Shooting to Edit vs. Shooting to Dub

As an editor, I have worked with clients who have raw footage that was only intended to be duplicated. As a duplicator, I have worked with clients who have footage that was intended to be edited. Time and money can be saved when the footage from a camcorder is recorded in the way that is needed for the end result.

Shooting to Edit
I have worked with clients who don’t know the first thing about editing or how to prepare for an edit. But, that’s not that big of a deal compared to working with material that’s just not editable.

Working with the consumers, generally we are dealing with VHS. The consumer thinks that it would save them money if they jam as much footage as possible onto one videotape by recording in extended play (EP). That way, they can have six hours of material in EP for one-third the cost of tape if they used three tapes and recorded in SP (standard play). A T-120 holds 120 minutes (2 hours) in SP. The same T-120 can hold 360 minutes (6 hours) in EP.

What they don’t realize (and sometimes don’t care) is that EP could mean “extremely poor” when compared to SP. Not only is it poor footage, but professional editing equipment can’t read EP, professional equipment cannot play nor record EP either.

If you were to show up at an editing session with an EP tape you have two options:
Make a new master VHS in SP. VHS is not high quality to begin with, so if you were to copy an EP tape to VHS your SP “Edit Master” will not look any better than the EP “Master”.
Play your EP tape in a consumer VCR and hope that the editor does not need to be very precise with the edit in-points. If the editor needs to start with an exact frame of the videotape, then a new master will definitely need to be made. A non-professional VCR can play your EP tape but the edit controller can’t read it so it is hit-and-miss as to when the source starts playing. Professional edit controllers are able to control the decks one frame at a time, or one-thirtieth (1/30) of a second. A regular VCR is controlled on the fly. You hit “play” and the tape may start playing within the next couple seconds. Some consumer VCRs rewind or move forward slightly before they begin playing. If you have at least three seconds of useable video before your in-point, then this method should work but you’ll be paying for more hours of editing.

I have also had clients who show up with a T-120 and only have 10 minutes recorded on it, but it’s in EP mode. They used 2.7% of the tape. Why? Because they have their home VCR set to EP to record television programming so that they can get more material onto their tape. That is the only time that EP is a benefit. With a T-180 in EP mode, you can have nine episodes of your favorite soap opera, or you could record almost three complete games of your favorite football team on television, or you could record nine hours of music videos to try and capture your favorite song. But, if it’s something you intend on viewing more than once, or it’s footage for a promotional video for your company, or if you have a camcorder recording your daughter’s wedding then DON’T use EP.

That’s enough on EP vs. SP…besides who really cares that in SP a VHS tape travels at approximately 200 centimeters per minute while in EP it only goes 67? Not me.

A professional editing system uses “pre-roll”. Pre-roll is the period of time in which the source deck and the edit deck back up (usually five seconds) and then move forward in sync so that they are up to speed when they reach the edit point.

If your source tape does not have at least five seconds of pre-roll before the in-point of the edit, then the edit cannot be accomplished as necessary. This has to be five seconds of RECORDED video. I had a client one time who wanted to have his daughter’s wedding at the beginning and the reception at the end. He let a blank VHS play for one hour and then recorded the reception from that point. The wedding was on 8mm and was approximately 50 minutes. He wanted me to add the wedding video to the beginning of the reception videotape and have the wedding end just before the reception begins. The problem was that the first half of the VHS was blank so there wasn’t a control track to lay down video and audio in insert mode. If he would have recorded for one hour (of anything) rather than letting the blank tape play for one hour, we could’ve inserted the wedding. It can be five seconds of the floor, the ceiling, the inside of a lens cap, anything as long as it is recorded for at least five seconds.

If I tell a client that they need to make sure they have at least five seconds of pre-roll, they’ll give me 4 seconds and 29 frames, if I tell them that they need 10 seconds of pre-roll, they’ll give 9 to 9½ seconds. So, I tell people that there is no such thing as too much pre-roll but to be safe, make sure that there is at least 10 seconds.

If you are shooting scenes of your video in segments and viewing the scenes after you shoot each one, then make sure you have the camcorder recording continuously to give yourself the pre-roll. Also, let the camcorder record 30 to 60 seconds after the scene is over. Once again, there is no such thing as too much (in this case “post-roll”).

Clients have shot their footage, viewed it as they went along, cued it up, and then shot the next scene. Sometimes, they stop recording immediately after the scene is over, view the footage, cue it up to exactly where the scene ended, and the camcorder backs up a couple seconds so their next scene records over the last two seconds of the previous scene. When they come in to edit and realize that it’s gone, they say, “I know it’s there because we watched it after we shot it.” Or, they may cue up the tape past the spot where the recording stopped on the previous scene and start recording as the talent is in the middle of their count down. The portion of the tape between the two segments was never recorded on so a control track was never laid down upon the tape. This control track is necessary for the editor to be able to do a pre-roll.

This brings us to another problem, when amateur videographers are working with amateur talent they usually get an amateur looking edit. Sometimes the camera person says “Go” and the “talent” begins as they’re saying “go”. Some talent will give a countdown to help with the edit. But, their countdown may go “5-4-3-2-1” and before they take a breath after “1” they’re beginning their talk. This does not give you any time to put in a clean edit with a video transition and/or an audio fade up. Some talent also looks down and then begins talking as their face is being raised, or they bring the microphone up to their mouth two seconds after they begin talking. Their thought is “It can be fixed in post.” No it can’t, it’s easier to prevent than to cure.

Make sure that the talent is in position before they, or you, begin a countdown. Say, “5,4,3…” show them two fingers, one finger and cue them. This will give two to three seconds of silence before they begin talking. When the talent is done with their presentation, make sure they don’t end it and then immediately say something to the effect of, “How was that?” or “That stunk!” or “That’s good enough.” Make sure they finish by being quiet and still for a few seconds to give the editor a clean out-point. Keep the camcorder rolling when possible. Who knows, maybe you’ll get some facial expressions or cut-away shots that weren’t scripted.

When you know that what you are shooting is going to be edited then don’t use your camcorder’s special effects. Once again, it can’t be fixed in post. Some consumer camcorders include special effects such as mosaic, strobe, paint, mirror, negative, etc. The only one of these that can be fixed in post is “negative”. If a post production facility has a video mixer/editor with negative then they could make a copy of your negative in negative which makes it positive…just like in mathematics where the multiplication of two negatives equals a positive.

Very seldom are these effects necessary. They may be neat but it depends on what context they are being used in. I edited a video for a man whose eight-year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver. He had footage of her playing in the yard and he was using three or four special effects at one time on his camcorder. He was devastated that there wasn’t anything that could be done to make this footage normal for his edit. In the context of this video, the special effects were not appropriate. He wasn’t shooting for the edit, he was shooting just for keepsake purposes. Even then, were these special effects really necessary?

To go along with not using any effects during the shoot, also don’t fade up or out on your camcorder. The editor in post-production will have a cleaner transition and it will be decided during the edit when to begin the transition and when to end it. You may fade up from black and then have five to ten seconds of “dead air” or you might be in the middle of fading up and the scene has already begun. At the other end, it’s not necessary to fade out because you may think that you’re done, fade it out, and then something crucial occurs and you’re fumbling with the camcorder trying to fade back up. In this case, it is better to fix it in post. Raw footage is used for the edit, so keep it raw.

Give each shot a slate. Slates are used to identify each take that is shot on tape. Slates can even be viewable in fast forward, which helps the editor locate the right spot on the tape. The slate should include information such as: date, scene name, and take number. Slates can be verbal but visual works better when searching for a particular take.

Be sure and visit “How to Prepare For an Edit” before you begin shooting for an edit.

Shooting to Dub
I have had clients bring a tape in and want us to duplicate it. Fine, but then they say that they left the camera rolling by mistake for an extra five minutes, someone makes an obscene gesture at the camera, and they want their ex-wife taken out every time she’s in the video. “Okay,” I say “but that’s $X per hour of editing.” They then tell me that I don’t need to edit anything, I just need to cut out a few things. That’s what editing is, “Putting together pieces of a program by arranging, adding, and/or deleting elements by means of electronic transfer.”

If you have camcorder footage of your kids growing up, why worry about five extra minutes of nothing? Now, if it’s your kids making the obscene gesture that’s up to your discretion as to whether it’s appropriate or not. Who knows, maybe it could be used years down the road as a piece of black-mail.

Just dub the tape and if you get to a spot that you don’t want to watch…fast forward. How many times do you think you’ll actually watch it? Once every four years? Once a month? Three times a day? The more often you watch it the more annoyed you become each time you have to fast forward. If it’s not very often at all, then don’t worry about the extra garbage you shot.

You may also edit in the camera. If you know that the last thing on the tape is five minutes of the floor, then just cue up the tape and record over it. I have shot an entire 45-minute safety training video and edited in the camera as we were shooting. We would shoot each scene in sequence and if the talent made a mistake, I would just establish a completely different camera angle and pick up from a good spot in the script. This served more than one purpose. First, the only editing involved was a title at the beginning. Second, it looked like it was a multi-camera shoot. Each time we changed the camera angle, it looked as if there was another camera and the talent always knew which camera to direct his attention. Third, the client needed to send out copies the next day. They didn’t have time to shoot, create an edit list, edit, and duplicate. They knew the material so they were very fluent with their presentation.

When shooting sporting events, it’s very important to record everything that you need without recording too much. For example, if you are shooting a high school football game, start recording just as the quarterback is approaching the center and stop recording after the play is done or the public addresser announces who was involved in the play. This practice should keep your total run time at just under one hour. If you were to keep the camcorder rolling in between plays, you may be approaching two hours. It just depends on what, or whom, you are shooting the event for. It’s far less expensive to hand a duplicator a one hour master than to hand an editor a two hour master, have them edit out what shouldn't have been shot, and then have it duplicated.

Don’t Know
If you don’t know if it’s going to be used for editing or duplication and you just want it for keepsake purposes so you can show occasionally, then maybe this will help. If you are videotaping your family opening Christmas presents or your kids playing in the yard, chances are there isn’t any footage that is definitely going to be used for editing and there isn’t any footage that is definitely going to be used for duplication. In this case, before you videotape Christmas, let the camcorder record for 15 to 30 seconds of black. When you’re done recording the event, let the camcorder record for 15 to 30 seconds of black. This will give you a total of 30 to 60 seconds of black, it will be easy to identify this break between events when you are fast forwarding. This black spot will also help if you do make dubs some day because you can begin and end on black rather than on video. If you want to view the last thing you shot, it would be simple to find the beginning and you can also cue up the tape within black before you record again.

So even if you don’t know what the camcorder footage is going to be used for, it would make life easier if you follow these simple steps.

Conclusion
Time and money could be saved if you follow these simple principles. These principles generally apply to VHS linear editing. If you have the ability to do non-linear editing, then you don’t need to worry about being able to use an EP master…except for quality concerns.

Contact Duplication Media of Urbandale, Iowa for your duplication needs. Duplication Media offers CD duplications, DVD duplications, videotape duplications, audio to CD transfers, and video to DVD transfers.