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Editing on a laptop?

K

kari

I am always hearing to stay away from laptops when editing. Just wondering if anyone here using a pro editing system with a lap top.

I wonder that because you can move a laptop with you and work whereever you happen to be.

Or no one dares.
 
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Depends on what you're doing. If you're doing a quick project, its nice to be able to pump it out right there where you just filmed.

Doing anything larger requires a bit of extra stuff you can't just carry around with you everywhere. You could get some of it done on the laptop, but eventually at some point in your project you'll need the other things.

That said, you technically can edit an entire feature film on a laptop without anything else.
 
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It depends on your laptops specifications e.g. motherboard, CPU, Graphics card, RAM, and it's cooling system e.g. fans, water cooling, radiators and heat sinks.

I wouldn't recommend editing on a laptop without an efficient cooling system. Well, not for a long period of time.
 
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I was just wondering because I thought it would be easier. You can just move from room to room or state to state for that matter and have your work with you. However anyone I have met have said they would never work on a laptop.
 
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kari said:
I was just wondering because I thought it would be easier. You can just move from room to room or state to state for that matter and have your work with you. However anyone I have met have said they would never work on a laptop.
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Whoever told you that is mistaken. However, a separate hard drive for your video assets is highly recommended.
 
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The key thing is the laptop in question, for sure. I have Adobe Premiere, but I couldn't install CS5.5 as I only have 32-bit windows as opposed to 64-bit, so I use the previous version. Make sure to check specs of the editing software you're looking into, and if you do buy a new laptop for editing (although more likely you're just hoping to use an existing one), shop around for one that suits all your editing needs first and foremost. As has been said, an external monitor is also really useful.

@cameronchapman, great video :) I really enjoyed Monsters and stuff like that is always quite inspiring for the little guy. Especially since Gareth Edwards signed on to the new Godzilla thanks to that film!
 
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Get an external drive

Previous threads saying (A) you can do some editing on a laptop and (B) depends on the laptop are both correct. At the very least, you should have an external drive on which to store footage and a backup copy of your film. Optimally, the external drive should be fast enough to use for editing directly to. In addition, your lap should be tricked out with extra ram, dual processor, high-speed disk drive, and more... Last, don't try to edit a feature film on a lap top period! Short films under ten minutes you could probably do. Hope this helps.
 
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GuerrillaAngel said:
I'd be curious to know if any of the people commenting edited an entire feature film on their laptop only and was accepted at decent film festival? I vote nobody.
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That's not very brave. I would venture to guess that 95%+ of the entire forum never edited an entire feature film that was accepted to a decent film festival, never mind on a laptop.

Is it possible? Sure. Take an i7 MacBook pro with 8GB of RAM and external RAID and you have something more powerful than desktops of only a few years ago.
 
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GuerrillaAngel said:
I'd be curious to know if any of the people commenting edited an entire feature film on their laptop only and was accepted at decent film festival? I vote nobody.
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Monsters would be a good example of that. Editing and CGI were all done on a laptop. They were editing and doing effects while they were still shooting the film, in hotel rooms all over Central America and Texas.

There are two big things with editing on a laptop: a) you need a laptop with multiple cores and plenty of RAM (not a big deal with most moderately-priced modern laptops) and b) you need an external monitor and speakers unless you don't care about your eyes or how your film sounds.

But really, laptops coming out now are just as powerful as many desktop computers. I have no problem working with Premiere Pro and After Effects on my MacBook Pro, and like I said, it's a couple years old. The big downside for me is rendering time, but I've only got a 2.26GHz dual core Pentium. So I just set things to render and then go watch TV or go to bed. I've found that it takes roughly 1 minute to render each 1 second of uncompressed footage on my MBP.
 
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As long as you have external harddrives and store all your projects on there, there's really no difference. I have FinalCut and Premiere on my MacBook and I don't have any problems. I have two 500 GB external harddrives that are nice and portable that I can plug in and put all my editing stuff on there! Almost all my friends who are filmmakers edit via laptop as well, as long as it's not just footage and the computer... otherwise your computers RAM will fill up real fast!
 
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Way I see it, do what you can with what you got. A lot of people will tell you all kinds of things, but if you wait till you have the best equipment, nothing will ever get done.

I started making 3d animations on a $300 laptop with 2 gigs of ram and an intel 4500 video card.... actually still do, lol. I also didn't have a mouse, or a desk. I laid on my bed with the lappy on my stomach and made 3d models like that. My neck hurt for months.

But from a technological standpoint, yes, desktops are generally superior to laptops, but there are plenty of laptops that have more than enough power to do whatever you need it to do.

Use whatever you have. If you're in the market, go for a desktop, they're easy to upgrade later.
 
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