Exporting to color correction editor, easiest way?

M

mr_goodbomb

Active member
I work in FCP, I don't have the best eye for color, so I'm having a friend do the color correction with a PC, using Magic Bullet and some other software. Rather than exporting the entire film, or entire scenes, which he'd have to go back and cut into individual shots in order to edit them all individually with their own color treatment, he has me exporting every shot from the film and exporting them to his harddrive or DVDs for him to work on. I've been doing it a scene at a time. It's incredibly tedious, very easy to screw up (if a shot goes a few frames long and under another shot, for example, it's out of sync, and if I forget a shot, mislabel a shot, get out of order when labeling them, etc, it's out of sync, etc), and I'm sure, at some point, I'm going to screw it up and it's going to be very annoying. Is there any more practical way to do this so that he has the markers, the shots are cut already, etc, but he doesn't have to reconstruct it from a thousand shots I've exported one at a time? I don't want to make him go back and make all the cuts himself, either, though that actually seems slightly easier to me.
 
Can't Premiere or other Windows software handle the XML (or other, EDL?) the export function in Final Cut Pro gives you? I don't know if it's a standard or specific to Apple products. You will get problems with fades, effects and stuff, though, i think.
 
I know premiere can read XMl, at least, but if he's working on something else that can't, I'd recommend sending him your raw capture scratch. This way he can grade each shot all at once (assuming they've been captured this way). While this may make any correcting to match surrounding cuts a little more complex, if you send him a completed edit along with it, he should be able to use that for reference. When he's done, he can simply export each full shot and you can reconnect to that footage.
 
XML is audio, isn't it? How would EDL work? He uses Premiere, I believe. I know our composer uses XML files I exported for him. Of course, if it's a big file, the FAT32 limit is 4.5ish GB, right? I removed the fades and such for him, there are only two or so the whole film.

If I sent him my raw, he'd be working with dozens of hours of footage, and it'd basically be recutting the entire film. Mind you, while he's working on this, the composer is mastering the soundtrack, so the cuts need to be the same as they are in the FCP version of the finished cut, down to the frame. I'd say sending him the raw would be even more work than just exporting each shot one at a time to him to re-assemble.
 
XML is an interchange format that you can kick out to go to older versions of final cut, Premiere and probably some other stuff. You can export right out of FCP- In Export XML is at the bottom. I'm not sure what you're referring to with a FAT32 limit. I have 2 1TB external harddrives formatted to fat32. 4.7 gigs is the limit of a single layer DVD, maybe that's what you're thinking of?

For the raw- you wouldn't have to recut your film, you just reconnect to the color corrected versions of the footage. The best part of an NLE.
 
I'll poke around about XML and see if that'd work. Thank you. What I mean about the FAT32 limit is that it can't ingest a single file size OVER something like 4.5GB. It can, of course, handle more than that in multiple files, but it can't take a SINGLE file that's larger than that limit.
 
mr_goodbomb said:
I'll poke around about XML and see if that'd work. Thank you. What I mean about the FAT32 limit is that it can't ingest a single file size OVER something like 4.5GB. It can, of course, handle more than that in multiple files, but it can't take a SINGLE file that's larger than that limit.
Click to expand...
It's 4GB file limit on FAT32 yes. But if get a NTSF-plugin for your Mac you can write to NTFS-disks aswell.
 
I'm mainly concerned about his system digesting the files. I'm just wonder if the XML is one big chunk of video of markers, or a bunch of small files.
 
It seems he is using Vegas, not Premiere. With an XML still work to export the footage to him, uncompressed, from Final Cut to Vegas so he can do the color timing?
 
XML is file reference to your project files from either Final Cut Pro or Premiere. Since your friends is using Vegas, it would be a slightly difficult workflow to export individual files to him. Also, do you know that Magic Bullet color correction/grading work inside of Final Cut Pro as well? Wouldn't you save time in purchasing Looks, Mojo, or Colorista and just have you friend color correct your clips in FCP? It seems to me that this a simple solution to all this but somehow you are making it harder on yourself. Just a thought.
 
We tried that, as I do have some of the Red Giant software. He was here for several hours working on the first few scenes, and wasn't very fluent with how the software worked in FCP rather than his own software. It also is glitchier than on his system, it seems. The real issue, though, is that he's an hour away, so he'd have to make several trips here to do the work and it'd only be worth his time when he had a full day or so to do it, rather than at home, where he can work for any period of time. So, no, we need a way for him to get the footage to him. I could export the film full quality, but he won't have shot markers and would have to go through and cut every shot himself.

Surely, there has to be a better way to work between platforms than "have him come hang out." That sounds snide, and it is, but not in your direction, rather, in the direction of the inability for different systems to work with one another. I appreciate your input.
 
I see your dilemma. Have you tried setting up an FTP site or using Logmein? Those could possibly help out. I can't see anyway around your dilemma without spending money to get your computer up to par or time for him to get acquainted with FCP. Not to be mean or anything but did you guys consider the options for editing before you finished shooting your film? If you did or didn't, you might have avoided this situation.
 
An FTP would work, but I'd still have to have a file system worked out in order to get him all of these shots, the way they are in the film, without sitting and exporting it one shot at a time and having him reconstruct it. There has to be a better way, we can't be the only two people in history who have wanted to do different aspects of editing on different systems.

I'm not sure where planning for this would have made a difference. I'm partially color blind, so color timing a film doesn't seem like a task I should tackle. It seems very common for someone other than the actual editor, or shooter, to color time a project. I'm really not sure where considering these options "before finishing shooting" would have made a difference. For what it's worth, I met him after I had already begun editing, and had an assembly cut, or probably most of the first cut of the film, done by that time. As is presumably common, I saved color correction for after the project was cut together.
 
You can edit on multiple systems and in production filmmaking more than one person handles editing different aspects of film. All I'm saying is that had you planned the edit, you could have created a workflow strategy that would allow for FCP and Vegas to play nice with each other. What if you send him an Excel document containing the timecode markers where color correction is needed. It may be tedious but it is an option.
 
I met him, as I said, after I had almost finished the edit entirely. I don't think planning any earlier would have made FCP and Vegas work any better together. No matter when we started, we'd be at the same place and trying to figure out how to get him the film, or individual scenes, to work on. He's color correcting everything, the entire film, every shot, with Magic Bullet, so I need to get him the entire film. If I were to send him an Excel document with timecode, he may as well just watch the finished film and make the cuts himself from the whole film.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top