Post-Production

Thank you for sharing, Maurice Vaughan!

You're welcome, Ashley Renee Smith. Al always shares incredible advice and insight.

Marcel Nault Jr. why are you concerned about it for animation? Or do you just mean that's what interests you about it?

Yes, Unreal Engine is great. It can bring down the cost of CGI from ~$2k/finished second to ~$1500/finished second on some projects. Even lower, if you don't want anything original.

Laurie Ashbourne A bit of both. I'm concerned because of the budget involved, its limitations and its practicality, like I said. It's still an amazing engine though.

Many of our 3D students use Unreal just as a renderer, after creating their films elsewhere. Any new advances should be good news for them.

Marcel Nault Jr. It has yet to be fully explored as a feature animation tool, but there are many using it. This new release will increase that. The reason is because it changes the traditional animation pipeline (for 2D and 3D) because many functions can be done simultaneously instead of linearly (which is where a lot of the expense of animation comes from). Sony and DNEG are the two studios most adept and agile to build piplelines with it. Given the real time rendering and compressed timeline, it will only grow in other smaller facilities. Regardless, game engines are the way of the future for film.

This guide is a year or so old, so there have been changes I'm sure, but it is a terrific overview of how studios are using it for various styles. It is quite surprising.

https://ue.unrealengine.com/rs/754-DFT-709/images/Animation-Field-Guide-...

What a great story and topic in general - so much emotion and practical information. I cherish my wedding video and know how hard it was to actually pull together by the amazing team that did it. Excited to check out your book when it comes out. Wishing huge success with it, Bruce G Macbryde!

Three tips I've learned over the years.

1) Use Timecode. You don't need a slate. Timecode will auto sync everything in one click / less than 2 seconds. After each shooting day, I organize by scene number, which takes many 10 minutes.

2) Use Davinci Resolve. Premiere crashes way to much and is slow as can be. I don't even need to make proxies in premiere. And there is no render time.

3) Don't overthink your workflow.

This is awesome, thanks for sharing Ashley Renee Smith !

I agree with Stephen Folkerthat slating is overrated. It takes too much time, and if I can skip it, I will. Premiere does a pretty good job of syncing your good audio to scratch audio. (Can Resolve do that?) When you say use timecode, I assume you mean syncing your camera and sound timecode BEFORE shooting? I've never managed to do that. It's hard enough to get my camera operators to set the time and date on their clips correctly!

Hey Mike Boas - I use a wireless timecode generator. Tentacle Sync or Deity TC both make great units! Just plug into your audio recorder and each camera you want to keep in sync / sync once at beginning of day, and you're good all day. Now, instead of trying to sync via scratch audio (which doesn't always work and is a little time consuming) you have one click and everything is synced in one second. And yes, slating is super over-rated, and if you do it before every take, that's an extra 90 minutes of shooting you lose everyday.

I love this and will recommend it to every new filmmaker I know. These are actionable tips that can save a project when it gets into the remarkable but often complicated and time consuming world of post. Thank you, Ashley Renee Smith!

You're welcome, @Ashley Renee Smith. This is one of my favorite vlog series.

Stage 32 also has a great webinar coming up on this very subject that I highly recommend for all community members. It's such a critical dynamic that often gets overlooked. Here's a link so everyone can check it out: https://www.stage32.com/webinars/The-Final-Cut-Optimizing-The-Director-E...

Oooohhh... I am going to check this out too... I am very interested in learning about HOW this happens with the editor... the one thing I have learned about myself IS I am constantly editing everything! If I makes posts or, writing a book, its a constant almost annoying and YET very rewarding to do... though it is such a challenge. Can't wait to dive into this... THANKS Maurice for posting!

That looks like a great webinar for directors and editors, Sam Sokolow. The webinar covers a lot. Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome, Sherri ZImmerman.

It's incredible how color grading can change the look of a still and footage, Karen "Kay" Ross. It'd be so hard to enjoy a movie or show without color grading.

Love post and this is a great piece! Thanks for sharing, Karen "Kay" Ross!

Okay, need lots of education here on this one! I'll check this out for the knowledge... thank you Karen...

Very cool stuff here, Dustin Quinteros - thank you for the share!

Thanks for the share! It wasn't until I started shooting and editing goofy home videos that I really realized how much work goes into the editing process.

I hear you, Lisa Lee, on the time and work that goes into the editing process. Over the past four weeks, I've spent on average about ten hours on each of four short (1-8 minutes) projects. In the beginning some of time was getting used to Final Cut Pro, but even after feeling efficient with FCP the work to shape the footage remained and made time fly.

Ty Strange I have a very love/hate relationship with editing. I despise it, but I also get a strange satisfaction from it ha. Will you be posting your shorts on Stage 32?

Lisa Lee, my shorts are purely a learning/training exercise to acquaint myself with my new cinema camera and post-production editing software. When the production value of future training projects reach an acceptable level, I'll certainly post them.

Corridor Crew is one of my favorite channels. I love watching and working with people who love what they do. Their stuntman react is also fun and educational!

I love them too, Dustin Quinteros! I've been watching them since the Corridor Digital channel first started. They're a great resource!

Todd Vaziri always gives such great insight. Thanks for sharing Ashley Renee Smith

I'm glad you enjoyed it, Lisa Lee!

This is great, Sam Chambliss! Thank you for sharing this helpful resource with the community! With so many changes rolling out in the new Davinci Resolve, do you anticipate a lot of editors using Davinci over other programs moving forward? If so, can you explain what you think will be the biggest draws for editors?

We've been seeing a lot of editors and content creators making the shift to Resolve over the last year. The fact that you can get a professional-level app for free is pretty incredible and lets anyone learn how to use high-end software. Add to that the one-time price of $300 for the studio version, and there's no reason not to use it (in my opinion).

The biggest draw, though, is that you can do everything within the app. You don't have to round-trip to an audio app or go over to a VFX app to do those stages of production. It all lives in Resolve. And it's only going to get better.

Exciting news! Looking forward to joining ResolveCon and expanding my DaVinci Resolve skills. Thanks for sharing!

Benjamin Parker Awesome! Will you be watching on stream or joining us live?

Thanks for sharing Sam Chambliss! I'll definitely be streaming this later.

Emily J, I've had so many projects that I've enjoyed, cast and crews that I've treasured: "Sex And The City" during the massive culture zeitgeist of the time was a surreal ride unto itself. We are all bound together with that experience forever. Working with Terry Winter on "Boardwalk Empire" and "Vinyl" were incredible experiences. Working with Jonathan Ames, Ted Danson, Jason Schwartzman and Zack Gallifianakis on "Bored To Death" was a zany wonderful fever dream of a show that didn't last as long as it should have. Working on "Fosse/Verdon" was such an honor, because I was working with theatre royalty at the top of their game, and because we got to go to the Emmys together! But all in all, I would say that "Nurse Jackie" has been my favorite project so far because I was on that show from the pilot through to the finale, (7 Seasons, 80 episodes) on the ride with that entire cast and crew for the entire journey. Walking onto the set to check in with everyone, seeing how the day is going, approaching video village and hearing, "Oh Brad will fix it." I'm like, "Excuse me, Brad will fix what?" They tell me what's up, and I say, "Oh, okay. I got you." Those people truly became family, and I will treasure that experience for the rest of my life.

I don't have a particular question...just come here to say I LOVE The Diplomat and can't wait for season 2. It hits' all the right notes.. exciting, funny, and fabulous music (I'm a composer, so that's a definite plus for me!) Thank you for creating it.

Thank you, Arhynn. I love the show too, although I can't take credit for Season 1. They brought my producing partner and I to work with Season 2.

Brad Carpenter Gotcha! Well, I look forward to seeing what you do with it!

Thanks for all your valuable insight and information, Brad Carpenter!

I think you did very well, and I'm assuming you shot this gorilla style (no permits, no closed streets?) I would say it would have been nice to have a few more cut away shots, maybe tires squelching (mount a GoPro on the fenders) and at least one shot from inside of the Mac Truck,. I would play more with sound design too, you can cheat a lot with proper audio cues, but overall, nicely done.

It's a good effort. Needs a bit more snap, more angles, quicker cuts and a sense of danger and trajectory.

Viewers will notice putting the car in Park in the middle of the chase and the lack of continuity between highway and city streets, semi behind the vehicle then not. It's glaring.

The main thing I noticed is, the shots looking back at the red BMW are down town, the shots looking from the driver's point of view, more or less, are in a rural area and the car seems to have changed color to black.

I love Studiobinder, and I think this might be of some help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YriUMCnIGUw

Thx for the link, Whitney Moore!