Premiere vs. Final Cut

I’m actually comparing the entire suites – Adobe Video Production Premium CS5.5 and Final Cut Studio 3. Overall, the two systems look surprisingly similar, but there are a few fundamental differences that make me want to own both at the same time. Here are some highlights.

Adobe’s great at:

• Mastering & burning Blu-ray in Encore (hello, Apple, get a grip already!)
• Native support of most formats, including AVCHD. Drop in and edit, no transcoding required.  I hear FCPX is trying to emulate that, we’ll see.
• Different formats in multi-camera tracks (must match in FCP)
• Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash as a bonus

Apple FCP beats Adobe hands down at:

• Offline editing (with proxies). I mean, come on, Adobe, you cannot scrub 4 tracks of HD with effects on them, not on my laptop anyway.
• 16 tracks of multi-cam (vs. only 4 in Premiere). Might not be a big deal, most of the time I use 2 or 3, but there was a project where I used 12. Seriously. And with proxies it worked smoothly on my laptop. Total awesomeness.
• Motion templates. Ohh, I love those! If you need 20 lower thirds of exactly the same elaborate design but different text, you do it once in Motion, and have 20 instances in FCP, editable directly in the Viewer. And you can also add drop zones for videos and stills. Adobe – you probably have to duplicate an AE project 20 times and edit each of them. Extensive googling didn’t produce even a slightest hint at how to do templates in Adobe. One thing is clear, either me or Adobe is missing something…

Both are great at:

• The primary function: editing. Apart from slightly different keystrokes, the two systems are almost twins in basic functionality. Well, maybe FCP is slightly more intuitive, but I may be biased.
• VFX – I still have to see for myself, but for the most part what people say they can do in AE, I was able to reproduce in Motion. Those who use Motion claim AE is more advanced. Go figure.
• Integration between components. Adobe might even have it slightly better, but at least as good.

Both suck at:

• Subtitles / Closed Captions. What’s up with that?
• Reverse Telecine. OK, I figured out the flow in both, but it involves transcoding individual clips. FCP may on occasion do the right thing in batch mode, but no guarantee. Adobe claims to be doing the right thing on the fly, but it doesn’t. Royal pain, given that all 24p HDV cameras record with pulldown. Same for most consumer AVCHD camcorders that claim 24p, and even some AVCHD DSLRs.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNxlShR-ewE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=06de7wIM_9E

Based on a story by Alexei Berezin.

Starring:

Igor Ovchinnikov
Roman Toschakov
Alexei Berezin
Ekaterina Alipova
Natalia Berezina

Director, editor: Sergey Berezin
Producer, Sound Editor: Dmitry Berezin

Cinematographers: Marina Vedernikova, Dmitry Berezin
Production Assistant: Yulia Grinko
Music by Alexei Vedernikov & Kevin MacLeod

© 2011 Creative Association “Berezin Film”
in collaboration with Studio Berezin Film, NSK Records, Elephan in a Wheel

Special thanks to the staff of the House of Children’s Art (Novosibirsk, Russia) and personally to the director Olga Vagner
***************************
По одноимённому рассказу Алексея Березина.

В фильме снимались:

Игорь Овчинников
Роман Тощаков
Алексей Березин
Екатерина Алипова
Наталья Березина

Режиссёр, монтаж: Сергей Березин
Продюсер, звукооператор: Дмитрий Березин

Кинооператоры: Марина Ведерникова, Дмитрий Березин
Ассистент режиссёра: Юлия Гринько
Композиторы и исполнители: Алексей Ведерников, Kevin MacLeod

© т/о Березин Фильм 2011
При участии Студии Березин Фильм, NSK Records, Слон в Колесе

Отдельная благодарность всему коллективу ДДТ им. А.И. Ефремова (г. Новосибирск) и лично директору Вагнер Ольге Николаевне.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0DJnvx-OU0

The effect is designed as a static 3D model, and the only moving part is the camera. The camera moves are programmed with the camera framing behavior -- I specified the locations, and it flies right in.

In the closing credits, the final move to the disclaimer is programmed with “null objects” -- a couple of invisible rectangles. The camera first frames one null object, showing the cool 3D perspective I wanted, and then proceeds to the other null object with the disclaimer text attached to it, making a nice turn. This is a technique I learned from the MacBreak Studio podcast.

The flashing “floor” is another technique from a book. The floor itself is a static rectangle. The flashes are also just a single rectangle with animated gradient fill, replicated a bunch of times with a random start frame. This way the flashes seem to go chaotically, yet in the same direction and the same speed.

First of all, my camera’s real-time downscaled RCA output to NTSC for some reason looked pretty bad compared to that of native DV cameras on the same shoot. Bummer. So I tried to drop my HD footage into the DV timeline to replace the bad looking clips. To my utter disappointment, the HD footage in Final Cut looked horrible, even worse than the RCA feed.WTF?

So, after a number of hours and extensive tests, here’s what I finally concluded.

First, my RCA output is not that bad after all. Even my horribly outdated DV palmcorder digitized a decent picture from that output. Something must have gone wrong in the switch board somewhere down the line. Screw that, not my problem anymore.

Next, Final Cut only displays the scaled-down frame badly, but on export the frame is actually good. Better than going through in-camera RCA and external DV recorder. And fast. Contrary to many online complaints, Final Cut is smart about downscaling interlaced footage, so you actually get a true interlaced downscaled version of each frame. Or maybe they fixed it in the latest version – either way, it works for me.

What’s weirder, if you convince Final Cut that your clip requires rendering (orange/red bar instead of green), and your rendering quality is set to High, then the frame in preview will look as good as in the final render. Go figure…

A couple of words about working with interlaced footage in Final Cut. You should be aware that any time the preview scales the frame, it effectively de-interlaces the image. So, if you did something wrong and mistakenly de-interlaced your footage (e.g. ran it through Compressor with the wrong settings – see below), then you may not notice it until way later. And even worse, if by mistake you flipped your fields, the result will still look fine in Final Cut, but totally unwatchable on TV.

To avoid the disaster, check your clips: set the viewer to 100% and look for movement. In a properly interlaced clip, you will see the “jagged” lines – that’s a good sign.  I also apply the “de-interlace” filter and check which field is displayed first – this is crucial for matching the field order. DV NTSC must show upper field first, while 1080/60i apparently shows lower field first, so they have to be flipped (filter “Shift fields” – FCP applied it automatically for me).

Finally, if you really want to go for quality, Compressor can do a splendid job downscaling interlaced footage, but ONLY with Frame Control enabled, and ONLY with “Deinterlace” option set to “Best (Motion Compensated)”. This takes about  a year to convert half an hour of footage, but the results look really good. Oh, and remember to set the “Crop to” option to 4:3 (in Geometry section) if needed; otherwise you’ll get an anamorphic 16:9 DV clip.

Happy downconverting!

The Apple Motion Way

The most reliable, in my opinion, is to pipe the footage through Apple Motion. This flow will also work for footage other than 60p. Here are the steps:

1. Create an interlaced (30i) sequence in Final Cut
2. Drop your 60p footage in it and do the necessary scaling and positioning adjustments (in my case, I had to scale the HD 16:9 footage to fill the SD 4:3 frame)
3. Control-click (or Right-click) on the clip in the sequence and choose “Send to -> Motion Project…”
4. Choose the file name for the Motion project, make sure “Embed Motion Content” box is checked. Press “Save”.
5. When Motion opens, it should already be preset to your sequence output format (30i). If your original clip is not 60p, you can set Frame Blending to Optical Flow in the Properties / Timing pane (otherwise leave it “off”). In the preview you should see the jagged lines for any moving objects in your clip – that’s exactly what you want.
6. Save the Motion project and return back to Final Cut. The original clip should now be replaced by the perfectly interlaced Motion clip.

Motion (unlike Final Cut) does not de-interlace the frame for display, so you can see the actual raw interlaced fields as they are. It is also much smarter about retiming, and will grab the correct frame of a 60p footage for each field automatically.

A fair word of caution – if your clip is more than a few seconds long, don’t try to render it in Motion. Or, before you do, reduce the Memory Cache setting to something low, like 20%. Otherwise Motion will hog all your available RAM and will take hours to render because your computer disk will be thrashing. However, rendering the same clip within Final Cut will work fast and furious with no noticeable memory overhead.

The Final Cut Way

Now, if you do not have Motion installed, you can still do it in Final Cut with a little help from Cinema Tools.

1. Open your 60p clip in Cinema Tools and conform it to 29.97 fcp. The clip will now play at half the normal speed.
2. Import the clip into the Final Cut 30i sequence and speed it up by 200%. Make sure your sequence has frame blending turned on. You are done.

The key here is the speed up by exactly 200% with frame blending. Turns out, Final Cut can do frame blending for individual fields of the interlaced frame, but only when the footage is retimed. If you try to drop an un-retimed, un-conformed original 60p footage in the same sequence, the fields will be pulled from one and the same progressive frame, which is not what you want. This was the problem somebody posted in the comments to the above mentioned article.

Instead of Cinema Tools you can use any other software that can conform clips to the required frame rate (Compressor, Adobe AfterEffects, etc.).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2yR7wZDUp8

Story and Screenplay: Allen Rosenberg
Producer: N. Lawrence Yos
Director of Photography: Sergey Berezin
Director: Mohnish Bisht

Cast:

Milton Baldridge: Ray Raffa
Stuart Hughes: Elliott Burgi
Young Private: Sunny Moza
Sergeant: Phillip Tracy, Jr
Skater #1: Jordan Johnston
Skater #2: Sara T. Len
Skater #3: Jason Galindo
Enemy Soldier: John Conlon

Editor: Sergey Berezin
Sound on set: Ray Raffa
Production Assistant: Sara T. Len
Skateboard stunts: Jason Galindo

Special Thanks to:

Jason Aranda -- porch location
Charles “Charlie” Olson -- barracks location and 1942 jeep
Phillip Tracy, Sr. -  military costumes, consulting
Elisabeth Maurer
Moorthi P. V.  and the Movie Makers Unite

Vimeo version:

Written by Sara James, directed by Sabrina L. Nelson, camerawork by Sergey Berezin and Samir Sinha, editor Sergey Berezin (yes, me again). Sara is also the lead actress, together with Tony Sommers.

This project was screened at the 12th Scary Cow Film Festival in San Francisco on June 6th, 2010 at the Victoria Theatre.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppv40L290Ig

If you are curious about the school itself -- visit their website.

For the technical video geeks, the footage is shot at 720/60p with a 1/1000 exposure. This made each frame crispy-sharp, with virtually no motion blur even for the very fast moves. Then I slowed it down in Apple’s Motion using optical reflow -- that’s the secret behind the Matrix-like slow-mo effect.

The “talk” is the only exception: 24p at 1/48 with a long zoom and open aperture (about 2.0). This “tricks” the small sensor camera into a shallow depth of focus, making the background soft.

Oh, and by the way, the last fighting sequence is no special effect -- all real, unrehearsed, actual speed. It looks a bit weird and “too fast” precisely because it lacks the motion blur. I found that not only it’s impossible to take the blur out once it’s there, it’s also quite hard to put it back in believably. So I didn’t

The entire clip was shot on a single Saturday morning and edited together in a couple of evenings. Having a great “cast” makes a world of difference!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDYYWnkpa_Y

I did the editing. All day during production, then all night long, then all day the next day. Pretty crazy, I know…

Музыкальный диагноз 3 reposted by Alex_aka_JJ on Vimeo.

Now that youtube increased the time limit to 15min, I uploaded my last year’s movie there. See the original post for more detail:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZF2j72oRRc

One frosty Siberian morning (or was it evening?) my brother Dmitry was talking to me on the phone about how to produce music TV shows. At the end of the conversation we decided that it would be much more fun for me to come over and show it to him.

If you really want to learn something, teach it! Right? In that spirit, Dmitry organized a workshop on how to produce music TV shows, and invited me as an instructor.

Meanwhile, my other brother Alexey exclaimed “Thou shalt not have fun without me!” – and joined us for the mischief.

For one of the exercises, we had all the workshop participants (including us) record a bunch of 2-minute shows where everyone got to try every role in the studio. It just so happened that in this segment both of my brothers got on camera at the same time, and watch what happened!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM7E46u3k1g

My role was an editor, Dave Cowl the director, and a bunch of other talented and dedicated crew members and actors made it all possible. We had lots of fun!

Cast: Shawn Flanagan Jr. (Mikey), Meghna David (Miss Patel), Khalid Khan (Raj), Jim Rogers (Mailman), Jessie Rodrigez (Cousin Patel)

Director: Cheenu Krishnan, Assitant Director: P.V. Moorthi, Producers: Quanie Mitchell and P.V. Moorthi, Production Manager: Aniket Apte, Production Assitants: Bhavesh Mehtha and P Mahesh, Story and Script Writer: Quanie Mitchell, Camera Operators: Ray Raffa, Cheenu Krishnan, Aniket Apte, Gregori Niculitcheff, Boom Operator: Bhavesh Metha, Script Supervisor: Quanie Mitchell,  Video Documentary of the Production: Shawn Flanagan Sr., Gregori Niculitcheff, Jessie Rodrigez, Post production supervisor: Sergey Berezin, Editing: Sergey Berezin, Cheenu Krishnan, Music by: Marshall Watson.

Special thanks to: Movie Makers Unite, Miracle Productions, Edwin Liu (for postman costume)

www.meetup.com/moviemakersunite

The movie was screened on January 31, 2010 in San Francisco.

Cast: Patrick Alan and Debora Gonçalves

Written, directed and edited by Dave Cowl, Camera by Digant Kasundra, Tom Krymkowski and Dave Cowl, Sound by Marc Stayman and Alisha McCutcheon, Special Effects by Sergey Berezin.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZF2j72oRRc

The story is originally written by Alexey Berezin (my brother) in 2006, which in early 2009 I converted into a screenplay (big thanks to Michael Dougan for help and guidance!), and then produced, directed and edited over the next few months with the crew from Scary Cow Productions, and finally screened at Victoria Theatre in San Francisco at the Scary Cow Independent Film festival.

Much credit goes to the actors -- Jerome Shafer (David), Andrin Foster (Gaylord the Devil) and Karuna Tanahashi (Lili), as well as the excellent crew members: Talha Ahmed (location, 1st camera), Mark Lisaj (2nd camera), Dee Leitner (makeup), Terry VerHaar (lighting), Dan Patterson (grip), Dave Cowl (sound), Gina Richman (2nd editor), and Russell Blalack (sound conditioning). Many thanks go to Silicon Valley Studios for providing their studio space, and the Scary Cow Productions for helping such projects happen.

Please leave your comments about the movie -- I’d love to hear your feedback!

Also, for higher quality copies (DVD and possibly Blu-Ray), feel free to send me a request.

Enjoy!

Now, here’s the video:

Tickets are on sale – see you at the screening!

This clip is a 5 minute cut. The complete show (15 min) will be aired on Wednesdays starting June 10, 2009 at 9pm together with other shot takes -- channel 15 in Mountain View, CA.

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DufMuvFzXJw

And now, here’s mine – enjoy!