www.it-ebooks.info Avid Media Composer 6.x Cookbook Over 160 highly effective and practical recipes to help beginning and intermediate users get the most from Avid Media Composer 6 editing Benjamin Hershleder BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Avid Media Composer 6.x Cookbook Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: December 2012 Production Reference: 1131212 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. Livery Place 35 Livery Street Birmingham B3 2PB, UK. ISBN 978-1-84969-300-4 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Benjamin Hershleder (ben@contactben.com) www.it-ebooks.info Credits Author Benjamin Hershleder Reviewers Oliver Peters Michael Phillips Roger Shufebottom Acquisition Editor Kartikey Pandey Lead Technical Editor Sweny M. Sukumaran Technical Editors Kaustubh S. Mayekar Devdutt Kulkarni Copy Editor Insiya Morbiwala Project Coordinator Michelle Quadros Proofreaders Jonathan Todd Lauren Tobon Indexers Hemangini Bari Rekha Nair Tejal Soni Production Coordinator Nitesh Thakur Cover Work Nitesh Thakur www.it-ebooks.info About the Author Benjamin Hershleder (Hershleder.com) currently freelances as an Avid Editor and Director. He has been teaching Avid Media Composer since 1995, and became an Avid Certied Instructor in 1997. He teaches as an adjunct professor at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, at Avid Authorized Training Partner institutions, and also provides private, customized training to individuals and facilities. Hershleder is an award-winning Producer-Director and accomplished Editor. He has produced and/or directed a variety of projects for such companies as Shapiro/West, The Spark Factory, and Old Fashioned Pictures. This work includes co-writing and directing the award-winning (including an Emmy and the Gold Ebenseer Bear) short lm "Paul McCall" and directing and editing the Telly award-winning documentary "The Bronx Boys – Hosted by Carl Reiner", which aired on PBS and as part of the Cinemax anthology series "Reel Life". Benjamin is currently completing the follow-up to this lm. It is again hosted by Carl Reiner and is titled "The Bronx Boys – Still Playing At 80". His other credits include developing, producing, and directing the pilot of "Spoilers" (not to be confused with Kevin Smith's new production of the same name), serving as a Consulting Producer on comedian Andy Kindler's concert lm "I Wish I Was Bitter", and editing Paramount Studios' "The Original Latin Kings Comedy" (George Lopez, Paul Rodriguez, Cheech Marin). His background in post-production also includes editing the indie-feature lm "Hollywood Capri", two years as an editor for E! Entertainment Television, and editing an hour-long pilot episode of "In Search Of…" for Fox. www.it-ebooks.info Acknowledgement I would like to thank Michael Phillips, Oliver Peters, and Roger Shufebottom, who were Technical Reviewers on this book. I would also like to thank Andrew Balis, Steve Bayes, George Bellias, Christie Carr, Bryan Castle, Cecil Daniels III, Ron Diamond, Ron Friedman, Nini Hadjis, Doug Hansel, Alex Hepburn, Jim Hershleder, Stan Hershleder, Robert Jones, Tamera Martin, Mike McNulty, Patty Montesion, Eric Naughton, Paul Petschek, Tom Quick, Katie Riccio, Leah Riccio, Samantha Riccio, Tom Riccio, R. Bandit Rivera, George Rizkallah, Larry Rubin, Ben Rock, Carolyn Rae Schultz, Jeff Sengpiehl, Wes Sewell, Greg Staten, Alan Stewart, Todd Smelser, Tracy Smith, Paul Stephan, Rik Swartzwelder, Jim Turner, and Paul Valdez. Thanks to all those with the willingness and patience to teach me throughout my life. Thanks to all my students over the many years; I learned a lot from you, too. www.it-ebooks.info About the Reviewers Oliver Peters has worked in the television, lm, and entertainment industries since 1970. He has accrued a diverse range of experience in all facets of production, post-production, instructional development/design, and project management. His credits include national and international TV and lm projects, which have won awards such as the NATPE Iris, Telly, ITS Monitor, a national Addy, and others. During his career, he worked for numerous years at Century III, the resident post-production facility at Universal Studios, Florida, which he helped design and manage. He currently owns his own post-production services company, working as an Independent Project Manager, Editor, and Colorist. He is also a contributing Editor to Digital Video magazine and the Creative Planet websites, writing and lecturing about editing and post-production technologies and products. Other books that he has reviewed, include The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction, Steve Hullsh, Focal Press; Mastering MultiCamera Techniques, M. Jacobson, Focal Press; and The Avid Handbook, Steven Bayes and Greg Staten, Focal Press. Michael Phillips is an award-winning Filmmaker, Producer, Editor, and Industry Technologist. Michael's contributions to the industry have been for the co-invention and design of Avid's Media Composer, Film Composer, and Symphony product lines, which offer professional digital online and ofine editing, and nishing, earning him a 1994 Academy Award® for Scientic and Engineering Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1999, Michael and Avid were rewarded with an Oscar® for their continued efforts in enhancing and developing the Avid Film Composer. That same year, Michael was recognized with a Massachusetts Innovator of the Year award. www.it-ebooks.info His producing and editing credits include, "Johnny Slade's Greatest Hits", "Patriots", "Jack in the Box" for editing, and "Leon" (The Professional), "Milk", and the award-winning documentary "Cinematographer Style" for digital post consultation and supervision; and recently completing the DI conform on "The Iceman". Michael has lectured around the world on the ever-changing nature of digital processes, spoken at industry forums, and conducted workshops on digital post-production. He co-wrote the book "Digital Filmmaking, The Changing Art Form of Making Movies". He has been awarded over 10 patents from the United States Patent Ofce for digital synchronization of picture and sound, and other editing technologies pertaining to 24 frame editing, as well as compositing, interactive media (transmedia), and surround sound technologies. Michael is currently developing tools for story discovery. Michael was chosen as the Post Supervisor for the Sundance Institute Director's Summer Labs 2012. Michael is currently CTO of Cineworks, a full service lm and digital cinema facility with locations in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Miami, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport. Michael is directing research and development of new technology solutions for the digital production process extending workow consulting to Cineworks clients as well as industry manufacturers on workow. Roger Shufebottom is an Editor living and working in the United Kingdom. He started editing documentaries and TV series on 16-mm lm and got his hands on an Avid system for the rst time in 1992. He proudly says that he never did any tape-to-tape editing professionally! He became one of the rst cohort of UK Avid Certied Instructors in the 1990s and has since run training courses in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the USA. He has written Media Composer, NewsCutter, Unity and Interplay training courseware for Avid in the U.K, and Focal Press published his book Video Editing with Avid in 2001. He now teaches editing in the Media School at Bournemouth University, Dorset, U.K. www.it-ebooks.info www.PacktPub.com Support les, eBooks, discount offers and more You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support les and downloads related to your book. Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub les available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at service@packtpub.com for more details. 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Simply use your login credentials for immediate access. www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: Getting Assets into Your Media Composer Project 5 Introduction 6 A strategy for project organization at the desktop level 6 Understanding Media Creation settings 7 Mixing frame rates 9 Tape capture tip: Adding Markers while Capturing 12 Tape capture tip: Making Subclips while Capturing 13 Logging clips tip: Logging from the keyboard 14 Logging clips tip: Keeping the Capture Tool active after logging a clip 15 Quickly calculating total duration of clips (or any items in a bin) 16 Combining available drive space and/or controlling where media is stored 17 Making sure your Batch Capture continues without you 19 Modifying clips before capture 19 Modifying clips after capture: Adding tracks 20 Modifying clips after capture: Deleting tracks 22 Capturing and editing at the same time 24 Preparing to use AMA (Avid Media Access): Getting the plug-ins 25 AMA (Avid Media Access) Linking 27 Getting the AMA le's image to display as desired 31 Consolidating (copying) AMA Master Clips 34 Transcoding AMA linked clips before beginning to edit 36 Transcoding AMA Master Clips after editing has begun 38 Consolidating an AMA sequence or subclips 39 Transcoding an AMA sequence 41 Importing stills and video les such as QuickTime 42 Importing audio 48 Adjusting audio levels before editing 49 www.it-ebooks.info [...]... beneficial to users at all levels What you need for this book In addition to this book, you will need Avid Media Composer software, running on either a Mac or a PC You can download a 30-day free trial of Avid Media Composer at Avid. com While this book focuses on Avid Media Composer Version 6, because Avid has done a great job of preserving the majority of functionalities as the software has evolved,... beginning your use of Avid Media Composer or you've been using it for some time, I believe this book contains a great deal of useful, time-saving, and frustration-reducing information for users at all experience levels Further, I believe this book fills a particular gap in the Avid Media Composer publications that are currently available Because the features and abilities of Avid Media Composer are so broad,... tab Select the format of the media that you will be capturing, importing, and/or rendering Media Composer will remember your Media Creation settings for each format that you configure So, for example, if you're mixing SD and HD footage, you'll configure your Media Creation settings for each Once your preferences are set in the Media Creation tool for each format, Media Composer will automatically switch... drive space and/or controlling where media is stored The Capture Tool has a feature that lets you create a Drive Group that designates more than one drive for Media Composer to be used for media storage This is helpful in the following situations: ff You want to make sure that the media files go to the drive(s) that you want when one becomes full, rather than Media Composer simply selecting the drive... (rather than directly off the CD) into a Media Composer, or copy into this folder any fonts that you download before adding them to your operating system Understanding Media Creation settings It's important to spend some time setting up your Media Creation settings Essentially Media Creation settings allow you to set defaults, which will help ensure that the media files you create (for example, render... understanding of why Avid Media Composer works the way it does regarding sync, how you can be in complete control of staying in sync when using any of the editing modes (without Sync Locks enabled), what Sync Locks do and how they work, and what to do if you find yourself out of sync Chapter 6, Managing Your Media Files, has a goal to take some of the mystery out of dealing with media files, using the Media Tool,... will guide you through using the Media Creation Tool: 1 Go to the Tools menu at the top of your screen 2 Select Media Creation 3 Proceed section by section to set defaults for the resolution of the media that you create, as well as for the destination for that media See the following How it works section for details 7 www.it-ebooks.info Getting Assets into Your Media Composer Project How it works The... story-telling needs we have every day; essentially, getting footage into the system, editing, and audio mixing I first began learning Avid Media Composer in 1994 through trial and error Nonlinear editing and the Internet were still in their infancy, and there weren't any books on Avid Media Composer So, I did my best to learn by reading the manual My frustrations came when I'd read about a procedure or tool in... Capture 15 Optionally, if you only want Media Composer to capture the media that's missing, then in the Batch Capture dialog window, enable the selection that says Offline media only 16 Optionally, if you also need to capture new media files and at the same time get rid of the previous ones, then in the Batch Capture dialog window, deselect the option that says Offline media only For example, you realize... a new Subclip and repeat the preceding steps 13 www.it-ebooks.info Getting Assets into Your Media Composer Project How it works During this process, you are creating one Master Clip that will refer to, point to, or, as Avid says, link to the media file(s) of video and/or audio The Subclips do not create new media files; they are just shorter references to, or subsections of, the longer Master Clip . www.it-ebooks.info Avid Media Composer 6. x Cookbook Over 160 highly effective and practical recipes to help beginning and intermediate users get the most from Avid Media. the most from Avid Media Composer 6 editing Benjamin Hershleder BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI www.it-ebooks.info Avid Media Composer 6. x Cookbook Copyright © 2012