SCS needs to focus tool set on Short Form workflow

HyperMedia wrote on 4/2/2012, 5:46 PM
I think Vegas tools and workflow needs to focus on short form projects. Ideal for promos, TV commercials and documentaries as well as sports intro and a variety of event shooting.”
The goal is to enhance those tools for fast pace editing for promos,trailers and TV Commercials. TV commercial segment will be the fastest growing market of the video industry. More and more cable stations are popping up. And YouTube viral videos. So that means more commercial airtime needs to fill up those slots.

I think SCS was trying to be everything to everybody. Adding everything to cut a full length motion picture. They need to focus on being the best NLE for short form work. And brand the company that way. I think that could be their bread and butter.

Sony is pushing the creative boundaries once more with the new NEX-FS700U Full-HD Super Slow Motion camcorder, the latest in Sony’s line of NXCAM interchangeable E-mount camcorders. The new Super 35mm model is designed for high-speed shooting, capable of capturing footage at up to 960 frames per second. The camera also features a range of capabilities such as 3G HD-SDI output and built-in ND filters. Additionally, it also offers several creative options, shooting styles, and enhanced ergonomics – all based on customer feedback — to deliver a flexible production tool that can fit seamlessly into a variety of shooting applications.

“This camera opens a new door to creative shooting,” said Juan Martinez, senior product manager at Sony Electronics’ Professional Solutions of America group. “You can record beautiful high speed full HD movies with the freedom of creative interchangeable lens choice. The NEX-FS700U, with its super slow motion mode, is ideal for promos, TV dramas, commercials and documentaries as well as sports and a variety of event shooting.”

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/2/2012, 8:39 PM
Vegas always did seem more oriented to shortform stuff to me but that's just because that's what I mostly do I assumed.
HyperMedia wrote on 4/2/2012, 9:40 PM
I agreed Friar. Avid and Smoke are the giants in film industry. FCP is a giant in Reality shows. SCS needs to be the giant in short form editing. TV commercials, trailers and intro openings. I see more new editors doing this type of work, than filming a motion movie. Once you Film,Produce and Edit and movie. And find out the long process involved. Some people give up all together.

SCS needs to brand Vegas as the fastest NLE for TV Commercials,Music Videos and Promos etc. Have a identity!
ushere wrote on 4/3/2012, 7:23 AM
so what do you suggest we 'long form' editors work with ;-)

scs needs to focus on getting a RELIABLE, ROBUST, STABLE nle that ANY editor can work with.

randomly replaced clips, black frames, etc., don't do ANY editor any favours......
Chienworks wrote on 4/3/2012, 8:44 AM
Honestly, i can't really see any enhancements that would be directed at short form work that wouldn't also be enhancements for long form. I can see marketing to short form users, but really anything that's good for one is good for the other.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/3/2012, 11:47 AM
Ok, brand it for more shortform stuff, I do that actually (brand it for that. I've got it sold to a couple people because it's great for doing things like promos, etc). Take a look on youtube for video game footage, lots of players us VEgas. Eigther because it's easier to steal or they like it I'm not sure, but it seems to be popular by game players.

I do longform stuff in it too but mostly short form (stuff under 10 minutes). I find I can easily zip around a TL that's several minutes long with dozens of cuts, FX, events, etc. It's the long form stuff that needs more help in the "zippy" department (yes, I'm aware I just said we need more "zippy" on this forum! :p ). Something like shortcut keys that will zoom in on to markers, jump to time location X, Y or Z on the TL, etc. The biggest issue I've had with longer material is the going from one end to the other to check something.

I *think* that the best way to help Vegas be developed for longer material is to say how we use it for shorter material and how we think that could be applied to longer material. For an example, the moving around the long TL quickly, in Blender I can click on the current frame display and I can type in a new frame to jump to.

randomly replaced clips, black frames, etc., don't do ANY editor any favours......

I still haven't encountered those. ;)
HyperMedia wrote on 4/3/2012, 4:28 PM
Reply by: ushere

Date: 4/3/2012 8:23:23 AM

so what do you suggest we 'long form' editors work with ;-)

scs needs to focus on getting a RELIABLE, ROBUST, STABLE nle that ANY editor can work with.

randomly replaced clips, black frames, etc., don't do ANY editor any favors......

Well, for long form Avid....with media manager and shared storage. It is design for long form editing. You are aware most reality show have 3 sometime 4 editors working on one episode.


If SCS focus on their core strength of being a fast NLE editor. Design for film, TV trailers, promos and TV Commercials. Beat that drum and know who they are.

Setup and design the whole UI for speed. Timeline and key board shortcut keys that will zoom in on to markers, jump to time location X, Y or Z on the TL, etc

Create a special plugged in that will whole all sfx and transitions in a super bin.
Such as flare, flash, color change, blur and ripple. The FX's and Transitions that you commonly use.

I was hoping, when Sony purchase Vegas they were going to add hardware support.
Being a fast NLE editor. Design for film, TV trailers, promos and TV Commercials. I think this can be their bread and butter' identity.

SONY XPRI NS is branded as Non-linear editor designed for news, magazine and sports. Sony Vegas needs to branded as a NLE design for Film/TV Trailers, Promos,Music Videos and TV Commercials. Have a identity! When someone ask you about Vegas. I tell them it's design for short form projects,Promos,Music Videos and TV Commercials.


http://www.pro.sony.eu/biz/lang/en/eu/product/creativesoftware/xpri-ns/overview?biw=1280&sclient=psy-ab&oq=facebook&bav=on.2%2Cor.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.%2Ccf.osb&gs_l=&q=facebook&fp=799fbd70f09ad21c&rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS438US438&aql=&sugexp=frgbld&nord=1&aqi=&hl=en&gs_id=0&aq=&qscrl=1&xhr=t&pbx=1&cp=8&output=search&ion=1&gs_nf=1&bih=811&pf=p

John_Cline wrote on 4/3/2012, 6:08 PM
I do long form and short form and I've never thought that Vegas was only suited to one or the other. This really isn't about long form vs. short form work, Avid is set up for collaborative work and Vegas is perfectly suited to the "one person shop" that shoots and edits their own stuff.
farss wrote on 4/3/2012, 6:27 PM
"Being a fast NLE editor"

It'd be faster if they fixed the design of the trimmer.

The whole longform / shortform argaument is a bit daft in my opinion.
Sort duration video can contain more assets than a feature, less time doesn't mean less to tell the story.

Also as I've discovered you don't need to be collaborating with others to need better media management. Even cutting a short drama I've found the combination of things missing in Vegas required me to do more work in my head than I should have had to. Oddly enough the one thing I find Vegas good for is events and the ones I cover are quite long.

Bob.
JJKizak wrote on 4/4/2012, 7:00 AM
One of the things I suggested long ago was to incorporate the "Dumbed Block Diagrams/Arrows Chain Examples" into the Vegas help mode. Then you can perform a complex operation in Vegas without knowing what you did, save that basic chain into a file for future. This would be helpfull on events that you might use once every two years (or new events) and can't remember how to perform it. If you frequently use that chain remembering it will not be a problem. This is how industry enables a maintenance tech to properly perform with hundreds of different computers without specific training on each one involved with the manufacturing process. In my case it was 21 different computers.
JJK
HyperMedia wrote on 4/5/2012, 12:35 AM
Great idea JJKizak ...I was thinking the same thing several version back. SONY XPRI NS is branded as Non-linear editor designed for news, magazine and sports.

Sony Vegas needs to branded as a NLE design for Film/TV Trailers,Promos and TV Commercials. Have a identity! When someone ask you about Vegas. I tell them it's design for short form projects,promos and TV Commercials.


http://www.pro.sony.eu/biz/lang/en/eu/product/creativesoftware/xpri-ns/overview?biw=1280&sclient=psy-ab&oq=facebook&bav=on.2%2Cor.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.%2Ccf.osb&gs_l=&q=facebook&fp=799fbd70f09ad21c&rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS438US438&aql=&sugexp=frgbld&nord=1&aqi=&hl=en&gs_id=0&aq=&qscrl=1&xhr=t&pbx=1&cp=8&output=search&ion=1&gs_nf=1&bih=811&pf=p

Chienworks wrote on 4/5/2012, 5:58 AM
"When someone ask you about Vegas. I tell them it's design for short form projects,promos and TV Commercials."

And thereby turn away all the other editors who might have had a marvelously productive experience with Vegas. Why would you do that? What is it about Vegas that you think makes it unsuitable for other uses?

I have to agree that it's a daft distinction.
farss wrote on 4/5/2012, 7:31 AM
"SONY XPRI NS is branded as Non-linear editor designed for news, magazine and sports. "

That worked out well, Xpri was killed off years ago.
From what I'd seen of it, it was a very capable system and the control surfaces were to die for.


When it was alive SCS got involved with the Xpri team and did add some great features to Vegas 9 for those working with XDCAM SD/HD. That did not carry over into XDCAM EX and no further work was done in later versions of Vegas.





Bob.
HyperMedia wrote on 4/6/2012, 2:13 AM
Chienworks : But I do tell them you can cut a feature. But...most features are collaborative team. Once you film a real feature you know why it's a team effort.
If you notice some of the best filmmakers are a production team. Unless you have the writing chops. Then you just hire a Director/Producer.

The thing I notice about first time filmmakers ...they think the process will be easy. Next thing they notice their film took up to a year after doing the rough cuts and dailies to complete. Then realizing they didn't shoot everything. And needs to go back and film extra footages.
Like I said" I do tell them you can film a movie. But Vegas excel in short form projects.

All the other NLE systems are promoting edit your next movie. But, how many new filmmakers are going to actually complete a Hollywood Movie?( It's like hitting the Lottery) if you really analyze the video and film industry, the growth area and money to be made is small business and TV Commercials. There is more, but I won't tell my direct market. Right now those markets are achievable.

Furthermore, I tell all new filmmakers learn how to shoot a TV Commercial and Music Video before filming a feature. Those are the basics workflow of filming a movie.
The different setup, takes and angles etc. This will prepare and train them better to tackle a feature.
John_Cline wrote on 4/6/2012, 3:33 AM
Ray Schlogel (Muttley) from Underground Planet has cut some very nice real features in Vegas along with some great music videos. Faith Grainger cut her real feature film, "Deuce of Spades" in Vegas. I have cut a bunch of projects in Vegas averaging 10-12 hours of video on the timeline broken up into sequential 2-hour shows. I've never had a problem.

http://www.deuceofspadesmovie.com/

http://vimeo.com/underground
ushere wrote on 4/6/2012, 6:15 AM
i've done 3 major 1.5hr projects using about 30hrs each (all pre 11 mind you!), and in all cases started out simply culling from the tl.

i also do tvc's, etc.,

so basically it's a pointless exercise trying to define an nle by program lenght...
HyperMedia wrote on 4/6/2012, 11:38 AM
I have too. But that was edited in Vegas 9. www.deuceofspadesmovie.com/ Have you produce a full feature in Vegas 10 or 11? That's playing in the Hollywood theatres with Vegas?
I didn't say it can't be done. What I am saying" They need a identity. I think this can be their bread and butter.

I'd can probably get away with producing a regional TV commercial, promo or music video going nationwide with Vegas. Than having a feature film playing in the Hollywood theatres. With TV stations, all they care about the proper format, not what NLE you using to complete the spot. Yeah...anyone can produce independent features. But, you are not going to work on a Hollywood feature film with million dollar budget using Vegas. Vegas doesn't have the proper hardware support system and shared network to completed the job.

Again, I didn't say it can't be done. But ,once you work on a million dollar budget feature you will understand. I have work on two million dollar features, and I didn't like the slow workflow. So I got out of making features. Short form programs are for me.
HyperMedia wrote on 4/7/2012, 12:38 AM
What I found out about Vegas, is that if you are working on a project for a very long period of time, things may start behaving oddly.

That one of the main reasons, I keep saying great for short form projects. But for long form projects, sometime Vegas start behaving erratic!
TheHappyFriar wrote on 4/7/2012, 5:59 AM
I've noticed that you can run out of RAM when rendering but that's more related to what FX/motions/etc. you're using, not the length of the project.
JJKizak wrote on 4/7/2012, 6:48 AM
Vegas has had it's share of problems:
1...The runningout of ram during render, remember the render of small sections first so it would not?
2...Adding AVCHD was a real blast
3...Adding 3D
4...Expanding 2K limits on stills and timeline
5...Back & forth with Cineform
6...Never fixing the credit roll
7...Allowing layers on the timeline
8...Back & forth with Quicktime
9...Rendering speed changes (can't count um)
10..Opening of Vegas problems
11..Black frame problems
12..Cuda back & forth problems
JJK
HyperMedia wrote on 4/7/2012, 11:44 AM
I agreed JJKizak...

Black frames. Again, they don't get!

Steve Mann wrote on 4/7/2012, 3:10 PM
"What I found out about Vegas, is that if you are working on a project for a very long period of time, things may start behaving oddly"

Sounds more like a heat buildup problem. I frequently need to leave the editing PC on for days because of very long renders and I've never experienced "things behaving badly".
Andrew B wrote on 4/7/2012, 3:39 PM
"What I found out about Vegas, is that if you are working on a project for a very long period of time, things may start behaving oddly"


Actually, I thought it was a memory leak. If I am working on a single project and have Vegas running for over 18 hours, I will save the project, reboot and then continue. My system has always gotten sluggish when I leave Vegas open for prolonged periods of time (more than 24 hours), the reboot just seems to clean up any odd background processes. This was mostly true in previous versions of Vegas. I have not pulled a multi-day project in V11 just yet.

Andrew
Steve Mann wrote on 4/7/2012, 10:52 PM
If you have a memory leak, you can identify the culprit by monitoring the Working Set for running processes in resmon. If there is a memory leak, this number will climb in the errant process. If the Commit value climbs then you have another resource problem, but you can still identify the bad process this way.
Chienworks wrote on 4/7/2012, 11:43 PM
I usually leave Vegas open and running for months at a time. Seems to hold up very well. Then again, i'm still using version 9.0e.