Anyway, I’m used to combining the strengths of different tools, and the work we do at Automatic Duck is a ten-year extension of this approach.

I don’t get to edit professionally anymore, but I like to dip my toes back in once in a while.  Recent projects have included a video promoting a local 50+ condo building plus visuals for a Helios house concert.  And since last year I have become the defacto video guy for my daughter’s dance studio, a mostly thankless job selling recital DVDs for way too cheap.

It is the recital videos that have presented some interesting challenges in balancing the Good-Fast-Cheap conundrum.  It has to be cheap, there’s no way around that.  I need to get it done fast, too, because I’m doing it in my spare time which I don’t have a lot of.  And it has to be good, that’s how I roll.  So I shot 720P60 using a Panasonic HPX-170 camera, sending HD-SDI out to a Kona 3 inside a Mac Pro.  Plus I have a consumery Canon HF20 that I used as a wide locked-down safety.  This year there were two shows, each well over two hours and between the two there are nearly 130 performances.  The goal: to finish with one DVD for each show, with DVD menus and chapters and lower third titles identifying each song, dance group/class as well as teacher and choreographer.

You can tell I love my daughter, there ain’t no other way a sane person would agree to do all this.

Enough preamble, let’s get down to it

Of the various tasks involved in producing a four hour DVD set, probably the most daunting was creation of 129 animated lower third titles.  These titles included a lot of information: the name of the performance, the name of the dance class or group, if it was a solo, duo or trio the names of the performers, and finally the name of the instructor.  This is a lot data, the typing alone would have taken me forever.

Lucky for me I was able to get the showcase program as a PDF, something I could get the text out of quite easily.  Ok, so I might not have to perform a bunch of data entry, but I’d still have to spend a day copy and pasting to create the titles, right?  Thankfully not.

I edited the Pacific West Performing Arts Spring Showcase 2010 in Final Cut Pro, and it turns out that Final Cut comes with an excellent titling and graphics application called Motion.  Motion is good for more than just titles, but when it comes to banging out a lot of lower thirds that share a look, Motion just can’t be beat.  And not just for FCP users, Motion can also be quite a good tool for you Avid users too.  I can hear a few of you in the back snickering because you think Motion is no match for After Effects.  I grant you that, you’re right, After Effects is the power tool, but in this particular situation even After Effects can not do what Motion makes possible.

You see, Motion’s project files are written as XML, meaning they are text files that can be read, edited and written by any application.  The ramifications of this are huge:  You can create a template Motion project file, open it in a text editor and make some changes and when you reopen the project in Motion– or better yet, switch back to your Final Cut Pro sequence containing that Motion project clip– your changes are reflected immediately.  See where this is going?  What if I could somehow combine the text from the PDFs with a template Motion project and make my title creation easy?

There’s an App for that

I could tell some of your eyes glazed over  during that last paragraph when I mentioned XML. It is like your creative antibodies started screaming, “I’m an artist, not a programmer!”

Lucky for you there’s a very user-friendly application called AutoMotion from Digital Heaven that leverages Motion’s openness and allows you to combine a Motion template with data you had your assistant type in– don’t worry I totally get you’re an artist and don’t do “data entry”– creating many many titles in just seconds.

AutoMotion’s interface is easy to use.  First you import your data into a simple column view, next import a Motion project file to be used as a template, then finally assign which of your data fields link to which of your text objects in the Motion project.  That’s all there is to it.

When you’re ready you tell it to do its thing and process through them all.  It takes no time at all to create many many animated titles.  Better yet you can update your design in the Motion template project then have AutoMotion update all of your titles, again in just seconds.

The Road Less Traveled

But I, I took another route.  I first faced this challenge of the avalanche of animated titles last year, when I produced the first DVD for my daughter’s recital.  I was aware of AutoMotion but I was also very curious in achieving a similar result DIY style.  Plus, I’m quite a closet nerd, so I decided if Motion was the key to the castle I could pick the lock using FileMaker Pro (that’s right, the database application).

A bit dramatic, maybe, but I embarked on some cool shit.  Turns out this cool shit was a lot easier in the spring of 2009 when I first tried it, at the time I had Motion 3 installed and it was more forgiving of the XML my scripts produced.  When I decided to reprise my FileMaker Pro/Motion “solution” I was now using Motion 4 and it was a lot harder to pull off because it required some elements to be present in the XML that Motion 3 didn’t care about. But I persevered.

Here’s a summary:

• Copy and pasted text from program PDF into text file
• Used some Find and Replace routines to convert line endings to tab markers so that in the end I had a tab delineated list of all of the performances and associated credits.
• Imported the text list into a FileMaker Pro database
• Created a Motion project that had the look I was after, then replaced the FPO text with unique placeholders
• In FileMaker pasted the .motn project XML into a global field then created a series of calculated fields that replaced the text from my template with the record fields of the database
• Created a script that would write the new calculated Motion project into a file
• Edited all my new Motion .motn titles into my Final Cut Pro sequence

Later realized I needed to tweak my title position and font size, so I adjusted the template then re-ran my FileMaker Pro script.  Switched back to Final Cut Pro and just like magic the sequence updated with the new look.

Doing it the hard way had some advantages, too, I was able to customize my solution to my exact needs.  Like: make the font size controlled by a calculated field that, based on a count of the characters in a line, would cause lines with more characters to slim down the font size to allow more characters on screen.  I could also populate the database with all of the data from the program but then choose which fields I would actually “publish”.  I also had more control over the file names of the generated .motn files.  My solution was far from elegant, far from general purpose, but it worked great.

Motion is XML, and also QuickTime

There’s another secret that Motion is hiding, another remarkable feature that may entice you to try using it even in conjunction with a non-FCP NLE.  A Motion project file may be just an XML file, but QuickTime can read those .motn files too.  In fact, if you change a motion project’s extension from .motn to .mov just about any QuickTime-savvy application is able to use the files too.  So you could import the .mov-named version of the .motn file into your Media Composer.  You could also drop a list of .motn files into Compressor and have it run a batch to render out proper QuickTimes with alpha channels.

I encourage you to play with it yourself.  Animate a video layer around in Motion in some fun way, then save the project and open it in a good text editor.  Search for <pathurl> to find where the media file is described.  Replace that file path with a similarly formatted path to another media file (note that spaces are represented by %20), save and open the project again in Motion.  Pretty cool, eh?

Maybe this will give you some thoughts the next time you find yourself needing a systematic approach to a motion graphics or titling problem, it could be that by building a template in Motion then running it through AutoMotion or your own processing system you could achieve this kind of nirvana.

Overall the show went very well. We had 50 guests attend the show, and we tied in a Haitian charity donation opportunity for our guests and we raised $415.

In this post I’ll talk about some of the logistics I had to tackle in order to bring the visual aspect to the show.

Several friends at the show asked what software I was using for playback of the visuals.  I tried a few different VJ applications and the one I settled on was Resolume Avenue.  Applications such as this are intended for live performance, with the ability to mix different source movies, even different sources such as live cameras, plus application of effects to the video streams in real time.  These apps typically accept MIDI input for the triggering and adjustment of clips and effects, so I got an inexpensive Korg nanoKONTROL device to give me some knobs to twirl and sliders to push along with buttons to press.

With the software and the hardware interface I set off to learn how I could be a “VJ”.  I’ve been making video for more than twenty years so it was fun to learn a way to deliver the results.  But it became clear to me pretty quickly that if I was going to combine multiple visual elements in real time it was going to a) be a lot of work, b) require a lot of concentration and as a result probably c) reduce my enjoyment of the show.  So I decided that I would instead largely pre-build my performance and use the VJ software to play back my videos in sequence.

I shot most of the elements I ended up using and I also sourced some stock footage elements, plus I had a friend send me some video he shot on his sailboat, I thought it might come in handy.

Production of elements was fun.  I used Final Cut Pro to arranged clips in time then treated everything in After Effects.  I loaded on and experimented with the effects and kept myself entertained late into the night.  Overall I spent about a month working on my clips, and before long the 2TB of drive space I set aside for this project became almost nothing and I had to add another disk.

The next major consideration was how I was going to project my show.  I knew where the “stage” was going to be in our house, but there wasn’t going to be room to put a screen behind the performer and have the projector somewhere in the room.

Since we were going to have Helios play in front of the large windows in our living room I thought it might be cool to project the video from the rear, meaning the projector would be outside shining into the house.  This way the audience would see the imagery behind the musician and it would all be very natural.

I built some screens using PVC pipe as a frame and spandex material from a local fabric shop stretched across, affixed with Velcro.  They were very lightweight and it was easy to hang them on the outside of the house with hooks and eye bolts.

I felt very makey-makey as I was building the screens.  I used two different kinds of velcro, one with adhesive backing and the other kind meant for fabric that ironed on.  So one night I cut PVC sections, attached velcro to the assembled frames and ironed the other side of the velco to the spandex fabric.  Only once did I leave the iron in one place for too long and I slightly burned/melted the fabric, but it was minor and didn’t have any real affect.

My next problem was where to put the projector outside so that it could cast its light onto, and through, my fancy screens.  The windows are on the second story as viewed from the back yard so I decided to build a platform for the projector to sit on.

I’m not much of a carpenter, and maybe because of that I managed to build something that was later described as a lifeguard tower, a trebuchet, even a guillotine. I was proud of it, though, especially the top platform that was able to tilt so that I would be able to adjust the up and down throw of the projector.

Finally I had to consider protecting the projector from the elements.  I knew that the chances of rain or other wetness on a February evening in the Pacific Northwest was pretty high so I needed a weatherproof box, and that box needed to be ventilated because projectors make a lot of heat.

I considered building a box from scratch but recognizing my limitations knew I was unlikely to build something waterproof and useful.  So I chose instead to use a Rubbermaid storage container as the basis for my projector housing and I modified it to become a projector protector.  I cut a window on one side, covered it with clear plexiglass then duct taped the heck out of it, adding some caulking for extra good measure.

I cut a hole in the bottom for cool air to enter the box (through a matching hole in the stand’s platform) and cut holes in the sides for air to be exhausted.  I mounted two 120v fans from Radio Shack against these holes and then for extra credit I attached vent covers on the outside of the box to protect the fans and projector from overly enthusiastic rain drops.

The entire thing was way over-thought but in the end it all worked very well.  The visuals shined through the windows behind Helios as he played and it felt incredibly natural.  And thankfully I was able to enjoy the show even as I had to pay attention just enough to the software to trigger a clip and to fade out at the end of a song.

It was a very fun experience and I look forward to hosting another show in the future.

I have posted the individual movies of my visuals over at wesplate.com.

Since the show I’ve found this writeup on the evening from The Stranger. The writer was so complimentary about the event I won’t make a big deal of his 20-person underestimation of the number of guests in attendance.

UPDATE: This performance is now available on DVD through the Unseen Music shop… http://www.unseen-music.com/live_snohomish.html

I will first credit the one who inspired me to even think it possible, what I’m about to describe. This man has actually influenced me a lot over the years, and my last blog post about Avid’s ScriptSync wouldn’t have happened had I not seen this guy give a presentation about ScriptSync some years back. Anyway, I first met Steve Audette in 1998 at one of Avid’s Master Editor Workshops. I was blown away by the work Steve showed at this presentation eleven years ago, and I’m very happy to say we became and are still good friends.

One of the things that Steve demoed back then was using Elastic Reality to morph between the clips in a jump cut, making what was two clips into one, hiding the cut.  This blew my mind. But I never used this particular idea until last week.

Original clip with jump cut

The project I was cutting I ended up with a jump cut that I couldn’t cover with b-roll. I thought about modifying the script so I could do away with one of the shots in the bad edit, but the words as they were were just too good. Since the interview subject didn’t move too much across the jump cut I was reminded of Steve Audette’s morphing maneuver.

I turned to RE:Vision Effects and their powerful RE:Flex plugin for After Effects to see if I could accomplish what I had in mind.  RE:Vision’s effects are powerful but do require some learning, so after I brought my clips into After Effects via Pro Import AE I sat myself down and read through the user guide and reviewed how the plug-in works.

Essentially you set up a series of mask pairs, a mask shape that follows the “from” geometry then directly beneath that a mask shape that follows the corresponding “to” geometry.  Clearly the more masks you create to control the morph the better results you will get, and I tried to walk that fine line of doing enough to make the effect work but do few enough that I could quickly move on to other editing tasks.

Series of alternating From and To masks

Thankfully it didn’t take all that long, and it wasn’t really all that hard.  In fact when I started previewing the morph I had to double-check that my eyes weren’t deceiving me because the morph was actually working.

Someone with real morphing and warping experience could give you better advice, but I found parts of the face and body that had easily defined areas and made my mask outlines there.  Like the eyes, the top of the blouse, the sides of the face, and of course the lips.  I previewed the effect to see where warping artifacts appeared or where the effect wasn’t seamless then added mask outlines in those areas.  If there were warping problems that I couldn’t see, well I didn’t consider those to be problems I needed to solve.

Another consideration for me was that this final video was going to be viewed primarily on the web, so a little bit of imperfection could be tolerated since it might end up masked my a compression artifact or a viewer might simply blame the defect on their internet connection.

Now with 100% more morphing

The end result was definitely worth the time I spent, which was probably only about an hour, I was able to keep my interviewee saying the phrase I needed, and on camera too.

A big thank you to RE:Vision Effects for hooking me up with their powerful plug-in and another big thank you to Steve Audette for providing the inspiration.

I’m working on a promotional video, or maybe series of videos, for a local condominium complex and it presented itself as the perfect opportunity to try something I’d heard great things about: Avid’s ScriptSync.

The video project is to promote a few available units in this 55 and older condo, and I decided it would be more interesting and believable if there were no voiceover or narration, if instead the “story” was told by some current residents. So I sat down with five residents and interviewed them on camera, asking them questions about why they like living there, hoping I’d be able to string together their responses into something that made sense.

Transcription

After the interviews were completed the next important thing to do was to transcribe the conversations. Each interview ended up being 30 minutes long, and I knew it would be just too hard to try to start editing right away, no matter how well I logged everything.

I had never myself dealt with transcription before so I was happy to be pointed to Steve Hullfish’s great transcription article on the Pro Video Coalition and it was very helpful in getting me started thinking about this process.

sell on the marble and gold Oh yes

Because I have (and love) After Effects, I also have Premiere Pro installed, so I tried its speech recognition feature. The results, frankly, were comical.

To do this right a proper transcription was in order. First off, I knew I didn’t have the time (or the inclination) to transcribe the interviews myself, but I was curious what the experience would be like. So I downloaded the excellent InqScribe and used it to transcribe a test interview I had shot. It was a valuable experience, I know that if I were in a pinch and needed to transcribe something myself, I could, and this application worked very well.

Armed with the knowledge that this job needed to be left to the pros, I asked on the Avid-L and FCP-L mailing lists as well as on Twitter for recommendations for transcription companies. I received five referrals, so I decided to hire all of the companies to each tackle one of my interviews. I like to give business to companies that friends recommend, and I encourage you to do the same. Here’s who I worked with and how much each charged to transcribe their approximately 30 minute one-on-one interview:

• Diane McCoy – kd1625@gmail.com – $60
• Diva Transcription Services – www.divatranscription.com – $42
• TypingPlus – typingplus@roadrunner.com – $47.25
• Wordwizards – www.wordwizardsinc.com – $56
• Take1 Transcription – www.take1.tv – $64.50

The costs added up, but considering the alternative of me doing a less good job much more slowly, it was definitely worth it.

If you’ve never done the transcription thing before, here’s how it went for me: I exported a QuickTime movie of each interview then compressed it to a small size suitable for sending over the web. Some of the companies provided me with a login to their own FTP server, others I just uploaded to my own site and provided them with a download link. When they were done they sent back a Microsoft Word document. It couldn’t be easier.

Non-linear editing

Paper Cut

I’ve never actually performed a paper cut before, but this situation called for it. I’m sure there are better approaches, but here’s what I did: I printed each of the transcribed interviews onto colored paper, a different color for each interviewee. Then using scissors I quickly went through and snipped out my questions and useless answers, then placed the remaining paragraphs into a theme-specific pile.

I had these large legal size pieces of paper on the counter, each with a heading written at the top… “Community”, “Security”, “Parking”, “Common area” and so on, each with various bits of paper containing a response that vaguely fit that category of conversation. If you stood back and squinted your eyes real tight it vaugely resembled the interface of an NLE– bins filled with clips.

My first paper cut, I'll have to save this for the museum.

Then I went through each category and refined my cuttings, paring them down to just the bit I was likely to use, then I arranged the responses on the 8.5×14 paper so the ideas kinda flowed, then I taped them down. The result was a rainbow colored script!

ScriptSync

So the first part of my editorial process was decidedly low tech, but the next was on the other end of the spectrum. I converted the transcript Word docs into text files, adjusted their formatting and then the real fun began.

Select the text in the script then drag the associated clip onto it.

In Media Composer (I’m using 4.02) you choose New Script… from the File menu. You’re prompted to select a text file, then a new window appears containing the transcribed text. Select all of the text in this window, or the part that corresponds with the clip you’re about to link with, then drag the master clip or subclip whose audio matches the script onto the the script.

Next comes the real magic sauce. Choose ScriptSync… from the Script menu and the Avid magically listens to your audio media and associates the words on the script to the words said onscreen. It is a fast process too, indexing one of my 30 minute interviews took just 50 seconds.

You can open source clips by double-clicking words in the script.

Now you’re able to search the script window for words or phrases, then once found you double click on the script and the clip opens in the source window with the position indicator parked right where the person is saying the words you clicked on. It is incredible.

So I just went through my taped together script searching the script for a key word in that section and I was very quickly able to create a rough sequence based on my paper cut. It really is amazing.

So that’s that. I’m now in editing mode, cleaning up the bites and covering with b-roll and figuring out what I need to go back and shoot. I couldn’t be this far along this quickly without this amazing feature of Media Composer, check it out for yourself!

Replaced ending "s"

Update

Some of these interviewees just aren’t phrasing things as I need. ScriptSync is magic here too, because for example I’m able to search for “s.” to find a sentence that ends with a proper idea-ending “sss” sound.

Original bite as spoken by subject:  

I searched for the characters “s.” and quickly found other places in the interview where apparently my interviewee ended a sentence using a word ending in “s”. A quick edit and I have something that sounds much better.

Imagine doing this without ScriptSync, well I know you don’t have to imagine, you’ve done it.  So have I.  This way is definitely a nice alternative.

Cluttery and distracting

I’ve been using Media Composer since version 5 point something, which will confuse you new kids who think Media Composer 4.0 just came out. So I’ll put it this way, I started using Media Composer in 1995. I’ve used a lot of versions, and have always preferred using it on a Mac, even though Avid tools feel less stable on the Mac than they do running on Windows. I hate using Windows that much. But stability aside there was has been one big thing that has bugged me about Media Composer since it came to OS X, and I think I’ve found one way to lessen the annoyance this causes me.

Since going to OS X, Media Composer on the Mac did away with the nice grey background of the application that would shield your eyes from temptations beckoning from behind your bins.  This feature still exists on Windows, but somehow it was decided Mac users couldn’t benefit from what we were enjoying in OS 9 and before.

You’re saying, “Dude, just quit the other apps!  If Facebook and your email are distracting you, quit them and only run Media Composer.”

To that I respond, “What are you, some kind of monster??!”

Even ONLY MC running, visual vomit remains

There ain’t no way I’m completely disconnecting from the world while I’m editing, that ain’t the way I roll.  Hell, you probably know I’ve been posting on the Avid-L since, what, 1996? 1997?  And to the Avid First Class BBS before Avid-L came along.  I had my Mac-based Media Composers connected to the internet back when some of your mommies were telling you that was a no-no.

You can’t NOT have other apps running, you need your Photoshop and After Effects running, but my complaint here is not that your eyes– sorry, I should be talking about me– my eyes are distracted not only by non-work-related Facebook, Twitter and email overload, my eyes are distracted by just the visual mess that you see here to my right.  I’ve been saying for a long while now that when you’re in the Media Composer you should not see your Desktop image behind you, no, there should be grey there!  At least give me the option.

There’s still a whole ‘nother problem with bringing the Media Composer back to the forward app by simply clicking one of its windows, you wind up with bins remaining hidden behind other app’s windows.  Why on earth would I want my Composer window to remain behind my web browser when I click on my Timeline window?  Sorry for the aside, I’ll get back on topic.

That's what I'm talking about!

Ok, so what I’m proposing is something that looks like the image you see to the right of this very text I’m typing right here.  It is visually appealing.  And as an added bonus, when you accidentally miss a bin and click on the grey background you don’t switch out of Media Composer.  Get out your award nomination forms, I’m about to tell you how I pulled off this coup.

1. Head over to Many Tricks’ web site and download Desktop Curtain.
2. Next, download my suggestion for your grey backround.
3. Launch Desktop Curtain and drag my grey PSD into the image well.
4. If when you launch Desktop Curtain all you see is your desktop covered with the default OS X space picture, launch Desktop Curtain a second time.  This will bring up the settings window.  That is the weird thing about the app, it is faceless and doesn’t really give you any indication it is running but if you “launch” it and it is already running you’ll get the settings window.
5. The settings window, btw, is where you quit Desktop Curtain when you’re done with it.

Yes, I did donate.

I set my “Curtain Level” to “In front of the items on the desktop”, which means I’m not actually hiding any apps with this satisfying greyness, I’m hiding the Desktop.  And when I’m done posting an update on Facebook I just remember to Hide the web browser (Command-H) then all I see is Media Composer and Grey.

Anyway, I’ve used Desktop Curtain many times in the past for what it is intended for, but using it to make my life better in this way made me very very happy indeed.

I used some thick plywood as the platform, then mounted inline skate wheels to aluminum angles, then attached those assemblies to the bottom of the platform. To take the thing to the next level I affixed some indoor/outdoor carpeting to it. The entire project was pretty easy and the results are fantastic.

Here is the finished edit of the video I did for PacWest, there are a few dolly shots in there: http://www.vimeo.com/6299207