P2 workflow

[Chuck1906]

So I have been shooting with a new Panasonic P2 camera since early June and love it. The more I use it, I am finding the workflow can be a little nerve wrecking at times in terms of the editing.

I notice when I plug my camera up to our editing system (Grass Valley) via USB and put camera in device mode, everything on ALL of my cards shows up in my P2 bin! So I removed the other cards and left the one I need in the camera. That solved that.

I always have the reporter do their tracks in camera and I write down the time code for each good track. The thing I hate is when those "tracked" clips show up in my P2 bin, I can't find them fast enough. I mean I see them there and changed the view to View Thumbnails but sometimes it will be cued up to the wrong take or something...I will have to play more with this to figure out how I can select track 1 and drop to the timeline faster than how I am doing it. I guess if I had extra time I could create a subclip and then copy that to the timeline but time is of the essence on my shift when it comes to editing! LOL!

If your using a P2 camera I would be interested in seeing what kind of workflows you use. I know there is more than one way to work in the P2 workflow format. Just trying to learn some other ways that might be faster than how I am doing it.

Chuck

 

[shootist]

I notice when I plug my camera up to our editing system (Grass Valley) via USB and put camera in device mode, everything on ALL of my cards shows up in my P2 bin!
Chuck

hmmm....isn't that what you would want it to do? i mean...that's certainly how it's designed to work...it's not a flaw.

anyway...you're right about there being a new game in town...there are always a huge number of different workflows depending on camera, media, editing system and a million other things.

some things are system specific....others are just the difference between linear/non-linear concepts.

it almost sounds like that's the issue with organizing/finding your good tracks.

if you're editing in a track...then a bite...then finding the next track...then the next bite...you're editing linearly in a non-linear system.

when i cut a pkg in avid news cutter, i just grab the whole track clip (with countdowns/retakes etc)
and drop it on the timeline. i then edit out the extraneous stuff and have a clean set of tracks left.

i'm not familiar with grass valley...but with the avid, the audio tracks show a sample plot and i can visually see the "3...2...1...." track countdowns. i can see the short track corresponding with a long script segment that tells me a retake is coming. basically i can get a clean set of tracks for your standard 1:30 pkg laid down in about 30 seconds. I then go back and insert the soundbites as chosen by the reporter. I now have an a-roll down in about a minute or two. Then add nats...tweak bites....etc. as the real editing begins.

again...not familiar with grass valley...or whether you were cutting non-linear prior to getting P2...
but as you now realize...there's a lot of change going on and workflow is important. we've been running avid/P2 for a few years now and guys are always looking over each others' shoulders to learn new shortcuts. biggest hurdle here was changing the mindset from linear to non-linear editing in real terms...not just name only.