Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Big, Bad Magnet and Basic Post-Production

To tell you the truth, the MRI wasn't that bad. And it's not like I've never had one before. Truthfully, I've had so many that I think I get "frequent tubing" miles for them and I'm a member of the "million miler" club, after the last eighteen years!
The strange thing about this one was the fact that it was in one of those traveling MRI trailer. The center I went to is under renovation and upgrading all their equipment. But to do so, they had to shut one machine down to take it out and until the new replacement comes in and is installed, they have to use this "portable" MRI. It had no sonic music system. So your only option is to take these two small, disposable ear plug and stick 'em in. Didn't make any difference. The noise was still about "first row at a KISS concert-right in front of the amplifiers" loudness. And, due to the fact that it was only my right knee, I was placed in the tube feet-first and only up to my waist. I'll see the doc tomorrow with the MRI images and get the verdict then. So be it.

Enough about me. Let's get back to the show. Today I finally had the chance to review and "edit" the agreement sent to me on the day before we were leaving for San Francisco, by company that is supposed to work with us to co-produce the "pitch video" and get the show sold to a major satellite/cable network. "What does that entail?" you ask. And I'll tell you.

We shot about 14 hours of video on two camera, plus a little more on a third, all in HD. The first thing that has to be done is called "logging" the video. On almost all video today, there are usually two "clocks;" the one you're used to when shooting the kids' birthday party with the time of day. The second clock, which you usually have to manually select on a consumer video camera, is called the "time code." This is a digital clock that has five places, beginning from the right would be:
00:00:00:00:Frames
00:00:00:Seconds:Frames
00:00:Minutes:Seconds:Frames
00:Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames
Days:Hours:Minutes:Seconds: Frames

Every video that you shoot has a "begin" point and an "end" point; basically when you press the "RECORD" button to start shooting a scene and when you press it a second time to pause your shooting. So the production assistant has to review ALL the video and log the following:
1. Start Time Code
2. End Time Code
3. Scene Description
4. Audio Description
5. Any other pertinent information the producer requests.
Now imagine doing that for fourteen hours of video! It's probably a 2-day, 10 hours per day job. Hah! And you thought TV production was glamorous!

Once the logging is done, the producer(s) sits with the editor to review the log chart and to start out some of the scenes he/she wants to see for possible inclusion in the final product. Bear in mind that most of those 14 hours were recorded with just the "pitch video" in mind. Yes, we'll use a lot of it in the episode featuring the San Francisco Fire Department, too. But for now, we'll be picking out the best 3-5 minutes of video from all of those 14 hours. Sound like fun, yet?

Well, that's it for now. Need to go and get my leg elevated to alleviate the throbbing!

Be good to each other!