Fix It In Post, Part One

Utilizing the audio tools bundled in your NLE system

By Dan Brockett

Q I’m editing a couple of interviews, and there are some issues with air-conditioning noise and clothing noise due to a poor job in rigging a lavaliere mic. What audio tools do you recommend to fix the sound issues? Roy V. Via e-mail “Fixing it in post” is an idiom that’s often mentioned on a set when sound or picture problems... Read more

What Goes On In Vegas

Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 provides an intuitive environment for editors

By George Avgerakis

My article “The Cutting Edge” in the December 2009 issue of HDVideoPro surveyed the range of PC-based NLE programs available. This review of Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 is more detailed and incorporates improvements made since that issue. Briefly reviewing the criteria for evaluation of any NLE, let me suggest intuition, stability and speed, codec... Read more

Color Control

Cinematographers adopt on-set color-management systems to maintain their original vision

By Debra Kaufman

Of all the disasters that can happen on set and on location, perhaps one of the most hair-raising has to do with color. The cinematographer—hired because of his or her experience and skill in producing perfect images—labors to control and tweak a range of elements to create a painstakingly designed look. Later that night, a telecine artist in a... Read more

The Suite Spot

Adobe’s unified, all-in-one CS5 Master Collection allows you to move into new platforms

By George Avgerakis

Now is the time to augment your “in-house” creative skills, and the Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5) Master Collection has something for everyone. The CS5 Master Collection is a PC/Mac bundle of 23 programs and online services. You may already know Premiere Pro CS5 (a $799 NLE), After Effects CS5 (compositing, $999) and Soundbooth CS5 (recorder/mixer,... Read more

The Desktop DI, Part II

NLE systems, stand-alone compositors and plug-ins help editors become colorists

By George Avgerakis

Rob Carroll, President & CEO of Cine-tal, a manufacturer of color-calibration software for television and feature-film production, likes to think long-term. “Our business has been through a lot,” he says. “We spent years understanding and improving compression technology. We’ve been through the format transition from SD to... Read more

The Desktop DI, Part I

In part one of a two-part series, HDVideoPro explains DI versus color correction, as well as examines new desktop DI hardware

By Ian Blair

The story of digital intermediate (DI)— desktop or otherwise–begins with the DP. If you ask a typical Hollywood director of photography about color correction, he or she usually will reply, “Shoot for the look you want and don’t expect the colorist to ‘fix it in the mix.'” If a DP fails to shoot a scene to the ultimate... Read more

ProRes Version 2.0

Apple releases three new flavors to Final Cut Pro 7’s lossless editing codecs

By Neil Matsumoto

For indie filmmakers, Apple’s Final Cut Pro currently wears the NLE (nonlinear editing) systems’ crown, and with professional editors such as Walter Murch and renowned filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, David Fincher and the Coen Brothers having already made the switch, Final Cut Pro has been steadily moving in on Avid’s professional... Read more

The Cutting Edge

Profiling the latest nonlinear editing systems to challenge Final Cut Studio’s buzz

By George Avgerakis

In the earliest days of nonlinear editing, programmers attempted to regain traits of film editing, such as grabbing a clip from a flannel-lined bin and feeding it into a Steenbeck or Movieola edit machine. Today, many nonlinear editing systems (NLEs) still feature drag-and-drop (D&D) editing to a timeline. Later NLEs, emulating online video editing... Read more

Connect The Dots

From DP to DI, new clues in the postproduction industry signal a paradigm shift

By George Avgerakis

Many great video people lost a lot of money investing in $100,000+ “online” tools like CMX and ADO just before the advent of Avid and the Video Toaster and the bottom of an entire market fell out. I think another bottom is going to fall out. Let’s witness a chain of events in the process of exploring six new products—ARRI Relativity,... Read more

The State Of Post

The postproduction industry is seeing rapid change in both film and digital workflow

By Simon Wakelin

“The industry is always going through a metamorphosis,” offers Dennis Ho, president of Hollywood-based post house Digital Jungle Post, on the current state of postproduction. “It’s the nature of the beast. You need to acquire new hardware and software, especially when digital is pretty much at the forefront of our work.” Ho... Read more