JC Dávila's BLOG post #3: Preparing a Workflow

Finally I solved the problem with the 60p footage. This was something I was very worried about, even though I’ve heard that is possible to convert from 60p to 24p and import it into Final Cut 7, I was not at ease until I saw it really happened. Just a quick recap: on the field I shot all my beauty shots at 60p in order to get more detail out of it and be able to manipulate the time more effectively (slow-motions and so). However, I wasn’t expecting that they wouldn’t transfer into Final Cut 7. For this to be possible I relied on Adobe Media Encoder and converted my 60p clips into 24p.

I finished logging and transcoding everything, but I still need to make a few adjustments to navigate my video library as simple as possible. The 60p clips are in the Final Cut 7, I need to rename them still. I am going to rename them in a form, which they describe what is happening, for example: airplane, beach, man selling vegetables, etc. There are 158 clips; it is going to take sometime. Nevertheless, this is not limiting my process. I am already transcribing and when I want to take a break from it, I’ll entertain myself identifying these clips and then go back to transcribing.



Also, in the meantime I am trying to put markers as I transcribe, so I can map the dialogue of my participants and be able to go back and forth easily. At the moment I am concentrated in transcribing 7 of the 15 interviews done. I don’t think that I’ll use the other half or so.



Meanwhile, I am also going to start building scenes, I want the story of my film to be mostly told with observational/participatory material. Building scenes with the observational/participatory elements, will help me assimilate how much good material I have of it, and how long is. I believe that laying this out will be the first step to define the approach of my editing. After I have a strong idea of which observational/participatory footage I can count on, I'll dig into the interviews to look for supporting elements to the story, among others (archival, beauty shots, etc.).

So far I have organized my footage in the following bin categories: Beauty Shots, Interviews, Main Scenes and Secondary Scenes. I am sure I will add more categories, once I start working with other elements, such as: Music, Graphics.

Below you can see an example of my bin organization:
(sorry is in Spanish, easier for me to relate)