. Sorts and sifts are great tools to organize clips in this way.
Sorting and Sifting Clips 325 To sift clips: 1. Select Bin > Custom Sift to open the Custom Sift dialog box. 2. Select from the following search criteria in the Criterion menu: Contains: The text must be contained within the column data, but the column data may also contain other material. Begins with: The text must begin with the column data, but the column data may also contain other material. Matches exactly: The text must correspond word-for-word with the column data. 3.
326 Managing Your Project and Media N O T E If you’re not sure that you have correctly set up the dialog box, click Apply. The results of the sift appear in the bin, and the Custom Sift dialog box remains open. 5. Revise and repeat the procedure for other search criteria, as necessary. 6. When you are satisfied with your results, click OK. The clips that meet your criteria appear in the bin, with (sifted) added to the bin name.
Sorting and Sifting Clips 327 The results would be as follows: OR (inclusive) sift: Sifts more than one criterion (in one or more columns), where a clip must meet only one of those criterion to appear in the sifted bin. For example, to sift for clips that contain either CU or MS in the Shot size column, you would choose these criteria: Download from www.wowebook.
328 Managing Your Project and Media And you’d get the following results: Combined AND/OR sift: Use filters at the top and bottom of the Custom Sift tool to sift two exclusive sifts. That is, clips have to meet two or more sets of criteria or two or more sets of criteria. For example, you might want to sift three-star Rehearsal shots, as well as three-star Stage shots by setting up the Custom Sift window like this: The results are shown in this figure. Download from www.wowebook.
Moving and Copying Clips 329 Showing Sifted and Unsifted Views of the Bin After you have sifted the clips in a bin, you can display the bin in a sifted state or in an unsifted state. To view the entire bin, select Bin > Show Unsifted. To view the sifted bin, select Bin > Show Sifted. Moving and Copying Clips After you have sorted or sifted clips in a bin, it may be useful to move or copy them into a new bin.
330 Managing Your Project and Media Press Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Macintosh) to duplicate the selected clips. New clips appear appended with .Copy.01. Move these clips to the new bin. Practice Your Skills 1. Open the All UN – Sort and Sift bin. 2. If necessary, put the bin into Text view. You should see four custom columns: Shot size, Quality, Type, and Location. Because bin views are a user setting, this custom view is not included in your list of bin views.
Moving and Copying Clips 331 7. Create three bins, and move them into the Chapter 12 folder: Interviews Show night selects Rehearsal selects 8. Move the three bins into the Chapter 12 folder. Leave them open, but put them to the side. 9. From the bin Fast menu, select Custom Sift. If data is present in the fields, select the Clear button. Set up a basic sift by entering only one entry: Interview. 10. Click OK. 11.
332 Managing Your Project and Media 14. Set up an AND sift by entering the following criteria into the top area of the Custom Sift dialog box: *** (make sure to select Contains from the Criterion menu) Stage 15. When the bin displays the three-star and four-star Stage clips, Alt+drag (Windows) or Option+drag (Macintosh) the clips to the “Show night selects” bin. 16. Close the “Show night selects” bin. 17. From the bin Fast menu, access the Custom Sift dialog box.
Using the Media Tool 333 Using the Media Tool If you need to view, sort, sift, or delete the media files of clips that reside in multiple bins or in multiple projects, you can use the Media tool. The Media tool allows you to see the media files (and the associated master clips) on all connected hard drives. Using the Media tool is a great way to track down all the media files affiliated with a particular project or sequence.
334 Managing Your Project and Media N O T E Because master clips in the Media tool are there only to reference media files on the system, any master clips that are offline will not appear in the Media tool. 4. Select Master Clips and Precompute Clips, if you’d like. A master clip can have several associated media files, one or more video media files, and up to eight audio media files. Therefore, Media Composer represents this group of media files by its master clip in the Media tool.
Deleting Clips and Media Files 335 Deleting Clips and Media Files Master clips, subclips, and sequences (located within the Project folder) consist of editing data that occupy very little drive space. The media file data associated with the project, however, take up substantial room on your media drives. If you need to free up storage space on your drives, you can delete those media files while retaining your project data.
336 Managing Your Project and Media After deleting video media files, the associated clips and sections of sequences display the Media Offline frame. Offline audio-only clips display a black frame and play without sound but do not display the Media Offline message. You can delete clips and media files in two ways: Delete them from the bin, or use the Media tool. Either method will delete clips or the media files linked to the clips, but each method provides a different set of deletion options.
Deleting Clips and Media Files 337 3. Select the media objects that you want to delete: Select only “Delete 1 master clip(s)” to delete only the clip, which contains important metadata such as its start and end timecodes. The clip is removed from the bin, but the media remains on the external drives. When you do this, you will have unreferenced media (orphan files) stored on your media drives. These files do nothing but waste storage space. Therefore, you should rarely select this option.
338 Managing Your Project and Media 4. Click OK. A confirmation dialog box appears. 5. Click Delete. Deleting Media Files Using the Media Tool Because the Media tool displays only the media on your drives—and the master clips in the media tool are references to that media and not the actual master clips in your bins—the Media tool does not give you the option of deleting master clips. However, you can use the Media tool to delete video, audio, and precompute media files.
Deleting Clips and Media Files 339 5. Click OK. 6. In the confirmation dialog box, click Delete. The media files are deleted from the drive, but the master clips remain stored in their bins. Although the Media tool conveniently displays the master clips associated with media files, the master clips are not deleted from the bins in which they reside when the media is deleted. To identify and delete media files not associated with a particular sequence: 1.
340 Managing Your Project and Media 6. (Optional) From the Media tool Fast menu, choose Reverse Selection. This reverses the current selection, highlighting all the media files in the Media tool that are unrelated to your clips and sequences. 7. Press the Delete key, and select the appropriate choices. Click OK. Locking Items in the Bin To prevent deletion, you can lock any item in the bin, including source clips, master clips, subclips, and sequences.
Locking Items in the Bin 341 2. Click a clip, subclip, or sequence to select it. 3. Select additional items as necessary. 4. Select Clip > Lock Bin Selection, or right-click and select Lock from the menu. A Lock icon appears for each locked clip in the Lock column of the default Statistics Bin view. 5. To unlock previously locked items, select the items in the bin, and select Clip > Unlock Bin Selection. Practice Your Skills In this exercise, you will select all media that was not used in a sequence.
342 Managing Your Project and Media 10. Click Cancel. Review Questions 1. How do you add a custom column to a bin in Text view? 2. What are some of the most useful custom columns? 3. How do you sort the items in your bin in descending alphanumeric order? 4. How would you set up a custom sift to display all four-star close-up shots? 5. What is the difference between duplicating and copying a clip? 6. How do you delete all the media in a project that is not associated with a certain sequence? 7.
Delivering the Finished Work After you’ve perfected your sequence, you need to get it out of Avid Media Composer 13 Objectives: and into a format that works for you or Record a digital cut for tape-based delivery your client. Media Composer offers many ways to output a finished sequence.
344 Delivering the Finished Work Tape-Based Delivery N O T E Transcoding and reformatting are beyond the scope of this book. For more information, see the Avid Media Composer Editing Guide > Managing Media Files > Using the Transcode Command. For information on exporting to an HDV media stream, see the Avid Media Composer Editing Guide > Working in High-Resolution Projects > Outputting HDV.
Tape-Based Delivery 345 2. To set the video quality, in the lower Timeline toolbar, right-click the Video Quality button and select Full Quality, or repeatedly click the Video Quality menu button and cycle through the video quality settings to green. Set your sequence to the highest possible video quality. Many editors switch the video quality to Draft Quality (1/4 resolution) or Best Performance (1/16 resolution) during offline editing to maximize performance.
346 Delivering the Finished Work To resample the audio sample rate: 1. Right-click the sequence in the bin, and select Change Sample Rate. 2. From the Sample Rate menu, select the desired sample rate. You must choose 48 kHz if you are going to a DV deck or using embedded SDI SD or HD audio. 3. Set the Quality to High, and click OK. New master clips and media are created for each converted clip. Those clips already at the correct sample rate will remain unaffected.
Tape-Based Delivery 347 4. Select the number of channels and the sample bit depth. For SD SDI, the choices are 4 or 8 channels, 20 or 24 bits. (Generally choose the highlighted choices.) For HD SDI, the choices are 4 or 8 channels, 24 bits. Consult your deck manual for the appropriate settings. 5. Click OK. If you are outputting to analog tape, be sure to select the correct output setting before recording a digital cut. This is particularly important for analog SD projects.
348 Delivering the Finished Work N O T E Crash record edits and manual edits are not detailed in this book. For more information, see the Avid Media Composer Editing Guide > Generating Output. When you play your sequence, if the playback in the Record monitor is not in sync with the connected client monitor, you may need to adjust the Desktop Play Delay setting in the Video Display settings. NOTE Right-click the Video Quality Menu button, and select the Video Display setting.
Tape-Based Delivery Select the specific video, audio, and data tracks to record Have the system locate real-time effects with dropped frames Select the tracks to record to the tape Add black at the end of a digital cut 349 To record a digital cut to tape: 1. Open a sequence into the Record monitor. (You can’t access digital cut options without an open sequence.) 2. Select Output > Digital Cut to open the Digital Cut tool.
350 Delivering the Finished Work N O T E Digital Cut Safe Mode analyzes and identifies real-time effects that might cause dropped frames during the digital cut and lets you render them. It also identifies HD clips in an SD sequence and gives you the opportunity to transcode the clips. When these operations are completed, Media Composer automatically performs the digital cut.
File-Based Delivery 351 9. (Optional) Select Custom Preroll. Select a number of seconds to indicate how many seconds the tape rolls before starting the digital cut. 10. Click the Sequence Track buttons to select the audio, video, and data tracks you want included in the digital cut. 11. Click the Enable Track buttons to select the video and audio tracks to record to the tape. 12. Click the Play Digital Cut button. Media Composer cues the record deck and then plays and records the sequence.
352 Delivering the Finished Work If your sequence contains numerous video tracks, consider mixing down the tracks in advance. It’s good practice to duplicate your sequence prior to performing the mixdown to preserve its multitrack information. To perform a video mixdown, mark an IN and an OUT around your sequence, select Special > Video Mixdown, and select the appropriate bin, resolution, and drive options.
File-Based Delivery If your sequence contains audio clips with different sample rates, resample the audio tracks to a single sample rate. Right-click your sequence in the bin, and select Change Sample Rate. Check and adjust all pan and audio levels in advance. All current Pan and Level settings in the sequence are carried to the exported media. Occasionally, OMFI or AAF files with very complex sequences can fail because of memory limitations when imported into some applications.
354 Delivering the Finished Work Pro Tools or Pro Tools on Unity (consolidate, embed, or link to audio) Avid DS AudioVision For more information about Send To options, see Media Composer Editing Guide > Exporting Frames, Clips or sequences > Send To Templates Reference. NOTE 4. Click Set, and choose a destination folder for the exported files. 5. Click OK to export the file to the selected destination.
File-Based Delivery 355 To export directly to DVD using a Send To template: 1. Prepare the sequence, right-click the sequence, and choose Send To > DVD > DVD One Step. 2. The Send To: DVD One Step dialog box opens with a default export template. 3. The Filename text box displays the name of the sequence or clip you chose. You can change this name, if desired. 4. Click Set to browse to the drive and folder to which you want to export the sequence. 5. Accept the default settings for the remaining options.
356 Delivering the Finished Work N O T E For more information on working directly with DVD by Sonic, see the Using Avid DVD by Sonic guide included on your documentation disc. 8. From the Capacity menu, select the storage capacity of your DVD medium. The capacity of your DVD medium must match the size you select from the Capacity menu. 9. Click OK to burn your DVD.
File-Based Delivery 357 In addition to QuickTime, you can select from many export settings 3. Click the Options button to open the Export Settings dialog box. Download from www.wowebook.
358 Delivering the Finished Work 4. In the Export As menu, verify that QuickTime Movie is selected. 5. Select Same as Source to use the resolution of the source file, or select Custom to customize your settings. Using Same as Source results in the fastest export and is usually the best selection for a movie that will be processed by another application. If you customize the export settings, you will need to select the codec, size, field ordering, and so on.
Using Edit Decision Lists 359 Using Edit Decision Lists An edit decision list (EDL) is a detailed list of the edits in a sequence, including all the timecode and supported effects information required to re-create the sequence in an online editing session. The EDL is organized into a series of chronological instructions called events that are interpreted by an edit controller to automate the assembly of a videotape master.
360 Delivering the Finished Work Review Questions 1. What is the difference between preparing tape for an insert edit compared to an assemble edit? 2. Where does recording start for each of the three settings in the Record to Tape option in the Digital Cut tool? Sequence time Record deck time Mark in time 3. What steps have to be taken to prepare a sequence for a file-based export? 4. How do you export a sequence to a DVD? 5. What is an EDL? Download from www.wowebook.
Index Symbols (+) plus sign, 93–94, 115 (=) equal sign, 83 (-) minus sign, 93–94, 115 (~) tilde sign, 356 A A-side single-roller trim dual-roller trim and, 107 editing with, 101–102 interface changes and, 106 performing, 112–113 Acceleration parameter, 210 Add Edit function defining audio segments, 137 performing, 83 splitting audio segments, 137 Add Locators function in DV Scene Extraction, 295 performing, 86–88 additive trims, 112 advanced keyframes, 196 aligning text, 248 AMA.
362 Index audio tracks deleting with Media tool, 338–340 enlarging/reducing, 45 importing, 314–315 mixing down, 352 monitoring levels, 125–127 P2 media and, 306–307 preparing to add/manipulate keyframes, 143–144 setting capture parameters for, 283–284 setting level/pan for, 135 audio transitions, 138–139 Auto Black function, 229 Auto Detect option, 294 auto panning, 153 auto-save, 37 Auto White function, 229 AutoCorrect options, 235–236 automatic color correction adjusting hue/saturation values, 232–233 b
Index ChromaWheels adjusting hue/saturation values, 232–233 for manual color balance control, 227, 229 removing color casts, 231 circles, creating, 262 Clip/Auto/Live toggle button, 129 Clip Color display option, 172 Clip Frames display option, 171 Clip Name menu, 88–89 Clip Text display option, 172 clipped audio levels, 125 clips.
364 Index dual-roller trim performing, 103–104 with sliding, 119–120 with slipping, 118–119 Dual Split button, 225 Dupe Detection display option, 172 duplicating clips, 329 duration, of transition effect, 191–193 DV Scene Extraction, 295–296 DVD Authoring workflow, 356 DVD One-Step exporting directly to DVD, 355–356 Send To option, 354 E edit decision lists (EDLs), 359 Edit tool Marquee, 242 selecting range of text, 245 selecting text objects, 244 Edit type, Digital Cut tool, 349 editing practicing skill
Index file-based media AMA workflow, 301–306 importing audio files, 314–315 importing image/video files, 313–314 overview, 299 review questions, 316 traditional import workflow, 300 working with P2 media, 306–307 working with QuickTime media, 311–312 working with RED media, 309–311 working with XDCAM/XDCAM EX clips, 308 Files of Type menu, 313 Film Dissolve option, 186 Film Fade option, 186 Film view, 318 fine-tuning sequences. see sequences, fine-tuning finished work, delivering.
366 Index L lassoing transitions entering Trim mode by, 105–106 removing multiple transition effects, 187 layering vs.
Index Number of Mix Panes button, 129–130 numeric keypad seeking frames with, 93 for slipping/sliding, 120 trimming with, 115 O offline audio-only clips, 336 OMF (Open Media Framework) format, 280 on-the-fly adding keyframes, 197 adding locators, 88 auto panning, 153 capturing footage, 288, 293 one-frame speed, 42 one-quarter speed, 42 opacity adjusting for titles, 256 applying gradients to, 256–257 OR (inclusive) sift, 327–328 orientation, gradient, 258–259 Other Bins folder, 23 OUT points audio gain aut
368 Index R R3D (REDCODERAW) files, 309 Radial orientation, 259 radio edits, 104 real-time audio gain adjustment.
Index linking toolsets to, 178–179 mapping menu commands, 168 mapping user-selectable buttons, 165–167 overview, 157 practicing mapping skills, 169–171 practicing multiple versions skills, 160–161 practicing Timeline configuration skills, 175–177 practicing toolset skills, 179–180 review questions, 180 saving customized view, 173–174 shortcuts to access, 159 site settings, 163–164 using Command palette, 169 viewing/changing settings, 158–159 Settings tab, 10–11, 27 setup value, 226 Shadow tool, 259 Shape t
370 Index text adjusting kerning, 248–249 adjusting leading, 249–250 aligning, 248 selecting font/font size/scaling, 247 selecting range of, 245 text bounding box, 243–244 text objects dragging/deleting, 245 selecting, 244 Text tool, 242, 243 Text view adding custom columns, 318–319 displaying bins in, 18–19 modifying information in, 320 practicing skills, 321–322 preloaded headings within, 318 saving bin views, 320–321 three-point editing fundamental principles of, 56 practicing with, 63 tilde (~) sign,
Index features of, 182 overview, 185 practicing Quick Transition skills, 187–188 practicing skills with, 193–195 using Effect mode, 189–190 Trash button, Capture tool, 283 Trash, Media Composer, 15–16 Trim mode entering, 105–106 exiting, 108 sliding and, 119–120 slipping and, 118–119 trim smart tools Overwrite Trim, 113 Ripple Trim, 112–113 trimming B-side single-roller trim, 102–103, 112 dual-roller trim, 103–104, 107–108 entering Trim mode, 105–106 exiting Trim mode, 108 interface changes, 106 Overwrite
Download from www.wowebook.
WHERE ARE THE LESSON FILES? Thank you for purchasing this digital version of: Editing with Avid Media Composer 5: The Official Avid Guide The print version of this title comes with a disc of lesson files. As an eBook reader, you have access to these files by following the steps below: 1. On your PC or Mac, open a web browser and go to this URL: www.peachpit.com/ebookfiles/0132366940 2. Download the ZIP file (or files) from the web site to your hard drive. 3.
