The post production stage is the final stage of the programme’s life. This is the stage where all the different pieces come together to form the complete jigsaw.
The pictures that have been shot will be collected together into the right order, the shots will be trimmed to the correct length, any special effects will be added, the captions will be fitted in and the sound will be mixed together to form the final sound track.
How much actual work, and therefore time, this all takes depends on the preparation work that has already been done. If the storyboard has been well thought out the majority of shots should cut together, without the need for cutaways. If the shooting logs have been properly completed every shot will be found easily and quickly.
Sometimes captions and credits are designed as artwork and will need to be shot. Sometimes they are computer generated, stored on disk and can be played back through the edit suite.
How much work needs to be done on the sound is dependent on how careful you were at the shooting stage. Are all the levels the same? Is the background noise minimal, or does it need adjusting? Has a voice-over been recorded? Are all the effects and music needed collected together and logged?
There are three separate stages to post production. The first is off line editing, followed by on line editing and finally audio dubbing.
How many people are involved will depend on what is needed, and how complex the programme. With a really good camera log you should only need the director and an editor for off line. It helps to have a PA to find the location of the shots, and make up an edit log.
On line will need the director, the editor and possibly operators for the tape machines, graphics and caption generators. A sound operator is normally used to balance the dialogue tracks, but it may be that the PA will produce a sound log instead.
The audio dubbing stage needs the director and a sound operator who will mix the final soundtrack together onto the finished master tape. There may be sound operators to operate the various machines and outboard equipment.
Before any of this can start Simon has to get the BITC copies. You will remember that he has arranged for Richard, who will do the on line edit, to do these for him.
The Beta master tapes have time code recorded onto them and those times are recorded on the shooting logs. It is these times that will be used for the on line edit. Simon has decided to do the off line himself using Ace Productions’ VHS edit suite, which has the normal control track counter. What Richard will do is to make VHS copies of the master tapes and ‘burn in’ the time code in a little box at the bottom of the screen.
The master tapes should be insured against any damage but, even so, they should only be run through a machine the minimal number of times. You should still make copies even if you off line on Beta, keeping the originals for the on line edit. Very often companies will make copies of the original tapes, and store them in a different place, in case anything does happen to the originals.
The original shoot took up eight rolls of tape. This means eight BITC VHS copies will have to be entered onto the post production budget at the agreed £5 each.
Editing Overview
Perhaps the biggest advance in video production in the last few years has been in the editing process.
With the rapid fall in the cost of computer memory, the availability of larger hard disk storage space at affordable prices, faster processors and more advanced graphics cards, computer editing is now much more accessible to the smaller video producer. This affordable access to computer technology has given rise to an upsurge in non-linear editing (NLE).
Simon decided to use the conventional machine-based editing instead of NLE. He based this not on cost (there was only some £15 between them), but the convenience of a package deal and the fact that he liked Richard more than Tim. He will find out shortly whether he has made the right decision.
There are three distinctly different methods of editing programmes. The traditional method of linear editing involves the need to copy the required sections of video and audio onto a new tape in the order required. Because the clips are in an order, and of finite time, any later change of mind about the length or position of a clip results in a new copy having to be made. In other words, a whole new edited tape has to be made from that edit point onwards.
Copying tapes produces a loss of quality, which is why it is important that the acquisition is done on the highest possible format, no matter what format you will eventually end up with. Often the original tape is copied to a digital format, edited with minimal loss of quality, and then copied back to the desired end format. This obviously involves the expense of digital machines and editing suites.
The second method of editing, based on the advances in affordable computer technology, is non-linear editing (NLE). This method involves digitizing the source material and putting the files of material into a computer. The programme material can now be formed into a video programme using a computer-editing program. These programs work exactly the same as a word processor (except that they process pictures and sound). Clips can be assembled into the right order using cut and paste techniques. Exactly like a word processor the clips can be added to, the order can be changed, bits can be taken out and so on. Editing can start on the day of the shoot or whenever there is enough material to make up sequences. NLE computer programs will have a range of effects and transitions built into them, doing away with the need for a separate vision mixer and effects processor.
If you are using an NLE system it is very important that you keep to the discipline of programme making. A programme should be designed and constructed at the paperwork stage. NLE is a quicker, more flexible method of editing – it is not intended to be used as a tool for sloppy programme making whereby you can just go and shoot anything and then ‘make’ the programme using a computer.
The third type of editing is computer assisted editing (sometimes called hybrid editing). With this method a still frame (or sometimes a short clip) of the beginning and end of a scene is ‘grabbed’ by the computer together with its location on the original tape. This is normally the time code number but less accurately, can be derived from the control track. Each of these clips can then be cut and pasted into a storyboard displayed on the computer screen. Any transitions or effects between the scenes can be selected from the computer and added to the storyboard. Because this method uses a computer program to assemble the storyboard, and cut and paste is available, the order can be changed at any time during this assembly process. When the programme is complete the computer is instructed to make the final programme. It does this by copying the bits held on the source tapes in the right order, adding transitions as it goes, onto another tape.
This may be seen as the best of both worlds. It is possible to use the power of the computer to adjust and assemble the programme until it is the way you wanted it to be, and then use the computer to make the edited copy using the original source material rather than a sub standard digitized version.
Off Line Edit
Elaine and Poppy will help Simon because editing is a very time consuming process in its initial stages. The various clips have to be accurately located on the different source tapes, checked that they will visually join together and if not what can be done. Maybe a cutaway is needed, but whereabouts on which source tape is it? The PA’s log will cut down a lot of time wasting if it has been done accurately, but checks still have to be made to see if the programme as a whole will flow as required. The client will often require a ‘rough cut’ edit before sanctioning a final version. Complicated mixes, transitions and sounds that need to be added will be agreed and done on line.
Edit suites are not the place to log tapes, try out mixes or play with a series of ideas that may not work. Because of this, editing is broken down into two stages – off line and on line.
Poppy will be busy making up an edit log. The BITC will form the basis of a list of all the required edits in the form of an edit decision list (EDL). An EDL is a list of all the locations for the first and last frame of each scene as they are to be joined together to form the final programme. Off line is normally carried out on the cheapest available system (time is money). An off line edit is the rough-cut edit. It will usually only have cuts between shots with, at best, a caption saying what sort of transition will be in the final version. The sound will be ‘as recorded’, and will not have been cleaned up or added to.
Because the Fashions for You programme will be largely cut to the specially commissioned music, Simon will lay down (record) the music track first and adjust the shot lengths to fit.
This is the Ace Productions’ EDL template.
You will see that apart from the obvious exact location of each shot there is a column for comments and prog(ramme) time. Comments will be used to indicate things that Simon cannot do, with this simple edit suite, like a caption overlay or a multiscreen effect.
Only when they have a version of the off line rough cut edit that everybody, including the client, is happy with can they go to the next (most expensive) stage of on line editing.
The on line edit suite has the ability to make the final programme from the original source tapes and the EDL, which is often fed to a computer which will control the machines, making sure they are at the right time code point for each consecutive shot.
At this stage Elaine, Simon and Poppy work closely together. Poppy has her shooting logs and sorts out the time and roll number for the next shot, while Elaine is working with the storyboard, and Simon, to get the current shot cut to length and check that it marries with the previous shot without the need for a cutaway.
Not until Elaine is happy with this edit will the time code out position of the previous shot and the time code in position of the current shot be noted on the EDL.
You might think that to allow two days for this editing of a five or six-minute programme is a bit excessive. The truth is that there were two days of shooting, eight rolls of tape and some fifty shots, as well as difficult multiscreen mixes, captions and graphics. The ‘rough cut’ off line version has to be approved by the client and it will be a miracle if no changes have to be made!
Let us drop in on Elaine, just as she completes an edit. We will look at the details of how she sets up and executes the next edit.
The first stage is to find and mark the edit points. This can be done on either machine first, but for this edit she does it first on the record machine.
To find the first edit point on the record machine Simon presses the play button for that machine on the edit controller. Elaine watches carefully (and listens) to find the exact moment when she wants to cut to a different shot. Actually she overshoots it slightly, so Simon very carefully uses the shuttle control to wind the tape back to the chosen point.
Once the point has been found, the shuttle control is centred and the tape pauses, giving a still picture on the screen. Simon now enters this point into the controller’s memory by pressing the ‘in entry’ button. The controller actually stores the number from the control track display, not the real time code, which is why it is very important to write down the time code from the screen.
Elaine now finds an edit point for the playback machine, in exactly the same way. This is the point in the material that will directly follow the point chosen on the record machine, when the edit is done.
Quite often, when building a programme from new, there is no need to tightly mark the end of the edit. It can be allowed to over run slightly at the end, and then the following edit will crop any excess off the shot. This allows Elaine more freedom for the timing of the next edit.
Once the edit points have been entered Simon will try a ‘preview’ of the edit. This shows what it will look like (and what it will sound like) on the monitor of the record video machine, without actually committing it to tape.
If it isn’t quite right it can still be altered, nothing has been committed to tape. Edit points can be moved, or sound levels adjusted. On complex, or very tightly timed edits, it may be necessary to run a number of previews before Elaine is satisfied with it, which is how the time slips away and two days begins to look more realistic.
Now the moment of truth – if all is well with the preview Simon will press the ‘auto-edit’ button and this time the edit is recorded. Simon and Elaine will now check that the recording of the edit has taken place, and looks and sounds just as it should, by playing it back from the record machine, or ‘reviewing’ it. If it isn’t quite right it is much easier to redo the edit now, with everything still approximately cued up, rather than later when many other edits could have followed and it may all have to be redone. Only when they are happy can Poppy enter the time codes onto the EDL.
Here is just a small section of Poppy’s completed EDL.
You will see from this that the in point of shot 9 has been decided, but the out point has yet to be confirmed. The total programme running time has been noted and is currently 36 secs. It is important to have this column because the time codes are meaningless except to indicate the edit points.
Look at the comments column and you will see that there are things Simon cannot do until the on line stage. Shot 1 will have the Fashions for You logo superimposed onto it. This will be generated in the on line suite and mixed in there. Similarly shots 5 and 8 are the agreed captions for the girls. Shot 4 will be a three-screen shot and include footage from two other shots (48 and 16). Once again Simon can’t do this with his limited edit suite, but the correct time codes must be entered or time will be wasted in the on line suite trying to find them.
Poppy needs another piece of paper! Ace Productions call this a ‘shot guide’. You may just write down the time codes on the original EDL or you may have a sheet similar to this one. Either way the exact times must be entered somewhere.
Ace Productions find this the easiest method because it gives a visual indication of what is required, as well as the times, speeding up the on line process.
These three shots are simple to do with the equipment used in an on line suite. The thinking behind all the preparation work is that it saves discussions and misunderstandings if the final image is worked out now. Richard, who will do the on line, is only interested in what the time code in and out points are and how the pictures fit together.
Poppy has had to time the original shot and then find the component parts of shot 4 (shots 16 and 48), before Elaine can look at these components on the screen and decide which section of the shots she will use. Poppy then has to copy down the time codes and, under Elaine’s direction, draw them onto the shot guide.
Some people will bypass this by writing the information onto the storyboard. Ace Productions find it easier to go to on line with all the time codes on an EDL with accompanying shot guide.
This process of finding the shots, logging them, finding the composite shot times and making up the shot guide has taken a day and a half. Elaine has finished up with a rough cut edit that has a music track, but no voice-over, and the base shots, but no composites and no logos or captions.
She has arranged to show this rough cut to the client in a couple of days time and has to do something to make it look a bit closer to the finished product; so, what would you do now? You have 4 hours to either redo the edit, work out how to put in logos and captions and get a voice-over, or you present it to the client, in this rather messy state, and hope that he will understand that it will be OK after on line. What are the changes, if any, you would now make? How will you handle the meeting with this first-time client? Can anything be done? This isn’t a book you just read, this is the reality of a production that you will experience before you finish your course. If you start thinking out the answers now you will be ahead of the game. Preparation is everything!
While you think about how Ace Productions have overcome this problem, we will sit in on the client meeting of 10 o’clock on the 30th September.
Client Review
Naomi and Mr Hermandes have agreed to meet Simon and Elaine in the Fashions for You boardroom at 10 a.m. on September 30th. Naomi has suggested they allow 2 hours for this meeting. The objective of the meeting is to ensure that they are fully satisfied that the programme meets the criteria discussed at earlier meetings, follows the storyboard faithfully and is considered to be value for money. Naomi has withheld the second payment of 25% of the total, which was due on the successful completion of the shooting, until she has seen the rough cut. This is perfectly normal. The client has judged that the shoot is only successful if the images match the agreed storyboard.
If she is not happy with the images then Ace Productions will have to arrange a re-shoot at their expense, unless it can be agreed that the client has changed her mind about the images she wants; it needs to be proved that these are new shots. You will remember that when we discussed re-shoots we said that this would only be necessary if you made a mistake. A re-shoot can only mean you didn’t do the preparation to get the shots you promised, or a mechanical, technical or operator error occurred. On line could be postponed while you spend your money putting the situation right.
Elaine has with her copies of the treatment, storyboard, script and photocopies of another piece of paper from the production diary; do you know which one? Simon has the rough-cut edit, music cassette, copies of the correspondence, and notes Elaine made, between themselves and the client; he also has the contract. One of two things happens at client review meetings; either the client will approve everything, because they have been fully informed all the way through the production process and know what to expect, or there will be some discussion, disagreement or outright rejection.
This is a very important business meeting that must be handled in a business like manner. You cannot load up the video and say ‘you are really going to like this’.
All these client meetings start with a few pleasantries, Naomi says she had no idea how complex video production was, Mr H thinks it all went very smoothly, Simon and Elaine agree, and explain that it is so much more pressured when the budget is this tight.
Naomi wants to see the video. Elaine says she would like to explain a couple of things first. She points out that the expensive bit of post production is the on line stage, when all the special effects, captions and logos are added and mixed together. It is also the stage that the audio is completed with the voice-over artist, music and background sounds mixed together. It is for that reason that she has brought two versions of the off line for them to see.
The first is the programme with all the base images in place, is to length and has Simon reading the script using the exact words and placing of the script over the pictures. This will give an overall impression of the final version.
The second is broken down into sections, which she will stop and start, that follow the storyboard and have the composite images cut to length, but as two or three images one after the other; they will of course be made into composites at the on line stage. Wherever the logo occurs there is a timed black passage and she will explain what happens at that point. Similarly where there are captions over pictures, the pictures are there and Elaine will explain the caption.
Now you know what Simon was doing for the last 3 or 4 hours of off line. He used the second audio track on the VHS to record the script; Poppy measured the timing of each phrase and noted the time code numbers corresponding to the pictures and then she found all the tape numbers and time codes, for all the shots and composites, that they had spent a day and a half writing down as the edit progressed, and he simply put together another off line copy. This time he inserted black, where the logo would go, and followed the base scenes with the composites. Because the tape was a true ‘rough cut edit’ there was no need for music or script. Is that what you thought would happen? You may have thought of something better; as long as it allows the client to see all the shots that will be used, and shows how they go together, that’s fine.
The other piece of paper from the diary? The shot guide, of course, so that Elaine can show Naomi how the composite picture will be made up. Remember we don’t want any misunderstandings at this stage. Your idea of a three-shot composite, mine, Naomi’s and Elaine’s are probably all different. Rather than try to explain it, show her!
They all run through the complete version, with the music and script. Naomi seems very pleased. She has the storyboard in front of her and has been glancing down at it. She likes the overall feel, particularly with the music and some of the shots that make it look like a pop video. Some of these shots ‘break the rules’ (have you been told not to cut on a zoom!), but she doesn’t know that. She feels that the thing that is missing is the Fashions for You name which only appears in a few of the shots as a banner, but understands that Elaine will explain that to them in a minute.
They now get down to the difficult bit. They will run through the sections one by one, compare them with the storyboard and shot guide and try to imagine it as a finished product.
It takes just over an hour for 51⁄2 minutes of video. There are a couple of simple questions, but no complaints. They re run the original version because Naomi wants to listen to the dialogue again. She asks if it is too late to change a couple of phrases and put another one in somewhere else. Simon says it is no problem; the voice is not being recorded until next week. Naomi says that she will be more than happy to pass the second invoice this afternoon.
This has been a successful meeting, everybody is happy, there are a couple of adjustments to the script, but nothing major, and the second stage payment has been approved.
On Line Edit
The off line editing suite that Simon uses makes the picture joins exclusively by cutting, because that’s how the switch from playback to record works. It isn’t possible to do a partial recording, leaving residual parts of the picture underneath in addition to the new picture – the video machine is either recording or not, and if it is, it totally obliterates anything already on the tape.
With most programmes, however, there may be times when we need, for example, a slow dissolve from one image to another. This cannot be achieved in the simple off line edit suite. To achieve it we need another source machine, whose image can be combined, in some kind of vision mixer, with the image from the first source machine. So instead of one source feeding to the record machine we now have two or more; the vision mixer will allow all kinds of combinations, using images from both the source machines simultaneously, particularly if combined with a DVE (digital video effects) machine.
We need to ensure that the two images we wish to mix together are on different tapes, because we will be mixing from both source machines; you cannot put one tape into two machines! Ace Productions has made a big mistake here. You may remember that, in the preparation for shooting stage, Poppy took the shots required at each location from Simon’s recce sheets; Elaine checked them against the storyboard and worked out which shots would be done from the same positions at that location. Nobody checked which shots needed to be on a separate tape, to assist with the editing. Now they will have to be separated before on line can start.
An edit controller will be used which will tell both source machines when to roll. The assumption is that we start with one, which runs for a time, and then we make a transition to the second, which continues to roll for the rest of the edit. This process is known as an A/B roll, with the first machine to roll being called A, the second B. Because the timing of the changeover needs to be specified as well as the start and finish times of the edit, programming such a controller is more complex than for simple two machine editing.
We also need to plan, and maybe programme into the controller, the kind of transition we want to happen between the machines.
Remember though, that although we can now have a mix between shots as part of an edit, the record video machine will still only be able to start (and finish) the edit as a cut. With no further apparatus we can alternate cuts (starts/finishes of edits) and mixes (or other effects).
On ordinary, cheaper, edit suites operating on control track pulses, there is an accuracy of about plus or minus five frames. This is quite adequate for most purposes, but it means if we need to edit accurately, as with the Fashions for You composites, there is the possibility of slippage, which shows as a twitch in movements within the shot. This accuracy can’t realistically be improved if the machine relies, to know where it is on the tape, on counting control track pulses.
Time code can solve this problem by allowing totally frame-accurate editing. This is done by giving each frame of the video a unique numerical code that is recorded on to a separate part of the tape at the same time as the picture. It is always possible then for the machine to go to a precise location on the tape, and therefore to edit accurately.
Time code is used as the basic control signal, together with a synchronizer, to allow us the opportunity to lock other video machines, or audio tape recorders to one master recorder, so synchronous sound can be stripped off the video, processed, and then put back completely in sync.
The time code from one of the various machines is designated as the master and read by the synchronizer. The time code on the other machines (the slaves) is checked against the time of the master machine. The synchronizer now compares these times and sends out speed instructions that allow all the slave machines to run, in lock, to exactly the same time reference. The times do not need to be identical, but must be continuous, because it is possible to enter ‘offsets’ into the synchronizer. We might say ‘the time on slave one is 2 minutes and 34 seconds behind the time on the master’ and the synchronizer will adjust to take this difference in ‘time code’ time into account.
Time code must be recorded as a continuous signal from one end of each tape to at least the end of the programme. When it is read back it displays the same figures as the control track (hours, minutes, seconds and frames), but they are the real time as recorded, not necessarily the time from the beginning of the tape. The actual time code numbers are required in the form of an EDL if the choice has been made to do time code editing.
Particularly time-consuming is any kind of process that requires a programme to be re-edited. Because editing is really copying scenes onto another tape in the right order, it is not possible with tape-based editing to put something in between two scenes later. A new edit will have to be carried out from the point of the new insert right to the end of the programme. Unlike film we cannot cut the tape and stick a new bit in!
We said earlier that more and more on line suites are using the process called ‘non-linear’ editing. What this does is store all the rushes of a programme into a powerful computer, which can then allow the editor to move clips, edit them, cut and paste them, sequence them and often add visual effects to them, all within the computer.
This gives complete freedom to change the order, change the edit type or change complete sequences, very quickly. Nothing is committed until the material is fed as output from the computer, and even then it is possible on some systems to change and adapt the edit. Because the shots are digitized and stored in memory there is no need to use separate tapes for composite shots, or ones that will have transitions other than a cut. All options are open, the NLE suite will allow total freedom of fades, mixes and cuts in any order. Maybe Simon should have gone down the NLE route after all!
Currently, because video pictures of reasonable quality have an enormous density of information, a choice has to be made with non-linear systems between image quality and cost. Keeping high quality pictures needs large amounts of processing power and unbelievable amounts of memory in the computer, and as memory is still relatively costly such high quality systems are still only really available to the wealthiest facility houses. The alternative is to accept some amount of compression (which means reducing the size of the signal representing the pictures) to limit the huge need for memory. Unfortunately compression visibly degrades picture quality.
The interest shown in this new generation edit suite means that video manufacturers, computer manufacturers, and software engineers are all researching quickly and competitively to bring the need for compression down, and the amount of affordable quality up. Before long non-linear editing will become the standard way of editing.
It was for this reason of quality that Simon decided to stay with tape based on line, which he has always used. Perhaps he has a fear of the unknown; perhaps he simply doesn’t trust the quality that Tim at Edit-All can offer with a ‘medium cost system’. What we will soon find out is whether he made the right decision.
At the moment, there are many affordable non-linear systems that can be used for the time consuming ‘off line’ edit, allowing freedom to try things out or edit sections shortly after they have been shot. The output quality to tape is only good enough to produce a ‘working copy’ as a reference, but the system may be capable of producing an EDL to take to an on line, tape based, edit suite. Simon keeps going to trade shows and looking at them – the VHS suite can’t last forever – but even a few thousand pounds is too much investment for Ace Productions at the moment.
It is the 5th of October. Elaine, Simon and Poppy are on their way to Richard at First Post for the on line edit. They have with them the storyboard, EDL, shot guide and the modified script. They also have four other forms that will help the on line to go smoothly. The script has been broken into sections and timed, to help the voice-over artist; there is an audio track chart to show the exact placing of the music, voice and sound effects and a list of captions and logos that will have to be made up.
Simon has also had to do a list of the shots that have to be separated onto different rolls of tape, which has not pleased him at all; to make copies of the original material will mean deterioration of the quality and involve using different time code times. The copy will have to be pre-striped with new time code.
Rather like the production was broken down into pre production, production and post production, on line is broken down into assembling the graphics, the voice, sound effects and music. The edit suite cannot lay a caption over a picture unless the caption exists. It is quicker, therefore to assemble all the component parts of the programme first, then edit it all together.
Richard has already pre-striped a blank tape with time code and the first thing that he will do is to generate the captions and logo and record them onto tape. He will then have to copy the shots that need separating.
This is part of Poppy’s graphics list.
You will remember that Simon did the rough-cut voice-over himself, while Elaine found the exact position for each bit of script and Poppy noted down the time code numbers. The original storyboard showed the words against the shot numbers, this was then refined into a script which had the shot numbers in one column followed by the script and some instructions. These instructions included things like ‘wait until girl is halfway down catwalk. Run over start of shot 15’. This has now been translated into a voice script, for the voice-over artist, who only wants to know what the words are and how long it should take to say them.
There are many ways of recording the voice-over. Often the tape is edited into final form and then taken to audio post production where the voice-over artist will sit and watch the video while recording the right words over the right pictures. Sometimes a script will simply be recorded and pauses inserted later. Richard likes to have the voice-over artist record each segment separately onto a DAT machine, which has been pre-striped with time code. He then makes up a multitrack DAT tape, also with time code, which includes all the effects, voice and music. This final audio copy is then slaved to the master tape and dubbed.
This edit facility has a sound engineer and she will record the voice-over whilst Richard starts to generate the captions. Elaine and Poppy will be with Richard to talk him through the storyboard, shot guide and graphics placement list. Simon is with Sheena and the voice-over artist.
The script is now in a form that can be read easily, which makes the recording simpler. There are a few general guidelines for this recording script. It should be in upper and lower case, double-spaced, which makes it more readable. It also helps if it is in the centre of the page. This ensures that the person recording it does not have to move their head from side to side, aiding recording balance. Often the voice-over person will use all this space to ‘mark up’ the script; putting in the emphasis points, pauses, intonation and phonetic pronunciation of difficult words. Because Simon wants this script recorded as timed segments, he puts the words in boxes with the time beside it. His recording script looks like this.
It is mutually agreed that Simon will read each section first to demonstrate the emphasis, pauses and pace that is required and then it will be recorded. It will not take very long to record this short script – there is barely 3 minutes of dialogue in the whole programme – and so each section will be replayed and checked before going on to the next.
Meanwhile the others have been busy with the caption generator. It has not taken as long as Elaine feared because the DVE that Richard uses can place the caption anywhere and add any effects necessary.
What is beginning to take time, and cause a bit of frustration, is copying the different shots needed for some of the composites onto a new tape and adding the new time codes to the EDL. Richard has to record a few seconds before and after the shot so that the machines can lock up and then Elaine must find the edit points again. They have made a big mistake here, which wouldn’t have mattered at all if they had decided on non-linear editing.
The way that Richard had planned out the day and a half of on line was to break it into three parts; half a day on recording the script, generating the captions and mixing some base shots, half a day actually editing from Elaine’s EDL, and half a day finishing the sound and making VHS copies. They are going to overrun by about three hours, and now need three edit tapes. Ace Productions will have to pay for this mistake; Simon will have to look at the budget again!
By the time they have stopped for lunch and all the various sections of tape have been sorted out it is just after four in the afternoon. The choice is simple, either they run on into the evening or they start again tomorrow and see how far they get in the allocated half day. Richard cannot run on tomorrow afternoon because he is booked; he could do the morning of the 8th. Elaine and Simon know that is hand-over day; they don’t have any choice. Simon wants to know how much it will cost; Richard doesn’t know until he finds out how long it takes. Frustration levels are rising and all because they forgot the basic rule that you cannot mix two shots that are on the same tape. They are both also beginning to realize that if they do get the sales presenter programme, and the seasonal updates, they cannot just ‘replace shots’, or change the order, without a complete re-edit. Another reason to have chosen NLE!
The decision is made. They will run on and aim to finish the edit tonight; Poppy will stay and help out with the paperwork; more overtime!
The groundwork has been thorough; all the time codes are entered into the edit controller, the effects and transitions are programmed in and Richard starts to build the programme. He has laid the music track down as a guide track for the pictures so that Elaine can check that the cuts and mixes happen where she wants them.
Eventually the picture track is very close to completion and the suggestion is made that they go home and come back in at 8 a.m. tomorrow. It is half past nine in the evening and Richard is going to charge another £250.
The next morning Simon and Poppy are with Sheena, the sound engineer. Elaine is with Richard and they are putting the finishing touches to the picture track. Sheena looks at Simon’s track chart to make sure she understands it. She uses an 8 track multitrack DAT machine and will lay down the music in stereo first, then put the voice segments in the right place on another track and finally add the applause and any background sounds.
You will see from the section of the track chart that the time code starts at an indicated time of 10 mins. This is fairly normal; most synchronizers have difficulty knowing what to do when they get to 00:00:00:00, hence the often heard caveat of ‘never let the time code cross midnight’.
Remember this is an example of a track chart. It is the one that Ace Productions uses. Some people find it easier to use a ‘tape view’ where the time runs along the top and the tracks run down the page as in this example.
It is now possible to ‘see’ how the various sounds overlay each other. You will notice that tracks 7 and 8 have been designated as ‘mix down’. This is because all the sounds are recorded at the same optimum level of 0 dbs (the red line on the meters). The final mix will consist of all the sounds that have been adjusted to their correct level for fade ins/outs in the mix.
It has taken nearly two hours to find all the relevant pieces, and assemble them in the right order and right place on the tape. The audio track has now been completed and Sheena marks up the track chart; she needs to be familiar with where the sound level adjustments take place. She tries a rough mix; it sounds OK so they decide to do a final mix to take to Richard and Elaine.
Elaine is very pleased with the final picture track. Richard links the DAT audio mix through the synchronizer, and using the music guide track to ensure it is in sync, they run the final picture and soundtrack to check that everything is in the right place. It looks and sounds very good so a final composite master tape is made, played back as a final check, and Richard starts to make the four VHS copies.
Ace Productions have come out of this fairly well. Simon will be back in the office this afternoon doing the final budget. Elaine will make sure the production diary is up to date. Poppy will be back at the agency.
Budget Reconciliation
Simon has got the final figure from Richard. He has charged an extra £250 for the extra evening, used three edit tapes and done eight BITC copies.
The moment of truth is rapidly arriving. Pre production was £77 under budget, production was £277 over budget, largely because the shoot overran and they used more of Poppy than planned. Now the edit has overrun, entirely due to their fault in not separating the shots onto different rolls of tape when shooting.
The question has to be ‘how bad is it?’
The situation is not as bad as Simon thought it might be. They went over budget on the PA and on line editing because he forgot to separate the shots at the shooting stage. He grossly overestimated the BITC cost, and that was because he was estimating from old figures. By the time it is all correctly budgeted Ace Productions have lost £78.50 on post production. This adds to the £277 they lost on the shoot, again their fault because the failure to notice the missing banner put them into overtime with the crew. This can be offset by the £77 they gained in the pre production stage, largely because they didn’t employ the PA.
The position at the moment is that they are over budget by £278.50. It has to be accounted for somewhere so Simon will now look at the budget for indirect costs. You will remember that the lawyer had to be consulted about the confidentiality clause, for which he wants another £50; Naomi recognized that using a fourth girl would cost more in salary and time and offered another £100 which must be added to contingency; Richard charged £10 per tape for the VHS copies.
The indirect costs budget now looks like this:
The indirect costs budget shows that there is a £40 surplus. All that needs to be done now is to work out a breakdown sheet for the production diary. This last sheet is important because it will show the areas that went wrong, and why. It will also show whether any profit has been made.
We already know that Simon and Elaine had to cut their salaries to be able to lower their estimate enough for it to come close to the Fashions for You offer. Now Simon wants to know if they made any money for the company. It is all very well paying yourself, but what about the rent, electricity, equipment and all the other things that a company has to pay out before it can even start working.
We said earlier that Simon would normally put in an amount for finances, to offset the accountant’s bills; he couldn’t afford to. Maybe you should consider putting an amount into your indirect costs budget called ‘rent and rates’, or ‘company costs’, as well as financial; It would certainly be more realistic.
You will see from the sheet that Elaine and Simon have made some £1500 for three months work, and that is before tax! It isn’t surprising that they still need their part time jobs.
Taking the £400 contingency out of the equation, the programme has made a loss of £38.50. This is a very satisfactory result. To balance the books the £38.50 has been deducted from the £200 that was allowed for the hire of their own off line suite.
If we assume that these three months ended when all quarterly bills were due, you will see that Ace Productions made enough money to cover the solicitor, insurance, phone bill, mail, telephone and some of their food. The still have to pay the rent and rates, and the electricity. The profit to the company was only £161.50p. Unless you do work from your back bedroom, rent, rates and electricity for a quarter will be more than there is available.
There are two lessons to be learnt from this. One is that everything must be costed into the budget. There was no allowance, for instance, for stationery. Printer cartridges and paper are not cheap. The second lesson is obvious: if you take three months to do something that you can only charge two or three weeks for you must be doing something else in the mean time. This is true with any business.
Starting a business is a huge financial responsibility. You will be lucky to break even for the first three years.
It is worth looking at the way this Final Budget Summary has been laid out. This will be the one most important document in the production diary when Ace Productions review the programme costing to gain financial and budgeting experience for the next programme.
They have started by repeating the estimate and actual costs for the four stages they use. Now they have added a comments column to help them understand what went wrong (e.g. shoot overtime, PA and subsistence).
This has led them to use the £400 contingency (which was for just this purpose) to reduce the overall overspend to £38.50p.
The bottom section is a breakdown of what everything cost, including salaries. In the comments column is a note to raise cheques, or in the case of cast, graphics and props there is a note that they have paid cash. The cheques will be issued when the invoices come in and their numbers entered after ‘raise cheque’. This cheque number will also be added to the invoice.
You will notice that the tape cost has been marked as ‘included in shoot and on line i/v’. For the moment it still has to be costed into the total because the amounts allowed for these items are the agreed figures, excluding the tape stock.
Hand-Over and Invoicing
8th October 1999. Three months after the first letter from Fashions for You enquiring about a programme, Ace Productions have a programme to deliver in final form. Simon spent part of yesterday copying the programme many times onto the same tape making a continuous programme of just over two hours. This will save rewinding every five or so minutes which, apart from the boredom, will not do the tape any good at all over the period of a trade show.
Simon and Elaine go to see Naomi and Mr Hermandes as arranged. In their briefcase are several things from the production diary. They take the treatment, storyboard, contract and the notes that were made at the meetings with the company. They are not expecting differences of opinion at this stage, but it is better to have these to refer to if they are needed.
Fashions for You are very pleased with the programme. They admit that this was their first venture into video and compliment Simon and Elaine on how smoothly it all went. Naomi asked that the final invoice should be submitted to her personally and she would pass it for payment immediately.
As Simon and Elaine leave Naomi says ‘Fernando and myself would like to say thank you for all your hard work; we are sure the programme will help our sales enormously. We look forward to working with you again.’
As they get in the car Simon remarks that Fernando will always be Mr H to him.
As soon as they get back to the office, Simon raises the last bit of paper for the production diary, the invoice.
Post Mortem
As I explained in the introduction, what I have tried to do with this book is to help you with two distinct and different areas of video production. One is to understand the paperwork that will be involved in the production process; the other is to try to heighten your awareness of the communication and business skills you will need if you are intending to set up your own video production company.
We have looked at a real programme that was made by a real production company. Two people, who met on a course like yours, have not been in business long and are struggling to survive, run the company.
Your course and, hopefully, this book will help you to make your decisions about what you do when you leave college.
Let us have a quick review of what happened to Ace Productions. It was three months between getting a request for a programme and completion; this is realistic. Both Simon and Elaine earned about £1500 each during this time. The total profit was only some £150. Two things come out of this; maybe you can survive on £500 a month, but where is the next production coming from, and when? The rent for their very small office is £1000 a month excluding the rates, electricity, phone and so on. How do they find that if they only make £150 profit in three months?
Simon, using his previous business studies skills, managed to come out as close to budget as makes no difference. What went wrong? His original estimate was £10,000, which now looks realistic. When he had all the figures he needed it came to over £9500. Doesn’t this suggest that his original estimate was accurate? Why did he agree to try to take £1500 off it? Here is the dilemma that demands all your communication and negotiating skills. Do you lower the budget to an unrealistic figure, because you need the work, or do you patiently explain to a client that these figures are realistic and cannot be reduced, risking losing what is, in any event, an unprofitable programme? Simon and Elaine did explain that the programme would be compromised and could not include all the special effects at a lowered price. That would have cut a lot of work off line and, ultimately, the on line cost. They went ahead with the original programme anyway, why?
Because of budget problems Ace Productions left out an amount to cover the accountant’s bill at the end of the year. They also decided on £300 contingency, which as we saw, was unrealistic. A normal contingency would be around 10% of the budget. Would you have lowered it? If they had made the original estimate a ‘guess’ at £12,000 and used communication and negotiating skills to see how far it could be cut, without compromising the programme, then come up with a figure close to £10,500 the client might have been persuaded that he has saved £1500 already, and can’t have his programme cheaper. Is this what you would have tried?
The majority of the paperwork was completed during the pre production stage, yet they decided not to employ any help, why? The PA only cost £5 an hour; surely it would have been sensible to have her in for two or three hours three times a week and used her to look after the production diary; but that brings us back to money, an unrealistic budget and poor organization.
The first day’s shoot went wrong because they were dealing with a new team of people, amateur performers, and no rehearsal. Would you have booked a half-day rehearsal, with the Hi8, to settle them down and boost their confidence? The overtime incurred would probably have paid for it. Why two cameras, and a whole day, for the catwalk? Was Elaine still thinking studio? Should she have gone to studio anyway and avoided the strife of an amateur setting, with keen, excited, students. It would only have taken half a day in studio. The difference in cost would have been minimal.
Why did Simon decide to go to tape-based on line? They are hoping to get updates and different versions of the programme in the future. Non-linear would have made this a great deal easier, quicker and cheaper. There was no difference in the final price, even if they did have to sort out their own BITC copies and voice-over. Simon was tempted by the package price and the fact that he liked a person he had never met on the strength of one phone call. If you pay someone to do something, you are the employer, they do what you tell them to; liking them is a bonus. There would have been no problem with all the shots being on the same roll with NLE, saving the on line overtime. The programme was ending up on VHS, not broadcast quality; a ‘medium range’ NLE suite would surpass that quality anyway. What would you have done?
What we have learnt is that your course cannot teach you everything; only experience can do that. The good news is that, now a few years on, Ace Productions have survived. They now employ Poppy full time, Simon has got his NLE suite and it is good enough quality for him to use it for on line when they end up with a VHS master. They did do the Fashions for You retail presenter, and do all the seasonal change programmes. They are also charging realistic figures. Experience has taught them much, but it took four or five years.
I sincerely hope that, whatever you eventually decide, you will have a pleasurable and successful career in this very stressful, but exciting, business.