Importing Footage

Mike had given me the footage as a AVCHD. This could not be imported straight into Avid media composer. This then meant that after a lot of figuring out that I resorted to importing all the clips into Final cut pro and then exporting them as Quick times.

This was a lengthly process as I had to log and capture the clips to get them into Final cut pro and then individually select each clip and export checking the settings each time. As I had nearly 200 shots I spread the work load out over 4 iMacs and my laptop.

Log and Capture

Settings

Set up as exporting

Once all the clips had been re formatted as quick times I am now able to import them straight into Avid media composer and start renaming and organising them. I have set up a project in avid and created a Bin for each individual scene and named them with scene number, locations and time of da, for example, SCN1. EXT. 12TH FLOOR BALCONY. DAWN. This way it is clear and easy to see what exactly is each scene. I have also created a Rushed bin that I can import the clips to. This means I can then rename them and then put then in the correct scene bins.

Each clip is named with its shot number, take and a small description, for example SH5 TK1 CU OTS TO RHIAN. This was I can easily find the shot and takes of each clips and these also relate to the names given in the footage log.

Screenshot of shots labelled

The next stage in preparation for the edit is to re-sync the audio that hannah had given me. There was a lot of issues regarding losing some sound bites and problems with the mixer so not all the clips have audio. Between Hannah and I we decided there was no use syncing all the audio as the majority of it will be foley and FX. This being so I only sync a small number of shots from scene 1, 2 and 3. As Hannah was near by when syncing I was able to check her opinion and let her decide on what audio she felt should be used. 

To sync the video and audio I set both inputs to a mark. as there was no clapper boards to sync to I used Alli shouting Actions as a marker. This work alright except sometimes it wasn't clear. I then resorted to using "cut" to set the out points to and this seemed to work.

Screenshot as Syncing

As not all audio was used I created a log of what shots are now re-synced and the original marantz file name so that if I need to look back and find them I will be able to easily. 

Audio Log