Editing Thursday - Basics of Editing (Part 1)
Software used: Da Vinci Resolve (free/studio)
Editing for the longest time has been a niche and under-appreciated skill in the media space until recently, thanks to social media ivaga we have enough appreciation for editors and editing tricks that help in highlighting subjects/moments/frames or masking mistakes/errors or flaws.
E post Kanglish al iruthe cos that's my thinking language and technical in nature cos editing requires it.
Editing thumba ne patience mathu disciplined approach iruvantha department, you cannot miss steps or invent a new workflow to it as it will mess up the entire project output mathu schedule, writer or DoP or art department avru thap maddhre artistic liberty antha karibodhu but generally editors ge ah luxury irala.. but you have the luxury and the audacity to sit in a room and cut out scenes/shots that might have taken a lot of time to write and shoot, so thumba ne responsible and logical agi cut madbek aguthe ila nim team avra jothe jaglake ready iri :-D
So Editing ge mukyavagi e 6 phases iruthe (largely, madhyadhali 1-2 hechu kami agbodhudhu depending on the scale):
- Data management and organisation
- footage preparation
- Raw review
- footage cutting and assembly
- effects, transitions, timing and motion graphics
- VFX (optional)
- Music and SFX
- Delivery
Idhrali if you are working with a music person then the SFX and Music avru nodkothare so 6 mandatory phases and 2 optional for you as a editor iruthe.
Thumba janrige step 3, 4, 5 mathra editor kelsa ankothare but even before coming to the “edit table” (idhu hale celluloid/reel editing term, avaga negatives na ondh table mele thandhu sanna viewfinder al nodi “cut” or “splice” madtha idhru, adhike “editing table”, ivaga digital ali software al madthivi), but step 1, 2 ,3 nim overall time maximum time thogobodhudhu if you dont prepare properly.
Ivathina e post will deal with step 1 and 2, i.e. Data management, organisation and footage preparation.
Obe editor agi technically strong irodhu mukya so mundhina salagalu swalpa technical agey bardhidhini:
Step 0:
Ondh ole configuration PC or laptop bekaguthe editing smooth agi madoke but initial agi any basic laptop that can play 4K videos can be used, nimma target usage mele configuration matter aguthe. Da Vinci Resolve ano NLE (Non-Linear Editing) Software na navu use madodhu e series ali.
Download madake ili hogi nimma email id indha signup agi download madi, e software is used by professionals across hollywood and indian industry for editing and color grading (https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/in/products/davinciresolve)
Once downloaded, installed and open maddhaga e page nodbohudhu
Da vinci na use mado munche namma data bage concentrate madona.
Step 1.Data management and organisation
Data Size
Theory of data:
Neevu yavdhe camera al shoot madi, adhral shoot ago footage ondhu strorage al hogi kuthkolothe that can be a SD card in mobile, CF card in mirrorless cameras or a SSD in a cinema camera, e cards ali store agodhu 1’s mathu 0’s (digital data). Idhu yake andhre yela cameras alu optical sensor antha iruthe, the sensor capture the light that falls on it and converts to digital data (technically avu just photons indha electrons ge convert agi ondh signal aguthe, a signal na sample madi digital ge convert aguthe) e sensor reading na digital convert madake ondhu processor iruthe hence the name digital cameras, ivaga e processor yesht speed ali sensor ina data convert madi store madutho ashtu large data storage nimge bekaguthe, for example nimma normal phone sensor size 6.17mm x 4.55 mm iruthe but ondh cinema camera sensor for example Arri Alexa LF (KGF 2 shoot madiro camera) 36.70 mm x 25.54 mm idhe
But Yerdu sensors ali 4K or 4096 x 2160 pixels iruthe, so output difference hege idhe ?? phone sensor mathu cinema camera sensor al iro “photo sites” indha . Photo site bage neevu il nodbodhu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyeUP1Q0QDM).
(Picture credit: https://silentpeakphoto.com/gear/camera-guides/how-do-camera-imaging-sensors-work/)
So ondhu image phone sensor al thegdhaga assuming 12 MP camera (andhre 3000 Pixels horizontal mathu 4000 pixels vertical) idhaga, namage yerdaralu same data barbek alva ? so ondhu cinema camera ge ondhu sanna SD card haki shot madbohudha ?
Agala, yak andhre cinema camera dha Photo site thumba large iro karna per pixel data higher irtuthe, ivaga nimge swalpa media touch idhre RAW photo or video antha ondh term kelirbodhu, a RAW andhre e photo site ina data na collect madoke navu “sample” madthivi a photo site na yesht jasthi sample size itkothivo ashtu jasthi information siguthe, so “RAW” andhre each Photo site ina information na capture madiro RAW data, in case of smaller sensors we use 8-bit, 10-bit/channel or 12-bit/channel RAW (andhre ondh photo site data na navu 12-bits per channel andhre Red channel, Green channel, Blue Channel agi convert madi save madthivi) (read more about RAW bits here:https://www.instructables.com/RAW-8-bit-16-bit-and-32-bit-explained/ ) but imagine for a normal 4K video of one minute footage at 24 frames/second yesht aguthe antha
- Data per Frame: 12,000,000 pixels * 12 bits = 144,000,000 bits
- Data per Second (24 fps): 144,000,000 bits * 24 = 3,456,000,000 bits per second (3.45 Gbps)
- Data per Minute (60 seconds): 3,456,000,000 bits *60 = 207,360,000,000 bits
- Convert to Bytes (Divide by 8): 25,920,000,000 Bytes or 24.14 GB per minute
So namma phone hege just 300-600 MB/minute file madtha idhe ? its because of compression and codec selection.
Compression and codec bage delivery phase al continue madthini, so just know that a 4K uncompressed one minute footage takes about 24GB space so one hour total uncompressed 12-bit (13-bit float in case of Arri) footage approximately 1.57 Terabytes or ~1.5 TB iruthe, so data storage and management thumba ne important aguthe.
Data Storage:
Probably neevu SD card nodirthira, Hard disk nodirthira and maybe you know SSD as well (idhara theory ge nan hogala already bore agirbodhu nimge but interested idhre idhana odhi: https://share.google/aimode/n9zLoiiJaAAPKJP62), ivagala major difference is reliability and speeds, HDD are slowest and SSDs are the fastest but 3 kuda same size storage maduthe(example 512 GB) so yavag yavdhana use madbeku anodhu prashne and more importantly what should you use as an editor ?
Neevu shoot dslr/mirrorless al madtha idhre SD cards beku (yes cards not card) or alternate is a faster and better CF express card (https://share.google/aimode/zLJN9DehsyxR1j8Yg), neevu SD card na safe agi 4K 10-bit compressed ge use madbohudhu (again ili odhi https://share.google/aimode/CdZR51yRtDYDyVz5Z , in case detailed explanation bekidhre comment haki bere post al cover madthini) but professionals use CF express cards with SD card for backups.
Neevu system al edit madbekadhre 4K footages ge thumba high data bekaguthe hence SSDs are preferred (internal agidhre they can do about 6GB/s external adhere about 1-1.5 GB/s) but long term storage ge HDD are better but avu maximum 600MB/s achieve maduthe (SSDs ali over period of data degradation aguthe).
So as an editor if possible have an large internal SSD for editing (1 TB minimum) and a backup HDD for long term storage. HDD al files store madi edit madak agala you will face a lot of issues, is internal SSD agila andhre external SSD indha kuda edit madbodhu.
Data Organisation:
Once you have the footages adhana neat agi organise madi use madodhu important, neevu nan use mado folder structure na use madbodhu (thanks to filmakeranto for this folder structure 🙂) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LocqQbz-a7Mjx-Nqe8cPwbeztara6rYA/view?usp=sharing
Idhu thumba complex ila unnecessary ansdhre neevu basic structure kuda madkobodhu just footages, music, images and output antha 4 folders madkondu use madbodhu.
Tips:
- Always “copy from your card/SSD to your folders donot cut-paste, if it gets stuck in the middle you will loosed footage.
- Do not rename imported footage names (especially neevu larger teams al kelsa maduvaga you VFX and colorist will need the exact file names).
- Always connect your external card reader/USB/ SSD to the fastest port (nimma laptop ali USB C idhre adhike or a blue USB port idhre adhike)
- If you have an earthing problem, please donot use usb or SSD with metallic body, a current flow will kill the USB, SSD or you !
- Yav cameras al shoot madtha idahre, formats and file format note madkoli this will be important.
- Footages dhu formats nodkoli, geneally .mp4, .HEVC (for iphone footages) iruthe but cine cameras will have .braw, .arri etc.
Once you have all of this and arranged into your folders we can start organise it inside Da vinci which we will cover in the next post, meanwhile yenadhru miss agidhre or feedback idhre comment madi.
Also neevu r/kannadamovies page sub ali editing 101 kuda check madbodhu https://www.reddit.com/r/KannadaMovies/wiki/editing101/
Namskara
Everyday.kannadiga 🙂