For people that get paid to edit film, video, television, etc.

I was meant to edit a couple of short clips to be shown during a live tv studioproduction. In my productioncompanies workflow I usually don't do the exports and deliveries. However, due to a lot of collegues sickness, I have to this time. All of the clips end with a Logo-related transition that brings us back to the studio by live keying. I was about to give them a ProRes4444 8bpc+alpha chanel but the producers told me that their videoservers could not take Fill and Key in the same file and asked me render them seperately.

Tbh, I know I should but I don't know what that means. Could anybody explain?

I apologize for my lack of knowledge in this field, my daily work got a completely different focus and I just never had to do something like this. Thanks!

System specs: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core Processor 4.70 GHzCPU,64,0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 // Software specs: Adobe Premiere Pro v23.6.5 // Footage specs: hopefully about to find out

We get loads of professionals accessing this subreddit - along with lots of people trying to become professionals in the field.

We're asking our professionals to once a week, check in on our "Ask anything" and "Career" threads, and provide help!

These can be found on the menu area of the subreddit on new Reddit or via the official client.

Just to be clear - We're talking from the Weekly Links at the top of the sub.

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The idea is that you go in there and provide helpful advice for the:

• "Ask anything" crowd
• People looking for career advice.

Thank you (not here, those threads please!)

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Ask anything threads

Career threads

Hi everyone! I've been editing audio clips into frankenbites for various projects and often face challenges with mismatched speeds, pitches, and intonations between splices. I've been using a two-frame crossfade between cuts, which helps somewhat, but I'm looking for other techniques or tools that could improve the seamlessness of the sound. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

I’m am truly perplexed at why and how this keeps happening. Many of these emails are quite detailed. It’s also super cruel in the current job market. Wtffffff 😫😫😫

Hi all,

Am I being dim here, or has Premiere's subtitling system become totally unusable? Previously, I've happily been able to do an edit, get it to transcribe the edit and Happy Days, off we go.

Now, there appears to be no option to transcribe a sequence: I have to export a vox-only video, re-import that and hit various buttons until I can force it to transcribe the export.

Have Adobe broken it??

(I'm using Version 24.3.0 (Build 59) on a Mac.)

This is more for the "content creator" type of editors, I'm not trying to implement this in a professional workflow. I use Soundly for Audio and it's awesome. I don't need to review any dialogue: this is purely for constructing visuals (that I later route into after effects most often).

I have a gazillion video and still image/illustration/animation assets. It's overwhelming, and since I'm not a file management pro I'm also always looking to change my folder structures and rename things. Problem is, this messes with a million different projects in a million different ways. And since I started heavily using Productions, I just spam projects. So it's a nightmare having to relink everything all the time (if it's a simple change that Premier can just automatically relink it's no issue, but if I'm moving files and the like too it can turn into a mess: this isn't a frequent problem and I try to put forethought into what I do, so I'm just listing out the main concern because I am quite ADHD and if I start to *feel* disorganized it snowballs).

I like Bridge and I like the idea of staying within the Adobe ecosystem. I'm not super big on cloud but I'd like to be and it just leaves me more options further down the line for when/if I want to start something more like a business again. I just don't know if I love Bridge, and when using a new program it's hard to tell what is a limitation of your own knowledge and what is a limitation of

I keep my assets on an external T7 SSD. My main one right now needs to be reformatted, it just acts up sometimes (for example, it can't maintain labels categorization within the native Finder Mac OS). But I'd like

Hi everyone,

I'm an AE, and we recently updated all our Mac systems to the most recent version of Premiere (24.3), and it went well until a couple of weeks ago. A grey overlay appeared in some of the editor's full-screen playback during all the kinds of dissolves (please see the two attached videos for an example). The funny thing is that the grey overlay doesn't appear when the editors export. While we could have the editors not use full-screen playback, that's not an option at my work studio.

The first video with the file name PremierePro_FadeExample_Export is a simple export of a couple of clips with dissolves; the grey overlay dissolves are notably nonexistent. 

The other video, PremierePro_FadeExample_Recording, is a recording during full-screen playback with the grey overlay dissolve issue.

So far, we've tried the following workarounds:

• Laying a black color matte works to fix the issue, but asking the editors to do that with every sequence is not possible.
• Rendering the entire sequence seems to work but is inconsistent. 
• Busting down a Premiere version also seems to work, but the issue eventually crops up, even down as far as 24.0.

The systems the AEs use are Mac Minis (specs are below), but the editors have full souped up Mac Studios.

• Mac Mini System specs:
• CPU - 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7
• GPU - Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB
• RAM - 16GB 2667 MHz DDR4
• Software specs: Sonoma 14.4

We've scoured the Premiere settings and have so far come up with nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions or need me to elaborate. 

Thank you!

As I'm currently going through the process of being made redundant, and doing the rounds of reaching out to contacts, scoping out the job market (UK) & updating the CV, Reel Folio etc.

Through this process it got me thinking, all those roles asking for Editors with Motion Skills, from my experiences I feel like 60-70% of the time the motion in question is just animating text, with another 10-20% being still images and the remaining just some variation of transitions or "dynamic" frame movement.

Sure they'll happily bite ya hand off for a fully fledged 3D Motion Graphics Artist, who ya know also edits. Just to have the capabilities on tab, but what I've noticed is that skill set then gets somewhat under utilised.

At least within the agencies I've worked in seldom have I seen a client get up sold into adding high end motion work on a brief that didn't initially want it going in.

Then overtime the people with that skill set get bored and just leave to either go freelance or work somewhere which actually specialises in it, and has the clients who request that kind of work.

Just an interesting phenomenon I've noticed, wondering if anyone has experienced similar?

Hello, I work on multiple projects (like all of you) on Premiere Pro on my PC. Projects are saved on files on different hard drives (content and adobe premiere file project). This is a little bit of a tricky question.

Client 1: They want source files and all media. This is fine they paid extra for transfer.

Client 2: project contains sensitive data/content. The project is saved on a completely different hard drive with all related data.

My concern: If I transfer entire Client 1 folder (all data) to cloud just for Client 1 access, will Client 1 somehow be able to see/have access to any Client 2 info? Metadata or file names?

The reason I am nervous is because of the other auto saved folders/cache etc (saved all to my C drive). Also because when I open Premiere from the direct icon, Premiere shows a history of which project I worked on. I always make sure to close Premiere out every time before opening the other Premiere project.

Overall I just want to make sure Client 1 has not access at all to Client 2 data.

Thank you for listening.

I REALLY don't want to set up my old Mac Pro Xenon tower in the garage, with the full FCP 7 studio to burn a video DVD. My daily driver is a m3 pro MacBook pro. I have a USB powered external cd/dvd/Blu-ray burner. Pretty sure Premier 2024 (or media encoder) can export the proper mpeg2 files, but for the life of me, can't remember how to build a video DVD. None of the 8 or so versions of Roxio Toast will work on even Intel based MacBooks anymore. All I remember is it having to be an ISO XXXX type of burn and needing a VIDEO_TS and an AUDIO_TS folder in the root. Any thoughts? The old tower has DVD Studio Pro, of course, as part of FCP Studio, but, again, I really don't want to vaccuum it out and prep it to run again right now. Newer silicon software is not out of the question for me, but I'm trying to keep it simple, but make playable DVDs for a TV with a built in DVD player AND for a portable DVD player for camping.

I'm having some difficulty seeing the leaves from the trees here. I've been working as an assistant conform artist in Flame for a high end post shop, and have enjoyed the environment and people, but am losing interest in comp work, and have more interest in editorial. Many of my dream companies are our vendors, and it's super cool that they are so close in proximity to the shop as well.

As they are putting an investment in my future, is it wise to show that I have an interest in editorial? They don't offer editorial services, so this could result in the loss of my job. Things have gotten to the point that I am starting to wane interest, and I've proven my skills already.

Any advice on how to approach something like this?

For 20 years I've been editing in 23.98p timelines, and exporting masters from those timelines at 23.98p. Then for broadcast deliverables, I use the 23.98p master to export a 29.97 (59.94i) broadcast deliverable, using true, upper-field-first, interlaced 3:2 pulldown (with no frame blending or interpolation whatsoever).

I've always done this with the understanding that this is basically how all 24fps film sources have been converted for broadcast TV (at least in North America) since the 1950s.

I now have a client who is suggesting that I use Apple Compressor to convert to broadcast deliverables using the "Best (Motion Compensated)" option in the "Retiming Quality" settings. This will obviously create new, interpolated progressive frames using optical flow instead of just non-destructively splitting out the original progressive frames into fields using 3:2 pulldown.

He wants me to do this because he says that he can actually see the interlacing when he views the broadcast deliverables. When I advised him that the interlaced deliverables are only intended for viewing/playback on a TV that supports interlaced playback (and not on a progressive-scan computer screen), he countered by claiming that he can still notice interlacing artifacts even when he sees his spots on broadcast TV.

I've seen every commercial spot that I've delivered in this manner on TV, and have never been able to notice anything weird. Indeed, the reason why I'm so anal about doing it this way is because I always notice when a spot has been converted from 23.98 to 29.97 simply by repeating progressive frames, or using some sort of frame blending process. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

But I'm willing to be wrong about this. I'm just curious if my client is crazy, or I'm the one who needs the reality check?

I just started a new gig as an editor with an assistant editor I haven't worked with before. I noticed all the "multicams" he said he made aren't really multicams, but seem to be all the angles synced on a timeline. As a result, I can't watch it in multicam view, which makes it very difficult to edit with this sort of show.

I'm unsure how they were even synced like this, and if there's a quick way to correct it, or if he has to make new multicams all together?

[I don't know why Reddit posted this post thrice, I've deleted the additional clone-posts, so in case you commented on any of those, I invite you to share your comments here]

Last month, I started working with a client who needs videos made based on recent human history and events.

The style of videos is very basic, but using lots of memes and clever use of humour that resonates well with both millenialls and later generations of viewers. The closest reference I can give to the kind of videos I am working on is a YouTube channel called Sciencephile the AI. That's not the channel I work on but ours is very similar in style.

I receive a text-script and audio narration from their voice artist, but that's about it. The script is straightforward - just a text version of the audio, no other instruction or direction.

It's all up to me. I've been able to create a couple videos in the last month which my client is very happy with.

I have to read through the script many times and listen to the narration and figure out how to translate something uninteresting into something funny yet not distracting, informational yet not boring.

I have to source out all the memes (or create some of my own), all the various images/videos etc and figure out a way to make it all coherent and funny.

But the problem is, it all takes SO much time. Initially I thought I just have to slap on a bunch of memes off the internet and submit the video.

But the recent videos are over 1 hour long and it's extremely tricky to do all of that consistently.

The client hopes to have 1 video every week, but ever since my first video with him, I've missed every deadline by days and even weeks.

I keep thinking I'm being lazy but sometimes it's just very demotivating to even look at all the various tasks I need to do before I can even start editing it all together on a timeline.

I know that making people laugh is an extremely hard task, and I was lucky enough to be a combination of both a video editor and a stand-up comedian. The client sees this blend of my qualities too and feels I'm the right person to do the job, but the biggest hurdle and downfall for me is the amount of time it takes and the delays I cause.

I freak out sometimes and don't know what else to tell him. I've missed all my deadlines that we agreed upon, he's nice enough to accommodate but this way of work cannot continue in the long run, eventually he will give up on me. He admitted that it will be very difficult to find someone else like me, but I can't take advantage of this leverage for long.

I've told him exactly what the problem is and I feel I might have to bow out of this project simply because I know I will never make the 1 video per week deadline and I will keep losing motivation to work on future videos.

What are my options? I would love to continue working on these videos but I need to figure out the most efficient way of working on this. I feel the videos have potential of blowing up, and I want to be there when they do. But I really need help with understanding how I can do better.

Could someone help me with some tips/prior experience or something?

Sorry for the long wall of text, I needed get it off my chest and get some help.

Hello everyone,

I'm aiming to become a colorist, and I currently have enough Assistant Editor hours to get on the Local 700 roster (I am in Los Angeles). I have all the paperwork done to join the roster, I just haven't submitted yet because I'm looking for a couple of answers:

• I currently do unpaid/low-paying freelance coloring and editing gigs, if I were to join the roster and then eventually the union, do I have to *demand* a colorist or AE rate or could I still take on what is basically Craigslist gigs?

• If I found a post house to take me in after joining the roster/union, how does that work? Do I take a leave of absence from the union? And if so, does being on the roster require formal paper work for the LoA?

• Kinda boils down to: if someone offers me a low paying gig, am I forced to walk away due to being in the roster/union?

• Are there rules that members *have* to follow once they're in the roster/union?

• I understand that getting to join the roster is an amazing opportunity, but I also want to make sure that it is the next proper step in becoming a colorist. Are there any cons I should be aware of?

I like to keep a fairly large hard drive for "lukewarm" storage of project backups. I don't ever plan to edit off of it, just a place to have my stuff automatically go to in the event something happens to my main RAID or I accidentally delete something and want to get it back immediately.

Typically, I've used G-RAIDs, but was poking around on B&H and saw this and wondered if anyone has experience with it?

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1550672-REG/glyph_technologies_bbpr16000ent_16tb_blackbox_pro_enterprise.html

edit to appease to autoMod, even though it's not relevant for the question:

MacStudio M2 MAX 64GB

Avid, Premiere, Resolve, whatever...

Specs we use

• Dropbox for sending to clients
• Final Cut Pro
• davinci resolve studio
• apple Mac Studio screen
• Mac m1 computer
• iPhone 14
• Sony A7ii settings Cine4
• drone dji mini
• QuickTime

Problem : does anyone have any colour management settings on davinci that could work for us? I currently use rec-709-A which is giving me the best results it still looks flat when I export it on QuickTime, so I put into Final Cut to up the contrast and saturation; I then export to Dropbox and check on my phone which looks flat again ( my boss checks on his phone) so I up the contrast and saturation again so it looks wild on the computer but normal on the phone, but then he says the colours look off and honestly I’m losing it, someone help me please!

the colours I see on my screen are different to what my boss sees on his screen, I’ve tried different methods, different screens but we can never seem to get it right, the photography side of the business doesn’t have a problem but for some reason we do. I feel like I’m going insane. My boss isn’t willing to change how he shoots so I need to fix it from my side.

I've been cutting in the commercial space for about 5 years now - getting income from fulltime employment with a post house. Being signed to a company has worked for me given it's provided a stable income with relatively low risk, and that's what I'd like to keep - but I'm hoping to jump into the long-form/feature game. I've done a fair amount of research and can't seem to find any post houses that mainly have a focus on long-form (strictly editing, not vfx/audio/etc) that I can set my sights on. I've always assumed that cutting features is more of a "freelance" game than advertising anyways given the scope of each project but wanted to run it by here just in case I'm wrong. I'm currently based in Toronto but willing to move to the states. Even jumping back to assistant editor if that's what it takes to get my feet wet in features.

Hi! I'm working on a DaVinci Resolve tutorial creating a 3D camera effect. When trying to apply the "drop shadow" effect to the text and connecting the nodes, they don't link up. This happens not only with this effect but also with others. Any solutions for this?

Client sent me a LUT, then said the LUT had a mistake in it and wondered if I could fix the skintones. So I used the HSL sliders and they wanted to keep that LUT, but exporting the LUT from Premiere doesn't keep the HSL adjustments. I'm guessing it's just the nature of the LUT; it's just an array of transformations so I guess the masking of HSL is not preserved. Seemed to work with Basic Correction. I'm also guessing curves would be preserved, but figure I'd ask instead of testing.

Title says it all. We're living in this current era of workers' rights, pushing for 4 day work weeks, etc., yet for some reason production is still an industry that relies on inhumane hours to meet arbitrary deadlines in order to achieve somebody's vision. I always try passively and professionally to push back when a deadline is looming and we're spinning our wheels, but at the end of the day it never sticks. I enjoy having a life outside of work - relationships, grocery shopping, doing laundry, exercise - but I can't achieve any of these things thanks to the bullwhip of production. I'm putting off having medical exams done because of deadlines.

What's the alternative? Get a corporate 9-5?

i worked as a dit in a short film but my role focused more on data management, transferring of files

now i am asked again to do dit work but this time it's not just what i did before, what should i expect or prepare for this? as of now, we haven't have a tech meeting with the dp and the taping dates is near so i am scared and anxious for this

Okay, I should preface that I’m fresh out of college and just starting to make my way in the industry. I got an opportunity to do some color grading for an independent film and it did not go well. What I mean by is that it was a very weird situation. I got this gig from a friend of a friend and their previous editor left (they just said he left and and stopped talking to them) and they need to get this done ASAP. I thought I could be of assistance and step in and finish the job while also using it as an opportunity to make connections. I also would do this for free as experience.

So, I make my way to this address I was given and it turns out to be an apartment complex which rang a few warning bells but I let it slide. Then the director/writer/lead meets me and brings me inside and everything seems to be going well until he takes me to his apartment in the building to watch the film and talk about what was needed of me. Now he didn’t have a computer with him to show me the movie so we had to watch it on my laptop and it was not a mp4 rough cut, it was the project file which had corrupted footage that he wanted me to fix along with sound mixing. I’m looking at this timeline and it’s a mess but I press on as I didn’t want to disappoint this person I just met. As we watch the film I tried to be as professional as I could but it was a tough watch. At the end of it I had my notes and was ready to get started but fate would seem had different plans. I was able to fix the footage but it took longer than I would have expected and I wanted to work on color to give this person an idea of what I can do. His plan was to use DaVinci to do the color which I had no problem doing but as I tried the normal route of transfer the file over nothing happened. DaVinci just went on as usual as if I just didn’t do what I did so I try and try again and still nothing. Not even an error code so I can figure out what the problem is. I try everything I know and nothing is working so now he tells me that this storage device is a backup as his master storage that got bricked. I started worrying that this would happen to my computer and I told him that I don’t think I will be able to do this because of how messed up your file is. To cut it short I just told him there was nothing I could do and tried to get out of there as fast as I could. He kept talking to me like I was coming back tomorrow to continue working and I tried to say I can’t but he just kept ignoring me and walked with me outside. I should mention that I didn’t have car so I took the subway to get there and luckily I decided to text a friend to pick me up because I felt like this guy was going to follow me home. I got in the car freaked out and when I got home I called the guy and said firmly that there wasn’t anything I can do and should look for someone else. He finally agreed and I haven’t talk to him since.

Has anyone else had similar experience?

I was about to throw away an old Lenovo laptop I had.

A 10 year old laptop. 12gb ram. i5.

I use a macstudio m1 ultra. 128gb ram as my main machine.

Installed Avid 2024.3 on both.

Guess what....

Avid launches FASTER on the 10 year old PC. I can't believe this crap. Moving around, opening clips is about the same speed. Using DNX media.

I knew Avid was buggy and unoptimized on Apple Silicon but I didn't expect it to be THAT BAD.

Is Avid not even trying anymore on Macs?

I'm a video editor searching a steady position, but almost every job offer I found recquieres to know how to work with motion graphics. I've worked with After Effects before and I know how to do basic motion graphics like Character Generators or simple transitions, but i would like to learn more about it. The thing is i don't know what recruiters mean when they say "You have previous work experience or knowledge of motion graphics - After Effects software". Which level? Are some specifics skills more valuable than others? What do you recommend to learn first?

Thanks in advance

I been working as a freelance video editor for 2 years now and I want to niche down to Corporate videos, but apart of VSL what else can I offer, and how I find most of the clients? And if any is on this niche, I'll appreciate any advice!

Does anyone know if it’s possible in Premiere pro to export other video objects like color bars as part of an EDL?

I’m running an experiment and I’m only able to view the main video file’s in and out points when I view the EDL in a text editor.

I'm shooting about 500GB of 4K footage to a microSD at a time and looking for a fast way to transfer the data to my PC/NAS. The transfers (via USB 2.0 - admittedly) are upwards of 2 hours for a full card.

I tried to do a simple search on speeding the process up but finding a definitive answer has been elusive. So help me out by verifying a few assumptions of mine?

• USB 2.0's theoretical maximum data transfer rate is 480 Megabytesbits/sec
• USB 3.0's theoretical maximum data transfer rate is 5000 Megabits/sec
• USB-C's theoretical maximum data transfer rate is 10,000 Megabits/sec
• V90 SD Cards - theoretical maximum read rate is 300 Megabytes/sec or 2,400 Megabits/sec
• Therefore - assuming I'm using a V90 SD Card - I need a card reader that uses at least USB 3.0 for the fastest theoretical transfer rate from the card.

Does that sound about right?

Am I loosing my mind or does this seem way harder than it ought to be.

Hoping to get some advice.

My edit team is trying to setup our assistants with 5.1 audio playback using an Ultrastudio 4k (thunderbolt 2 version as we are all on Mac Trash Cans). My thinking was: Ultrastudio 4k, SDI Out to 2
"SDI to Audio" de-embedders. I've verified that I get SDI video signal out of the Ultrastudio. Confirmed that the "Embedded audio" is set to output in Desktop Video. Jumpers are set.

I get no audio, even just stereo.

I called Black Magic support and he basically interrupted me and said "yah 5.1 isn't reliable especially with SDI to audio converters." I asked "what about stereo audio out, because I don't even get that?" and he was like "nah".

So is AJA the only solution? I really don't want to put a home theater receiver in every assistant bay. That seems silly.

Thanks in advance.

System specs: Mac Pro 2013, AMD + 64GB

Software specs: Media Compser 2022.7, Desktop Video 12.4

Footage specs : DNX115 from dailies lab

I'm used to requests for superless splits, but in the same email they asked for a clean superless split as well. Probably just going to ask the client but curious if others have encountered this term?