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Storyboard A/C Mode Equivalent


jan1
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I was wondering if there is an equivalent to Resolve's A/C mode and/or Avid's source/target in Symphony.

Essentially a way of speeding up grading of multiple clips from the same source media file. We often see this in dialog scenes and or tutorials where there is a lot of cutting back and forth between two camera angles resulting in multiple clips from the same source file.

One way of doing it in Mistika is to go to the Storyboard and create gangs for each camera angle, then solo that gang and propagate the color grade. That works fine, but it's a time consuming to setup the gangs.

I think the equivalent to A/C mode would be if the story board had a sort feature. Either sort by timeline order, or sort by reel/media and TC. The latter which would auto-group everything from the same clip next to each other for quick operations. Another option would be to have one more propagate scope button, which 'current media file'.

Avid's implementation is more versatile but would require a more complex UI change.

Maybe there already is a solution and I haven't come across it? There always is a solution in Mistika, isn't there ?

Jan

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Hi Jan

i agree with you that it could help having such sort button

my workaround is 

1- i duplicate the seq or just the scene and in the edit tub select -Macros/Linearize- this will sort the clips by timcode.

i grade the shots and Copy / Smart Past to old sequence.

2- this option is done only when i know that the shots are from the same master clip. i use it not only for grading but also for framing or unicolor or other stuff that can help

me Bild my timeline. i create a sequence with all the original shots with all the handles. apply the grade or framing and again Copy / Smart Past to old sequence.

Hope it help 

Cheers Yoav

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On 9/18/2019 at 4:59 PM, Yoav Raz said:

my workaround is 

1- i duplicate the seq or just the scene and in the edit tub select -Macros/Linearize- this will sort the clips by timcode.

i grade the shots and Copy / Smart Past to old sequence.

2- this option is done only when i know that the shots are from the same master clip. i use it not only for grading but also for framing or unicolor or other stuff that can help

Love this. As I said, there always seems to be a way of doing it in Mistika. Though in this case a sort function on the Storyboard would be a lot more efficient. So hopefully we can get that added to the feature list.

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Hi!

Indeed, as you said Jan, one way is to create gangs for the same looking shots, create the grade and then propagate it to all the gangs. 

The linearize macro command puts all the clips utilized in an environment in order, according to the original timecode of each clip. It eliminates all fades and wipes, and adds sufficient head and tail time between the clips in order to be recaptured at a later date without pre-roll problems. This macro, in combination with the Match and Paste can be really resourceful.

However, I'd say that if you only want your grade to be propagated to the cuts that belong to the same shot, there's no need to use the linearize effect, just using the Match and Paste effect selecting the "Match Reelname" property will propagate the grade.

First, set a grade to all the effects, and grade the one you know it belongs to te same shot. Then, select the timeline, make Copy, then select the whole timeline again and use the Match and Paste, or use the shortcut Alt + V. Select only Match Reelname and Replace them with pasted effects. In case of Animations, choose the one that fits you the best.

After pasting, you will notice that in top of your timeline you will see different groups created by Mistika with the different possibilities: one with the grades and other without grades, and a mix of them. Choose the one that suits you, in this case, the one with the grades propagated.

Hope you find it useful!

Kindest regards,
Cristóbal 

 

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On 9/19/2019 at 8:21 AM, cbolanos@sgo.es said:

However, I'd say that if you only want your grade to be propagated to the cuts that belong to the same shot, there's no need to use the linearize effect, just using the Match and Paste effect selecting the "Match Reelname" property will propagate the grade.

Interesting. Very typical of my experience with Mistika, there are all these hidden features that are very powerful.

With that said, there is something to the A/C mode (sort of storyboard), because it keeps me in the flow. Once I have some initial grading done, I like to just progress through the story board and copy grade to other clips and make adjustments. Having to duplicate and run macros forces to switch back and forth between what's going on in the timeline and what I'm doing in the visual editor. Once I'm grading it's very nice to just stay in the visual editor as context and go back and forth.

Keeping in mind that I keep my UI configured to a single monitor (I do have two but due to their arrangements I find it easier to use just one). So switching between the timeline and the visual editor is more of context switch for me. I think this is an area where Mistika will find as you go more to Boutique and a more diverse hardware setup, that you cannot make assumptions on how people work, and you see them preferring different ways than would be natural in the traditional setup.

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I just received a couple of edits to grade, and I'm planning to use Mistika for at least one of them, which means I'll be doing some of this soon... 

On 9/19/2019 at 5:21 AM, cbolanos@sgo.es said:

However, I'd say that if you only want your grade to be propagated to the cuts that belong to the same shot, there's no need to use the linearize effect, just using the Match and Paste effect selecting the "Match Reelname" property will propagate the grade.

Nice trick to know!

For this sort of situation I'm really fond of gangs. I like being able to to click through the timeline and add clips to a gang, and then just pick one and grade it. If one needs a power window or something that won't work across the shots, I add a color node to that one clip.  

On 9/19/2019 at 7:54 AM, jan1 said:

With that said, there is something to the A/C mode (sort of storyboard), because it keeps me in the flow. Once I have some initial grading done, I like to just progress through the story board and copy grade to other clips and make adjustments. Having to duplicate and run macros forces to switch back and forth between what's going on in the timeline and what I'm doing in the visual editor. Once I'm grading it's very nice to just stay in the visual editor as context and go back and forth.

Keeping in mind that I keep my UI configured to a single monitor (I do have two but due to their arrangements I find it easier to use just one). So switching between the timeline and the visual editor is more of context switch for me. I think this is an area where Mistika will find as you go more to Boutique and a more diverse hardware setup, that you cannot make assumptions on how people work, and you see them preferring different ways than would be natural in the traditional setup.

I'm in sort of the same situation with the setup I'm using now. I have an internal 4K monitor and an external 4K monitor... but the external monitor is also my (interim) reference monitor (it's a Sony AF9 OLED tv). Since that's my ref it's also the monitor my AJA I/O 4K+ is hooked up to. So I have one output on my computer connected directly for Resolve since my current Decklink device can't do 4K (or HDR), and I use the AJA box for Scratch and Mistika. 

But that means that in Mistika I'm working on a single screen also. For compositing I greatly prefer working with nodes, so I also find myself bouncing back and forth between the visual editor and the timeline quite a bit. 

 

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Totally agree with Jan, having filtering options in the storyboard would be very handy. Ideally I would like to see the ability to filter by Reel, Source TC, Timeline TC, Codec and FX. The FX option would allow filtering by FX type (Framing, RAW Params etc) so that it is quick to check if you have missed anything. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'll add one more, maybe simpler fix for the story board.

I'm just working on a commercial that was shot with three different cameras. There's a lot of copying back and forth in the storyboard between individual cameras.

I thought to make things simpler, I would sort the clips from different cameras on separate tracks and then hide tracks selectively to filter the story board so I would only see clips from one camera at time. It works partially, the hidden tracks all show up as black thumbnails, so at least I can ignore them. But it doesn't condense the story board, I still have to skip all the black clips. So it would be nice if the storyboard could ignore disabled or hidden clips as one easy way of filtering.

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On 10/18/2019 at 12:41 PM, jan1 said:

I'll add one more, maybe simpler fix for the story board.

I'm just working on a commercial that was shot with three different cameras. There's a lot of copying back and forth in the storyboard between individual cameras.

I thought to make things simpler, I would sort the clips from different cameras on separate tracks and then hide tracks selectively to filter the story board so I would only see clips from one camera at time. It works partially, the hidden tracks all show up as black thumbnails, so at least I can ignore them. But it doesn't condense the story board, I still have to skip all the black clips. So it would be nice if the storyboard could ignore disabled or hidden clips as one easy way of filtering.

HI There Jan

+1 from me

I also ask the sgo team to try and set the option of getting into solo mode in the storyboard gang . by pressing the thumbnail  and a shortcut.

 

i just can add to your situation that maybe extending the storyboard view to full will give you the ability to view a lot of thumbnails at once

and by click and double click you can copy grades from shot to shot.

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  • 4 months later...

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