So Confused - Please Help

I guess I should specify my intentions at this time.

I am looking for an NLE that a major distributor will respect, i.e. when they ask what I cut the project on. I want to be in a position, it they choose to get behind the project, to have their people tweek the project to their specs using the same NLE that they use.

I have heard that Avid is "the standard" in the film industry, and am thinking that it would be good to be on the same page as them.
 
I second Jim. If you do a good job, no one will care. At the need of the day, a cut is a cut, a dissolve a dissolve, a dip to black a dip to black. What you cut, dissolved, or dipped in is irrelevant. If your concern is having an outside editor come in and do some tweaks/revisions, David can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe is CS5 you can import and export a project out to either Avid Media Composer or Final Cut Pro so an editor in one of those programs can take the same project and work on it.
 
Mike Harvey said:
If your concern is having an outside editor come in and do some tweaks/revisions, David can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe is CS5 you can import and export a project out to either Avid Media Composer or Final Cut Pro so an editor in one of those programs can take the same project and work on it.
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That would be awesome. My concern is that a distributor would want to "enhance" the project, and if it was cut on the same software they use, it would be that much easier for them to do.

Regarding exporting to Avid, is this true, and if so, could Avid receive the project without some type of conversion?
 
rsbush said:
Well, a cut is a cut, but that's not true of dissolves or fades. But hey, don't take my word for it, check out this article by Trish & Chris Meyer if you're interested.
http://www.dv.com/article/17448
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You completely missed the point. If I put a two second dissolve in between two clips, it doesn't matter if I did it in Premiere, Avid, Final Cut Pro, or iMovie... what matters is if that was a good place to put that dissolve as opposed to a few seconds latter or earlier or if it was even an appropriate to use a two second dissolve at all. That's getting back to many people's earlier statements to the effect that it doesn't matter so much the tool being used as the person wielding it.

The article you linked to has to do with compositing and visual effects, specifically After Effects and Motion, which the OP wasn't asking about as they're visual effects/motion graphics programs, not NLE's.
 
Mike Harvey said:
You completely missed the point.
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With all respect Mike, I did not miss the point. I read all the posts and took your post in context. I just think your overly general statement is very misleading to people with little experience. The OP states " I want it to look professional and be worthy of a full theatrical release." If that's the case he may be interested in my point. If you want a dissolve to look like an opticle film dissolve, your not going to do it in an NLE.
 
But do you really think someone is going to say "That doesn't look like a traditional optical film dissolve, it looks like a stock dissolve in Premiere/Avid/FCP/Vegas... we're not going to pick up the film for distribution"? It's a little bit like the idea that "That doesn't look like it was shot on film, it looks like it was shot on an HMC150/HPX170/A1/EX3... that wasn't done professionally". Just because the dissolve doesn't look 100% like a traditional optical film dissolve doesn't mean it looks "unprofessional".

Now, if he really wants it to look like a traditional optical film dissolve, then all the better he went with CS5 because he can do all the dissolves in After Effects... but the bigger question is will anyone really care?
 
I don't know what someone else would say. I do know that I was always displeased with the linear dissolves in Premiere/Avid/FCP... they've always looked cheap and ugly to me. If you like cheap and ugly, then hey, use them.

I think Premiere is a fine NLE. I use it more than my Avid simply because it work seamlessly with AE.
 
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I have googled a lot online and found a lot of 2005ish posts that conplained about Premiere crashing and causing all kinds of grief when cutting their project. On the other hand, I have heard that Avid is so good, solid etc.

Can anyone help me make a decision here?

It's not what I like, it's what is the most proven, solid and respected NLE that I am looking for.
 
2005 was five years ago. That's back in the CS1/CS2 days. if you look for CS5 reviews, you'll find it is a fairly stable program. I wouldn't worry too much about it. The only issues I'm having so far is it locks up when exporting when I try to do too many other things on the same computer as it's too taxing on the system. But my system is pushing three years old, and wasn't that high end even when I built it.

rsbush said:
they've always looked cheap and ugly to me. If you like cheap and ugly, then hey, use them.
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Then I'll guess we'll have to agree to disagree, as I don't find them to be ugly at all. But then again, I come from a TV/Video, not film, background so I don't see anything wrong with them. I do see the difference in the examples from the article you posted (panoramic background/trumpet player), but I don't think one looks inherently worse than the other. Just different.
 
While admittedly a PPro (cS5) newb. So far I find it slow. Not in playback, but in general use. Seems to spend ages "conforming" audio (why it would need to conform audio that is the same as the sequence settings, I have no idea) and generating waveforms etc. Edius seems so much quicker though I like PPro for it's interactability with the rest of teh CS5 suite.

Of course I have had a problem with installing the damn master collection. Seems they still don't have a fix for us win7 x64 peeps. (not all, but a LOT of us end up with install errors).

I always thought the "Film Dissolve" transition in Avid looked pretty decent. I find Avid's interface a tad clunky. Good in many ways but some oddly antiquated feeling things about it. MC5 might change that. Wish they would adapt a stacked effect handling instead of that damn nesting they use.

Besides speed and excellent native codec handling (with Edius 5.5), I like that you can chose to either edit natively with various mixed formats) and render out at the end or have it copy the footage to the project directory as Canopus HQ. This did confuse me at first as an Avid editor I assumed it would just copy the footage like avid does. So when I moved the originals and found them no longer linked I was a tad surprised.

I have no vegas experience at all so no comment on that one. I have heard of sony being well sony and making life hard for users of non-sony cameras though.

FCP. Well, hmm.. if you are a mac guy then sure it's pretty good. Walter Murch has edited features on it (well, at least one and all be it with some major tweeking needed to handle media management - though that was several versions ago). Downside is apple seems to be dropping the ball and making FCP editors nervous about the future of FCP. Google will tell you that there is a lot of talk about consumerizing FCP rather than concentrating on the professional market. Personally I think Jobs would be insane to not keep the pros happy. (All he has to say about the matter is "The next version will be awesome". Ok Stve, great, but, uh, what exactly do you mean by "awesome"? FCP rebuilt from scratch that uses the magic power of pixies to do CC automatically on 18 tracks of avchd multicam while simultaneously creating a perfect score for your movie OR the ability to create 200 vignette effcts for you baby videos?)

Oh, and macs do crash and FCP does crash so don't believe all the mac hype. They are good machines due mostly to not having to have 50 different drivers for 50 different brands of components but they can and do have their own issues. (I hate the whole Mac pwns PC BS, I'd rather have the nerds on my side than the hipsters any day, but hey, that's just me). ;)

If I was the OP I would just pick whatever I felt comfortable using. They are all getting pretty damn good. If you are shooting docs then ask some doc editors what they like and why. Same for features. Or maybe if you like a certain NLE ask some guys that cut features or docs what they like/dislike about it.

I can guarantee you that as much as an editor claims to love there NLE he/she has a list a half mile long of irritations (bugs, missing features, strange workflows, things he would change, etc.) as well.
 
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It´s not the program that counts, it´s the editor.
A good editor can cut a million $$$ feature film on Windows Movie Maker.

Some of the best films in history where edited on Moviolas and Steenbecks who had only 2 functions:

Cut and glue together.


I´m mostly used to PremierePro but I edit sometimes on FCP and Avid.
All the time I use Avid, I feel like beeing thrown back 10 years.
But to an avid (pun intended) AVID editor, who is used to use the keyboard more than the mouse it´s a piece of cake.

To each his own. But a quality edit comes from a great editor not from some software.

Frank
 
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Indyreel said:
Just purchased CS5 to edit my first feature film. New to professional NLE's but heard Premeire was suppose to be world class standard for movie making.

After receiving it, I ran into a "professional" editor who said "don't buy into the hype. Premeire pro is more for photo editing than movie editing. You're much better off going with Avid or Vegas, as these are what most Hollywood films are edited on"
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For what it's worth, I keep reading reports that much of Avatar was edited using the CS4 suite. Then again, Avatar isn't "most Hollywood films" either.

It isn't the software, it's the skill and vision of the people using it.
 
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