Workflow FCP - AE - Color ??

Hi all,
I'm working on a post-production of a music video and I'm bit confused about the best post-production workflow. The film has been shot with Nikon D90 camera, and I've converted the files to ProRes422 for editing in FinalCutPro. Arter editing, I will need to do some effects in After Effects and I would like to do the color-correction in Color.
So the questing is, what would be the best order to do things? In AE I have lot of keying and compositing to do. I can move the files from FCP to AE with XML-script, but after AE it will be one rendered clip which is bad for Color. But if I do Color before AE, my compositions and effects won't get the look.. So how would you do this so that the quality stays best and it's easiest to handle?
Thank you in advance,

Thank you David for your answer,
I've done many productions with ProRes and It's working great. Nowadays I do most everything with it. I think I won't have problems with the audio. It's a music video, so no sound-editing.
I naturally won't NEED XML for moving to AE, but it makes things a lot easier. I just export the XML from FCP, and import it to AE by using script from Popcorn Island (http://www.popcornisland.com/category/after-effects/) (It's kinda same as Automatic Duck, but free..) So this way I get everything to AE on separate tracks without rendering and can do all the transitions and fx stuff there. I often do some rough compositions and movements in FCP, and the keyframes transit as well, so I can tweak them in AE. It's really nice way to work.
I don't really use lowrez, my machine works fast enough with full quality clips.
Usually I finish the whole thing in AE and just render it out, but the actual questiong is combining Color to this thing. This time I would like to finish in Color. I haven't used Color before, so this triangle of programs is a new situation for me.
Actually when writing this my friend suggested of using EDL like this:
So maybe like:
FCP -> XML to AE
Render AE -> to FCP
FCP -> EDL of the original file to Color,
and finally Color -> back to FCP and to Compressor...
I haven't tried it yet but I will tomorrow and let you know if it works.
Still I would love to hear better ways to do this. I'm sure there are people who are doing this everyday, so good hints are appreciated..
Thanks in advance, and sorry for bad grammar..

Similar Messages

Workflow FCP to STP to Color efficiency

I was hoping someone with a bit more experience might be able to explain to me my limitations. I am trying to be as efficient as possible when working with Final Cut Studio.
Typically, I have been doing my edits in Final Cut Pro and then roundtripping to Soundtrack Pro and then finishing with a roundtrip from FCP to Color.
•Is there a way have 2 individuals - one work on STP and one work in Color - work at the same time on the same edited sequence after video edits have been made in FCP?
•Can I roundtrip the same sequence to both programs (STP and Color) at the same time and have 2 separate machines work on the same file?
I would love to be able to speed up my post production work. I do not have Final Cut Server; is there any way to do something like this?
Thanks!

Hi Jim,
Many thanks - this has helped a lot and I can now work on the audio with each clip and the resulting file size has gone down to a fraction of the original.
Any thoughts on the 2nd part of my question around audio tracks? As mentioned my Sony A1 seems to have captured two tracks and I need to discard one (the onboard mic). If I do this by simply deleting the 2nd Audio track in FCP when I open the track 1 in STP I can see it again. I guess by removing it from the FCP timeline does not result in removing the track from the referenced file that is sent to STP.
Tried converting tracks to mono in STP, saving and returning to FCP but then I get a 'reconnect missing media' error as the number of tracks has changed. When I reconnect it works fine (mono audio from both left and right) but the red \ through the file name audio symbol is still shown against the STP file name in the FCP browser. Suppose I can live with this but the red \ is probably telling me that I am doing something wrong!!
Thanks once again for the help so far,
Regards, Mike

The Color doesn´t recognize the clips´time when I send from FCP to COLOR

I have a big problem. When I send from FCP to Color does not recognize the mounting clips. In each plane is everything and not the s 2 or 4 seconds it had in the assembly of the FCP.
I have worked with Color more times and have not had that problem.
Anyone can help me?. Can it be the codecs, the times of the FCP, the settings of COLOR?
Could you help me, please ?

subpaper clips.
What is a "subpaper clip"?
By the way, all this nonsense about COLOR only supporting one layer of video... where is this coming from? This is utterly untrue... I am thinking of Stevie Wonder's song that states that when people believe in things they don't understand, that's superstition.
Rather than try to explain all the things that COLOR cannot do, maybe it would be easier to lay out the basic concept of what should be sent.
Very fundamentally, COLOR is a sequential-file (.dpx) color correction or grading application that has been modified to work with a few Quicktime codecs, and can accept a single sequence of independent media (discrete clips) from Final Cut. That sequence can have many layers, but it cannot have any nested sequences, and there still are a number of editing strategies within Final Cut that can be proxied, albeit inexactly, but occasionally not at all.
The safest sequence to send to COLOR from Final Cut consists of independent Quicktime Clips, all of the same resolution, codec, and frame rate, which should match the sequence settings of the Final Cut project. There is a naive assumption that anything that can be done in Final Cut can be replicated in COLOR and returned intact. This is absolutely untrue, and the evidence of that is everywhere in this, and other forums.
In this particular instance, "zotero"'s problem, while lamentable, is of his own creation by ignoring or proceeding without any preparation or investigation, and assuming that every editor's concept of what passes for the creative process has been anticipated and compensated for by the application developers.
To mark them manually now when already I have the definitive assembly is a labor of many hours.
Unfortunately, that may be your fate. Alternatively, you may consider the use of a "Media Manage" operation which will re-organize the independency of the source media. The Media Manager is covered extensively in the Final Cut manual. I'd advise doing a lot of back-ups before proceeding with anything else at this point, because it really looks like there is going to be a lot of trial-and-error in the near future... mostly error. Good luck with it all.
jPo

FCP 3Way Color Correct Shows Up Incorrectly

I have a 1080 60i ProRes project that I have done an initial balancing pass in FCP using the 3 way color corrector. When I send that project to color, all of the settings that I have used in FCP come thru, but the actual output looks really, really red on my external monitor.
I am viewing thru fcp and color thru my AJA IoHD (HD-SDI) - but of course color only output SD. Is the difference because of colors' downconvert? I'm really thinking about trashing my work in FCP and starting over in just color, but I won't get the benefit of viewing the HD output.
Not really sure what to trust.

Can I just add to this. When I send a Pro Res sequence to Color from FCP with no colour correction the clip appears much redder in Color than in FCP - I've tested this from an IoHD and an Lhe.
If I do the same but this time with a DCVPRoHD 1080i50 sequence and media the clips are the same colour in both FCP and Color as I would expect.
I'm confused, what am I missing about Pro Res, why does it appear differently in FCP and Color - which should I use to grade ?
Any help appreciated.

Significant color shift between FCP and COLOR?

Hi there,
I get a significant color shift when sending footage - either adjusted or unadjusted/unmodified - from FCP to COLOR.
Before anyone asks, the color shift is visible both internally or on an external broadcast preview monitor.
From within COLOR, I 'send' back to FCP this sequence - which is still without any form of adjustment (apart from being sent to COLOR), the apparent color shift is now visible/added to the imported sequence (from Color).
I've tried this on three separate Macs:
1. The Mac above (6.0.6). (Leopard)
2. A Mac with the same version of FCP as above. (Snow Leopard)
3. FCP and on a third Mac with an earlier version of FCP. (Leopard)
Does everyone have the same problem?
If not, does anyone have a solution?
Cheers,
Dan
PS: I've tried:
FCP > Color ProRes contrast shift
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2150962&tstart=75

I had the same problem except that I am using version 1 of color and Final Cut Pro 6. I isolated just the video and double checked that I had no filters or if I did I turned them off. I had a smooth cam filter on one shot, but that didn't effect it. I was then able to send it to color without issue, once I had no sound or filters or transitions messing up the pass between final cut and color. Try doing the same, just duplicate or copy your timeline to a new timeline. I would have rendered your footage out to ProRes however as using the DVC Pro codec is probably not ideal. Color also only works with actual full raster files, not so good going from HDV or DVC Pro as they have an anamorphic frame size. This may be causing issues also.

FCP to Color previous post method?

I'm about to send a 50 min project into color for the first time (had a play around in it a few times before to familiarize myself with it a bit more)
Would the method at the bottom of the thread below be a good way to go about sending a project from fcp to color?
https://discussions.apple.com/message/8986453#8986453

Read the Color Manual section on Preparing your FCP project for Color.
Pay particular attention to the things that should not be included - eg retimed footage, mixed rate footage, still images, etc.
Also pay attention to native codecs (ie - what Color works with without transcoding) vs supported (what Color will ingest but have to transcode to work with and will export a different format).
The key thing is to get everything into ProRes at the same framerate and same size without filters, retiming, etc.
x
fwiw - in the linked thread, they went to a lot of trouble to send a sequence to Color but their monitoring solution was not supported. Monitoring Color requries a qualified export device (AJA, Decklink, Matrox) feeding a signal in the correct color space to a calibrated monitor via SDI, Component, or HDMI. Anything else is a guess as to what it really looks like.
good luck.

Where XML and related file belong when send from FCP to Color?

Hi(Bonjour)!
Where XML and related file belong when send from FCP to Color?
I want to start a fresh project and delete all previous tests.
Michel Boissonneault

Hi(Bonjour)!
I messed up with preference for home directory.
Thank you.
Michel Boissonneault

Adobe's Color Finesse vs FCP's Color -mask tracking capability

I just came back from the HD expo in NYC and one of the speakers/presenters there was a colorist. He showed a commercial that he had colored using FCP's Color Application. I came home to check out Adobe's Color Finesse for comparison and noticed that it did not have some of the features of FCP's Color, i.e. the ability to create a mask for the purpose of doing secondary color correction and to be able to track that mask to the object being corrected. Is there a way to do this within Color Finesse or outside of Finesse even. If not, what would be a Color Correction Application that you could recommend that is as robust or better than FCP's Color.
Thank You

One of the advantages of Color Finesse being a plug-in inside of After Effects is that you get to combine all of After Effects' features with Color Finesse's color correction capabilities.
You can create whatever masks you want as an AE mask, and track those masks using AE'a built-in motion tracker, or use Mocha. Or you can hand animate the motion.
When creating masks and tracking them, it's easiest to adjust the color correction parameters using Color Finesse's Simplified UI in the Effects Control Window, rather than the CF Full UI, although that is still available, of course. You may need to twirl open the Simplified UI in the ECW to see the controls. And you may want to twirl closed some of the slider groups so that you see only the controls you want to use.
Bob Currier
Synthetic Aperture

Roundtrip between FCP and Color

Having much trouble doing a round trip from FCP to color. Sent my sequence to color rendered and saved and tried to send back to FCP but the new sequence from color says all the media offline. I made a new sequence and deleted all the effects, etc and sent to color again but the same problem occurs. All the media is offline. Tried exporting the XML file from color and importing directly into FCP but I get this error:
Mon, Jul 21, 2008, 5:03 PM - Errors Found Importing GTF.xml
<xmeml>: Unknown element <sourceprojecturl> encountered.( line 4 )
Any ideas on what the problem is? The sequence I sent to color has several multiclips and these seem to be the only media offline when I roundtrip back to FCP.
Thanks,
Brittany

The error message you received can be safely ignored.
RE: Multiclip
Please do a forum search on the keyword "multiclip". You'll find plenty of recent discussion on it.
- pi

FCP and Color not talking in Leopard

Hi all,
We have just installed Leopard in our Mac Pro. I sent my sequence from FCP to Color but apparently I don't see my sequence in Color.
I tried doing the same procedure in Tiger OS and it worked.
Any help would be very much appreciated

You may need to re-install COLOR as there is a good possibility that you have corrupted the COLOR/FCP hand-off.
There may also be an issue with your prior User Preferences being ignored, as that path may be broken.
jPo

FCP to Color sequence clips do not match up.

Hello,
I edited my video with multiclips and sending from FCP to Color. Problem I have is the video from my FCP sequence is not what is coming out in Color, in fact it's way off. Can't figure out what I am doing wrong, and Color manual does not have any trouble shooting instructions in it's manual. Please help.
Thanks

There are known issues that affect sequences containing multiclips.
http://www.apple.com/support/releasenotes/en/Color1.0rn/
Since this particular issue has been discussed here before, it would be wise to take a look at what has already been posted.
Multiclips & Color

Fcp to Color workflow

I have 20 videos that I need to color correct, and am a neophyte in color... My questions are real simple, just trying to buckle down a workflow.
I have a sequence in fcp. Do I have to add in all transitions prior to sending to Color (does Color embed back in fcp as a single output sequence)?
I shot the footage with two cameras. Do, or should I, place A camera on one line, and B camera on another in fcp, and then send to Color to make anything easier?
I will be using some simple alpha animations to the video. Should I do this after color correction? Or should I place above the footage on the timeline and just highlight the clips I want to send to color?
Thanks in advance!

YOu need something more than a reply on a forum... you need a tutorial on how to use COLOR. Get this:
http://store.creativecow.net/p/66/stop_staring_and_start_grading_with_apple_colo r
- You send to Color when you have locked picture...meaning editing is done. All transitions should be in place. Color will remove them, then put them back when it renders out the video. Each clip is rendered individually, it isn't rendered out as one long piece.
Put all the footage on ONE track if you can. Two if you must. But one track makes things easier. And all the footage must match EXACTLY...meaning same codec, frame size, frame rate.
Remove all graphics from the timeline before you send to Color...including Alpha transitions. Add them back when you render out from Color.

Workflow between FCP and Color

I have been working on a 720P DVCPRO project. I am not sure what the work flow should be for adding in your color correcting stage.
I have edited my project with speed ramps and different effects within Final Cut 6.02. When I rendered my files from Color after making a color correct, I then sent it back to Final Cut.
Once I opened the timeline that color added to my final cut project, All of my transitions were replaced with straight cuts. Also the speed ramps were gone, and any variable speed clip within the timeline had been replaced with 100% speed from the end of the clip i used.
Should this be expected? If so how should I be working on the color correcting stage, or in what order should I be adding effects and timeramps to?
What is the best way to do this?
Any help would be great!
Thanks,
Jesse

Please refrain from double posting, there's absolutely no need. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1382731&tstart=0
I'll also tell you, again, to read the release notes, the user guide and search the forum as this has been discussed many times already.

Sony HDR-HC3 to FCP to Color to FCP to Mac Mini

Hi,
My objective is to play our edited family videos using our Mac Mini(2.0 GHz Core 2) on a Sony 52" LCD at full 1080 resolution. The video is stored on a Firewire attached 1 TB LaCie external disk.
I use a Sony HDR-HC3 video camera (HDV 1440x1080i 25 fps) and use FCP 6.0.4 for editing. I have recently been learning Color for grading.
1. Currently reading footage into FCP as ProRes 422. Footage comes in with the following profile:
Sequence Preset: Apple ProRes 422 1440x1080 50i 58 kHz
Capture Preset: HDV-Apple ProRes 422
Current captured footage I'm working with has a data rate of 12.5 MB
2. Once editing is complete, I "Send To" Color and perform the grading
3. From Color, I "Send to FCP". (It asks "Change graded FCP seq. to match the QT export codec?" not sure whether I click Yes or No here)
4. After selecting Yes, the footage returned back to a new sequence in FCP now has the following profile:
Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)
1920x1080
21.6 MB/sec
From reading the Apple documentation, I was expecting something funny to happen coming back from Color.
5. I then send this sequence to Compressor where I select the "Apple | Formats | Quicktime | H.264" preset in the hope that I can render out an H.264 1920x1080 file to play on the Mac Mini. It renders it but the Mini can't play the video smoothly.
As I am still learning, I would appreciate any suggestions on an alternative workflow that can lead me to a 1080 video file that can play smoothly on the Mac Mini.
The Apple TV preset renders a video that works smoothly on the Mini, but I'm hoping for the full resolution.
Regards, Tony

Hi Shane,
Thanks so much for responding. Great tutorial also. And I wasn't conscious of any 'drone'...
Yes, I've tried to have the Log and Transfer recognize the card (through both the card reader and lately, by using the camera as a deck but without luck).The card reader and camera mount on my desktop as NO NAME and when I ADD VOLUME I scroll down to devices and click on NO NAME but L&T doesn't recogize the source and nothing happens. That's why I went in to see if the AVCHD folder might be recognized and got that invalid directory message. Following your tutorial I went into preferences button on the right hand upper corner of the L&T interface and selected the AVCHD - Apple Prores LT path in case that made a difference, but no go. Any other suggestions/thoughts?
Cheers, Mark

Inaccurate FCP Canvas Color Preview

I am getting FCP 7 this afternoon but I am not sure that it will address the problem I have been having in FCP 6 at all.
I have a NEC LCD3090WQXi and a 2690WQXi as my primary desktop displays. I have a AJA Kona3 outputting to a HI-5 SDI to HDMI converter box which shoots a signal to a 37" Samsung 1080P LCD. I also have the Kona3 outputting to a JVC DT-V24L3DY 24" Professional Broadcast LCD.
Here is the situation. The 37" Samsung looks quite similar to the JVC Studio monitor, as close as I would expect since the Samsung is a consumer monitor that I use to evaluate how video will look on a typical LCD/Plasma purchased from Best Buy or wherever. The JVC is perfect, true 1 for 1 pixel monitoring, built-in waveform, timecode displays, a great display that is very accurate.
Here is the PROBLEM. The NEC monitors are wide gamut, and display a much wider range of color than the typical Cinema Display (I have two 30" Cinema Displays so I know this for certain). The NEC's basically have a gamut that is identical to AdobeRGB 1998. I calibrate and profile the NEC monitors using the Spectraview II software and dedicated sensor so they are dead on. The problem is that FCP displays the video as super saturated, because it is not correctly using a system monitor profile to accurately display video (or stills). The external monitors are fine like I said, since they are not system color managed, but it is rather ridiculous that FCP does not recognize the display profile and correctly compensate the Canvas viewer within the application. Programs like After Effects and Photoshop handle all of these display profiles correctly, but it appears that FCP is doing absolutely nothing and that my only choice is to calibrate my wide gamut monitors to sRGB (the closest match to the HD standard of 709-5. This is a dreadful and pathetic work around.
I have read a couple of people converting images to AppleRGB for proper display in FCP, this is insane,AppleRGB is a gamma 1.8 colorspace with a gamut not matching HD video anywhere near the match that sRGB provides.
Any help here?

This is an incredibly frustrating topic because there are so many variables, but after a lot of lost hair, I have found these rules to work:
1. FCP, Color treat video as if it was a gamma of 2.2, and shift it on the fly to display correctly on a properly calibrated computer monitor ( I'm using 2 Sony Trinitrons, Eye1 calibrator), with ITU 601 for Standard Definition, and ITU 709 for HD, and the results are fine. Color correction with Color works just as expected. NOTE that the calibration is a little odd, as I am using the ITU color space definitions with a gamma of 1.8.
2. Quicktime, Photo to Movie, and most other video programs, display using whatever the monitor is calibrated to, so if you want to judge color there, you need a calibration run at gamma 2.2.
3. Quicktime has a switch that will force it to display video the same way FCP, Motion, and Color do. Make sure you know where that switch is set in the preferences.
4. FCP, AE, and others give you a choice of what gamma to use to interpret still photographs with. You need to make them match your workflow.
My workflow is to do all image editing in Adobe 1998 color space with a gamma of 2.2. My monitor is using a 2.2 profile.
When working with any FCP app, I use a icc gamma calibration of 1.8, and the appropriate color space. I set all imported stills to be interpreted with a gamma of 2.2.
Using an accurate spectrophotometer and test patterns, I have traced this from Photoshop to Quicktime to FCP display out to a well calibrated home theatre HD display. The results on all the test patches are within a dE of 3, which is well within the the band where the eye can detect differences.
When evaluating video in Quicktime, different codecs appear to be handled differently. I haven't cracked the code heve, and simply use FCP with a monitor gamma of 1.8 for critical evaluation

Workflow FCP - AE - Color ??

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