Welcome to Mac MediaCast episode 8.

Direct Download Link (QuickTime / H.264 / AppleTV)

In this episode: some quick Final Cut Pro tips.

Full transcript below the fold –

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a podcast because of a large project I’ve been working on — a cooking show for television. I figured I’m way overdue, so why don’t I show you what I’ve been working on and a couple of tips and tricks and workflows in Final Cut Pro.

Tip #1 – Dealing with HDV
I read a lot of complaints about the HDV format on forums, like at Creative Cow — HDV capture is problematic, HDV format is highly compressed, doesn’t have the color space of other HD formats, takes a loooong time to render.

I’m mostly interested in render time and quality for this TV show, so I’ve got HDV footage captured as Apple Intermediate Codec – 720 P. Because of the new ProRes 422 codec and cross-format timelines in Final Cut Studio 2, I just set up my timeline as ProRes 422. I render at a higher quality, which is better for my graphics and gives me more space to color correct.

Tip #2 – Keep Final Cut Pro organized
The cooking show is about a 30 minute program with location footage and kitchen footage, graphics, voiceovers — I have to stay organized! I have Google Docs as scripts which are shared with all the producers and editors, and then all of my clips and assets are arranged by scene in the bins here.

Tip #3 – Color for TV
Most TV networks, especially at a national level, are very concerned with footage being “TV Safe” . . . colors within spec and blacks and whites within spec. Check out our tutorials on the video scopes at Macmediacast.com for more detail, but here’s how I do this. Keep an eye on your color in the vectorscope — that no one color exceeds its target. Keep an eye on the waveform monitor and histogram that my whites don’t go above 100 — that’s out of spec for TV. Every clip on my timeline has a 3 way color corrector on it, even if I’m not correcting color, I keep my whites in check. For safety on problematic or super bright scenes, I’ll use the fail safe Broadcast safe filter. These are all good practices even if you’re not going to national TV — you want your videos to look good on every TV, right?

Tip #4 – Multicam Editing is very cool
Because it’s a cooking show, we have 2 cameras in the kitchen. They are 2 JVC GY-HD200 cams, and they are timecode-locked via a cable between them. Final Cut Pro allows multicamera editing. This saves so much time . . . it’s like having a virtual switcher on set.

I’ll do a more in-depth tutorial on this later . . . I just lock 2 clips together as a multiclip, then I can see real time what’s going on with both. Then with key commands I can switch between the 2 on the timeline. Very cool. I usually make 1 pass as a rough cut then go back and fine cut — i further find it effective to really think about my multicam cuts . . . cut back to the chef when he’s looking at the cam or saying something important, catch the best shots on the closeup cam, i even go so far as cutting to the beat of the music sometimes . . . it’s sublminal but very effective.

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