Every
second would count.
July
13th, 2005, a warm summer’s evening in
Boston. A crowd coming directly from MacWorld Expo a
block away starts filling the lobby and theater of the
Berklee Performance Center, for a free concert
climaxing with the legendary Birdsongs of the
Mesozoic.
 |
 |
top The FireStore and tapeless capture devices like it makes fast post workflow possible. Photo by Loren Miller.
bottom Don Peebles shows the removeable hard disk inside a FireStore unit. |
Directed
by Michael Bierylo. BOTM is a progressive new age
eclectic fusion jazz group (okay, at least I tried
describing them) from this area who’ve been around
for over 25 years. This group has probably fed
inspiration to everybody from Blue Man Group to
regional drumming circles. Founder Roger Miller, who
also plays with Mission of Burma, made a special
appearance with the group, which included Berklee
faculty Michael Bierylo on guitar (expertly coping
with a cranky Powerbook mid performance!), crazed
pianist Eric Lindgren, versatile Ken Field on sax,
woodwinds and percussion, solid Rick Scott on
synthesizer and percussion, with special guest Jason
Marchionna on drums and percussion.
BOTM
reserved their last tune of the evening for a very
special realtime demonstration of video production
workflow, conducted by Don Peebles of Apple Computer,
in association with David Mash, Berklee’s
forward-thinking Vice President of Information
Technology, Dan and Don Berube of noisybrain, founders
of the Boston Final Cut Pro User Group, with special
support from Reggie Lofton, Berklee’s Associate
Director, Video Services, and his camera and audio
mixing crew.
The
entire concert was filmed with three video cameras by
Berklee Video. For the last piece, “Beat of the
Mesozoic, Part 1,” each camera feed was connected to
a FireStore hard disk recorder—a tapeless recording
solution from Focus Enhancements. Each angle went to
its own hard disk for the six-minute piece,
immediately becoming a QuickTime file.
 |
 |
top Don Peebles, Don Berube connect the concert camera feeds.
bottom Apple's Don Peebles, Berklee's David Mash during the workflow demo. |
The
idea was to grab each hard disk at concert’s end,
rush out to the lobby where Apple and noisybrain had
set up a fast G5 tower and 23” monitor and a pair of
Roland speakers; connect each drive, transfer each
stream, synch and group the angles together in Final
Cut Pro 5; and edit the piece in realtime using the
new FCP MultiCam feature while the audience emerged
from the theater and passed by.
Several
gotcha’s could bite the demo crew along the line.
Clock
starts.
The
clock began ticking while the audience applauded
BOTM’s curtain call. The FireStores were pulled,
relayed to the lobby by noisybrain’s Don Berube,
connected at the workstation.
By the clock: sneakernet to
workstation… 1:15.
Camera
feed FireStore transfers… 1:30 each angle (using
FireWire 400). Total including hotplugging…
5:00.
There
was no common timecode between the cameras, only a
blackburst reference signal. Yet Don Peebles easily
managed to synch the three streams using visual and
aural cues in each video – Don is musical and
actually attended Berklee a while back-- marking In
points on each stream, and generated an
In-point-synched
Multiclip ready to cut.
By
the clock: FCP synch up of angles into Multiclip..
:45.
I
did the live cutting. The app was responsive with no
latency I could detect, laying down an angle-switch
marker each time I hit Command-1, -2 or –3. This was
not my quiet cutting room, it was a noisy theater
lobby. Yet I found myself easily concentrating on
content and making split-second edit decisions while
watching ever-changing angles—like any experienced
TV director. Display in the quad-split Viewer window
was absolutely smooth, thanks to FCP’s new Dynamic
RT. When I came to rest at the end of the piece and
hit the spacebar, all the blue timeline switch markers
transformed into edits. All the angle cuts were
preserved. I had just completed my first-ever
live-switched Final Cut Pro MultiCam edit.
If
I’d wanted to, I could have merely marked each
switch with a surface keytap and revised or committed
afterward—even committing to a cut on the fly as I
did, it could be easily revised later.
I could have used Option-1-2 or –3 to have
the audio from each clip follow its video, for
accurate sound perspective. Or I could have used
Shift-1, -2, or –3 to lay down switch edits with
transitions. By switching to the provided MultiCam
Editing layout, I had immediate keypad control of up
to 9 available angles.
Or…I could even have used the mouse, clicking
on and switching to the desired angle.
FCP
5 supports up to 128 streams in a multiclip, up to 16
at a time on display! Capabilities like this bring FCP
ever more evenly in line with Avid systems, which have
had MultiCam for many years now. It’s a real
milestone for the application and a credit to the team
who built it.
By
the clock: MultiCam real-time cut of piece… 6:00.
Don
then exported the piece from FCP5 to DVD Studio Pro 4.
By
the clock: Export/import… :30 seconds.
Don
created a rudimentary title page and play menu button,
ready to burn, to complete the workflow.
By
the clock: DVD authoring and prep… 1:30.
Clock
stops.
From
stem to stern, from concert theater to broadcast
quality edited piece ready for DVD burn took 15
minutes. This even allows time for breathing! Even
while a part of the workflow, I was astounded.
There’s
also a nice description of the process by Dan Berube
and Don Peebles on Phil Hodgetts’ Digital Production
BUZZ radio show at www.digitalproductionbuzz.com.
Click “Archives” and download the July 13th
episode (QuickTime file or podcast) originally
generated from the MacWorld Expo Boston show floor.
When
he isn’t cutting from Camera 1 to 2 to 3, Loren S.
Miller edits “film style”on projects ranging from
NGO cause-related shorts to broadcast documentary and
independent features. He also offers KeyGuides™ to
intermediate and advanced keyboard users worldwide,
available at www.neotrondesign.com. Reach him anytime
at lormiller@mindspring.com.
I
Loren
S. Miller pounds the keys as a regular contributor to
Imagine, as an Oscar-winning documentary editor,
independent producer and consultant, and as developer
of KeyGuides™ for complex Macintosh media software
such as Avid Express Pro, Final Cut Pro, After
Effects, Photoshop and ProTools, available at www.neotrondesign.com.
Reach him anytime at lormiller@mindspring.com.
