Starting a fcs post production business ?

Hi,
I have been a freelancer fcp editor for 5 years- I have an edit suite at home but most of my work is for post house's & direct clients & find myself now looking at the possibility of starting my own edit suites for hire. Does anyone here have any thoughts on this subject , maybe you recently started your own business & have some helpful advice ? with the pitfalls & rewards on starting your own post prod business.
I have a good idea of the market Im in - I guess I'm now in a position to invest in a space & setup a facility that will hopefully up my game.
What are the essentials in getting started - in terms of hiring people to bring in more clients also equipment -ie - servers for storage etc etc.
Thanks for any helpful advice - greatly appreciated.

I wouldn't hire anyone until you absolutely half to, and even then, consider contracting.
Keeping customers is way cheeper, and easier, than getting new ones, find ways to get people coming back to you, maybe benefits for repeat customers?

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Post production on an iMac

Hi guys, though still having a few probs with the iMac not seeing my video camera, I'm still hunting for suggestions for post production work. I bought the iMac to replace my aging PC editing machine and now in need for advice.
Once my video is editing, titled and ready for export..
(A) What's best to use to turn it over into a DVD? I would plan to make images of these dvds for redistribution later. Once the initial DVD is done, I have no qualms taking it over to the PC to take care of that re-burning task but what's best to use on the iMac for the master DVD?
(B) I then take my edited video and convert it to .WMV for redistribution online, at 720X480 resolution which gives me a roughly 275 meg file for about 40 mins of downloadable video. What's best used to convert an AVI to WMV on an iMac?
(C) Though WMV files are small and viewable by just about all computer systems, is there something else out there that is comparable or better in quality / size ratio that works better and faster?
Once I get my video camera 'seen' by the system I can then start to play with iMovie & iDVD to get started on this.. right now still struggling on a dying PC which the iMac is to replace..
Cheers

hi Chris, thanks for the helpful information. Right now the iMac is in the shop, having been verified that is indeed has a working FW buss and ports. I'm bringing my DVC30 video camera (firewire) to the shop this morning to see if the knowledgeable gentleman there can get it working for me. Hopefully so, this is the whole purpose of purchasing the iMac in the first place..
Being a PC person, I had always blaked at anything QuickTime, always going for the WMV version of anything when I visited sites that offered videos to view. Don't know really, prolly from an initial turnoff in the earlier pooting days.
I've just finished another video production run last night with the dying PC. Using Premiere 6.5 I export the edited work as AVI movie, and then the 45 minute video in wmv in 640X768 (768kps), simply converted using Movie Maker which leaves me with a file size roughly in the 300-310 megs size which is OK for my visitors to download. Just simple editing, titling, transitions, colour corrections etc. We're not talking about award winning production work here but after 95 titles, I think it's time I start looking at spicing things up.
I have a friend with FC (E or P) who is going to show me what she's doing with it (I learn better hands on than from a book) and see what the end results look like.. If I can get better visual quality at the same file size, I'll be happy. If the file size comes down and vis qual goes up, I'll be even happier =)
So hopefully, by the time I get home tonight, with iMac in tow, working with the vid camera, I'll at least be able to give iVideo a shot and see if that works for my needs.. might not need to dish out the FCE coins.
Thanks again.

Remove water spot on lens in Post Production

I've looked around but haven't seen this question yet.
Can I remove a spot that was on my your lens while I was shooting and remove it in post production?
I have CS4 and FCS 2 to work with.

Yes, very nice. Thank you.
But, do I have to go get footage of a grey card? Reason I ask, is because I only rent cameras and don't own a nice one to begin with. Plus, this is only for the board of directors over at Virgin America. Is there a way to add a gray matte instead? Nob questions, sorry.
It was a raining day on the 14th in the early morning. My camera had a bag but water still got in.
Ughh, its also in too many shots to fix it.
I'll post it here when I'm done.
Oh Les, I was gonna add you on Facebook but couldn't find your profile. Do you have Facebook or LinkedIn by chance?
Thanks for you help.
Jesse Dean (facebook)

Post Production

Hello, some of you may know me fro, the past, but as things changes
I coming back to this question.
Now that we doing HD Videos and the Standard is H264
Which Post Production format / Codec should I use that is compatible
but lossless of close to that, for clips to be saved and used later
in other projects....
Thanks
( Premiere Pro CS6 on Windows 7-64b )

Choose a frame size and rate that matches your highest quality shooting format.
If you are shooting predominantly 25P then choose 1920x1080 HD 25fps progressive.
Your preview codec will be just for previews (unless you choose to use them in your final render). You could use DNX185x or ProRes 422 or any host of other intermediate codecs. The higher quality you go for here will use up storage space / bandwidth/ processing power.
Adobe have taken on Cineform and will likely start promoting that as their recommended, cross-platform, intermediate codec. (Avid have DNX, Apple have ProRes)
When you complete a project it would make sense to keep 2 master versions in a high quality, editable, codec. One of those would be the finished master, from which you would strike H264 copies for distribution, the other would be the split track, textless version for when you want to use a bit of that master in a project in the future and don't want to have to try and reconnect thousands of source files.

I want to be able to tweak the graphic equalizer in real time while recording - and have this have the audible effect written to the recording. At the moment i have to go into post-production and manually set the graph equalizer at various time points .

i want to be able to tweak the graphic equalizer in real time while recording - and have this have the audible effect written to the recording.
At the moment i have to go into post-production and manually set the graph equalizer at various time points ...

This won't be real-time as you record, but you could tweak the EQ in real-time after the recording thus:
Record what you want to tweak into GB with no effects.
Solo the track and output it into something like Audacity.
Start Audacity recording, then play your track in GB as you make those tweaks. That's what Audacity will record.
Get that file from Audacity and put it into GB, then you'll have that effect.
Sorry if it's complicated, but that's what came to mind. Hope it works.

What are the benefits (if any) to transcoding to an intermediate editing format for post-production?

I have been searching for a definitive answer to this for days and cannot get anything useful.
My video camera records to AVCHD format which is 24mbps H.264 plus audio (I record audio separately so audio is not a concern). I use the Adobe CC suite on Windows. I do a lot of green-screen work.
I have read about many intermediate codecs designed for editing video. These include Avid's DNxHD, Apple's ProRes, GoPro's Cineform, MXF OP1a, among others. From what I understand, these formats provide excellent features to help video editors do their work.
I have been able to edit AVCHD files directly using Premiere Pro and After Affects.
My question is, what benefits, if any, would I get if I transcoded my content from AVCHD to one of the intermediate formats before I begin editing? Would it speed up Adobe's software? Would it provide better quality in the end? Would it make various effects function better?
Ultimately, all the video I make is going to be encoded in h.264 for web distribution.
Please note: I am not asking for the easiest or most obvious workflow (which is to just to work directly with AVCHD files). I want to know if I can gain benefits in transcoding to another format before I being post-production and what those benefits are specifically for each of the various intermediate codecs.
Thank you.

Like almost everything, there's tradeoffs. Transcoding to a really high-end single-file codec like Cineon or Cineform would mean that say the file size could be somewhat larger on disc ... more data to read ... however, LESS work by the other subsystems to get those io oo ii oo oo io io io oi bits changed into "video" on the monitor. There are several articles and tutorials out there on this that give really useful information. And there are a LOT of people that put something out because they personally think this or that codec is THE proper way a professional should work, and any other codec is nearly obscene in use. Right, whatever. They're all tools.
As shooternz showed ... properly shot AVCHD can be green-screened beautifully, and as there are a LOT of the "pro" cameras in use shooting that wrapper, there are a lot of people that simply process in that. There are others that automatically transcode everything to ProRes 4444 before editing because they feel that gives them the best, safest "space" for their pixels to live. Pick any major codec/wrapper, it will have adherents.
I've tried just a bit of greening just to play with it ... and got rather intriguing results. It reminded me of starting out trying to do good still portraits on high-key sweep backgrounds without getting "haze" or scatter from too-much-light coming back at the lens while getting the right exposure on the subject and keeping the entire high-key area of the sweep the same white ... it's rather daunting at first. After we mastered it, we could do it at will ... first time every time. Green-screening is a similar thing. Perhaps on steroids, but similar. HOW it's shot is incredibly important to being able to post-process both cleanly and quickly. I've seen quite a few comments about this here and elsewhere ... and though there are clean-up & masking techniques one does need to master, clearly ... one needs clean footage to be able to quickly get clean post work. So many people have noted that after spending so much time working on their masking & color-correction of bits here & there they also got their shooting skills up. And found that suddenly they didn't need anywhere near the clean-up skills or time spent.
So I'd think off-hand that the AVCHD isn't the most pressing problem here ... that a bit of experience in the absolute tight control of exposure and lighting in the shooting setup may well take care of much of the post problems. And then you can concentrate on those skills you do need ... the fine techniques of this particular process ... to get your work completely polished.
And listening to shooternz on this isn't a bad thing at all ... his techniques are tight & fast. I've asked him for a number of things and have adopted every one of them.
Neil

I want to start Manufacturing Of Apple Products In India,Whats the procedure to start this?

Hi Team,
I want to start Manufacturing Of Apple Products In India,Whats the procedure to start this? as we all know growing market of india, if we start manufacturing of apple products in india,it will be very-very helpfull for growing apple industry.
Sachin
[email protected]

Trying to justify not reading the Terms of Use simply proves that an individual is incapable of understanding the purposes of these forums.
Also, if the individual has failed to read the Terms of Use, for what silly reason would Apple (or any company) want to do business with that individual?

HT201302 I am trying to copy photos from an iPad to a Mac Air, but iPhoto does not recognize them Do you have to use PhotoStream to do this. Please forgive the ignorance, but we have just started moving to apple products and I know nothing about them. Tha

I am trying to copy photos from an iPad to a Mac Air, but iPhoto does not recognize them. Please forgive the ignorance, but we have just started moving to apple products and I know nothing about them. Do you have to use PhotoStream to do this?

How did the photos that you want to copy off get on the iPad ? To copy photos to your computer that were taken with the iPad, copied to it via the camera connection kit, or saved from emails/websites then see this page - on a Mac you should be able to use iPhoto, Aperture or Image Capture
To copy photos that were originally synced from a computer you will need a third-party app on your iPad such as Simple Transfer which can copy them off via your wifi network. But as photos are 'optimised' when they are synced to the iPad, any that you then copy back to a computer may not be exactly the same as they originally were on your computer.

Error in Start SAP system (Post Processing)

Hi.,
I got an error during IDES installation in the step "Start SAP system (Post Processing)".
The details of START.LOG is as follows
running sapstart.exe GML 00 xyz -wait
Start service SAP_00 on machine
OpenSCManager of
failed. Error#: 6
CreateNamedPipe for
\pipe\SAP_00 Failed, Extended Error #123
Start service SAP_00 on machine
OpenSCManager of
failed. Error#: 6
Start (StartSAPService) failed.
sapparam(1c): No Profile used.
sapparam: SAPSYSTEMNAME neither in Profile nor in Commandline
Kindly help me out in this regard.
Thanks in Advance,
Sridhar

Sridhar,
Check the path for the profile (whether it is accessible or not). Just to make sure that system has been installed properly, you could try connection check to the database also.
Thanks.
regards,
Murali

Bridge not saving toning/applying post production - like 20K images to tone!!

Hi - Am desperate - have 10 weddings to do post production on and my bridge is acting up.
I am having a bridge isssue - when I apply the toning/cropping/color correction to images and press done it is not saving the work. In addition when I do the work in bridge and then choose save as it just save them as untoned JPGSs. It does not apply the raw conversion or xmp data.
In addition it is only happening in half the images in the folders not all of them. And it's not camera specific it's random.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
[email protected]

I am having a bridge isssue - when I apply the toning/cropping/color correction to images and press done it is not saving the work. In addition when I do the work in bridge and then choose save as it just save them as untoned JPGSs. It does not apply the raw conversion or xmp data.
Bridge is only a file browser without editing capacities (except the export panel but that has been discontinued in Bridge CC) and reflects the content of your folders. If you make changes in ACR using either selecting via PS or via Bridge any changes should be visible wether you have hit done or save in ACR.
If you have other results, especially random difference it looks like a cache problem to me. So point the Content panel to a problem folder and use menu tools / cache / purge cache for folder and check if this solves your problem.

How to White balance in post production

I am working on a project that was used by two cameras, but one of the cameras white balance is different than the other. Is it possible to match the white balance in post production in final cut express so that the video quality looks very similar (without one seeming bright orange than the other)? Thank You for any help with this topic.

FCE has a Color Corrector in Browser>Effects>Color Correction>Color Corrector.
When you adjust one cameras clip to match the other you can copy and paste attributes to other clips
Al.

White Balance & Post Production

Hi,
My client gave me an interview she conducted to edit. The white balance is horrible. Is there anyway for me to fix this problem during post-production? I've been playing around with color correction and desaturation.
I'd appreciate any feedback.
Thanks
Power MacPro Mac OS X (10.4.1)

How much time do you have to turn this project around? In the Peachpit Apple Training Series, there is a training book titled "Advanced Color Correction and Effects in Final Cut Pro 5" that is an excellent resource for this.
It teaches you how to color correct using the four FCP scopes to get it right.
The Auto White function in Color Corrector 3-Way will put you in the ballpark IF there is a white object in the shot. If not, then you're on your own.

Critique my W530 Build for Post-Production Work

Hi everyone!
Please critique the following W530 build for post-production use. Primary applications in use are After Effects, Photoshop, Maya, Boujou, PFTrack, Mocha Pro. Was highly considering the Macbook Pro 15" Retina and the HP Ultrabook. But seems the Thinkpad has the best performance/price ratio in a decently portable form factor. Switching from the Mac side so guidance would be much appreciated!
Purchasing from Lenovo online store:
CPU - Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor (8M Cache, up to 3.70 GHz)
GPU - NVIDIA Quadro K2000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
RAM - 8 GB DDR3 - 1600MHz (2 DIMM)
HDD - 500GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
Optical Drive - DVD Recordable
Total - $1,663.78
Buying separately:
512GB Samsung 830 Series SSD (Will replace with 500GB 7200rpm Drive)
Add 180GB SSD or 1TB 7200 RPM HD in Optical drive
Add 16 to 32 GB of RAM
My questions:
Will it be possible for me to do as I've said above (install a Samsung 830 series 512 GB as my Primary disk in place of the 500GB my laptop will ship with?
Can I put another SSD or a full TB with atleast 7200RPM in place of the DVD Recordable optical drive?
I want to upgrade the RAM to 16 or maybe even 32GB for excellent AE/Premiere performance. What clock freq RAM do you suggest/does it matter? If I want 32GB in total, how much should I get from Lenovo and which RAM do you suggest I add.
Any other suggestions on improving this build? Other brands you would recommend looking into?

My build and final specs I've gone with for a similair configuration (heavy VM use, some video editing, some 3D CAD/CAM work in SketchUp and older games like TF2).
As Shipped:
CPU - Intel Core i7-3720QM ($200 for less than 5% performance improvement from the 3820 isn't worth it)
GPU - K2000M (Twice the CUDA, worth it, newer video editors take full advantage)
RAM - 4GB RAM shipped
HDD - 320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive (See notes below for the trick)
Bay - Blank Travel Bezel
Upgrades:
RAM - 32GB DDR3 1600Mhz PC12800 from G.Skill
HDD - 240GB Mushkin Atlas mSATA SSD main boot drive, ~200MB/second random read/write worst-case
HDD - Software RAID-0 Dual 1TB Western Digital AV-25 hard drives, ~200MB/second sequential read/write
They've closed this loophole when I just checked, but you WERE previously able to order a W530 w/ a minimal 5400RPM low-power 320GB hard drive and NO CD/DVD drive (which but $180 off the price) by adding, then removing, the hardware RAID option.
The dual 1TB drives can push 200MB/second easily for sequential throughput when rendering or playing through video, and the SSD can keep up for random read/write as a scratch drive. I will recommend ONLY allocating 200GB of the SSD so there's extra redundancy, that's what I did at least.
But honestly, the 3820 isn't worth the $200 premium for 3.7Ghz versus 3.6Ghz CPU speed, spend that on the graphics card and/or buying the RAM and/or an SSD later.

Post production support Issues

Gurus,
Can anyone provide me with PA/OM production support issues with the solutions..will be obliged
Regards
Eliz

Hi Eliz,
For the post production issues like,
1. create new employee sub groups,
2. create new payroll area
3. create new wage type( transport allowance) in infotype15
4. delimit the wagetypes which may allowances will not pay future.
5. payslip error
6. employee getting double pay
7. configure of new nationality
8. configure of addtional dependents
9. create new infotypes for schools, dependent visa's etc.
Hope you cleared
Vijay

Graininess: How to filter it out in post-production?

Hi, all,
I've just imported 3 nights' worth of footage with iMovie HD 6. The camcorder was unmanned the first night (sadly) and the second night I noticed quite a bit of graininess (probably due to the lighting of me being way in the back dimly lit, and the subject being up front with some overhead lighting.) Fixed that up with the camcorder settings for the 3rd night (after visiting www.hv20.com).
Soooo.... is there any way to fix up the footage from the first two nights in post-production with iMovie HD 6? Are there any settings to look at within the app (I'm new to it.) Are there any plug-ins or another app entirely that would help?
Thanks so much!
Deborah
PS in iMovie 08, you can just pick a clip and boost the sound up to 200% Is there a similarly easy way to boost the sound in iMovie HD 6?

consumer camcorders do some marvel: they work in a bright sunlighted winter landsacpe, and with the 'light' of 3 candles under the chrismas tree.
when doing nightshots, your camera rises the gain extremely => 'grain'/noise.
I don't know of any effect, which allows to 'vanish' that.. adding a slight blurr to that scenery would erase the noise, but.. < caugh > blurrs the pics. (this is a widely discussed issue for still photographers too = same probs, even with pro tool Photoshop ..)
there's a free tool http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html#JVC claiming to reduce noise.. never used it, try on your own..
you can raise the volume by rasing the 'rubber band' in the audio track.
some people recommend, to copy/paste the same audio track, which should improve level (never tried).. iMHD6 has limits in audio processing, an export of audio only into some audioapp as Garageband or Audacity and a re-import into your IM project is recommended.

Starting a fcs post production business ?

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