Comments on: I Will Judge You By Your Sequence

By: Brettdc

Brettdc — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:31:51 +0000

I try to keep m timelne organized for my own sake when workng but when I’m thinkng aloud so to speak the sequeance starts to get ugly but the point mentioned here many times is to clean it up and refine. Like you do to your edit

By: Richard Benenge

Richard Benenge — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 21:22:14 +0000

Hello my name is richard and i have been editing for 6yrs now, you can see my work on the website. thank you.

By: Mark Gillins

Mark Gillins — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:57:07 +0000

Andy: Seems like a lot of your suggestions could easily be handled by duplicating sequences and archiving. Granted, having tons of extra sequences in a project file will increase the file size, but holding onto a select few for purposes of remembering certain revisions isn’t too cumbersome.

Ignoring FX, mattes, and other composites, I try to limit my editing to two video tracks, and I always, ALWAYS have my audio assigned to specific tracks (camera audio on 1 & 2, VO on 4 & 5, music on 6 & 7, etc.). Once I am in the fine cut stage, I do as much as I can to collapse the video tracks into one.

By: Studio Daily Blog » Post Fifth Pics judges us by our sequences

Studio Daily Blog » Post Fifth Pics judges us by our sequences — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:08:52 +0000

[...] asked him if I could re-post the piece in its entirety on the Studio Daily blog. It’s called I Will Judge You By Your Sequence. It’s a mini-rant on the somewhat common practice today of turning over a disorganized and [...]

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:03:19 +0000

I don’t know…I think that’s pretty reasonable. I expected much worst, anyway.

I’m an assist and I prefer to have the paper trail, especially with AE titles. If a final edit has AE titles baked-in but a client asks for that shot in a new project, I can usually rely on my editor leaving the title-less version in a layer below.

It’s also great to leave old versions in place, so you can quickly match frames when laying in new revisions (also easy to find what exactly a revision was if you can reference the track below and visually locate the change).

This is all great for small teams…sharing sequences with strangers opens a whole new ballgame, one I think you guys are focused more on.

By: Vince Anido

Vince Anido — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:02:39 +0000

For some reason I see this far more often on FCP sequences than Avid. I think FCP’s crappy trim tool is to blame – it’s far easier to do asymmetric trim operations in FCP if the clips are on different layers.

That said – I can’t imagine needing more than 2 layers to edit your primary video track like that. FX etc, fine – but that screenshot is horrible.

Besides the trim tool, I think the biggest reason is that more and more editors are self-taught rather than really learning how to edit by being a true assistant. Unfortunately it’s much more difficult to get real editing experience as an assist these days vs. 10 or even 5 years ago.

I was able to actually SIT IN THE BAY with the editor when I was an assist. This allowed me to formulate good habits when editing because I actually watched him work. This is an aspect of the craft that is quickly going away. I can’t remember the last time an assist actually was able to sit in with me. It’s sad really…

By: Bryce Randle

Bryce Randle — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:35:56 +0000

Alan, there is a difference here though. You just explained some sort of organization you had with a selects type of sequence. The difference between this example and yours is that in the picture above, that is the edit, the final edit.

By: Alan H

Alan H — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:26:19 +0000

Yeah, I have to admit to being at fault alot here. Not having had to learn Avid, I like to be sloppy when editing and then go back and clean it up before handing it off to someone. And having worked this way, I find it easier to look at a messy timeline like that, because I put all of my interviews on one track, all of my random b-roll on another, and my AE graphics on a third. So I can quickly jump to any given shot by seeing where it lies vertically.

By: Jc Stolen

Jc Stolen — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:10:51 +0000

Yes!
Judge you by your timeline, and by your desktop…

By: Bryce Randle

Bryce Randle — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:40:31 +0000

I think there is a difference when you have a purpose and when you are being lazy. Sadly I think that students learning Final Cut Pro from a younger age, and not having to deal with Avid, have not been discouraged from holding back on the stacking. Batch capturing is a great point Dylan.

I didn’t think about how it applies to After Effects too. I once freelanced with a place that had an 8 minute After Effects sequence instead of a composition for each shot. So guess what happens when you have 8 minutes worth of 2K Red proxies and you have one typo? That’s right, nearly 5 hours of rendering overnight. I guess that is another post for another time.