After the Headlines: Trying to Keep Hope Alive

Today I thought my blog would read, After the Headlines: Logged and Captured. Unfortunately that is not the case, and I'm definitely freaking out about it. Last night I had my nervous breakdown, I'm doing slightly better this morning, but I'm still very somber, but Karim has told me to have faith and that things will work out. I hope he's right.

This Saturday I got my DP's camera so I could start logging and capturing the footage into Final Cut Pro (a linear editing software for film and video). During the week I wasn't looking forward to logging at first, I haven't had to log video footage since college and my early days as a production assistant (PA). After some thought I thought it would be good, because I would see the film scene by scene and that would give me a good sense of what I have to work with when I meet with the editor.

Since it's been a while since I logged I enlisted Karim's help. He helped me set up my external drive (which is what I'm saving the captured footage t0) and the camera. He even found me a link to view so I made sure I was logging the tapes in the fasted way possible. The instructor on the video recommended that I log my clips first (which is marking the in/out points of the footage I need, after that is done I do a batch capture (a batch capture pulls the clip with the exact time codes I logged with my in/out points). Sounds easy, it is, that is until the camera cannot find the time code which causes a break in the footage. This was happening to me throughout the logging, but I didn't a good handle on the problem until the third tape, which was around 3 p.m. yesterday. I noticed that new clips were being logged under the wrong titles. When I clicked on the clip it was cut off, which is because of the time breaks.

I called the DP and the editor to let them know about my issue. The editor helped me trouble shoot and walk through my system setup. He wanted to make sure it wasn't my Mac or Final Cut Pro. It looks like it's an issue with the camera or possibly even the tapes and if its the latter my film is not on solid ground. Continuous time breaks on the tape may mean there is a problem with the tape. I tried to capture the whole film and I couldn't even do that without time breaks. I also had to drop off the camera this morning, which isn't helpful if the the camera may be the source of the problem. However, I informed the DP of the problem I'm having and he told me he would take a look at it and get back to me.

In the meantime I made a call to a Media Arts Center and let them know my problem. I'm hoping they may be able to help me out. When I get out of work I will meet up with my editor and we will try to log and capture the footage with another mini DV camera. I thought that I would have my film logged and ready to go to the editor for work on a rough cut of the film, but now I may not even have a film if the tapes are messed up. It's hard to be optimistic at this tine, but I will try. I'm going to do all I can to save this film. I just hope it will be enough at the end of the day...hopefully this issue will be resolved in my next posting.