ClipFinder workflow

[Evan S]

Shot several hours of footage for a short film. Many clips.

1 - I'm thinking I need to drag each clip/folder into CLIPFINDER
2 - Double click each clip individually, which opens it up into RedAlert
3 - In RedAlert, color balance each clip. Often with saved presets that I make as I go along.
4 - Save the quicktime (Option-Command-A)
5 - repeat next clip in CLIPFINDER
6 - When done with a batch - rendor out ProRez files into a folder on my drive where I can then edit them in FCP.

Does this sound correct? It is a LOT of work. Is there any faster way to batch-color correct groups of clips to a setting?

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Yes, there is a faster way. And several different workflows using Clipfinder. I'll focus just on the color balancing part.

You can choose to work in RED Alert if you feel most comfortable there. However, you can also get access to the controls right inside Clipfinder which will make the process a lot faster. Only feature I think is missing is auto white balance, but that is easily solved by getting it from one clip in RED Alert and the you can do a Lift-Stamp approach in Clipfinder. Clipfinder uses RSX so what's done in Red Alert will show up in Clipfinder. To access is use CMD-E in Clipfinder.

Once all of your adjustments are set, use Clipfinder to render. CMD-G.

Easy as pie really.

 

[sander kamp]

Yes, doing the color balance right in Clipfinder works a lot faster. You can also very easily copy grades from one clip to another, press L to copy (lift) and S to paste (stamp).

Making quicktimes is also not necessary if you are going to render them out (since the new color science the colors don't match anyway) but it would be easy enough by selecting all the clips and press command-option-A.

 

[Evan S]

Is this Clipfinder 2.2? Because none of the commands both of you talk about is in the program!! ???

I'm using 2.1 since the 2.2 is only a beta version.

 

[Uli Plank]

The beta works quite OK, apart from a few GUI oddities.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Yes, Clipfinder 2.2 Beta 7 which also utilizes new Color Science. Personally, I've been on 2.2 for a while and although there are a couple of bugs the benefits outweigh the small inconveniences.

 

[Evan S]

aah... ok, I'll download and try it out.

Just as a heads up, what are some of the bugs you are noticing?

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I seem to have an issue when I import footage into a new project bin that hasn't been saved yet. Suddenly clips will just disappear for no reason and then I am unable to save the project. But if I save it first before importing clips, doesn't seem to have this issue. This started to occur in Beta 7, never had the problem before.

Every so often I have a render that doesn't complete for one reason or another. But it's rare. I've rendered several million frames and only had a few times when it didn't complete, so the percentages are very much in favor of completing without issue.

Overall though, it's stable. And it supports new color science which is big.

 

[David Battistella]

real name?