In this guest post, Yossy Mendelovich dives deep into the editing process, and explains how to face the technical and psychological challenges of this stage of filmmaking. Sometimes, shooting is the easiest part. You just have to press that red button and the images start flowing onto the camera’s sensor and are then captured onto the memory card. The problem comes later when, after an intensive few days of shooting, you find yourself faced with thousands of clips and hours of footage that need to be transformed into a story. Someone will have to edit that eventually, and, being an independent filmmaker, that someone is most probably going to be you. This is why having a vast knowledge of the video editing discipline is one of the most important capabilities you can have. In this article, I’ll try to build a methodology around this challenging editing phase. Step 1 – Shoot for the Edit A good edit starts before even pressing the “Record” button. Being able to “see” the final film during production in order to shoot relevant material can really give you the upper hand and make editing easier during the post stage. Step 2 – Make sure you have enough material (footage + sound) It is quite frustrating to open your editing application and import the media only to discover that you don’t have enough material. Step 3 – Make a backup Backup your media to at least three copies, and verify the all the sources are located at different locations. Make sure you backup your footage daily to several copies in different locations. Step 4 – Watch and arrange clips into folders This is where the post-production stage begins. You should watch all your clips and organise them, whether this is done in folders within your operating system, or in bins inside your editing application. Oh, and yes… you must watch ALL your clips! It is also recommended to do this after each shooting day, as this will often help you discover if there are any missing shots. If your have more shooting days ahead of you, then that gives you a chance to get those necessary shots. Also, make sure you watch all your clips even if you’re certain they’re terrible. You may be amazed to find a little diamond among the rubbish — a fraction of a second of outstanding footage that could make a big difference in your film. At this stage, let’s suppose you have about 1000 clips derived from ten shooting days. Now it is the time to build your first timeline: the rough cut. Step 5 – Open you favorite editing application It’s important to note that your editing application, or Non-Linear Editor (NLE), is just a tool. That said, there are three major editing NLEs: Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere and Avid Media Composer. They are all considered professional tools, and you could easily edit a whole film with each one of them. Many will defend one particular software over another, leading to an ongoing battle about which NLE is the best, but it’s really not that relevant. After watching a film, you can’t tell what system it was edited on, so just choose the right tool for you. And what is the right tool? The tool you know the best. Step 6 – Filter junk footage Now it is time for “throwing away” all non-relevant footage. Reduce your clip count and discard anything that you consider is non-worthy cinematographic footage. Note: DO NOT DELETE – just re-locate those discarded clips to their own dedicated folder. Step 7 – Transcoding Let’s suppose that from the 1000 original clips, you are left with 750 that are usable. These are the clips that need to be transcoded. The transcoding process is very important since it allows you to achieve fast playback with no app lag or dropped frames, and is particularly essential if the timeline is to be complex, e.g. one that is composed of dozens of video and audio tracks. Example of a complex timeline – Clips must be transcoded to an editable format like ProRes. Step 8 – Start building your story (=timeline) Watch all your clips (again) and “drag and drop” them into the timeline to start creating your rough cut. The rough cut is your very first timeline, and is maybe the most painful part of editing. At first, you may have the impression that everything looks good, any you may want every last piece of footage to be in the film. However, eventually you are going to have to make hard choices and filter, cut, delete and drop expensive footage. The goal during this first timeline stage is to allow you to not say goodbye to your beloved footage just yet. Step 9 – Create more cuts (more timelines) Now it is time to continue with the hard emotional choices and cut, trim, delete, and drag and drop parts from that rough cut into more reduced timelines that are more relevant to the story. DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR SHOTS ! You will need at least two more passes into new timelines until you get to the desired final cut, at least in terms of footage, and there will be a few more stages after that until you finalize the final cut, which includes the soundtrack, sound effects, filters, grading and more. Step 10 – Build your story until the final cut Let’s talk a little bit about how to cut. How do editors know what is the right sequence of shots, assuming there isn’t a storyboard which can help yout focus in the story-creating process? Assuming you are a one-man-band, in most cases you will have to finalize your timeline yourself. Is there a right way to organize all the remaining clips in the timeline to make this process a bit easier? Well, there is. Let’s analyze the last film I made, which was not a paid gig but a birthday present for my wife’s 40th birthday. The goal of the film was to demonstrate the importance of not wasting time doing things you don’t want in your life. I personally wanted the film to look very dynamic, fast, engaging and stimulating. The final result is below:   Out of the many hundreds of clips I ended up filming, I decided to use the open door scene for the opening shot. Why? Because it’s logical. Opened door = opening scene = logical starting point. The next step was to throw the audience right into the action by using the hyperlapse shot. That shift from a closed room was achieved by combining a flash transition and cropping into the light to make this shift fast and surprising — like waking up from a dream. There is a concept here: from closed room to the fresh air of the sea, straight to the shot of Santa Monica Pier, all at a fast pace. In order to emphasize speed, I shot the hyperlapse from under the lifeguard’s booth, which made the shot seem a lot faster due to the booth acting as a physical layer. The camera was pointed directly at a bridge, symbolizing in my opinion a new direction in life. After the hyperlapses, I edited a few shots of water splashes just underneath the bridge with a combination of two transitions: Zoom & Pan, and Fade-In. These transitions are good to switch between shots in action in an elegant way, so I decided to stitch those two together in the timeline. The next shots were those with my son surfing. Here I used two directional transitions corresponding to the direction of the waves in the shot — again to create organized motion. It was also a logical choice due the physical connection between the bridge in the ocean and the surfboard in the sea, which leads to a conceptual connection: Closed room → open the door → go to the bridge of life → leave everything behind and surf. There is some very spiritual continuity here. Let’s take a look at this part of the timeline: Here is an example of the Zoom & Pan transition which was used in the surf scene: The waves were moving from right to left, so it was logical to make the Zoom & Pan transition the same in order to create continuity and flow in the video. The next step was to edit the end of the video. Why? Because I already knew how the video would end — it was already in my mind. It’s definitely OK to start editing from the end! You don’t necessarily have to start editing from the beginning – just edit what is in your mind and stitch it together according to the story. Think of it like taking an exam: if you don’t know the answer to the first question, move onto the next one. It’s the same with editing: when you feel stuck with your creativity, just DO NOT STOP. Go to the next part of the story and try to produce more artistic ideas. I knew that I wanted the scene of my son taking a picture to be the end of the video, so I made this cut right after the first part above was finished. This is how that scene looked in the timeline: Logical Construction in Editing Although there aren’t any defined rules on how to edit, there has to be some logic derived from the story you are willing to tell. As mentioned above, I wanted a spiritual, motivational, artistic and dynamic look and feel, which led me to cut and stitch frames that had some sort of logical connection between them. Let’s take a look at some examples. Hyper Lapse Connection: Kinetically – Movement Connection: Physical Connection (completion or opposite): Life Event Connection: Flow and going forward: The tools above can give you a few starting points to help you start building the story in your timeline. Now it’s a good time to nail those points according to the story and create a destination – like building a path that leads to something meaningful. Let’s analyze my video’s timeline in terms of logical flow. Story Timeline Analysis:   Step 11 – LUTs, grading and filters The methodology of color correction and grading is beyond the scope of this article and will not be discussed here — but bear in mind that this is one of the most important stages of editing. It is a good time to implement the relevant 3D LUTs (Look-Up Tables). The reason you don’t want to implement LUTs during previous stages is because LUTs lead to complex calculations for every clip, taxing the processor and possibly causing the application to slow down or lag. You still need to cut and trim the timeline and preview footage, so you need that speed. Step 12 – Sound design 50% of a film is sound, so it is an extremely important element. Make sure you INVEST IN SOUND: build an extensive sound library and use it wisely. Also, remember that the audio must be derived from and serve the story you are willing to tell. After adding the audio, there are Mixing and Mastering processes in order to verify that the sound stays clear and clean. A timeline can even feature dozens of layers of sound effects and music (the green clips in this screenshot), so make sure you invest in audio. Step 13 – Export the master Last but not least is the final process of exporting the final cut in all required deliverable formats. Conclusion: Editing is like a mental fight There are some stages that are harder then others from a psychological point of view. The evolution of going from a rough cut to more advanced versions is a very frustrating process: sometimes you may get the feeling that you’re stuck and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. At this point, you must remember that it is purely a psychological thing. Advanced editors are experienced enough to recognize this phenomenon, which I call the “Do Not Break” point. The DNB point is the stage when a real editor lifts himself mentally to make the edit move along and create the story. The good thing is that the DNB acts only as a “psychological point” after which everything in the edit process becomes easier, bringing you closer and closer to your finished film. Hopefully this article helped break down the editing process into workable chunks. If you have any tips on how to approach this stage of filmmaking, please let us know in the comments section below!

The new Pond5 Add-on allows you to browse, audition and purchase stock material from right within Adobe Premiere CC. The new Pond5 add-on — available for download from the Adobe Add-On marketplace — aims to streamline the workflow for users who rely on stock material for their work. Instead of browsing the Pond5 catalogue on its website, Pond5 has made it possible to go through the whole process of browsing, auditioning and purchasing media right from within Adobe Premiere. The Pond5 panel makes it possible to quickly search the catalogue of over 7 million videos and 1 million audio files thanks to its search bar and filters, which include price, duration and frame rate. Once you find a suitable clip, you can simply drag a watermarked version straight into your timeline to start editing. Once you’re happy with your choice of material, you can chose to replace the watermarked versions with Hi-Res files. This will open a window prompting you to purchase the required clips, and voila! You’ve just added stock material to your project without ever leaving Premiere or even opening up a browser. In order to help you keep things organised, the Pond5 Add-On even lets you access the existing Pond5 Media Collections associated to your account, as well as create new ones right there in the application. Downloading the Pond5 Add-On also gets you 50 video clips with a total value of over $1000, so you can get started with adding some great-quality clips to your work straight away. The Pond5 Add-On is already available for download from HERE. To see it in action, don’t miss the promotional video below: Are you a Pond5 user? Let us know your experiences with the new Add-On in the comments section below!

Red Giant have long offered a treasure trove of plugins for After Effects, Premiere, Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Resolve. Universe is a suite of highly-stylised modern and retro effects, titles and motion graphics tools, which was recently updated to Red Giant Universe 2.1. Here is a list of new and updated tools in Red Giant Universe 2.1: NEW TOOLS AV Club – Mimic the lo-fi, noisy text you find on ancient video tapes, old infomercials and local access cable channel shows. Luster –  Give your text a slick 1980s retro look. Luster applies a metal sheen to text, and includes a refraction-based bevel for a glassy simulated 3D look. Title Motion – Create text and shapes and then instantly add dynamic animations that bring them on and off screen. Great for titles, lower thirds, callouts and more. Ecto – Create haunting, evolving titles with this glowing fractal-based effect, inspired by Ghostbusters and Stranger Things. Long Shadow – Apply a colored, long shadow to text, logo or shape, for both classic and modern motion design. Glo Fi II – Give text an ethereal moody look by instantly adding silky smooth, self-animating, fractal-based glow effects to titles. A simple UI make it easy to apply evolving, organic glows. UPDATES Line – This update adds the ability to add text at the start and endpoint of a line. Holomatrix II – This update includes blurred, chromatic distortions, a new strobe effect and much more. Universe is an annual ($99) or monthly ($20) subscription service from Red Giant which allows users to access over 65 GPU accelerated effects. Version 2.1 is available now to all Universe subscribers, so if you fancy jumping on the 80’s retro bandwagon, Red Giant have you covered! Are you a Red Giant Universe user? Let us know about your experiences with the software in the comments section below!

A new update for Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 has been released today and it brings important bug fixes and performance improvements. It also brings support for 10-bit files filmed with the Panasonic GH5, which was a widely discussed topic in the past few months. The Panasonic GH5’s 10-bit files were not behaving very nicely in Adobe Premiere Pro. Specifically, it has not been possible to edit them since the last Premiere Pro update, as they were just behaving like audio files. Adobe promised to bring an update to tackle this issue and add 10-bit support in June. That time has now come, with the 11.1.2 update released today. As Adobe states in their news post: “This is a critical update which is highly recommended for all users.” The new Premiere Pro CC 2017 11.1.2 update brings new media cache management features, which change how Premiere Pro cache folders are handled. In the previous version 11.1.1, cache management preferences could only be applied to files within the Media Cache folder structure. Version 11.1.2 only applies the preference to media cache files of a known type, like *.pek, *.ims and *.cfa. Only those files will be deleted according to the cache management preference. Apart from the Panasonic GH5’s 10-bit file support and media cache management changes, the new Premiere Pro brings stability and performance improvements, as well as support for new file types. Below is the full list of updates: Stability and Performance Timeline and waveform redraw freezes on older mac systems with large projects Certain clips (1000 fps) will crash if you scrub. Crash during playback of some growing files Audio is deleted from timeline when performing flatten multicam Premiere hangs on quitting when using the Trim Mode source clips Improved AVC-I export performance Improve Dynamic Link Text Template performance Formats and File Support Importing FCP XML file fails if it contains a placeholder due to some synthetic item unable to be translated. Canon XC10 file shows garbled image when moving through clip Certain QT file will not import Failure to import some QuickTime reference movies When Import MP4 video clip shot by Panasonic AG-UX180, audio is truncated at the end of clip on the timeline AVCI files show yellow bar in timeline Failure exporting 25fps interpreted footage Artifacting when paused on RED R3D Helium Stills When Importing Canon C500 RAW file recorded in Odyssey 7Q, Screen divided into two parts with color changed incorrectly “Conversion problem” is alerted when playing FCP’s multiclip sequence When Import long recorded MXF, Red Frame occurs and audio is lost in the timeline If a project file from a different platform is used, proxy-generation fails Media Cache Media Cache delete warning dialog is not modal, on Windows Only specific cache files should be deleted for Media Cache policy Option to Save Media Cache files next to original does not persist Effects No realtime updates when modifying bezier handles or parameter line in Effect Controls panel Lumetri: Reset color wheels affects other Lumetri instances Effect keyframes are lost with partial Ingest Edits to Effect Control Panel keyframe paths fail to update until you release the mouse Black line appears through the Effect Control Panel Effect keyframes fail to paste at the targeted point in time Captions Ghost Caption Track Item comes back after being deleted Importing an STL file does not allow to modify the resolution during the import Team Projects: Editing text in captioning is not recognized as a change Audio Audio effect parameter modifications are not properly serialized Distortion during audio scrub Audio effect parameter modifications are not properly serialized Audio gain settings in Premiere get rendered to audio files Hang on stop with no audio device (Win only)  Audio Waveform is misplaced in specific zoom levels  Audio channel settings reset after relink media Adding an essential sound preset to a clip on the timeline will cause AME to hang when adding it to the render queue Export And Render Unable queue export jobs to AME if Home Folder is mapped File exported via the same export preset that it was created from will fail with error compiling movie When multiple files are exported with the same name, they import with the duration of the first file Exporting an AAF with a PSD file causes error and failure to play timeline in Media Composer Rendering a timeline with default Mpeg I-Frame preview format results in media pending if sequence was changed due to clip mismatch Publish to Behance crashes when exporting out of Premiere Pro without tags and description General Remove Attributes Resets All Intrinsic Effects Import to floating bin doesn’t go into bin Double-click clip, in Thumbnail View, will not open in Source Monitor. License dialog appears and disappears Cart icon should not appear in Project section when user drag and drop licensed stock video Graphics menu has enabled options in Onboarding Media Browser (only visible to new users from the Welcome Screen) Source panel playhead not updated when entering timecode values Share button does not light up when changes are done in captions panel Premiere Pro is getting blocked by QuickHeal anti-virus Extra material required for transitions is not transcoded for partial Ingest. Make Subsequence does not work for Sequence opened from Media Browser Wrong Image position during scrub and playback with 1/2 playback resolution NDF Clip in Source Monitor sends DF value to external SDI monitor Dropped frames of 4k60p single stream timeline when there is a gap between clips Import Project with Image Sequence In/Out instances will often result in AME failing to encode for partial Ingest ALE Metadata column for description is incorrect On Win HiDPI the Events popup window is not scaled and is too small Match Source (Rewrap) presets fail to transcode matching clips Multicam View gets disabled after using Trim Mode ims accelerator cause issue with duration change Ingest Settings dialog sometimes appears after opening 11.0 Project Submix tracks are missing their name in the Track Header   The update can be installed through the Creative Cloud desktop application, or you can check for new updates from within any Creative Cloud application by choosing Help > Updates. It should be available immediately but it can take 24 hours or more for all global data centers to receive the update. If the update is not available for you right now, Adobe advises to check back later. Have you already installed the update and tested it with the GH5’s 10-bit files? Let us know in the comments below!

The XAVC-I codec found for example on the Sony FS7 is normally regarded as a better alternative to XAVC-L. But is this always the case? The other day I was chatting with some friends about recording options with the Sony FS7, and in particular whether anyone ever used XAVC-L. There was pretty universal agreement that XAVC-I was the way to go, until I mentioned that, broadly speaking, if I was recording a scene with little or no motion (such as an interview) I would choose ‘L’ and if I was filming a subject with a lot of movement, I would choose ‘I’. Unexpectedly, this aroused some puzzlement from the group. Read on and I’ll explain to you my reasoning. What Is The Difference? When one thinks about compression, one typically only thinks of spatial compression, which is the process of averaging colour and luminance values across a block of pixels in an image. While spatial compression does indeed play a major role in compressing video frames, it isn’t the only way to reduce file sizes. Temporal compression (from the Latin ‘tempus’, meaning ‘time’) is the often overlooked cousin of spatial compression and is the crucial differentiator between these two formats – XAVC-L employs temporal compression, whereas XAVC-I does not. Compressing frames over time involves using a special frame structure called a GOP (Group Of Pictures). XAVC-L uses a Long GOP structure, hence the ‘L’ in XAVC-L. How Does Temporal Compression Work? If you didn’t know better, you’d probably assume that when you set your camera to, say 24fps, it’s snapping 24 whole frames (intra coded ‘I’ frames) every second. Seems logical, doesn’t it? But if your codec employs temporal compression (and a lot do), most of these frames actually only contain parts of the recorded scene. By recording a small number of whole frames, and then only storing the differences in the other frames (either predictive coded ‘P’ frames or bi-predictive coded ‘B’ frames), the camera can drastically reduce the data rate and overall file size of your clips. It sounds like it should look awful, but if your data rate is high enough and your temporal compression algorithm is efficient enough, it often looks identical to non temporally-compressed footage. This goes against your intuition but can be born out by a few simple tests. Examples: When your subject or camera movement is fast, erratic and unpredictable, XAVC-L (or any temporally compressed format) shows its weaknesses by introducing undesirable motion artefacts. If you shoot a relatively motionless subject in XAVC-I, the data rate, though higher, is spread more thinly and you actually end up with no (or sometimes actually less) benefit compared to shooting with a temporally-compressed codec – the stationary trees in this case are a perfect example of this effect. Which Is Best? Every scene is different and every time you shoot, you will find unique attributes that will dictate different settings. It’s just too simplistic to think that you can always shoot in XAVC-L and get better results than XAVC-I, or vice versa. For example, if I were shooting an interview against a green screen, I definitely wouldn’t choose XAVC-L. There would be no background detail benefits, because there is no background, and XAVC-L is only 8bit 4:2:0, so there would be losses in colour fidelity (which is of paramount importance when pulling a key) by choosing it over XAVC-I, which is 10bit 4:2:2. You’ve simply got to ask yourself, do my circumstances demand all that extra data? Summary So, as you can see in the examples above, in certain circumstances temporal compression will actually improve your footage. But none of us should ever assume that one setting is going to work for all scenes. Every single time you shoot, you should make technical decisions about codec, gamma, frame rate, resolution, and a hundred other things, based on what is best for your scene and not what worked last week or what someone else tells you is right. But next time you’re reaching for an I-frame-only acquisition codec, like XAVC-I, spend a second thinking about whether all those extra frames are really going to benefit you, because it might just be that you’ve got gigabytes, or even terabytes of archived rushes, that could have been considerably smaller. Do you choose codecs on a job-by-job basis? Let us know in the comments!

Apple have announced a new, high-end iMac Pro which is due for release in December. Here are the specs and images Apple have revealed today, during their annual WWDC developers conference. New Apple iMac Pro – What we know so far New space gray enclosure 27-inch Retina 5K with support for 1 billion colours (P3) Up to 18-core Xeon processors New Radeon Pro Vega GPU, with up to 16GB of HBM2 V-RAM Up to 128GB of ECC RAM Up to 4TB of SSD storage Four Thunderbolt 3 ports 10Gb Ethernet port Despite the massive leap in computational power, Apple claims they will be able to maintain the same thin iMac design by increasing the cooling efficiency by up to 80%. It says they’ve managed to do this while still keeping it just as quiet as the current models, which should appeal to creatives who use these computers in audio-post environments. The addition of a 10gigE port on the back will also appeal to larger post houses that have already invested in this fast network technology for connecting to storage arrays.   Apple was at pains to make it clear that this machine (along with the all new Mac Pro they are working on for 2018) is “designed for pro users with the most demanding workflows” and will be suitable “for advanced graphics editing, virtual reality content creation and real-time 3D rendering”. Apple seems to have definitely turned a corner in terms of their commitment to the pro creative market. We had the 2018 Mac Pro reveal last month, today we have updated MacBook Pros (with Kaby Lake processors, faster SSDs and faster GPU options), new support in macOS High Sierra for external GPU enclosures, hardware decoding for H.265 in upcoming Macs and this super-charged iMac Pro. These are the kind of performance boosts that will actually get me to upgrade my current Macs for the first time in years, but what do you all think? iMac Pro is scheduled to ship in December starting at $4,999 (US). More details can be found at apple.com/imac-pro.

At NAB 2017, FilmConvert have shown off their upcoming camera matching software, CineMatch. Whilst still only a proof of concept, FilmConvert are hoping CineMatch will become a must-have tool for filmmakers in the future. The colour variations that result from how different cameras post-process raw image data are sometimes stark. Shooting with a mix of cameras will more often than not lead to a large chunk of time being dedicated to colour matching in post. What FilmConvert are working on is software that will take a lot of that work away, making camera matching as easy as just a few clicks of your mouse. FilmConvert say they have taken all the knowledge they have built up from profiling cameras for their film stock emulation software and applied it to CineMatch. This allows the software to intelligently correct for each camera’s subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) differences, and harmonise colours across your rushes. By simply selecting the make and model of cameras from a few drop down menus, CineMatch will get your multiple cameras in the right ball park in a matter of seconds. Users are then given bespoke controls to make final tweaks, which are tuned to respond in different ways, depending on which cameras you’re matching. The version they showed us during NAB had only a basic UI, but beta testing with real-world users will be beginning shortly. FilmConvert hope to have a final shipping version at the tail end of 2017, although there is no word on pricing yet. Watch this space for updates and more information. How much could you see investing in a product like CineMatch? Let us know in the comments below!

The 2017.1 Adobe Premiere Pro CC update left many Panasonic GH5 shooters in the dust of incompatibility. We sat down with Adobe Senior Director of Product Management this week at NAB to discuss the remedy, and when we could expect GH5 and Premiere Pro to play nice together again.   On the 19th of April, cinema5D reported an incompatibility issue between the latest iteration of Adobe Premiere with the GH5’s 10-bit files: when imported into Premiere, the video files did not register, and were rather read as audio files only. Not only was this a bitter disappointment for those who were drawn to the GH5 for its advanced video features, it also proved to be a major hiccup for those who updated in the middle of a project without prior knowledge of the impediment. Shortly after the release of the article, Bill Roberts responded by commenting: “The camera in question was just released in March. Panasonic did a custom 10bit implementation that we did not have time to fully qualify for this release, hence – it’s currently not supported. We WILL support it in an update.” It is important to note that not all GH5 files behaved this way, with 8-bit files importing without a hitch. As per the interview above, Mr. Roberts relayed the update that will support the GH5 10-bit files will be coming in June. It will be a little while longer, but by summer the 10-bit files from the GH5 and Premiere Pro should function correctly. Were you affected by the Adobe Premiere update GH5 10-bit incompatibility? Let us know in the comments!