17 Multipart TV Series with Multiple Editors

A large Xsan and Final Cut Pro deployment were installed in a large production company to facilitate working on a ten-part, big-budget, high-definition network series. This chapter focuses on the technical setup and management of that system, as well as the online stage for the series. One unique aspect of this project was that the editorial phase on all ten episodes happened simultaneously, with multiple producer/editor teams all working through the Xsan. Challenges arose in terms of team coordination and the changing demands of the network, but good planning and a robust technical foundation enabled improvements and adjustments along the way.

Highlighted Concepts and Techniques

Xsan and Final Cut Pro integration

Final Cut Pro media and project management

QuickTime review screeners

Conform, online, and color correction all performed inside Final Cut Studio

Challenges

Coordinating a large postproduction crew working on different episodes simultaneously

Managing a large amount of HD footage

Maintaining data integrity in a real-world SAN environment

Adapting to the changing will of the client

Overview

A major network has commissioned a successful production/postproduction company to create a new series. After years of success in the international market, this is the first major U.S. network project the company has been awarded. Prior to this commission, the company had relied exclusively on vendors for their productions. This project will be their first in-house production. After many months of pitching the piece to the network, the company is excited to finally be executing the project. This excitement quickly turns to dread as they realize the resources that are required for postproduction of a high-definition series.

The company is aware of the Final Cut Pro movement, and, after careful study, has decided to use Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio as their postproduction solution. To gear up, they hire a local Apple Video reseller and systems integrator to build and design their facility to complete the project—and, they hope, many more like it. After many informative meetings, the company and the reseller determine the following requirements:

• Design a centrally located machine room for decks and other video hardware. Install two ingest stations in the machine room for an assistant editor to ingest footage.
• Equip ten edit suites, each capable of compressed high-definition ingest, monitoring, and editing.

  

  Figure 17.1 Series with multiple editors workflow.

• Equip an online edit suite with dedicated online storage capable of uncom-pressed HD. Equip the suite with evaluation tools so that all projects can be finished in-house, including final color correction and grading.
• Install and set up an Xsan for the ability to share all media and projects, with special consideration for dedicated storage for the online edit suite.

After negotiating the terms of the series with the broadcaster, it is determined that editorial on all ten episodes of the series will have to happen concurrently in order to have the series air during a major promotional push for the network. Because of this, the company devises an internal plan for working on the various episodes concurrently:

• A media-management plan will be designed to take advantage of the facility described above and to support the needs of the project.
• Editorial for each episode will be assigned to a single freelance editor and producer.
• All episodes will be color-corrected and color graded by an online editor, using Final Cut Pro and Color to ensure consistency across all episodes.
• All episodes will be mixed and sound designed by an audio vendor. This vendor will also be responsible for layback to the master and final audio deliverables.
• Creative control falls to an accomplished and respected internal executive producer.

Project Roles and Responsibilities

This project has many roles and responsibilities to cover both the editorial and technical aspects.

Executive Producer—Catherine is an exceptionally talented executive producer. She has won numerous industry awards, including a broadcast Emmy. She has the added benefit of having worked for the network for over ten years. She excels in quick and meaningful decision making and understands the power of concise delegation.

In the project workflow, Catherine will be responsible for approving an episode before it goes to the network for their review, interpreting any feedback from the network, and communicating that feedback as action items for the whole team.

In general, Catherine's responsibilities to the series and to the new facility are great. She also hires all of the episode producers and the director of postproduction—who, in turn, is responsible for more technical hiring and a lot of decisions about execution.

Director of Postproduction—Bob has worked for the company for quite some time; however, every project prior to this one has relied on external vendors. Additionally, all of the projects that Bob has overseen in the past have been Avid-based, and he is worried about how Final Cut Pro will change the role he has established for himself. Bob will design and oversee all aspects of postproduction, including designing workflow documents, hiring freelance editors, and dealing with day-to-day technical problems.

In the past, Bob has also had the responsibility of being a video engineer in facilities that are the same size or larger than the one they are building. However, Bob has never worked with an Xsan, and he considers himself more of a video guy, not a network guy. He understands the power of shared media storage, and he is excited to learn more, but Bob knows he will need some help, so he takes his time in selecting people for other key postproduction roles.

Assistant Editor and Media Manager—Sam is a young but technically proficient assistant editor. Although never having worked for this company before, he has a few years of assistant editor experience under his belt. On this project, Sam's main role will be to ingest and organize all footage in master projects, to assist editors with technical issues, and to provide media management for the Xsan. Also, last year, in a smart career move, Sam was certified by Apple as an Xsan expert after he took a number of classes from Apple about OS X Server and Xsan. This is probably the top reason that Bob has hired Sam.

Online Editor—Jorge is a talented online editor and colorist. His main role will be to conform the shows in their final HD resolution, to place network graphics, to provide broadcast packaging, and to color-correct the show. He will also do final video outputs of the shows (audio layback will be done by an audio vendor). His main duties will commence once offline editorial has been completed. The schedule calls for him to do one show a week for ten weeks. Additionally, Jorge is an Apple-certified instructor who teaches regularly when he is not doing online work. Because of this, Bob has asked Jorge to come in for a day prior to the start of editing on the project to give himself and the editors a refresher course on best practices for FCP and Studio.

Editors—Bob has hired a talented group of ten Final Cut Pro editors to work on the project. Each editor will be assigned one episode, and will work directly with his or her producer to see the shows through to completion. All of the editors use Final Cut Pro, but none have experience with SAN technology, so this will require additional training.

Producers—Catherine, in her role as executive producer, has hired ten producers. Each has extensive experience with broadcast-television series, although this is the first time they have dealt with shared storage and FCP workflows. Each producer will work directly with his or her editor to see the shows through to completion.

Required Equipment

Much went into designing the company's facility, from power concerns to cabling. It was an immense project that took three months prior to the start of editing on the series. The FCP and Xsan integrator and his team spent many long days building the central machine room and edit suites and wiring the entire facility. The choice to build a central machine room is not key for this project to work. Decks and such could just have easily been attached to one edit system with access to the Xsan. The advantage of the dedicated machine room is that it provides easy access to all of the decks and hardware for every room in the facility. There are, however, a few key pieces of equipment that made this project/facility a success:

• Each edit suite was equipped with a Mac Pro with KONA LHe HD/SD capture card, 23-inch Cinema Display for computer display, 23-inch Cinema Display with SDI-to-DVI converter for monitoring.
• The online edit suite is equipped with a Mac Pro with KONA 3 HD/SD capture card, two 23-inch Cinema Displays for computer display, 20-inch calibrated HD CRT monitor for critical evaluation, and hardware scopes (rasterizer).
• 42TB Xsan system.

Execution

Because this project took place over months, it is easiest to look at it in various places in time.

Week 1: Media-Management Planning

The systems integrator has done a fantastic job equipping and designing the facility. All during the design and building process, Bob has supervised the vendors to build out the facility. At the end of the day, Bob is very happy with how the facility has turned out. He is also pleased with the hard work he has done documenting the machine room. He even created an internal web site so that editors and producers can find documentation about the facility.

Another benefit of this internal web site, Bob thinks, is that he can use it as a blog to keep everyone in the facility updated about repairs and maintenance and other technical issues. This gets him to thinking that if he is going to put technical information up on this site, that will be a good place to also put workflow documents for their upcoming series. That way, everybody on the team can be on the same page. Bob realizes that forward-thinking workflows are not just a matter of fancy equipment (though he does like the new equipment)—they are also about facilitating communication and the sharing of information.

A big part of these workflow documents will be information about how clips and other media are going to be organized on the Xsan, and managing Final Cut Pro project files. It will also be a place for editors to share information about prepping their shows for online. Bob has some good ideas about this, but considers himself more of a video engineer and manager than an Xsan and Final Cut Pro expert. Although he is getting more savvy with the tools every day, Bob's lack of expertise is one of the main reasons that he hired Sam. Sam is a talented young guy, and clearly part of the upcoming generation of video geeks. He is quickly becoming an Xsan expert. In fact, Sam was instrumental in helping Bob communicate with the Apple Video reseller and systems integrator on the design of the Xsan.

Bob knows it will be a top priority to set up some guidelines with Sam about media management, so he meets with Sam to discuss it.

“… Thanks again, Sam, for coming to this project. I think having you on board will help us keep the project on pace. The thing I want to get out of the way, though, before any editorial happens is coming up with a system for how media are organized on the Xsan. Also, we have to keep things like projects, screeners, and anything else you can think of organized.”

“Well, you know me, Bob. I always geek out on these workflow things, so I've already been putting some thought into it. To be blunt, the biggest part of this is going to be making sure all of the editors and producers are on the same page as us. It's going to be important that everyone stick to the system of media management and logins. If not, things could get messy, you know?”

“I know exactly what you mean, and I've been thinking about that too. I think once we're done loading the footage, audio, graphics, and whatever else, and before we actually start editing, I'd like to have you, me, and the online editor, Jorge, brief the editors about the system and prepping projects for online.”

“Agreed!” (Sam is beginning to feel good that although Bob is not an expert on SAN systems, he gets the big concepts, and he is really listening and starting to trust Sam.) “I think it is time well spent. So, do you want to dive into this and make a plan?”

After a few hours of discussion, Bob and Sam come up with a good game plan. But it is just that: only a game plan. Both of them—especially Bob, with all his years of experience—realize that although it is important to have a workflow going in, no project ever goes exactly as planned. Therefore, workflows have to be flexible. Here is what they've decided:

• All of the original source footage (HDCAM SR) will be digitized at DVCPRO HD for offline. This will provide great-looking video (often used for mastering), but at a fraction of the space required for uncompressed 10 bit, which will be used for the online.
• QuickTime screeners with burn-in timecode will be created for each tape so that producers can use them to write scripts and review footage. These screeners will be saved to a network drive that everyone can access. Compressor will be used to make the compressions and add the timecode burn-in in one step.
• The media will all be stored on the Xsan, but the editors will access it through FCP projects that reference it. These will be referred to as master projects. This will be the same for audio and graphics.
• In the interest of time, Sam will log and capture tapes as whole chunks. Additionally, he will provide only basic metadata. Information about the footage on a particular reel will be provided to the editors and producers as a paper log that was created on the shoots.
• Project files will live on a separate network drive, not on the Xsan. This is for safety (not having media and projects on the same volume) as well as for technical reasons. Because project files (as well as FCP cache files and, to a lesser degree, render files) are written so often, they have the potential to fragment the Xsan quickly.

Weeks 2 through 4: Ingest and Screeners

Now it has come time for Sam to start the hard part of the project for him, ingest. Although all episodes of the show have to be worked on concurrently, the company was very lucky to be able to shoot all of the footage for the episodes prior to post starting. If it were necessary for shooting to happen at the same time as post, things would be frantic for sure.

So Sam stares at quite a few large boxes of tapes and lets out a big sigh, knowing that there is a lot of work ahead of him. Because he and Bob have worked out a detailed media-management plan before even the first frame of video has been captured, Sam is confident that everything should go smoothly.

All of the footage was acquired 1080p24 using Sony's HDCAM SR tape format. This is the latest and greatest HD format from Sony. Although the production company has not yet shot anything at 4:4:4 R'G’B’ (which this format is capable of), if they decide to do so in the future, they already have the equipment. HDCAM SR is capable of working in 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 chroma subsampling—4:2:2 was chosen as an improvement over HDCAM's 3:1:1. This will allow for much more latitude in color correction and grading. The company has two of these decks—one to match up with each ingest station in the machine room.

Although the company has a large amount of storage, there are roughly 30 hours of raw footage per episode. Ingesting all 300 hours of uncompressed HD is out of the question.

As a compromise, last week Sam and Bob decided to digitize all of the footage as DVCPRO HD. This is not a traditional choice for an offline codec. The quality is high enough for it to be considered a mastering format in some places. DVCPRO HD is a good compromise for this project, however, because it is a heavily compressed codec with a very low data rate, but still very good looking. The system integrator has designed the Xsan to support this bandwidth, and they have plenty of storage. Sam and Bob do the math to figure out how much space it will take to capture all of the footage at the DVCPRO HD codec, and they decide that it is their best bet. Again, the way in which FCP works with different formats and codecs means that you can tailor an offline/online workflow to meet the exact needs of your project and your equipment.

Once all of the episodes are complete, only the footage that is used in each show will be recaptured by Jorge, the online editor, at full quality using the uncompressed 10-bit codec at HD resolution.

Because time is tight already, having to log individual clips for each tape would be too time consuming for Sam at this stage. Using the plan they devised last week, Sam will provide basic logging information (reel number, episode, etc.) for each tape. Each editor will be provided with a paper log of the footage that was made in the field.

Sam works for three weeks (plus some extra-long days and weekends) capturing all of the footage. He captures footage into master projects for each episode. These master projects live on a separate network drive called FCP Projects, inside a folder called Master Projects. Meanwhile, the media live on the Xsan, so Sam's scratch-disk preferences are set to the Xsan. This creates a folder on the Xsan called Capture Scratch. Inside the Capture Scratch folder are subfolders for each episode master project. Inside each of these subfolders is the footage.

There are other items that Sam has to ingest—namely, audio (music and sound effects). The company has a blanket license for a popular library. Sam loads the whole library onto the Xsan using iTunes. He knows that iTunes is an easy way to batch ingest audio tracks while at the same time converting them to 48kHz. He also knows that he can use iTunes to load the music to a specific location—in this case, the Xsan. So he creates a folder on the Xsan called Audio. Then, using iTunes, he proceeds to ingest all of the music and sound effects to that location. After he has gone through the entire library, Sam imports the whole thing into a new master project called Audio.

He has a problem, though. Sam knows that creating a master project for the audio is a good idea so that editors don't have to go searching around the Xsan for music, but he also knows what can go wrong. One person having a project file open at the same time another person has that same file open can cause problems. So after Sam has loaded the audio library into a master project, he decides to duplicate that master project ten times: one for each edit suite. This should avoid problems. At the end of this process, Sam now has all of the audio on the Xsan in a folder called Audio, and he has the master projects on the FCP Projects drive in the Master Projects folder.

The graphics for the series will be arriving shortly from the network. When they do, Sam will follow the same procedure for creating master projects as he did for the audio. The graphics themselves will live on the Xsan in a folder called Graphics; mean-while, the master projects (one for each suite) will exist on the FCP Projects drive in the Master Projects folder.

Because of the need for the producers to have screeners of all the raw footage, part of Sam's workflow is to set up a batch encode from Final Cut Pro to Compressor with all of the footage captured that day. As he and Bob discussed last week, these screeners will be small but high-quality QuickTimes at half-raster size. They will use the H.264 codec and have burn-in timecode.

Normally, encoding a huge amount of footage like Sam has on one machine would take quite a long time. One advantage that he has, though, is that there are no editors yet on the project. Thus, Sam can use Compressor and its clustering services to network render the screeners. This means he can now use the 2 ingest stations in the machine room, the 10 edit suites, and the online room—for a total of 13 machines to encode the files! He has to consult the FCP user manual on how to set this up, but it takes only a half hour to do so—and boy, is he happy!

Sam sets up these batches at the end of each workday. When he returns the next morning, the screeners are done. All of the files are saved onto a separate network drive that the producers can access.

Once Sam gets his workflow down, it is a model of efficiency. He is taking full advantage of all of the equipment that is available to him. He spends each day alternating between the two HD decks to do the capturing. At night, he harnesses all of the FCP workstations (and the network) to do massive amounts of media compression. In a few short weeks, he is able to prep the system for the simultaneous editing of all ten shows.

By the time the ingest stage is done, Sam is happy with himself, but worn out. He also knows this is just the beginning.

Week 5: Training

Bob has hired a group of talented (in some cases, award-winning) editors to edit each episode. Likewise, the producers are very talented and experienced. There are some limitations to the team, however:

• None of them has worked on a project before that used an Xsan.
• Each of them has their own “style” for media management and project organization.

Having your own media-management style is fine when working by yourself, but everyone needs to follow the same rules when collaborating on the Xsan. If the series is going to be done fast, it is important that the whole team get on the same page about how the Xsan works and best practices for prepping a show for online. So, on Monday morning of Week 5, Bob and Sam, along with all the editors and producers, gather in the company conference room for some training.

Bob has also asked Jorge (who will serve as the online editor for the show, but who is also an Apple-certified Final Cut Pro instructor) to come in and give everyone some tips and tricks for prepping the shows for online. Additionally, Bob has asked Sam to brief the team on the media management of the Xsan.

“Okay … . Now that I've given you my little pep talk as your director of post, and you have all had a chance to suck down your coffee, let me hand the floor over to Sam and Jorge for some technical need-to-know information … Sam?”

“Hi guys. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Sam. I'm the assistant editor on the series. Of course, I'm here for whatever you need, but I want to talk about how footage is organized on the Xsan and some things to be aware of. I know that many of you might yawn at all this technical information, but believe me, understanding how we've set up the Xsan and how to work with projects and media is vital to the success of the project. Let's start by taking a look at how our system is set up, and logging on to your computers.”

Logging In—The network is governed using OS X and Open Directory. This means that each editor is assigned a user name and password. By logging in using this name and password, proper access and permissions to files on the Xsan are maintained. It's vital that editors log in to only one machine at a time. Otherwise, file and or Xsan corruption could happen.

Project Organization—Project files will not live on the Xsan, but on another network volume. This network volume, called FCP Projects, will mount automatically each time the editor logs in. This volume contains a folder called Master Projects. This folder, in turn, contains master projects for each episode, as well as master audio and graphics projects for each suite.

All these master projects link to media on the Xsan. Sam explains that these master projects should never be altered by anyone but him. He adds that a good way to think of these is as libraries. Each editor will have their own project(s) for the actual editing of the episode. These will also reside on the FCP Projects drive, but in a folder labeled Episode Projects. Because editors will undoubtedly need to grab footage and or sequences from other episodes, Sam explains that the easiest way to do this is by opening up that episode master project or episode project, and pulling the media into their specific episode project. However, Sam warns that each editor should check before opening one of these projects. It is important to check to see whether a project is open in another suite because, by having the project open in two places, when one saves it will overwrite the save from another edit suite, creating project file complications. To aid in this process, Sam has set up Bonjour messaging using iChat on all of the edit suite computers.

The Xsan—On each editor's machine, the Xsan shows up just like any other volume. Inside this volume are a number of folders: Capture Scratch, Audio, Graphics, Online. The Capture Scratch folder contains subfolders for each master project (each episode). This is where the media for each show was ingested to. The Audio folder contains the entire music and sound effects library for the entire series. Sam has already loaded these songs into a master project called Audio 1, 2, 3, and so on (one for each suite), so that editors may quickly preview and then add music and sound effects to their episode project. The Graphics folder contains all of the graphics that the network has provided for the series. Just as with the audio, Sam has added these graphics to a master project called Graphics 1, 2, 3, and so forth (again, one for each editor). Finally, the Online folder is specifically for online sessions. Sam explains that although it is possible for one to go directly onto the Xsan to find media files and pull them into a particular episode project, both he and Bob have agreed that rather than having to navigate the Xsan every time an editor needs a clip, it is easiest to set up master projects.

Screeners—Sam explains that when he spent three straight weeks digitizing footage for the various episodes, one of the things he did was create small QuickTimes of each tape with burn-in timecode. His purpose was to provide producers with screeners of all the footage so they could write scripts and do whatever else they needed to do. These small QuickTimes use the H.264 codec, so they still provide very good visual quality. All of these files are located on a shared network drive that the producers can access from their laptops.

Approval Cuts—Sam explains that the network requires that all approval cuts be delivered to them via a secure web site. In addition, he explains that because the network uses mainly Windows-based PCs, they require that the approval cuts be delivered as Windows Media 9 files. This is okay, though—the systems integrator that the company hired installed Telestream's Flip4Mac in each edit suite. This installed QuickTime components so that Compressor can be used to make the .wmv files. The cool thing, Sam explains, is that because they use a high-speed network and everyone is using the same software, they can leverage the power of all the edit suite computers to encode these files, saving valuable time. The downside, he explains is that this will tie up each edit suite machine. This means that he will have to do this encoding at night, after the editors leave.

After lunch, the group reconvenes. Bob now introduces Jorge, the online editor and Apple-certified instructor. Jorge is going to brief the group on best practices for preparing their projects for online.

“… So my job, then, is to make sure the shows are technically sound, as well as to color-correct and color grade them. I'm also responsible for slates, inserting credits, prepping OMFs for audio mix and sound design—and, of course, for outputting the shows. Because our onlines for this series have to happen one right after the other, any backup or delay could be a big problem. So, to ensure we don't run into any problems, I want to briefly give you some tips that will make the onlines go easier.”

Figure 17.2 Project file/media organization.

Track Organization—Jorge asks all of the editors to please follow a few simple rules. The first is to make sure that all audio is organized in a logical fashion. He explains that this will make the mix and sound-design process go faster. For this series, he explains that everyone should use the following audio-track layout:

• Narration on audio track 1
• Interviews and other on-camera sync audio on tracks 2-6
• Nat and ambient sound on 7-10
• Sound effects on 11-12
• Music on 13-16

Jorge also describes the importance of video-track organization. This means that although it is okay to have clips on lots of tracks, if they don't technically need to be organized that way (for purposes of an effect, etc.), then, where possible, the editors should try to organize clips onto a single track. This will make it much easier for Jorge to color-correct and color grade the show.

Nested Sequences—The next thing Jorge describes is the importance of making sure that items are not nested on the final Timeline. Later, when he goes back to the original master tapes to conform, any nesting could cause problems.

Documenting Problems and Their Correction—Jorge is a big believer in strong communication. He describes to the team the importance of keeping paper records of problems and places for specific corrections in the show. The editors should not assume he will catch all of the problems. Where possible, they should point them out for him. One example would be noting that at a certain timecode, there is a tape hit (“So please check this frame again after conforming the show”). Or the problem might be more aesthetic—making sure a look that the producer or editor envisioned is realized in the final show (“Can you make sure that the blue in the sky of these few shots is really saturated?”).

After a lengthy day, all of the producers and editors leave feeling that even though it is going to be tough, they are now armed with the knowledge to complete the editorial on the project in a fast and efficient manner.

Weeks 6 through 14: Editorial and Approval

Editing begins on each of the ten episodes simultaneously. Like most edit projects, this starts slowly as producers and editors get acquainted with each other and with the material. The first few weeks go well, and a few episodes are quickly ready for network review.

Catherine, the executive producer for the company, has been working very closely with each edit team to polish each episode. Normally, she doesn't like to micromanage her teams like this, but Catherine is aware of something that they are not.

Recently, the network had a major personnel overhaul. After years of airing trendy, fluffy shows, the network now wants to return to solid, meaningful programming— something that this series represents. With that said, though, management—specifically Meg, the network executive producer with whom Catherine has been working—has been sending signals that the network really wants something else out of the series.

Catherine and her team submit the first few episodes of the series for approval to the network. Technically, this goes great—the system of encoding that Bob and Sam set up works flawlessly. The problem is that the network executive producer wants to talk … .

So Catherine sets up a phone call with Meg.

“I think the show works great, Catherine. Don't get me wrong, but I think the addition of a host will really help. I would really like to swap some of the segments from this first episode to the third episode. I get the feeling I'll probably want to do that quite a bit, you know?”

“I understand, Meg, but when we originally pitched the show, we did have a host. At that time, you decided that a host wasn't needed, and that the show worked better without one. In addition, we have only a few more weeks before all of the episodes need to be delivered to you. This means that adding the host and reordering the segments is going to be extremely tight. I'm not sure we can do it.”

“Oh, it's not that complicated. The host can be shot standalone—think of using the host as connective tissue between the segments. I have just the person in mind. And as far as reordering the segments, I thought you guys just set up some fancy edit suites. That should make moving things between episodes easy, right?”

Catherine has worked with networks for years, and she can see that there is no way of avoiding Meg's requests. “We did. I tell you what: I think we can do this, but it will be tight. Can you send me the info for the host you have in mind? I'll get it set up.”

“Sure. Thanks again, Catherine. This will be a piece of cake! Talk soon. Ciao!”

Catherine, of course, is concerned about the budget. Making changes like the ones Meg wants is going to cost money. So Catherine's next call is to the line producer of the series (the line producer is the keeper of the budget). After 20 minutes of discussion, they are able to work out many budget implications. However, Catherine still feels uneasy. There are still some questions to answer. The next person she needs to talk to is Bob. Before she even goes to look for him, Bob walks into her office.

“Umm, did I come at a bad time?”

“No … Bob … umm … I mean yes. I was just talking to Meg over at the network, and she has some pretty substantial changes to the series and to some of the episodes we just submitted for approval.”

Catherine goes on to brief Bob about the conversation. He understands the frustration in her voice, but he really isn't worried about these changes.

“Listen, Catherine, the moving around footage is the easy part! Our Xsan will really facilitate that whole process, and with Sam and all the editors being really technically savvy, I'm not worried about that at all. It will, of course, require the producers to be clever with the writing, but that should be okay too. As far as the host, how quickly do you think his lines can be written, and how much of it do you think there is?”

“I think there are probably five or six places in each episode where we will need to place the host. In terms of how much, probably a few hours altogether.”

“Well, that sounds pretty straightforward. As soon as you get the host on board, I can coordinate with the camera crew to get this set up. The second the tapes come back here, we'll load them onto the Xsan and be good to go.”

Over the next week or so, the show segments are reordered per Meg's request after she sees versions of each episode. During this time, the host is shot, and Sam loads that footage onto the SAN and into the appropriate master projects. The benefit of the Xsan implementation in this case is that editors can keep working on parts of the episode the whole time that Sam is loading footage for them.

After weeks of editing, the shows, one by one, are getting approved and heading to the next part of the process: online.

Weeks 10 through 20: Online and Finishing

Jorge likes online. Many parts of onlining a show are technical, and he considers himself a technical guy. Also, he loves doing color correction and grading. No other part of the process is as exciting to him as seeing footage really come alive after he has corrected or graded a clip.

This series is one of dozens that he has worked on for this network, so Jorge is very familiar with the technical aspects of delivery. He knows how slates need to be organized and notated, the requirements for duration of segments and for the show in general (called the network clock), how credits should be formatted, and any other broadcast packaging requirement.

The first thing for Jorge to do as he starts the online for each episode is to make outputs for the audio facility that is mixing the pieces. Each output consists of an OMF and a reference tape. To make the OMF, Jorge selects the sequence and chooses File > Export > Audio to OMF. Here, he adds three seconds of handles, and chooses to include level and pan information in the clip so that the mixer can get an idea of how the editor and producer want to mix the show. After this is exported, he burns the file to a DVD and labels it. Next, he outputs the reference tape, making sure that the timecode on the tape matches that of the OMF.

Of course, Jorge has not yet done his online work, so the reference tape he makes for the audio vendor is not final. The reference tape is of the offline picture-lock cut. This is all that the audio vendor needs as a video reference for the mix, as long as Jorge does not make any changes in the timing of the sequence.

The next step is media managing and conforming. To prep the finished offline segments for online, Jorge will simply open up the final version of the project that the offline editor has made for him. Then, selecting the final sequence, he will make an offline version of the sequence using the Media Manager. One big thing that Jorge often has to remind himself of, though, is to make sure that when he makes the offline version of the project, he unchecks the “Include master clips outside selection” option. He also must remember to uncheck the “Include affiliate clips outside selection” option. He wants only what is on the final Timeline, plus a second or so of handles. Jorge also makes sure to set the sequence to 10-bit uncompressed 1080p24. This will ensure that when he recaptures the footage, the sequence will be set up properly.

After creating the offline version of each project, Jorge begins the task of conforming the show. This process is made a little easier due to the fact that all graphics, stills, and audio (music and sound effects) are already on the Xsan and do not need to be captured but simply reconnected to the files on the XSAN. Jorge selects all of the offline clips that he has just created. Then he right-clicks and chooses Batch Capture. This prompts Final Cut Pro to open the Log and Capture window and present Jorge with the Batch Capture window. Here, he chooses to capture the clips, again double-checking that he is capturing 10-bit uncompressed 1080p24.

Jorge clicks OK on the Batch Capture dialogue box, and Final Cut Pro prompts him with a list of the tapes he needs and how many clips will be captured from each tape. He clicks OK, and proceeds to feed FCP the tapes that it requests.

After the entire show has been conformed, the fun part starts for Jorge. Finally, it's time for color correction!

For this series, Bob and Jorge have decided to use Color to correct and grade the show. Jorge is well versed in Color and is excited to be using it. However, he will not be able to use Color exclusively for this show because there are a ton of stills as well as motion clips in the sequence, and Jorge knows these elements will not go to Color. So, for the stills and motion clips, he will use the color correction tools in Final Cut Pro. To send the final sequence to Color, Jorge uses the Send to Color command in the File menu in Final Cut Pro.

Jorge considers himself an accomplished colorist and online editor, but he also appreciates the power of collaboration. Therefore, he sits with each producer as their shows go through the online process, and corrects and grades the shows with them. For Jorge, this is a good creative process—but also it is a bit of a safety net that he has learned over the years. By watching and working together, Jorge and the producer are responsible for the final product, not just Jorge alone.

In the past, he has been burned by not having a broadcast-legal master. He has learned his lesson, though. During his correction and grading, Jorge pays special attention to broadcast legality. Luckily, Color has a strong set of broadcast-safe controls, and the facility has a hardware legalizer. So Jorge can be confident the show is legal.

After correcting and grading a show and checking that it is broadcast safe, Jorge renders the clips. From the File menu in Color, he chooses Send To > Final Cut Pro. This reconnects FCP to the newly rendered clips. Jorge now also completes color correction on the remaining stills and motion clips.

The last step in the online and finishing process is broadcast packaging. This means that Jorge builds slates and credits along with clean covers (clean covers are shots sans text or other graphics; these shots can be used by the network should re-editing or changes be required). Luckily, for this series Jorge does not need to produce a separate graphics reel because all of the show graphics were provided by the network.

After watching the show several times to ensure that he has not missed anything, Jorge outputs each show. As he finishes each show, the master tape is sent to the audio vendor. This is now the broadcast master tape, and the final step is for the audio vendor to lay back just the mixed audio tracks (the vendor will not affect the video tracks at all) to the master tape.

Discussion

This project was a success for both the network and the production company, but it was also a high-wire act, and it could have very easily gone bad in a hurry. In many ways, this was an aggressive workflow that required innovative thinking at all stages and levels, and pushed the envelope on postproduction technology. Stretching the boundaries and breaking new ground are high-risk/high-reward chances. Here are several areas where the production company gambled and won:

• By investing in Xsan technology (an investment in both time and money), they enabled innovative and very efficient workflows through the entire process.
• By setting up and hiring a large and complex postproduction team (many producers and editors, plus support staff), they were able to harness the purchased equipment for maximum concurrent creative work.
• By choosing to work in a modified offline/online workflow and choosing specific codecs and formats to fit their needs (H.264 for review screeners and DVCPRO HD for offlining—neither one a traditional choice), they were able to always work at the best quality at every stage and to ensure complete timecode consistency.

Pretty much every gamble paid off. Which is not to say that everything was always perfect. For instance, we did not discuss Xsan administration and network problems very much, but they were factors. There were some mornings that the network was down, and it was an hour or two of hustling to figure it out and get it back up. Of course, unlike with traditional FCP systems that are not networked, when the network goes down, ALL of the editing stations go down with it. This is just an example of why the points above were risks. If the network problems had persisted, the people involved might have regretted their choice to go with newer technology.

Of course, workflows are not a blind gamble. There were plenty of choices along the way that made for a relatively smooth outcome. It is never just the quality of your plan that determines success—it is the team's collective talent and their ability to communicate with each other that make all the difference.

Here are some important factors that helped the risk/benefit scenarios turn out in a positive way:

• Bob's recognition of his limitations in the area of Xsan administration, and his decision to bring in Sam as an expert, and to delegate important decisions to him
• Sam's enthusiasm and flair for the technology, and his desire to raise technical efficiency to an art form
• The emphasis placed on education of the editors when they came onto a project that had elements that were unfamiliar to them
• Catherine's communication skills and leadership of the team, working at the hub between the client and the senior management on the project (including hiring them in the first place)

In the final analysis, the lesson learned is a classic: when a team is well organized and people really understand their roles, they can achieve the best possible work, and they can adapt nimbly when changes occur.