Appendix 1

The Filmmaker’s Guide to Final Cut Pro Workfl ow
DTS Dolby SR and 5.1 are encoded later from discrete channels. The encoding usually takes place
in the optical transfer for fi lm fi nish or in the DVD authoring. The simplest system, used often in
digital video, is simply a stereo composite mix. Stems for a stereo mix are usually 1 or 2 dialogue,
2 (stereo) music, and 2 sound effects.
Exporting Stereo and Finishing
The stereo composite, stereo mix, and fi nishing in Final Cut Pro or on fi lm can happen in the following
workfl ow. When the mix is compiled in the Pro Tools session, the stereo mix is exported as
a 48 K, 16 or 24 bit AIFF or BWF. Go to fi le > Bounce to disc, and direct it to your audio fi rewire.
This will play the mix in real time with all MIDI tracks playing. The mix is recorded as an AIFF
fi le. Import the AIFF into your Final Cut Pro project and line up the 2 pop with the picture.
If you are fi nishing on DVCam, you are done. If you are going to online editing, you are ready to
online. If you are fi nishing on fi lm, you are ready to pull up (if your frame rate was 23.98) and shoot
the optical (see Chapter 5 on fi nishing on fi lm).
Exporting the Mix and Finishing
The next steps are to export the surround composite mix and fi nish in DVD Studio Pro or on fi lm.
For DVD, 5.1 Dolby Pro Logic can be encoded in Apple’s Compressor as a part of the authoring
process. For 5.1 Dolby Pro Logic, the individual tracks are bounced as multimono and imported one
at a time in Compressor. They are then compressed into a Dolby 5.1 AC3 audio fi le that is used in
the DVD authoring.
For fi lm fi nish, the Dolby encoding is done after the mix and before the optical transfer. There is a
Dolby licensing fee. Dolby will send a technician to the mixing facility after the mix to encode the
master tape.
Optical Sound and Pull Up
In a fi lm fi nish, before the “married” answer print (answer print with sound) can be printed, the audio
from the mix needs to be pulled up (only if you were editing at 23.98) and shot to optical sound.
The optical sound can then be printed on the answer print. Don’t confuse this with “pulling up” the
optical track 26 frames before printing. Both processes are referred to as “pull up,” but in this step
we are speeding the sound back up to 24 FPS from 23.98 FPS.
Pulling up is more critical than pulling down. When we pulled the original sound down for syncing
to 23.98 footage, we were slowing down by exactly .1 percent. Moreover, if we were off by some
small fraction of this small percent, it rarely creates a problem as we only need to hold sync for the
duration of the take, perhaps a few minutes on even a long take. The pull up, however, is done to
the entire fi lm. We need to hold exact sync, even a drift of .0001 percent will cause the picture to
drift out of sync. It is not uncommon for pull downs to be done with the equipment locked to several
sync clocks. Pro Tools may be locked to its internal clock, a Nagra may use its crystal and, as these
are both very accurate clocks, we can hold sync through the take. But for truly accurate sync, every
piece of equipment must be locked to the same clock reference. Typically, a video sync generator is
fed through a distribution amplifi er and sent to every piece of equipment in the facility. This is referred
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