Local Tv Hero

Like my exhaustive over-long DAW shootout a few months ago, I’m now doing the same with my editing software. I’ve been a Final Cut Pro editor for years, but I gave Premiere Pro a shot back in 2009. Despite cutting a music video with it, and even liking some of the features, I found the CS4  experience to be clunky and buggy. It wasn’t hard to stay with FCP.

Flash forward to to the release of FCP X (and all that went with it), and a lot of folks are taking a serious look at Premiere again. I’ve begun playing with the new version and I’m amazed that I can pull T2i footage off the card, right into Premiere – no transcoding needed. To be fair, you could do this in CS4, but it didn’t always work (at least for me).

With CS5, the Canon footage played with little effort on my MBP. Again, I’m taking footage right off the card – I haven’t added color correction, fades or attempted to composite anything yet.

For now, I’m getting reacquainted with Premiere, and thanks to lynda.com, and it’s training series for FCP editors making the transition, I’m digging it so far. If editing Canon’s version of AVCHD doesn’t bring my laptop to a crawl, I can see the benefit of switching to it. I can’t count the hours that I’ve spent waiting for transcodes. I often shoot several commercials in bulk over a few days, then edit over several weeks. I batch-transcode with Red Giant’s “Grinder”, and that experience can be like watching paint dry, not to mention the crazy big file sizes associated with converting to ProRes.

With the added benefit of Photoshop and After Effects integration, this could be a no-brainer. It will take working through a project to see if I’m my cutting in FCP will be final. (yeah, I went there…).

The “Gravity” music video was completed and posted to YouTube in the early morning hours of March 5th.

There was a great deal of discussion between Dan and I about the final cut, and after several emails and text messages, I’d like to think we reached a compromise that everyone could live with. After I cut the performance footage, I decided that another visual element was needed. This element (or “texture” as I began calling it), was derived from shooting a bunch of abstract stuff (close ups of roads, center lines, and the sky) and blending these images with the performance footage.

Everyone loved the idea, and it worked out great. The ensuing conversation focused on the amount of texture to be added. I believe that one can have too much of a good thing, and was hesitant (no, adamant) about over using the effect.

This is where one must divorce themselves from the process, and build a bridge to compromise. I’ll admit that I’m still learning to do this, but I’m very passionate about my work.

In any event, it got done, and the shoot was one of the best that I’ve ever run – smooth, relaxed and efficient. The best part – I was able to help out a friend, and the end product has been well received.

Thanks Dan, Bryan and  Derek…

www.myspace.com/spydivision

Since Dan is a musical beast and his output is considerable, check out:

www.myspace.com/razorroad
www.myspace.com/thespectaculars
www.myspace.com/hardsoul1