A few questions regarding smooth workflow between Avid and After Effects

[RupertPupkin]

Hey all,

For the last year I've been editing everything with Final Cut Pro (although I have edited many things with Avid in the past) but I just recently got Avid for my laptop and I now want to start editing all of my projects with it. However, it has been some time since I've used Avid and my memory is a little foggy.


I want to know what the best workflow would be for editing a project shot on a Canon DSLR that is as lossless as possible. I also want to open the project with After Effects for color grading and some compositing.


Should I transcode all of the footage to DNxHD and then do an AMA link to the transcoded files?


Once I have my timeline together and I'm ready to bring it into AE, is it as simple as making an AAF and then opening that in AE? And what is the best way to go from AE back to Avid?


Also, say I shot the project with an aspect ratio of 2.4:1 (crop marks on the camera), how do I change the aspect ratio of the project to match? When I export I don't want there to be any black crop bars, just the 2.4:1 video. I know in Final Cut I would just go into the sequence settings and make the frame size custom, but I'm not sure how to do it in Avid.

Thanks

 

[arniepix]

Avid will transode to DNxHD on import. If you want to use AMA, there's no reason to transcode first. If you want to transcode, then just import with the transcode settings you want to use. Or you can select the AMA files in your bin & tanscode them later. Beware of trying to work with AMA material that hasn't been transcoded, or you will need to do a video mixdown before you can export to either AAF or Quicktime.

So far as I know, Avid will not work in 2.4 aspect ratio. for HD, it Only does the broadcast ratio of 16x9. You can add a letterbox mask to your output, though.