Help with my EDLs

I'm the assistant editor on a film project that was transferred to DVCam and will finish in DI.

The footage was reverse telecined in Cinema Tools and edited in 23.98 timelines.

The company that is scanning the footage, requires along with pull lists, 24FPS EDLs with "Cam Roll" information. Their scanned elements will reference this info instead of "Tape #" when conforming the show.

Everyone is telling me that Cinema Tools does not give you the option to select "Cam Roll" info (and indeed I can't figure out how to display the info), but I know the info is provided in Avid on EDLs.

They're telling me I have to manually replace the "Tape #" with "Cam Roll" info. This sounds very unreasable in a 2000 cut show.

Please, help! Project past due.

Okay, I just spent 2 hours manually editing my EDL to list the Cam Roll # instead of Tape Roll #. And that's just the first reel of 6 total - about 300 cuts on that EDL.

That was fun - NOT!

In those 2 hours, I couldn't help but think that there MUST be an easier way.

Here's what my brain came up with:

My editor is emailing me the Cinema Tools database later tonight. I will make a copy of it and rename it with "Cam Rolls" somewhere in the title.

I will then open the new database in Cinema Tools and edit each record so that where the Source Tape # is, I will replace it with the Cam Roll #.

Ta-da!

That's the best I can come up with.

If anyone else knows of something simpler - let me know.

"Everyone is telling me that Cinema Tools does not give you the option to select "Cam Roll" info (and indeed I can't figure out how to display the info), but I know the info is provided in Avid on EDLs."

CT can include CR info in any if the lists it makes,
but CT doesn't make EDLs


if you do the modifying in CT, you have to modify each entry individually.
better would be to change the reel #s in FCP, where you can do batches,
then export a fresh EDL
do it on a copy of the project with all the media OFFLINE, otherwise you will change the reel# in the file, which would be a BAD THING


nick

Not sure what you mean by "batches."

I'm assuming you are referring to exporting a batch list? Put it in Excel, then simply copy & paste Cam roll column to Reel column. Import back into FCP and all the info is there.

2 problems with that: FCP does not include any film information when exporting batch lists. The Cam Roll & key code columns in Excel are there, they're just empty. So, I wouls still need to manually input all te cam roll info.

2nd problem: FCP gives the option import>"Batch List at 29.97 fps." My project is 23.98 so I'm not sure they would be capitable.

My ony option left seems to be to manually edit all reels for the 1347 clips in my browser.

I must get started now.

not batch lists.
(you don't want a batch list, you want an EDL)

but you can Batch-convert reel#s on multiple clips.

lets say you've got 20 clips from one CR.
change the Reel# of one of them to the CR#
select the other 19,
right click in the reel column and select the new Reel#, which is your CR#

so you've reduced your workload by 20.



cheers,
nick

thinking a bit more about this.

as i said, the clips need to be offline.
if you dont have proper master/affiliate relationships between your browser clips and timeline clips, thie *may* cause a problem
(the timeline clips *may* not adopt the new reel#)

to make this work,
delete all browser clips, keeping only the sequences
select the sequences in the browser,
Tools Menu > Create Master Clips

this will give you a whole new set of clips,
(ONLY the clips used, which will make things a bit more manageable)
and they will all be proper Master clips, so any reel changes in the browser will be reflected in the Timeline.
so you can make the required EDLs

cheers,
nick

Nick,

thank you so much for all your help with this problem. Unfortunately, no solution worked except the dreaded "hard" way.

Making a copy of the project, I changed all the clips' reel #s to Cam Roll #. The EDLs worked fine - cam roll info provided as needed. But Cinema Tools is no longer able to link up their database with the project and all the film lists came up with missing information.

Now, after days of tearing my hair out, it's back to Excel and copying and pasting in order to create the list required by the scanning house.

Any future projects of this type, I will insist on FC Studio 2. I hear Cinema Tools 4 now has all the bells and whistles.

As for me, I'm taking the weekend off and I'll be back on this project first thing Monday morning - if I live long enough. What a nightmare!

but Cinema Tools would have created a Cut List for you WITH Camera Rolls if you used your original timelines.

oh, well, i think there is some aspect of this i am still missing.
but i suspect that the Neg Matchers were not being very helpful, either.

It will be interesting to see what they;ve done with CT4.
it's remained fiercely underdeveloped these last few years

enjoy your time off,

nick

Just a correction to my first post for future seekers of this problem.

I referred to Cinema Tools as not being able to use Cam Roll info when creating EDLs.

EDLs are not created by Cinema Tools - They're exported from FCP and there is currently no option to select Cam Roll # instead of Tape #.

Using the pull lists created in CT, the EDLs in FCP, and Excel (any spreadsheet software would do) I was able to exchange information from one list to the other.

On the FCP EDLs, I changed Tape # to Cam roll # provided by CT pull lists. Saved as new Text file and achieved my final goal.

On the CT pull lists, I was able to add the source TC info from the FCP EDLs for each cut. Saved as new text file and achieved my final goal.

Unfortunately, the amount of work, time, and steps it takes to reach this goal does not make this a "quick fix" solution, but after much investigation and everyone's help here, I discovered it is the only viable solution.

Hopefully FC Studio 2 will have all the options included.