Appendix 1

The Filmmaker’s Guide to Final Cut Pro Workfl ow
Help Wanted
Directed by Ryan Mooney
Written by Albert Santos
Help Wanted was a fi lm made by students at the Brooks Institute as part of the Kodak student fi lmmaker
program. It was shot and fi nished on 35 mm with a Dolby LCRS sound track. Production audio
was recorded on a PD6 digital recorder with smart slate for much of the shoot. The sample rate was
48,048 Hz. Some audio was also recorded with a Nagra 4.2 with “dumb slate,” common clapper
sticks.
The workfl ow that should have been followed was the standard fi lm-to-fi lm workfl ow, Basic Workfl
ow 5 in Appendix 10. However, because of the inexperience of the postproduction crew, several
mistakes were made. There were several other problems in the telecine logs. But, the mistakes and
problems were as much of a learning experience as making the fi lm. Even though the mistakes were
“large” mistakes, because of the fl exibility of the workfl ow, in the end everything turned out fi ne and
the problems not only did not fi nd their way to the screen, but they proved easy to repair. Here are
the workfl ow, the mistakes, and the solutions:
• Footage was telecined with zero frame “A” frame and with fi eld “1” dominance. NTSC NDF time
code was used with burn windows for:
Time code
Key code with pull-down cycle identifi er (for example, “A” frame) following the key
number
Audio time code on PD 6 shots, blank window on Nagra shots
• Each tape was given a different hour code.
• A telecine log was made.
• PD 6 footage was sunc in telecine. As the PD 6 records directly to an optical disc, the fi les were
transferred to DA 88 tape and the audio sample rate set at 48 K achieving pull down.
• Nagra footage was sunc later, transfers being done in Pro Tools with a stripped house sync video
reference creating the pull down.
This was the fi rst mistake, pulling down in telecine and transfer. As there was a smart slate, it seemed
reasonable to sync to it. In telecine the digital audio was transferred at 48 K, which is standard practice
as transferring at the lower sample rate creates the pull down. However as this was to be a fi lm-tofi
lm workfl ow, there was no plan in place on what frame rate would be used, 23.98 or 24. Later, a
plan was made to reverse to 24 FPS avoiding the need to pull down and back up, but also precluding
the ability to be in sync before the shots were reversed to 24 FPS. Even using 48,048 Hz in the production
recording was unnecessary. It was possible to sync in telecine without pulling down; which
is say, shoot and transfer at 48 K. The shots on the telecined video would drift out of sync until they
were reversed later.
However, the 29.97 video was dead in sync as would be expected. If the project would have been
reversed to 23.98 and the audio pulled up in transfer to optical after the fi lm was fi nished, everything
would have been fi ne. But the next mistake was to not reverse at all, but edit the 29.97 footage. This
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