RE: Eclair Cameras: Digital Post-Production

[Chris Leong <emotepix@artnet.net>]

Hello Kelly
At last, something I know something about!

1) labs: depending on where you are, mandy.com will give you the leading 
labs in your area. If you let us know what town you're in, you'll 
probably get a lead from someone who's working in your area.

2) the software producers are at war for your DVD buck: currently Avid 
XPressDV and Final Cut Pro v4 are the main contenders. Professionally 
most all the people I know are working on either Avid  (XDV or XPro) or 
Final Cut Pro 4 (FCP4). You can get set up with either fairly 
inexpensively these days, especially if  y ou know someone with a 
student;s ID.

3) it's pretty much still a Mac world because the other effects and 
sound programs (After Effects, Photoshop, Pro Tools, Sound Designer) are 
all pretty much still Mac, but even as I write this, most of the 
software I mention is available on PC, and I know of two editing houses 
here in Hollywood that have switched to PC from Mac recently (i.e. in 
the past month).

4) color correction at post houses is to sophisticated these days that 
you can get pretty much any image out of anything. The issue is time, 
and therefore cost. So for those of us with not much money, we tend 
still to use that stock that give us the effect closest to what we're 
looking for without tweaking (i.e. that which allows us minimal extra 
time in the expensive telecine/datacine bays ot today. Of course, both 
FCP4 and Avid XPro both have very extensive color correction abilities 
within the programs, so that helps too;

5) the main thing that I have to say, after having edited many features 
and television shows, is that if it doesn't sound good, it won't look 
good.  i.e. put as much emphasis on the audio as the picture when you're 
shooting. People can forgive a lot when it comes to picture if it sounds 
good (i.e. they don't have to fight to hear the soundtrack) and the 
story is engrossing.

When I started in 35mm feature films, the picture editing schedule was 8 
weeks - and the sound editing - 24 weeks! That's how important it is to 
the professional. Most producers aren't even aware of the existence, let 
alone importance, of the audio edit process (and think that they can 
finish the audio to a professional level on an Avid or a FCP station, 
for instance)

HTH
Sorry I didn't have time to make the answer shorter.
If you want more, just ask!
Cheers
Chris

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