Each student is required to have a set of personal items for use in classes and film productions. Please acquire all these items before the start of film school orientation. You will be asked to bring these items to the orientation to ensure that you have everything you’ll need to start the semester off without a hitch.
TECHNOLOGY
Most of the coursework will be completed using school production equipment and computers, but there is some hardware and software that each student must own:
If you are planning to purchase a new computer and/or software and would like guidance on what to buy, contact Paige Roberts (proberts@fsu.edu) for assistance.
PRODUCTION TOOLS
The following items are all required for on-set work. These items are required for students of all majors — Production, Writing, and Animation — since everybody participates in on-set production during the first year of the program.
At the start of your Sound Design day duplicate your “Picture Lock” sequence. Rename the new sequence “XXF1_Picture_Lock_Sound” and move the sequence to the “Sound_Turnover” bin.
Production Audio
If you haven’t already been doing this during your picture editing time, now is when you would want to make sure your production audio tracks are checkerboarded and have cross fades on everything. This is also when you may need to cut in some room tone to fill any gaps.
If you need to turn the Clip Gain up or down the easiest way is to us the “Fast Menu” to give you access to the control on the clips in the timeline.
If you need finer control use the fast menu to switch to “Volume” and then you can use keyframes to automate any volume changes.
To make this go faster use the default keyboard shortcut for adding keyframes.
Also remember that “option” key is your friend for being able to lasso and manipulate the keyframes once they are created.
For reference a normal speaking voice should hit at about “-12dB”. To monitor this you can pull up the “Audio Tool”.
If a character is yelling it would be above that and if a character was whispering it would be below that.
Music
If you need music for your F1 remember that you have access to the Universal Production Music website.
You can ask for the login username and password and your instructor can slack it to you.
When you download tracks from the website by default they will be saved in your “Downloads Folder”. DO NOT leave them there. Instead move them to the appropriate music folder in your shows audio folder as shown in the example.
The to import any music into Media Composer, assuming you have your “Import Settings” set properly all you have to do is drag and drop it into the proper bin and it will import it.
By default most music comes in very loud so you may want to lower the volume of audio while its still in the bin before you cut it into your sequence. To do so, select all the files you want to effect, right click and select “Apply Gain”, then you can type in “+” or “-” how much you want to turn it up or down.
Your music will need to go into one of the “stereo” tracks in your timeline so make sure its set to stereo and then cut it.
Sound FX
For sound FX for your F1 you should use the Soundly app to search through the sound FX library.
Just like with music, as long as your import settings are set properly in preferences you can simply drag and drop the sound FX you want into the proper “Sound FX” bin in Media Composer.
Also, just like with music you need to pay attention to whether the audio is stereo or not. Make any adjustments necessary and then cut it into the proper track in your sequence.
Exporting Stereo Mix
At the end of your sound design day when you done working you will need to export a stereo .wav file that will be imported into Resolve and sunc up with picture.
Mark in at the very beginning of the sequence and out at the very end of the credits. IMPORTANT include the entire front sequence not just the content. Then select all of the audio tracks.
Right click in the program monitor and select export.
Check that the name of the file is correct, that its going the proper folder and that you are using the correct export setting.
If you don’t yet have a “F1_Stereo_Audio_Export” preset make one using these settings.
When the export is complete you can listen to the .wav file to make sure it’s all there. If everything sounds good save your bins and close Media Composer.
Link, Modify, and Transcode Footage into Media Composer
Import Audio into Media Composer
Synchronize Audio and Video
Organize footage in Avid bins
Assemble dailies string out
Export and upload to Frame.io
Media Composer Project
Make sure your “Show Volume” is mounted and navigate to your show folder and launch the media composer project.
When it opens you will see the project template. These folders and bins must be maintained and kept organized.
Before you begin double check the “Media Creation Settings”. Go to preferences, project tab, and then Media Creation.
In the Media Creation window make sure you select:
-DNxHD SQ for Video Resolution
-Your Show Volume for the Video and Audio Drive
Select Apply to All for everything and then click Okay.
Link, Modify, and Transcode Footage
Open the Linked OCF bin.
Right click inside the bin and select Import – Source Browser.
Inside the Source Browser navigate to to a days worth of OCF, make sure the Link icon is selected, and then click Link.
This will “Link” all of the select footage into the bin. Notice the icons a linked chain letting you know this is not Avid Media yet but only linked to the OCF on the CMPAFilmPost Server.
Highlight all of the linked files in the bin by hitting “Command + A”. Then right click on a clip and select “Source Settings”. This will open the “Source Settings” window. You will use the Color Encoding tab to apply a Look Up Table (LUT) to the OCF which is in Log. Then you will use the FrameFlex tab to set the proper aspect ratio.
In the Color Encoding Tab set the Color Adapter Type to “User Installed LUTs”
Then select your shows LUT from the list. Unless otherwise instructed by production you will use the default LUT which is Medium Contrast and Medium Size shown below.
Then click “Add” and then “Apply to All”. This will change all of your linked footage from looking like a LOG video file (washed out and without contrast) to looking like a 709 video file (saturated and with contrast). This is what the DP would have been viewing on set.
Next use the FrameFlex Tab to set the proper aspect ratio. The only two options you need to modify are the “Frame Aspect Ratio” and the “Reformat” drop down menu shown with red arrows below.
The “Frame Aspect Ratio” will be set to one of the three approved aspect ratios of either 1.85:1, 2.39:1, or 1.375:1. Check with the production to see what aspect ratio they framed for.
The “Reformat” drop down should be set to Pillarbox/Letterbox.
Click “Apply to All”.
Changing these two parameters will ensure that when new Avid Media is created that is 1920×1080 it will have the correct aspect ratio burned in.
Now that all of your linked media has the proper color and framing its time to transcode to Avid Media. Highlight all of the linked files in the bin by hitting “Command + A”. Then right click on a clip and select “Consolidate/Transcode”.
This will open the “Consolidate/Transcode” window.
Study the options with the red arrows shown below. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT as it determines the kind of media that will be transcoded and used for editing in Media Composer.
The radial button in the top left should be set to “Transcode” You should select your show volume under target drive. DO NOT SELECT CMPAFilmPost. Then double check all of the red arrows on the right.
Once everything is set properly you can click “Transcode”. This process will take a few minutes as it generates new Avid Media so take a break and relax.
When the transcode is finished you will notice that now you have two versions of everything in your bin. One is a linked OCF and the other is Transcoded MXF Avid Media.
Move the Transcode MXF media to the proper bin.
Import Audio
Open the Transcoded Production Audio bin.
Use the source browser like before and navigate to the proper folder on the CMPAFilmPost Server and select all the production audio. Only this time you will directly “Import” the audio instead of “Linking” to it first. Make sure you study the red arrows below and then click “Import”
Before it begins transcoding it will ask you about audio start times. Make sure it is set to “24” and then click “Okay to all”.
When the transcode is finished you will have Master clips of all your production audio.
Synchronize Audio and Video
Too synchronize Master audio clips and Master video clips they need to be placed in the same bin. Move the days worth of audio and video together into the “Synching Bin”.
Select all the audio and video clips in the syncing bin and then right click and select “AutoSync” from the dropdown menu. The “Sync Selection” window will appear. Make sure you have “Source timecode” selected and then click okay.
This make make a sub clip out of every audio and video clip that had matching timecode. Anything that did not sync because it couldn’t find a pair with matching timecode will be left highlighted.
Change the clip color of these to make it easier to keep track of.
In the example below. You will see two audio master clips that didn’t sync to anything because they are Room Tone. One Audio master clip taht didn’t sync to anything because it was a bump take. And two Video Master clips that didn’t sync to anything because they are MOS.
Move the Master clips out of the synching bin and into their proper bins.
This will leave only the sync sub clips in the synching bin. If you did have any MOS Master clips make subclass of them in the Synching Bin.
Now you need to check the sync of each clip by opening it in the source monitor and scrubbing through the slate. It you switch the timeline to reflect the source monitor using the button shown below it will be easier since you will be able to see the waveforms of the punch sub clip.
As you go through checking synch on each subclip you should cross reference them against the physical camera report to make sure you have everything. This is also the time taht you cane rename the subclass to reflect the shot name as written on the slate.
Organize Footage in Avid Bins
Once everything is renamed you can move the subclips out of the synching bin and into the appropriate scene bin.
Switch the view in the scene bin to the thumbnail view.
Then drag the thumbnail around and organize each scene bin into rows of setups and columns of takes.
Next you will need to change the thumbnail for each one. By default the thumbnail is the first frame of video which is not helpful to an editor as its normally blocked by the slate. You can change the thumbnail by single clicking on the clip and then scrubbing with the JKL keys. Wherever you stop scrubbing that thumbnail will bye saved.
If a setup has only one take set the thumbnail to what the majority of the shot represents. If a setup has multiple takes set the early takes to the beginning of the action and the last takes to the end of the action.
In this way the editor can see at a glance what the motion of the camera or changing of the blocking is by looking across the different takes.
Assemble Dailies String Out
Open the correct dailies stringent sequence based on the day of production you are working on.
Assemble the days rushes into the dailies string out in shooting order. To do this reference the physical camera report and insert each shot into the sequence in the same order as it says it was captured on the day of production.
Insert a 5 second slate at the begin of the sequence and using the Avid Title tool fill in the slate with all the information shown in the example below.
Inside the Avid Effects Bin you will find a Dailies Timecode Burn-In effect.
Apply this effect to the fill in the labeled video track and make sure you are monitoring on that track as well.
You will see in the Program Monitor that your Dailies string out now has timecode and shot names burned in.
Export and Upload to Frame.io
Mark in to out for the entire timeline and select all the video and audio tracks.
Right click in the program monitor and select export.
Check that the name of the file is correct, that its going the proper folder on your show volume, and that you are using the correct export setting.
When the export is complete you should open it in quicktime player and check to make sure everything is correct. Then upload to the proper folder on frame.io.
When you are all done save your bins and close the project.
Before arriving on set have your crew members download the free VUER app to their Android or Apple phones.
On set the Script Supervisors cart should be setup as shown below with the Directors monitor facing one way and the Script Supervisors laptop facing the other way.
In between them will be the three Teradek modules. Its a bit confusing because they are all made by the same company but they are the Bolt, the ServePro, and the Link.
The Teradek Bolt is a radio receiver which wirelessly connects to the Teradek Bolt transmitter that is mounted on the camera. This allows video from the camera to wirelessly get sent to the Script Supervisors cart.
The Teradek ServPro creates a local wifi network that allows up to 10 devices to monitor video over wifi using the VUER app.
The Teradek Link is a router which boosts the ServePros wifi signal so you can monitor from a farther distance.
The Bolt receives the video signal from the camera over radio. The video signal comes out of the Bolt and is split. One SDI goes to the ScriptE laptop and the other SDI goes to the Directors monitor. Then out of the Directors monitor the video signal is passed through over SDI to the ServPro.
Then from the ServPro the video signal is sent over wifi to the Link where the wifi is boosted and the video is sent via wifi to up to 10 phones.
Next you need to connect your phone to the Links wifi. Look on the bottom of the Link to see the wifi name and password.
Connect to to the Link wifi and enter the password.
Confirm that you are connected to the correct wifi. It is normal for it to say “No Internet Access”.
Open the VUER app and select Camera A to load a stream.
Select “Refresh” to load available streams. And the select “Encrypted Stream”.
Confirm the “Encrypted Stream” is loaded into Camera A and then select “Done”.
Enter the password which is fsufilm.
You can now monitor the camera feed over the Links local wifi hotspot.
The aspect ratio of the RED camera is 17:9 (1.90:1). Since we edit in a 16:9 (1.78:1) workspace, Media Composer will squish the image to meet that ratio. Taking the following steps will correct for this.
Go to your synced clips bin and select all the clips.
Right-click and select “Source Settings…” in the drop down menu.
In the FrameFlex tab, set Reformat to “Letterbox / Pillarbox”. Click “Apply to all” and then “OK”.
Your footage should now be presented in the correct aspect ratio. The black bars at the top and bottom are normal and intended for the RED Camera’s aspect ratio. (You may need to refresh your sequence if the change does not show immediately.)
After this process is done, if you wish to change the aspect ratio to one of the other approved aspect ratios, you can apply one of the masks from the frame.io folder.
At the end of each shooting day, the Assistant Editor (AE) will retrieve the RED Mini Mags (containing the video), the CF cards (containing the audio), and the camera reports. The media cards should be labelled with red tape, as shown below.
Make sure you remove all the red tape from the video and sound cards before inserting them in the card readers. Note that the RED Mini Mag can take 2 to 3 minutes to show up on the desktop.
IMPORT MEDIA INTO MEDIA COMPOSER
Open the Media Composer Project.
When setting up your project, make sure it’s 1920×1080 24p.
Keep the bin structure maintained as shown below.
Control-click on the 03_Footage > Production > Syncing bin and choose Input > Source Browser from the pop-up menu, then link to both video and audio.
Go into the Syncing bin and select all the clips. Make sure the link button to the left is selected and then press the link button in the button right corner.
Then select the production audio and press the link button in the button right corner.
Select 24 and click “Ok to All”.
SYNCHRONIZE CLIPS
The audio and video should now both be in the Syncing bin.
Select all of the audio and video, and choose AutoSync from the side menu.
Have the Source Timecode box selected.
Then everything that has the correct timecode will make a subclip. Anything that did not sync because the timecode was off will be highlighted and will need to be synced manually.
Here is an example where you can see the wild audio tracks and room tone are highlighted which makes sense as they would not create a subclip. While the clips are highlighted, set the clip color so you can identify them as clips with issues.
MANUAL SYNCING
For clips that need to be manually synchronized, first double-click on the video clip. Create an in-point on the video clip (by pressing “i”) on the frame where the clappers clack.
Make sure you have Audio Scrubbing turned on in the Toggle Digital Audio Scrub, which can be found on the Command Palettes > Play tab. The keyboard shortcut Command + 3 brings it up.
Play until you hear the clapper clack, and then use the arrow keys to move one frame at a time to find the exact frame where the clack starts. Add an in-point here.
Select both clips, then go to AutoSync and choose Inpoints.
Play back subclip to confirm it’s in sync.
If the clip is an MOS shot, rename the clip to what is on the slate and put it in the appropriate scene folder.
ORGANIZE MEDIA IN MEDIA COMPOSER
One everything is synchronized, the subclips will have the video clip name with “synced” at the end. You will need to rename the subclip to the appropriate scene and take number: e.g., 1A_1.
Never rename the video or sound files. Just subclips. An MOS shot is the only exception to this rule.
After everything has been synchronized successfully, move the production video and the production audio to the appropriate bins. To move the clips, open the bin and then drag the audio and video to the name of the tab of the open bin.
Move the wild lines and room tone clips to the production audio bin.
Manage ScriptE Data
Then you are ready to import the ScriptE data.
The first thing you will do is to open the clip bin file in a text editor and make sure it says 24. If it is set to anything else, change to 24.
Then, go to the end of the last line and add a space in order to have the last clip imported.
Save and close, then change the extension from .txt to .ale.
Import the ALE that ScriptE produced. In the bin with your subclips, go media import – ALE and click ok.
If you receive this error message click Ok.
Set the clip color so you can identify the ScriptE clips and be able to easily copy-and-paste data into fields later.
When the clips the ALE produces show up, they will be offline. Rename each subclip to the clip names based off the slate: 1A-1, etc…
Then control-click on the name and choose Sort on Column, Ascending. This will allow the clips to be lined up so you can copy-and-paste all script supervisor notes into the appropriate fields: script description, script comments, and script notes.
Save that bin view in order to pull up those fields in the future.
Save as ScriptE.
Once you are done you can trash the ScriptE clips and then move the merged subclips into the appropriate Scene bins.
BUILD THE DAILIES SEQUENCE
For each day of production, you will build a dailies sequence that includes all of the footage shot for that day, as well as a master dailies sequence that includes all the footage shot for the entire show.
Under 01_Sequences – Dailies you will find the prebuilt sequences.
Organize the merged clips in scene order (story order) and, within each scene, place the shots in the following order:
Wide shots
Medium shots
Close-ups
Inserts
Charts
Use the Title Tool to make a 5-second slate to begin the dailies sequence, and fill it out as below.
EXPORTING THE DAILIES SEQUENCE
Once the dailies sequence is fully built, place in-points and out-points on the timeline to select the entire sequence. Then click File > Output > Export to File…
Save using the naming convention of show#_Dailies_Day_#.mov — e.g., 01D1_Dailies_Day_1.mov.
Set the correct folder path for the saved file and make sure the Export Setting is “Link to Audio and Video”.
Export as MOV with the following settings:
Preset:
HD 1920×1080
Codec Family:
H.264
Compression:
H.264
Color Depth:
8 bit
Target Bit Rate:
10 Mbps
Hit save and then upload the exported file to the appropriate folder on frame.io.
WRAP UP
After the final day of production the AE should ensure that everything is sync and the Media Composer project is ready for editorial to begin. Save the Project and close it.
All of the sound and camera cards used in the production should be left on the desk of the assigned edit suite. The finished editors notebook should be left on the desk as well.
The Script Supervisor / Editor will collect the media cards and camera reports at the end of the shooting day at Critchfield Hall.
Back at school use suites 11 and 12 on the post hall to offload the media to the server. You can access the post hall through the lobby, going up the stairs and turning left. Once on the post hall the suites are all the way down on the right. Those two suites have been set aside for D1 ingesting and no one else will be using them.
Track 1 Editors should use suite 11.
Track 2 Editors should use Suite 12.
Use the attached card readers to offload camera and sound media to the server in the appropriate show folder. Please remove the tape from the cards indicating that media is present on them before inserting them into the readers.
Once the media is safely on the server the Editor should also copy it to there own personal hard drive so they will have it for when they sync and edit at home.
Finally, once the media is on the server AND on your own hard drive upload the media to frame.io using the frame.io transfer application so the Director can access it remotely as well.
You also need to upload the sound report and camera report to your frame.io project as well. The sound report is a .csv file and can be found in the in the folder you offloaded from the sound card. Uploaded it to the Reports folder.
The camera report is paper so to upload it to frame.io simply take legible picture of it, rename the file your show#_Camera_Report and then upload that to the reports folder on frame.io as well.
The Script Supervisor will have already uploaded those reports to frame.io so when everything is up it will look like this.
When your all done please leave the media cards in the cases on the desk in the suite. The Post Staff will collect them and return the now empty cards to the Head of Production.
On Tuesdays all the Script Supervisors / Editors from the previous week will sync dailies on their own computers. Ian will meet with you over zoom to walk you through the process remotely. Track 1 will met with Ian at 2:15pm and Track 2 will meet with Ian at 9:00am.
Critchfield Hall is located approximately 10 miles northwest of the school’s main home in University Center A:
When providing directions to cast and crew, you can use the PDF above or share this link to Google Maps.
Pro tip: When heading towards Critchfield Hall, the final traffic light you hit (right after you pass the I-10 freeway) requires a complete stop on red. There’s a good chance you’ll get a ticket if you roll through on a red.
