Appendix 1

Loading the Exercise Media

As promised, here are detailed instructions to get the MOV exercise files associated with this publication into your editing software. As software is constantly evolving, the most up to date loading instructions can be found on the editor’s toolkit website: www.editors-toolkit.com.

 Scary Movie—For Those of You Who Like to Live Dangerously

For those using AVID Media Composer, Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere Pro, and who like a challenge, you can try the following methods to get my actual ‘cut’ sequence timelines, complete with media, active in your software. If you succeed, you’ll be able to push my sequence timelines around and maybe find improvements. I offer no guarantee, apart from the fact that, after a bit of fiddling, even I managed to move timelines from Media Composer to FCP and Premiere Pro by transferring the MOV files and applying the methods outlined below.

 The Great Composers—Getting the Media into AVID

Let me first deal with the AVID Media Composer route:

I am assuming you have copied the MOV files to a local drive.

•  1. Open a new 25i PAL project.
•  2. Copy the ‘Exercises Timelines’ bin into your project. This bin contains sequence timelines but as yet without any media.
•  3. Create a new bin in your project and call it ‘Imported Clips’ (or something like that) and import all the MOV files into this bin using a suitable resolution. The material was originally DV 25 420, so if you have enough space on your drive, this will be a good resolution to choose. This will bring in the original clip timecode information as well. I know it’s strange, but true. Check that these clips play okay.
•  4. If you sort the clips alphabetically (CTL+E on the file name heading), you’ll see there are several clips associated with each exercise. Some of these MOV imports are source clips which are your raw material for the exercises, and some are ‘cut’ clips, which are my finished versions of the exercises, and these all start with 10 o’clock timecodes.
•  5. Find the ‘Start’ column heading within this bin, and sort all the clips with respect to timecode (again, CTL+E on ‘Start’). This will sort the clips with respect to hours, minutes, and seconds.
•  6. 01 timecodes come originally from tape 01, and 02 timecodes from tape 02, and so on, except for 10 o’clock timecodes, which are my cut and edited versions.
•  7. Make the ‘Tape’ heading visible in your bin headings. As yet this column remains blank, because the original tape (or reel) numbers have not been imported when you imported the MOV files. For my timelines to work as sequences, you now have to reallocate tape numbers to all these imported clips. This is not as bad as it sounds. Keep with it!
•  8. Let’s begin with those clips that start with 01 timecodes. These will need a tape number of 01. This is best done in Media Composer by highlighting all the 01 start timecodes and selecting ‘Clip’ from the top menu, then ‘Modify’ and ‘Set Source’. Click ‘New’ and enter 01 and click ‘OK’.
•  9. Next, give the clips that start with 02 timecodes a tape number of 02, and so on. Remember, to click ‘New’ in the ‘Set Source’ window each time you do this.
• 10. Repeat this for all the clips except those that start with 10 o’clock timecode, as these are my cut sequences and not source clips.
• 11. Once you have allocated a tape number to all the source clips, you are ready to relink them to my timelines.
• 12. Keep the ‘Imported Clips’ bin open and reopen the bin you created earlier (called ‘Exercises Timelines’) which contains the timeline sequences as yet without media.
• 13. Highlight all the sequences in this bin, then right-click and select ‘Relink’.
• 14. Make sure the following is set in the ‘Relink’ window:
  • a. ‘Media on Drive’ is highlighted and the correct drive is selected and pointing to where your imported media is located.
  • b. ‘Relink Only to Media from Current Project’ is ticked.
  • c. ‘Start Timecode and Tape’ is selected as the relink method.
  • d. ‘Match Case when Comparing…’ is selected.
  • e. ‘Video format of the Current Project Only’ is selected.
  • f. ‘Create New Sequence’ is ticked.
• 15. Hit ‘OK’, turn around three times, say the magic word, and with any luck you’ll have created new sequence timelines, all alive with media.

With all this work done, remember these sequences are the ‘answers’ to the questions the exercises pose, so don’t look at these sequences in detail yet, as you should really have a go at producing your own versions of the exercises before looking at my humble offerings.

The advantage of all this effort is that you will be able to adjust my sequence timelines and closely examine the moments which you like and modify ones you don’t.

 Final Analysis—Getting the Media into FCP

Now, for you lot driving FCP, getting my timelines into FCP has to be via an EDL. This method of importation certainly worked on versions 6 and 7, but EDLs can’t now directly import into version X (progress?); instead it only uses Apple’s XML interchange format. The good news is that there are utilities around which enable you to convert between EDL and XML. Alternatively, import the EDL into FCP 7 as detailed below and export this as an XML.

Again, I am assuming you have copied the MOV files to a local drive and that you also have the bunch of EDLs created from my sequences in a known location on your computer. If not, locate them now.

•  1. Set up a new project in FCP—‘DV PAL 48 kHz Anamorphic’ seemed to work fine.
•  2. With the ‘Browser’ open, select ‘Import’ and navigate to ‘EDL’.
•  3. Select ‘Import for Reconnect’ with 00.00 Handle Size and don’t tick ‘Make File Names Unique’.
•  4. Click ‘OK’.
•  5. Find the EDL you wish to import and hit ‘Choose’. This will create, first, a folder in your Browser called ‘Master Clips for xxx’ (xxx being the EDL name) and, second, a sequence with the same EDL name.
•  6. Double-clicking that sequence will put the sequence into the timeline but as yet with no media.
•  7. Open the recently created ‘Master Clips’ folder and you’ll see the clips that were used in the sequence but with a red line through each of them, indicating the media is offline.
•  8. Highlight all the clips, right-click, and select ‘Reconnect Media’.
•  9. Search in the folder in your computer in which you placed the exercise MOV files. Now with luck, it will find the files it wants; if so, hit ‘Choose’.
• 10. You’ll probably get a ‘File Attribute Warning’ about start and end timecodes and reel numbers, but this can be ignored and you can hit ‘Continue’.
• 11. Back in the ‘Reconnect Files’ window, the files will drop down to the ‘Files Located’ area and you can hit ‘Connect’.
• 12. This should have connected the media and brought the timeline to life.

Sadly, the procedure has to be repeated for all the EDLs separately, unless you can find a better batch import method.

Given the fairly crude nature of an EDL import, some of the fine tuning I did to the sequences, like level adjustment and some effects work, will not have been imported. But, remember you have my final versions as separate ‘cut’ MOV files with fully mixed sound and vision for viewing.

If you got all the media and timelines into your software, you’ll be able to fiddle with the sequences and examine them more closely. You can admire the moments you like and modify the ones you don’t.

 Première—Getting the Media into Premiere Pro

Now for Adobe Premiere Pro. This method imports the sequences via an EDL in a similar way to FCP. Again, I am assuming you have copied the MOV files to a local drive and that you also have the bunch of EDLs created from my sequences in a known location on your computer. If not, locate them now.

•  1. Open a new project in Premiere Pro with capture format ‘DV’.
•  2. With the ‘Project Window’ open, select ‘Import’ either by right-clicking the window or from the ‘File’ menu.
•  3. Navigate to the EDL of your choice (this can be several at once). Click ‘OK’.
•  4. In the ‘EDL Information’ window select ‘PAL’.
•  5. In the ‘New Sequence Window’ select ‘48kHz’.
•  6. This process will generate a folder in the project window, one for each EDL that was imported, and within each folder are the shots, currently with no media, and a sequence which can be loaded into the timeline window.
•  7. Highlight all the clips in the folders that need media. Right-click and select ‘Link Media’, or get this from the ‘File’ menu.
•  8. In the ‘Link Media’ window, tick ‘File Name’ and ‘File Extension’ and ‘Use Media Browser to Locate Files’. Also it might help to tick ‘Link Others Automatically’.
•  9. Hit ‘Locate’ and navigate to the folder in your computer in which you placed the exercise MOV files.
• 10. Click on the file image it finds and hit ‘OK’. This will relink this (and other shots) to the sequence in the timeline, which should now play okay.

If successful, your project window should look not unlike the illustration on the next page.

Adobe Premiere’s project window.

Once again, given the fairly crude nature of an EDL import, some of the fine tuning I did to the sequences, like level adjustment and some effects work, will not have been imported. But, remember you have my final ‘cut’ versions as separate MOV files with fully mixed sound and vision for viewing.

If you got all the media and timelines into your software, you’ll be able to fiddle with the sequences and examine them more closely. You can admire the moments you like and modify the ones you don’t.