Shane Ross wrote:
I swear to god avideditor this is exactly what Patrick was telling you. All this information you read in the manual that you found so helpful is exactly what Patrick was describing. And yet you rejected it as incorrect.
I certainly didn't reject what he said as incorrect, I wasn't understanding him yet, and I didn't think he was understanding my problems either. This is tedious stuff and with out visuals it's sometimes hard to communicate. No need for the hostile tone. Also, if what Patrick was telling me is the same thing I found in the manual, why don't you work that way?
I have worked on many many TV series shot on film at 24fps, telecined to digibeta at 29.97fps, captured on Avids and edited AT 29.97. When we edited these shows we didn't capture as 23.98...we edited offline at 29.97 and then onlined at 29.97 and delivered 29.97. We did NOT remove pulldown. And yes, we DID see the interlaced fields. Not on the computer monitors, because Avid shows you one FIELD of information, not both. This is why sometimes you have a blinking light (say from an aircraft) that you see when you play back the footage, but when you step through frame by frame, you can't find it. Because it is so fast it only appears on one field, and Avid is not showing you that field.
I get that. I have worked with lots of telecine material too over the last 15+ years. To date, I have never seen these kind of issues as I have on this project and I didn't know if there was something FUBAR in my signal path or a problem introduced by the Avid that I was unaware of. This is a new setup, new facility for me. The only time I have removed pulldown before has been in AfterEffects to do effects shots. *It was a shock to read the FCP manual that clearly states you should not work in 29.97 with telecine material. I've never worked that way and you guys are telling me the same thing I already do.*
However now that I am working with Color, I am seeing things in the color renders that should not be there like frame blending of these interlaced pull down frames. Is this normal? Is this not why FCP says not to work in 29.97? I have no idea because to date I have only graded progressive projects or native 29.97 RED jobs, nothing with telecine transfers.
FCP is different, FCP displays BOTH fields, and so you will see the occasional interlaced frame. THIS IS NORMAL. When you play back the footage it looks completely normal.
Sometimes yes it does look normal, always on an NTSC display, but sometimes I get QT exports that look interlaced in their motion. Do I need to change my timeline field dominance to none every time I want to export a QT for the client or even at the end to make a DG compression? I need to work towards two outputs always, 1 for tape, 1 for uncompressed QT. I have never had to toggle my settings in the past to accomplish this.
Question: Is this the standard workflow for most people out there? Do you always remove 3:2 pulldown with Cinema Tools first and edit at 23.98?
No. If I have a show that was shot on film and requires a 29.97 master, I do not remove pulldown. I capture and edit at 29.97. Although this is a rarity for me lately, as I need to deliver HD masters at 23.98.
Questions: What about digitizing pre-edited masters, that maybe came from other edit systems like Avid where you don't need to remove pull-down. In order to digitize a master and export a file from it, if that tape has pull-down footage within it, do you need to remove pulldown just to have it export properly?
No. Not at all.
And if this master is mixed with pulldown and non pulldown footage?
Then you capture and edit normal...29.97. I fail to see the problem here. I do recall being a bit confused about the 3:2 pulldown from film to tape, and there were many papers written that describe that. Did you read the link to ADAM WILT that Patrick posted? He talks about it too. If not, read this:
Yes I read Patricks link, and the FCP manual goes into great depth too. I do understand pulldown. I used to cut film and have cut on NLE's for a long time with telecine material. What I didn't understand was that FCP always shows you both fields, because I most always view a single frame on my Kona card reference monitor. That was a helpful discovery.
http://www.zerocut.com/tech/pulldown.html
Question: If I am recapturing clips from a project already edited in Avid @ 29.97 with out removing pulldown, how do I convert that into a timeline I can capture to in FCP with pulldown removed?
Why? Why do you need to do this? If you don't remove pulldown on Avid, why would you need to with FCP? Do you have an external monitor on your Avid? If you did, you'd see that it does, INDEED, capture with interlacing. That is what PULLDOWN is...spreading one from across THREE fields. One full frame and one FIELD of another frame, then the next film frame on the SECOND field of that same frame, and then either two field of the next video frame, or another half field, then the 3rd film frame does the second field then next two fields for the next full video frame.
Why? Only because I am seeing interlaced artifacts on our file outs, DG is killing our spots and the FCP manual contridicts everyting I have always done to date with pulldown footage. If I wasn't in this conundrum, we wouldn't be talking about this, I would be working per usual at 29.97, the same way you do, the same way I always have.
Basically...NO, you do not have to remove pulldown. ANd you really shouldn't if you are capturing telecined material and are delivering a 29.97 master...especially if you are exporting a file for delivery for broadcast.
Agreed. So I wonder why then our QT file out's have these issues, why Color renders are so strange looking (frame blended pulldown fields) and why DG keeps rejecting some of our stuff with reasons that point directly to these issues.
Listen, I apprecate the help Shane. I always thank you guys in advance and afterwards. I have been doing this for a long time and I suspect something is wrong here and haven't found a good solution, certainly have second guessed my own experiences even.
If you guys don't abide by the FCP manual for working with telecine material, well that is certainly food for thought, so I guess I have to find out another reason for the problem I am faced with. Happy clients are the end goal, surely you can relate to that.
