Really tough technical question!

evilken

evilken

Active member
I've been asked to edit some background visuals for a big pop concert. The only problem is, the format I've been asked to use is VERY unorthodox. The AV team need a quicktime file with these dimensions: 896 (width) x 1905 (height). Ie - a pillar shaped screen that is twice as tall as it is wide.

Does anyone have any idea how I would go about achieving this?

The visuals are being shot on super-16mm film, and would then be telecined for edit in FCP. Obviously there is no preset for this aspect ratio in FCP, so which one should I use (and modify)? Also, we need to decide on the best format for telecine. HDCAM seems a good idea to retain maximum rez - but perhaps someone has a better idea?

Sorry to be so vague here, but I am a bit lost on this one! Any help and ideas are greatly appreciated.:beer:
 
It sounds like a job more suited to Motion or After Effects than FCP though you can certainly do it. I'd stick with the animation codec. HDCAM won't like that size I would think. You'll need a fairly beefy machine with plenty of RAM to pull it off well.

Noah
 
evilken said:
The AV team need a quicktime file with these dimensions: 896 (width) x 1905 (height). Ie - a pillar shaped screen that is twice as tall as it is wide...The visuals are being shot on super-16mm film, and would then be telecined for edit in FCP
Click to expand...
Sounds like a really cool project to work on.

I'm guessing they're rotating the cam 90 degrees for acquisition. So yeah, you could transfer to HDCAM and rotate your output monitor for post (or your neck will hurt). You could cut your selects in FCP and do the finishing in AE since it can handle the frame dimensions. I think the most import aspect is working closely with the staging company throughout the process.
 
milksac said:
Sounds like a really cool project to work on.

I'm guessing they're rotating the cam 90 degrees for acquisition. So yeah, you could transfer to HDCAM and rotate your output monitor for post (or your neck will hurt). You could cut your selects in FCP and do the finishing in AE since it can handle the frame dimensions. I think the most import aspect is working closely with the staging company throughout the process.
Click to expand...

We are shooting with a rotated camera so that should help a little.

I'm not sure we'll finish in AE, so is there anything I won't be able to do in FCP, or is AE just a nicer option - as opposed to a necessity?
 
Sure you could muscle it in FCP but for major motion graphics type work you'll be banging your head against the wall a *lot*. It's more about your time and workflow. My suggestion at the least would be an offline edit at a more standard resolution so you can at least work.

Noah
 
I don't know FCP well enough to have all the answers. But, assuming you could do 99% of the project in FCP I think you would still need AE, Combustion or Motion to output the file as a 896 x 1905 quicktime. I don't think FCP is capable of setting up a project with those dimensions. Like I said, I'm no FCP expert so correct me if I'm wrong.
evilken said:
I'm not sure we'll finish in AE, so is there anything I won't be able to do in FCP, or is AE just a nicer option - as opposed to a necessity?
Click to expand...
Truth is the only thing we know about your project is that the dimensions are strange and acquisition will be on super 16. The amount of additional motion graphics will determine how difficult it could be if handled strictly in FCP. If it's a straight edit, no problem. Cut it in HD and then rotate & crop it in another app before output to QT. If there's a lot of motion graphics then as Noah said start pounding your head against the wall right now.

Can I ask why you're so hesitant about using After Effects?
The project you're describing is a good example of using multiple applications to improve the workflow. Personally, I don't wan't to use FCP for motion graphics and I certainly don't want to edit using AE. Yeah I know it's cliche, but it's a "right tool for the job" thing.
 
Thanks for all the input so far from everyone - I really appreciate it. To answer some of the questions, I don't really know much about the project at the moment, asides from the fact that it needs to be delivered next week, and I won't have the rushes until Friday. Which should be familiar to anyone who works in pop promos - typically the deadline for today's project is sometime last week.

My main aim is to get a sensible workflow sorted out in advance so I'm prepared for the rocky road ahead. I wanted the visuals to be shot in 1080 HD (rotated) so we had no resizing to do, but it seems we're doing the Telecine to PAL digibeta. So I will have to do some uprezzing. Oh dear...

I have limited knowledge of AE, and I'm not even sure the system I'm using has it, so this is why I'm trying to avoid it. Furthermore, we have no motion work to do, so FCP should in theory be all we need. So this is the plan: (any feedback is appreciated):

They shoot on film (rotated), we take in on digi-beta PAL which gives us 720 lines which we flip to use as vertical. This means an uprez from 720 to 1905 (ouch). We edit with the monitor on its side, and at the end export as a quicktime 10bit uncompressed with custom frame size of 1905 (height) x 896 width. At some stage we flip it sideways too. As to when I do this, not sure...
 
Why edit with the monitor on its side? You can simply do the flip as the final step.

Noah
 
evilken said:
Because it will seem like fun. Very Heath Robinson.
Click to expand...

Havig thought about it again, I now see what you mean... So to answer your question properly, the camera is shooting rotated, we take in the footage rotated, so in the dit we edit with the monitor on its side. Then as you suggested, we were going to flip it at the end.
 
evilken said:
They shoot on film (rotated), we take in on digi-beta PAL which gives us 720 lines which we flip to use as vertical. This means an uprez from 720 to 1905 (ouch).
Click to expand...
Ouch is right. Scaling the image by 260% is going to look ugly. A Terranex or Snell & Willcox scaler will give you the best possible image. Don't expect to upscale in FCP and have a useable image.

Since you're still in pre-production here's a thought. Do a one light transfer to Digibeta of the 16mm footage - use this for offline. Once the picture is locked go back to telecine and do a final transfer the selects to HDCAM tape or Harddrive. Back to the edit suite for conform and finishing. This is the most cost effective way to maintain the resolution.
 
Yeah- it's totally pointless to shoot 16mm if it's going to be telecined at standard definition and then upconverted. Quality will look fairly awful at that high resolution. You should just shoot HDCAM or at least have it telecined at HiDef.

Noah
 
NoahK said:
Yeah- it's totally pointless to shoot 16mm if it's going to be telecined at standard definition and then upconverted. Quality will look fairly awful at that high resolution. You should just shoot HDCAM or at least have it telecined at HiDef.

Noah
Click to expand...

After some negotiation I've managed to get the client to consider an HDCAM transfer - I agree that it is totally pointless to shoot 16mm and then uprez everything.

The one thing I am a bit worried about now is whether the anamorphic footage will still be anamorphic when it is flipped 90 degrees as the final step. Something tells me anamoprphic will only work left to right as the pixels are non-square. Perhaps I'm going mad, but this is uncharted territory for me!
 
You're right- anamorphic really won't apply at that odd aspect ratio and flipped but you'll be able to use the distort and aspect ratio tab in FCP to get it looking right. It will be critical to test the output from FCP on the actual display it will be used with to make sure everything looks correct.

Noah
 
evilken said:
After some negotiation I've managed to get the client to consider an HDCAM transfer...
Click to expand...
Cool.

evilken said:
...Perhaps I'm going mad, but this is uncharted territory for me!
Click to expand...
I get a gas out of doing something I've never done before. Sure, the deadlines can be so tight that it causes a great deal of hair pulling. But it the end somehow it all comes together and you forget the pain of the learning curve. Have fun with it!:)
 
I did a test on my home system using some HDV 1080 footage. It worked fine - I just took a small clip from the HDV timeline, rotated it 90 degrees, and then rendered it. Then I created a new sequence using the 10 bit uncompressed SD preset, modified it to be 896 x 1905, square pixel, using the animation codec. I copied the clip from the HDV sequence and dropped it into the new sequence.

After render it plays fine, and the whole anamorphic aspect stayed the same despite the fact that I had rotated the clip and put it on a square pixel sequence. The only odd part was that when I put the clip in the new sequence, it needed to be rezzed up slightly. Not sure why. Once I had done this, it looked as sharp as the original.

So, to cut a long story short - it all seems to be working OK thus far. Thanks for all the help so far! I'll keep updating this post as it may be of interest to anyone who tries anything similar...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top