Long Distance Editing Tips
 

We are looking to outsource some editing and other FX work. What's the best way to go about doing this if the editor would be working remotely instead of at our office?

We work with Sony EX1s and the footage is massive--too much for FTP (I'd imagine). We're talking 300-500GB for a typical show. How do long distance editors make this work?

I was thinking the massive files could be resized down from (for example) 4GB to 10MB each and the editor can edit the smaller footage and when it comes back edited in the NLE project the footage can be replaced. Is that how people do it? Seems like a pain that way too, though, since there could be 500 different files.

Also, what other nuances are there to farming out editing and FX jobs? I guess the FX are a lot more simple mostly, but the editing part is hard for me to wrap my mind around as to what the best procedure would be.

While there are still possibilities with ftp, I'd sure want to send a hard drive, with a couple backups maintained. FTP of 500GB is possible, but, it takes a lot of time & trouble, and a robust ftp client.

This could cost something like $40 in fedex charges for a project. Don't you want them working on files of original resolution?

If you can coordinate platforms and project files, they could be editing much smaller proxies that would be more easily FTP'ed, but, for the savings in shipping and hard drives would get eaten up fast by the monkey motion needed to make the proxies, upload, then have the remote editor download, edit, and send back the project file for rendering...

However, the first time this somewhat fragile workflow blows up, fedex is going to seem real inexpensive by comparison.

Depending whether it's continuous work you might be better bringing someone in house .. you'd certainly have better communication at the outset.

Contract an LA freelancer to work on site, there's many advantages, he/she could see the shows first before starting the edit and easily present early cuts and maybe do some pickups. If you ran an adv in the trades IMO you'll be run over. I might apply :)

Cheers.

I'm with Seth on shipping hard drives back and forth. We do a lot of this where I work and overall it works out well. We ship footage out to editors on hard drive, and sometimes on tape, and they make their edits. We use an on-line site to review their videos, then when everything is approved, they provide quicktime files of the program. They also media manage the entire project and send that to us on hard drive so if we need to make any last minute changes ourselves, we can. It's also for archival back up, of course. The only issue we have run into is the use of plug-ins by our editors. If they have purchased an add-on plug-in that we do not also have, then we would need to replace that effect with something that is in our systems. It does create a need for a lot of storage on our end, but it seems to work. Small files we sometimes ftp, but I can't imagine ftping everything. I also can't imagine going through the hassle of creating low-res and high-res versions of everything either.

Have fun!

Rob

most editing facilities that outsource long-term contracts go for a T1 (or larger) telephone line, which can send data quickly. But it's too expensive if your projects are not 24x7, and takes some time to break-even.

I am not in favor of Hard disks for the simple fact that they might be lost, stolen, corrupted or copied. If your footage is not critical in nature, however, then this is the cheapest way. High speed broadband (over 8 Mbps) might get your data transferred within a week (depending on your provider, but don't count on it). Or, if you really want all the advantages and no downtime, then have someone fly there with the data.

If none of these options meet your SLAs, then do it in your own city.

Just another idea that probably won't work, but what about editing remotely through a GoToMyPC connection? Anyone ever tried that?

The powerhouse host computer could be online and the guy accessing remotely could be on any computer with an internet connection.

Any thoughts?

Two obstacles with a GoToMyPC approach:

Most such run at about 4-6 fps for video.

There is considerable latency between the time the pause button or the "in" button is remotely clicked, and the time that command is executed on the local editing machine.

There is an interesting technology, designed for client review, that might support paper editing, called Sync-Vue. It's worth looking at by anyone interested in internet-enabled remote video. It approaches the fps obstacle by automagically caching a remote copy of the video, and maintaining sync between the remote copy and the local copy. I don't know how you make that work for editing, but it would certainly enable remote logging.

Hi Rob,
Do you mean something like a Mobile Me site (I'm no a Mac), or do you mean something else?
thanks,
Malcolm

Malcolm,

We use ExposureRoom. It's a site like Vimeo. There are a number of such sites (even YouTube) that could work for such a thing. As a business you do have to be careful about what kinds of usage are allowed on these sites, however. We use it only for review, no sales, no advertising, no imbedding in our corporate site.

Have fun!

Rob