Making documentary films

I would like to start making some simple, very short documentary films. Just shorts as part of an anti-stigma campaign. Wondering if iMovie would be suitable for this (versus the Final Cut products). Mostly these will be posted on my iWeb site. Also, can anyone recommend an easy to use, prosumer camera for such. I'll soon be upgrading to a new MacBook Pro.
Thanks so much.

iMovie 11 is a great way to go if you want to spend most of your time thinking about your message and filming the footage. iMovie is very fast and ideal for this.
As long as your movies are five to 20 minutes long,
You will be very happy with iMovie.
If over time you decide to make feature length documentaries, it is time to invest in the Final Cut products.
If you go to the iMovie Support page on the Apple website you can find a list of supported cameras.
My recommendation would be to choose a camera from Panasonic, Sony, or Canon that shoots AVCHD and records onto an SDHC card. But many other formats will also work.

Similar Messages

Premiere Pro CC 2014 Crashing and Bogging Down on Documentary Film Project

We have been working in Premiere on this documentary film for months.
As we reach completion it is beginning to really bog down and crash a lot.
Equipment is
iMac 27 inch 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 Late 2013 Model
Apple Cinema HD Display
32 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB Graphics Card
1TB internal SSD Drive
We are running Premiere Pro CC 2014.0.1 and have remained there because we don't want to upgrade the software in the middle of the project.
The media is all on the external drive. It's a USB 3.0 connection. There is quite a lot of footage that we are working with.
We do have some After Effects comps that are linked in the project and we have exported the ones that are complete as QuickTimes to try to stop that from bogging us down.
Any advice on how we can manage this crashing and freezing problem would be much appreciated.
We don't have the cash to upgrade the computer and it has been working pretty well for us so far.
Here are things we have done:
Made a smaller timeline because we were working on one that was the entire movie.
Turned off the secondary monitor and unplugged it.
We are looking at moving the render cache off the external drive to a thunderbolt drive, but I'm concerned that this may take a long time.
Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Splitting up the read/write items is rather a key to getting smoother operation out of PrPro. Either that or putting things on a large RAID-0/5, this sort of thing is covered over on the
Tweaker's Page ...
http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page
And I highly recommend you take a look. Their info isn't just "we think ... " ... but the results of many many carefully crafted test sequences run on many machines with all sorts of hardware bits & pieces. You can also register, download the PBM test and run it on your own machine. It takes only a little while to do so, and with the logger app that's included and posting the results back to them, you can get a very good breakdown on where your machine is doing ok ... and where any choke points are occurring.
I think this would be good for you right now ... you need to get stuff done, not guess & try things.
Neil

Workflow Documentary Film

I am currently setting up a documentary film with about 100 hours of footage so far. The footage is mainly shot on Canon 5D, T4i, and C300. There is also some footage from iPad, iPhone and we will be adding news clips of various formats.
One of the reasons I love Premiere is that you can edit in various formats and importing is a piece of cake. However, I am concerned that down the line if we have to work with a production house on the audio and color correction of the movie, if we will have problems. The post houses that we have talked with often have an Avid workflow and then use DaVinci for color correction.
I suppose the big question is, if I start editing natively in the formats in which we shot, is it going to be very difficult in the end when a post house wants to take the timeline into Da Vinci and are there other considerations I haven't even thought of.
I know this is kind of a loaded question, but if it can't be answered here, I'd love to be directed to a resource for this information. I am recommending we user Premiere on this project because I love working with it and I think it is more advanced than anything out there. But I don't want to end up wrong at the end when we have to bend over backwards to "online" it or color correct it.
Thanks in advance.

yeah, that's pretty loaded up question... and you'll get many different answers. I don't know anyone who's done that mix of footage for eventual move to outside color grade and so on.
Many will say edit native no matter what it is , simply ( as you know ) " it can be done ". I don't personally like that mental state myself but I am not experienced or pro at this. Like, if your 5d stuff is mov h264 you edit that native , and if you're on pc OS don't to to cineform or something.. or on mac to pro res ...I have no clue what you got to work with ( version of adobe or platform )
I'm shooting nikon d800 which on cards is mov h264 but got a little ninja to get avid 422 out of HDMI.. if I didn't do THAT I'd probably go to cineform for my pc using cs6.
So you got a lot going on ...mixing all that stuff etc... and the edits you do and effects etc have something to do with the overall quality of your renders ( if you do any ) and your export ( if you do or dont use renders )
I'd be interested in what you find out and hope to follow this thread to learn what YOU learn...
I guess you have to work backwards a little bit.. like, what will the ultimate export be for the davinci and then the delivery ?.. and whether you suddenly find out some bug nobody discovered before you got crazy !

Best approach to making Documentary in iM 6

I am making a Documentary of my Parents life. I have around 5 hours of DV tape of them sitting on a couch and talking. Not terribly exciting to watch, so I want to import scanned photos (stills) using the audio as a bed for the still. It seems to be very cumbersome and slow to extract audio, then dump the video, import the still, apply Ken Burns, get the audio and still in sincronization . . . .
And then the audio gets out of sinc with each subsequent edit.
My question is, what is the best process? Should I extract all the audio first, then splice in the photos? I am sure this can be done better with FCx or FCp, but I don't have these programs and want to stay with iM6.
Jerry

Extract all the audio first.
It may take quite a while (..the latest iMovie does the job differently from earlier versions..) so go and have a few cups of coffee while it's all extracting ..or a meal, or watch a film!
When it's all extracted, you'll have your "audio bed" below the video, and in sync with it.
[NOTE: 'Extracting' simply silences the original clip(s), and copies the audio onto the track below. So you can always "re-instate" the original audio, back into the video clip(s), just by raising the audio level of the relevant clip(s) from zero to 100%.]
When you use transitions, though, to dissolve the "talking heads" into a still photo, or something else, the entire video is shortened by the same duration as the transition you're using (except for the 'Overlap' transition).
This means that whenever you use a transition - instead of a straight cut - to change between the "talking heads" and a still photo, the video will become OUT OF SYNC with the separate audio track.
So just before and after any transition, you may want to split the relevant audio clip(s), so that after adding your transition you can jiggle the audio along the audio track to reposition it in sync with the video.
Here's a simple diagram:
..and you can see it in more detail if you choose 'Start Slideshow' after clicking on this link.
Note that there's an easy method in iMovie to paste a still over (..and remove..) unwanted video: click on iMovie HD and Preferences, and tick the box marked 'Extract audio when using "Paste Over At Playhead"'. Then import your photo from iPhoto (..using Ken Burns or not ..whatever you prefer). The photo will appear at your playhead position, or at the end of the movie.
If it's at the end of the movie, select it and use Apple+'X' to copy-&-cut it, then put your playhead where you want the pic to be and on the top-line menu use 'Advanced' and 'Paste Over at Playhead' ..or just the shortcut ShiftApple'V' to Insert at that point.
That substitutes your photo for the original video, but leaves the audio intact, instead of your rather long-winded "..extract audio, then dump the video, import the still, apply Ken Burns, get the audio and still in sincronization.."
Do your video in small chunks, so that you're not ceaselessly jumping through huge lengths of video ..but note especially that marking places in your video with 'Bookmarks' will let you jump instantly forward and backward to them, instead of having to scroll through all that material.
Edit your video in chunks of, say, 20 mins at a time. That makes it easier on your Mac, and lets you keep track more easily of what you're doing.
When you're satisfied with your 1st twenty mins, start a new project and work on the next 20 mins. You'll pick up speed and start to work far faster. Then you may want to finally go back to the first two segments and "tweak' them a bit, when you've learned, by experience, a few more shortcuts!

Using iPhone for making short films...

I recently completed an action short film by only filming with my phone, then editing it later with Final Cut Pro.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2IzWkIkjVc
I was wondering how other people's successes with making iPhone short films have been?
Thanks!

Use the feedback link.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
Russ

HELP: Making Highlight Film

Hi guys,
I'm putting together a football highlight film and I was wondering if someone could help me with an editing technique.
Ever watch Sportscenter and they will make the screen dark except highlight one player with a circle before the play starts? I'm trying to do that and have no idea how. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks again for the help.
-Duke

Video 1: Source Footage
Video 2: Black Video or Black Color Matte with opacity set as desired.
Video 3: Shape you want to use as the spot shadow - make it in the titler and fill it with pure white.
Apply the track matte key to the black video. Select Video 3 as the matte source. Reverse the key.
The choice matte luma or matte alpha is up to you depending on the look you want.

Making a film cut from iphone clips (long clips)

dear forum,
can tell me how to make a session from many video clips (2 hours) taken with iphone 4s without loosing quality (in final cut express)
Thanx

You can't. Final Cut Express was not designed to edit highly compressed formats.
Use Mpeg Streamclip to convert the h.264 formated clips to AIC (apple intermediate codec) and edit away.
Yes, the material may take a hit, but it will be small and, given the quality of the lens on the phone, probably not all that noticable.
Or, purchase Final Cut X or Premiere Pro. They will work with h.264 format clips without the need to transcode to an all I frame format.
Good luck,
x

Documentary Film Guys Camera Guide

Can some of you give me some recommendations to a good HD camera for interviews / doc style work? Not sure if I should go with tape, hard drive or card. I'd like to have:
1) good quality
2) portability
3) easy loading to Mac/FCP
4) great audio
I'd like to spend $1000 or less.

I don't know how professional you need the quality to be. I've worked with the Canon GL2 extensively and think it's a great camera for the price. It's not HD, but very good quality. If you really want HD, I would suggest the Canon AH1. If you really want to stay under $1000, I'd suggest Canon and Panasonic brands. Look for a camera with 3CCD, a good size LCD screen and viewfinder, a good zoom (20x optical), 30p recording option, external mic connection, and easy white-balance controls.
As for format, it depends on how quickly you need the raw footage transferred to the computer for editing. Tape is excellent quality, but has to be imported in real-time. Hard drives are great, but sometimes record video in non-FCP friendly formats. Some are auto-converted by FCP, but then take up a lot more space than video that doesn't need conversion. I would recommend you stay away from card because they don't offer much recording time.
Other accessories I'd recommend:
Bogen Manfrotto tripod
Kata soft camera case
Shure brand microphones
Places to shop:
for cameras: www.jandr.com
for accessories: www.bhphotovideo.com

Film Edit Process Q's & Reconnect Conflicts

I am one of two assistant editors on an independent feature film, shot on 35m, transferred to BetaSp pal for edit. FTL files (from the lab) are imported,
Batchlists and Database folders created. Our clips are then digitized from the batchlists in FCP. We edit at 24fps, video is converted through Cinema Tools and merged with the audio tracks when synced in FCP. (we are using the basic sync by clap system) Assistants have now started editing on multiple computers. We copy the editors project, all of the respected folders
(FTL, BATCH CAPTURE, DATABASE, etc) the media and seperate sound folders to our two 250-500GB Lacie fw drives. We work seperatly, finish a sequence, then take project files back to the editor's station; copy bins/sequences into his project and reconnect to the media that sits on his drives. Video always reconnects fine. When working with sync clips and reconnecting audio, I get this window, "some attrubutes of one or more files have chosen do not match attributes of original" 99% of the time the attribute conflict is listed as, "media start and end". Sometimes additional attributes: "reel, rate" are listed. I have the option of chosing "connect" anyway, and I've done a test with
this and even with "conflicts" sync appears fine. I want to be sure that everything happens smoothly with our audio post (sound designer working on a seperate system from our exported OMFs) and I want to be sure
that we output a good EDL. (we will be making a film cut to scan into "Luster", a DI system, and printing to negative from there) Also, what should we just
watch out for in this work process described? What are some pitfalls that I could be missing in copying media around, taking media off the assistant edit
drives, etc., as we work? Also for organizational purposes, I want to rename media folders (capture folder), where the clips were digitized into on the
editor's machine. (would like to reorganize media in general, intial organization untidy) Will this be a problem, most concern again for the EDL. Forgive me for some ignorance, first time working with film in edit. Appreciate any feedback. Thanks-
amysands

Hi Jim - thanks for your advice, wondering if I should I have headed your warning earlier - I expressed concerns to Steve about EDL export, turns out I ran into some problems recently when doing an EDL test. If you have some time, I'd greatly appreciate any information or help you can offer. Here is my long winded explanation of what happened. (again, I'm an assistant on an independent feature film - finally getting back to the forum after being buried for a bit)
OUR PROCESS:
1) Film format: 35m 3perf, (plus some Super 16mm).
2) Transferred to BetaSp PAL and Digibeta PAL.
3) FTL files (from telecine)copied and imported to CINEMA TOOLS, Database created. Batch Lists created.
4) Batch Lists imported to FCP, media digitized at 25fps. Media converted through Cinema Tools to 24fps. Media then “reconnected” in FCP.
5) Audio (at 24fps) imported and synced with video (using the basic sync by clap system). Clips are “merged” as we sync. Edit occurs in 24fps, timelines.
6) Finishing with DI - film negatives to be scanned, film print created.
EQUIPMENT:
FCP 5.0
Cinema Tools
G5, dual processor
Mac OS X 10.4.2
BlackLink Card
(assistants also working with copied media on an EMAC
and G4 Lap Top, projects transferred back to G5 system)
REDIGITIZING AND EDL ERRORS:
Our offline footage was digitized at DV-PAL compression from Beta SP (PAL). We had also telecined to matching Digibeta (PAL) tapes. Recently we tried to re-digitize for a trailer capturing at 8 bit compression. We brought in a Sony Digibeta deck with SDI cable.
Several problems occurred:
I tried first to export an EDL from FCP. In a new project, I imported the EDL and started to re-digitize. The system immediatly searched for timecode out of the ballpark from the tape (not even the same hour).
I was able to batch digitize from the sequence (still in a 24fps timeline). Media then had to be conformed to 24fps through Cinema Tools. In/Outs for the most part would match. However, maybe because our FTL codes were not broken into individual takes, huge source clips needed to be recaptured. For example, for a 30sec clip in the timeline, 6 minutes of footage was digitized. We had to capture large source files corresponding to our smaller edited clips. This took up more space and time then we had available.
Even after conforming the media to 24fps, some clips did not match the in/outs of the original sequence. 15% of the clips were not even batch digitized; tape numbers or clip names ignored all together in the batch digitize que. This occurred even with selecting “digitize online” clips function.
A seperate issue, but mastering back to digibeta was also unsuccessful. We tried rendering the sequence out at 25fps, (which took a huge amount of time) and then discovered that we could still not print to tape on the digibeta deck. It would not output at all - we got only a fuzzy green screen. We have tried both component / composite and SDI but its the same each time. We've also tried to output to a BetaSP deck - no result. In the end we exported quicktimes and outputted via firewire to DVCAM. I have since read that mastering back to Beta is commonly problematic.
Any insights as to why the digitization is erratic? Why the EDL is not working? The EDL is the most concerning problem - will need to eventually both work with high res footage and scan our negatives for the DI and print to film. Should I create an EDL through Cinema Tools? Am I missing something in the EDL settings maybe? Trying to do some quick reading on this as well - thanks guys for all the help -
Amy

Exporting the film in best quality for further editing

I am about to finish a 52-minute long documentary in Final Cu Express. I've been editing in HD, using Apple Intermediate Codec1080i50.
Part of the project files and render files are in an external G-Raid and other part are on my Macbook pro hard drive, Since I will be traveling, I would like to be careful and minimize the risk of something happening either to the G-Raid or to my Mac, therefore, I want to export the film as it is, although in the future I still might need to work on it - do some more final editing and definitely do the subtitles in DVD Pro (currently I don't have the DVD Pro). My question is whether I should be using export - quick time movie or quick time conversion - and what the settings would be for the best quality product that could be used in documentary film screenings and possibly shown on TV? Or how should I go about saving the project? Right now the project file only has references to the files, right, not the files themselves and if something happens I might lose it all...
Thanks for the help!

QuickTime Movie. Forget the render filed, they seldom reconnect properly; it's usually better just to re-render. Keep your G-RAID and make sure it is backed up together with your project.

Documentary with slide show & video

I would like to make a documentary film.. What software would you suggest to modify a video which is on windows 7 computer? I am using Lightroom 5 for the photos and thought I could add the short video sections and photos(slideshow) together? I would like to ultimately come out with a documentary film. I am 100% novice and would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks you, Bob

Slideshows exported as video will play in the Adobe Media Player, Quicktime player and Windows Media player 12 (as well as quite a few other players, the best being VLC). The first two work on widows XP, Vista and 7 and OSX, the windows media player 12 on Windows Vista and 7. They must have a video player installed on their system to play the slideshows. All these are free for them to download. If they haven't got one of these players installed, other than suggesting that they do so, there is not a lot you can do...

FCP and negative film color correction? Any experience?

Hello There,
I'm running into more and more low budget filmmakers who are trying there hand at making short films in Super 8 movie film (yes, it's still around believe it or not). Kodak has two new film stocks out for Super 8 and one is 200T and the other is 500T (both cut down from their pro 16mm and 35mm pro stocks).
When these filmmakers get this stuff developed they don't have the money to have it transferred at a pro shop so they are using equipment made by a company in Texas that does a very good job at transferring the film, but it doesn't have the adjustments needed to make negative film look the way it should.
I know a few people who color correct it with FCP and FCE and they can actually make it look fairly good.
My question is: is there a plug in or other software that can be used that is meant to do this? Or does anyone have any experience on this site with color correcting negative film with FCP? If so, what filters do you use?
Any thoughts or comments would be great to hear from. Remember, I know this can be done by the big players, what I want to know can it be done with FCP and still look fairly good?
Thanks for your help,
Mike

Well, this is pretty easy. Just throw a CHANNEL>INVERT on the negative footage before you color correct. You might have to do that before you even begin editing, as that turns the negative image into a positive one. It isn't Real Time though, so you'll have to render all the time...every cut. Unless you add the filter an export a self contained QT Movie of each tape. But then you lose time code.
So why do they do this again? Cheaper...OK. Ease? Not really.
Shane

Running a dv film festival on keynote

I am potentialy involved in making a film festival presentation and thought that keynote would be good to use, the presentation file could end up with somewhere around an hours worth of video files in it, or maybe more, and i also plan on having movie files with the lower third graphics playing with transparency over resized dv footage. And this thing simply can not crash or freeze since it is a film festival (i will hopefully have backup computers) does anybody have experience with this kind of thing? is there anything i should be thinking about to make sure this thing works, or is keynote even the best choice of programs for something like this?
Thanks!

I wouldn't trust Keynote to not stutter once in a while on your video. The better way to do a film festival would be to have several machines all running through a video mixer capable of keying out certain colors. Use one machine to run Keynote (for regular slides), one machine to cue videos from (running QT Pro for full screen ability or some other video cuing app) and then possibly yet another machine that's running your lower thirds (though you could make those in Keynote and use the mixer to key out a background color of your choice, leaving only the lower third over the video).
If you're wanting to go completely low budget, Keynote can probably do what you want, but I just wouldn't trust it for performance. Sometimes you'll see no problems, other times videos will just stutter a lot.

OT: So if I wanted to get into non-orchestral music for film...etc

I know there are a few film guys here. Thought you might through some advice my way. Few years ago I did some stuff for the discovery channel. Also worked on some music for a documentary film. Just last week I got handed a job doing the music for a short film. Anyway this recent job made me think this could be fun. So I'm thinking of exploring. But not really sure where to start. All of my previous experiences came through who I knew. And I'm sure who you know is a big part of it, but I don't know that many people so.... Yeah any ideas.

LOL!!!
Touche mon frere!!!
PS you need a lot of time to set it up properly.
"Christian Jacob - Timelines"
One week to set up the 3 instruments,drums,bass and piano...
4 days to record...
3 days to mix...
1 day to master.
Used a Neve 8048 desk,2" Quantegy GP9 tape at 15ips,with Dobly SR,and hitting at +5dBu.Only EQ'd about half the drumkit.Mainly filtering out the low end from the overheads,and added little "sparkle" on the piano track to compensate for the high end loss inherent in the tape.
Check it out...
http://www.rhapsody.com/christianjacob/timelines
Cheers

24p vs 30p for a documentary

Hi all. So I'm dipping my toe into the documentary film pool and I need to purchase a better camera. I have narrowed it down to the Panisonic AG-DVX100* or Panasonic AG-DVC30. The DVC30 is a hair cheaper but it doesn't have 24p. Two questions.
-How noticeable is the difference between 24p and 30p?
and
-Can FCE actually handle 24p?
I've been searching the discussion board and I'm just a little confused on the matter. I'm sure one of you with some experience could clear it up for me. I want this first film to look good but it doesn't have to be immaculate. From what I understand, FCE can't handle 24p but it can handle 30p (29.97). Am I correct? This will help me in my decision process between the two cameras. Has anyone had experience with the AG-DVC30? I've heard nothing but rave reviews of the DVX100. Thanks in advance.
MacBook Pro 1.83 ghz 2gb Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Last weekend I rented a Panasonic AG-DVX100B. I chose the F5 preset for 24p (not advanced), cine-like, etc.
When I imported it into FCE 3.5 I got 30-interlaced.
I tried re-importing into a fresh, new project in FCE but FCE still shows the imported videos as 30-interlaced. I've double-checked the camera settings and it's definitely recording 24p.
Any idea what might have gone wrong?
TIA,
--Richard
G4/867 Tower Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Making documentary films

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