Newbe... a couple of workflow questions

jacques-ferland wrote on 9/2/2018, 11:28 AM

Hello everyone.

I'm not "new" to Vegas and I am more of an audio producer (in Sonar), but I am a newcomer in 21st century video editing. (My last "serious" work was done in the 90's, on tape machines... LOL...)

Can I ask for some recommendations? I did a concert recording of an orchestra and I have been offered to edit the video that another person recorded. We used 4 cameras total (2 of them "pro" and 2 of them "consumer" levels).

Media details

2 tracks of 1920x1080x32 @29.970 P video (Main cameras. Images are cristal clear and "as neutral as can be" for later color grading, but sadly points of views are similar. One cam focuses on a general shot and the other is a little zoomed in, but not that much...)
1 track of 1440x1080x12 @29.970 P video
1 track of 1920x1080x12 @29.970 P video (very pixelated, though)

My multi-track audio is already mixed in stereo and imported in Vegas' session, and every tracks are already synced together.

My questions

What would you guys recommend me to optimise / mix and match / these videos ? Should i work in a project that uses my best medias' specs or should I lower the projects' quality in order to give me more options with all my available medias ? (I-E, to use automation to be even more zoomed-in sometimes, do some "camera movements, and to try to blow-up my "lesser" medias without being too pixelated at the end?) My project is currently matched to the best medias.
Color Grading: Should I do it BEFORE or AFTER multi-cam editing? (Seems like AFTER would be best, but not sure yet). I'm having a REAL HARD TIME right now trying to harmonize the colors between medias... even using scopes and even after watching a lot of tutorials...) I guess what I mean here is, should I complete all my editing / automation / main timeline work before addressing color-grading, or the other way around is better? Right now, since colours are "horrible", none of my edits "feel right"... lol...
Should I be using nested Vegas projects or is this overkill for newbies like me?

My specs

Vegas pro 14

Thanks in advance!

Comments

fr0sty wrote on 9/2/2018, 11:37 AM

1. When it comes to choosing what project settings to use, just remember, just like with audio, you can downsample 24 bit 96khz to 44.1 16 bit for a CD, but you can't gain any quality going the other way around.

2. I always grade after. Try using the color match plugin... might help.

3. If you're just editing 4 cameras together for an orchestra performance, I wouldn't see any need to nest projects unless you've created complex graphics that you need to be able to re-use while making changes to it each time, like lower thirds or that sort of thing.

OldSmoke wrote on 9/2/2018, 12:02 PM

If you don't have a lot of 1440x1080 or won't select many of those angles, go with a 1920x1080 project.

Make yourself a video wall, 2x2 video, layout and align the clips, do color correction on the media level.

Create the Multicam track, cut the video and do final color correction and transitions.

You may also look into tools like Vegasaur and NeatVideo.

Former user wrote on 9/2/2018, 2:58 PM

“2 tracks of 1920x1080x32 @29.970 P video (Main cameras. Images are cristal clear and "as neutral as can be" for later color grading, but sadly points of views are similar. One cam focuses on a general shot and the other is a little zoomed in, but not that much...)”

Im guessing that this was for redundancy, so probably discard one ... then there were 3.

Set project properties based on the best FHD video cams. Colour match to the FHD, assuming its good enough. Happy days, enjoy.

zdogg wrote on 9/2/2018, 3:32 PM

Color grade first, because these are static cameras, I'm guessing, with an audience that doesn't change, performers stay the same, just get a good grade that works and your pretty much done with that. Others would do differently, as mostly a general MO, but here, I've outlined the reason to perhpaps do it first, even though that might not be someone's normal work flow.

Even the two main close cameras shifting would come in useful at certain points.

You want to keep the camera audio attached to clips, just to allow you to line up with your pre mixed audio 2 track, much easier than trying to line up the visual performance by itself. Put the two sources on adjoining tracks and eyeball the wave forms, zooming in, of course when need be.

OldSmoke wrote on 9/2/2018, 5:08 PM

Color grade first, because these are static cameras, I'm guessing, with an audience that doesn't change, performers stay the same, just get a good grade that works and your pretty much done with that.

You just have to do it all as Media FX or all is lost when you create the multicam track; as mentioned in my post.

zdogg wrote on 9/3/2018, 4:41 AM

Correct, OR, you take it out to Davinci or AE etc. Color correct, render those files, start editing, and you're done.

I am getting some decent results with some of the LUTs in the VP luts plugin FS, just an aside.