Can anyone tell what happened here?

[David.rhsc]

Hi everyone,

A bit of background before the link:

I was brought on to direct a music video shoot for a drummer's side project. He had some pretty specific stuff he wanted to see, so I tried to deliver as a director with a "work for hire" mindset. Granted I wasn't being paid - but that is beside the point. I had a client with something specific in mind and I worked pre and production to get him what he wanted. Either way, post turned into a bit of a snafu (no details necessary - we have all been there) and the drummer/client ended up doing the edit himself on the "editor's" FCP rig.

Anyway, flash forward to yesterday and our hero sends me a message that the video is all messed up and he doesn't know how to fix it. Here is a link:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ry2vrv

Apologies for the crappy hosting on that one, this is just the link that the drummer gave me. Site is legit, despite the ads - although if folks here prefer I'll rehost where it can be viewed without downloading.

Source footage is from an HVX @ 720/24p. This should give us a pixel ratio of 1:333 and an image size of 720x960. Checking the backup copy on my Premiere rig confirms that ALL source footage is correct - our shooter did exactly what was asked of him.

There are three different image sizes at play in his output, and I can't really figure out how they managed to get this result. My only guess is that perhaps they were nesting sequences or fiddling with multiple project files with different settings. Some of the more anamorphic clips appear stretched, while others appear merely cropped. Also, there are a few clips that are "full size" to this output, but those appear with a great deal of aliasing and pixelation which hints to me that they were scaled up. Of the three output sizes in the clip, the middle size appears to be the original pixel depth and aspect ratio. It appears that the output size is 1280x720 with a pixel ratio of 1:1 - although the clips within that are boxed to different sizes when not "full screen."

Audio quality on this output is totally bad. How they managed to pick 11KHz mono 16bit audio is beyond me. There are also clips that are out of time with the music - which the drummer swears are not that way in the FCP project.

My guess is that it is next to impossible for anyone to suggest a fix without examining the project files to see where the problems lie. Any and all advice could be helpful. My suggestion to him was to grab the entire project to his own drive and take it to a more competent editor. Also in hopes that the new editor would help clean up the edit and that the drummer would listen to his/her suggestions - which did not happen with any editing I tried to do for him at the beginning.

Okay, all of that aside, any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[Zensteve]

Weird. I get the BSoD every time I try to open that video file.

At any rate, is it the full music video edited how the drummer likes it?

If so (and if you felt like it), it shouldn't be that hard to duplicate the edit/cuts and spit out a finished version that actually works... unless there's a lot of third-party cgi work, or sumthin'.

That might be easier than having your buddy mess around with harddrives and video files and project files - I mean, you use Prem & the project is now FCP, right?

 

[David.rhsc]

Weird, I'll host it up someplace - had no problems with the file personally, but no need spreading BSoD's all over the place.

Yeah, I have an independent copy of the original HVX files on my system at home, so a redo here is not outside the realm of possibility. OTOH, I would sort of dread it - almost every editing suggestion I made got thrown unceremoniously out the window the first time around.

It's up on Vimeo now, but is "waiting in line."

http://www.vimeo.com/6198798

 

[citychik]

Drummer should stick to drumming!

The audio has drifted out of sync. Seems like something happened that is only obvious in the outputted file, which could be related to his audio card (just a guess). I use Avid, so I don't know what could happen with FCP.

Were you originally supposed to edit it, too? If you want to redo it for him (and I'm sure you do, so he'll be happy & your work will be out there in the universe in the best possible form), if I were you, I'd tell this dude that you can edit a new version for him from the raw files, and output it to a QT or whatever, in a way that you know works well. And if you want to make some changes, you could either make two versions so he could pick one, or give him one chance to view a "proof" and approve it or not. Being that you are doing it for free, it would be too much to give him more than one proof. AND, since you're doing it for free, you don't need to kow-tow to his every whim. If he's rejecting suggestions that you feel strongly about, you can firmly but gently make a case for your artistic vision (he hired you to direct, after all, even though he had clear ideas of what he wanted). I go through this sometimes with a friend for whom I make videos (she's a singer). One thing I remind her, is that artists often cannot get objective enough about their own work to gauge how well they appear or what they really do best.

 

[David.rhsc]

Actually, no, I wasn't supposed to have edited originally. There was an editor, who I had never met, brought on and after a short bit he decided the extent of his involvement should just be as equipment provider. Nothing against the guy for wanting to not edit it - it's definitely not his style of thing and the beat just eluded him completely. It's just a little frustrating that this wasn't discovered earlier since the producer really pushed for this guy to edit it, I mean really sold us on him sort of a thing.

I wound up button pushing my way to a rough cut (which barely survived in the sample clip). Drummer basically took over after that. Part of me was hoping that they could pull it off; even after this technical snafu - maybe find some info on settings they could adjust to rescue it.

Can't tell if this is unfortunate or fortunate, but it seems the right thing to do here (and the one that best serves my own interests as well) is to offer the recut to the guy and do some clean up while I am at it. Chalk it up to experience. Bad timing for the work load, but I can't think of a better way to get it done. I'm not the best editor on the planet (far from it actually), I sort of get it grammar wise - it just takes me a long time to get there.

 

[knightly]

The mismatched clips sounds like either the footage was imported incorrectly, sequences set up inconsistently (i.e. nested sequences or separate sections have mismatched settings), output settings screwed up, no knowledge of digital video/ editing practices (zooming bad, setting mismatches bad). The audio drift is generally due to the footage being at a different bit rate than the sequence... MP3 is the worst culprit.

My advice, re-import (verifying the import settings) and start over using the rough cut as a guide... with you as an experienced and technically savvy editor doing ALL of the cutting. If he wants input, he can point at the screen and have you do it as you'll have a better idea of what not to do...
Other wise, have him remove all of the work you did for him as you don't want your name associated with that quality of work.

 

[David.rhsc]

... with you as an experienced and technically savvy editor doing ALL of the cutting. If he wants input, he can point at the screen and have you do it as you'll have a better idea of what not to do...

That's a pretty generous statement. I'm actually not that accomplished of an editor. I understand a little about the formats and have played with the tools enough to get around, but experienced isn't a word I'd use to describe my editing chops.

The drummer is trying to get the technicals ironed out with the editor that owns the rig he used for cutting. I am not confident that what has been done can be undone easily, and I do not know if they are going to re import to preserve image quality, but I stressed that they may need to do so.

I also offered to do a recut using his work as a basis and my safety copy of the footage to ensure quality. Haven't talk to him about it fully, but comments here will help with my approach to that.

Tangentially, has anyone made their own version of something for personal promo use in a situation like this?

 

[Will Vincent]

It looks to me as if it were imported as letterboxed footage, then the letterboxed footage laid into a 720p frame. That causes it to be a tiny little visible area within the frame it should be filling, because the letterboxed footage would be 4:3 rather than 16:9, so that explains the black on the sides, and the letterboxing explains the black on the top & bottom.