Moving from Stills to Video: Log, Codecs, and Post Production

Now you are really on your way to becoming the director or cinematographer you always dreamed of being, or at least getting your feet wet with the idea. If you aren’t you can check out the first three parts of this series: Getting Started, Helpful Tools, and Audio, Audio, Audio. If you your film is already in the can, you are ready to head into the next step—making your film.

There’s a saying that you make a whole new film in the edit bay, which is usually very accurate. When you are shooting, numerous setbacks or practicalities can result in directors cutting scenes, having limited time to shoot in one location, weather, or even spontaneous ideas to take the movie in a new direction. In any event, what you recorded is probably a little different than what you had on the page and, especially in the case of documentaries, you will be creating your final story after the fact. Here’s some helpful information to help you sort through your files and start learning about non-linear editing.

Codecs and compatibility

You need to organize your footage properly. If you already shoot photos, I would hope you have your own system for importing and cataloging your images. If you don’t, or want a different setup for videos, create a unique project folder in which you have separate folders for your project files, videos, audio, photos, titles, and more. Keeping everything separated makes it easier for you to find specific items later. For folder naming, a commonly used system is Year-Month-Date—it will make files easy to sort. Now, let’s talk about codecs.

A codec can be loosely defined as a compression scheme, not to be confused with a container such as *.mov and *.mp4. Some codecs you may have heard of are H.264, AVCHD, Motion JPEG, and XAVC S, though there are plenty of others. Companies can choose a compression method to maximize quality while keeping file sizes to a minimum. Generally speaking, all codecs have some form of data loss, though high-end edit-ready codecs like ProRes 4444 hope to maintain as much data as possible. Most photographers-turned-videographers will be dealing with relatively low-spec’d cameras that are generally 8-bit or 10-bit and use 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 color sampling, so we won’t have to worry about that. The camera you have is going to produce a good file and you just need to figure out how to work with it.

First, you will need to find your editing software. If you are just starting out, iMovie and other free options will be perfectly fine, as long as they support your file formats. Luckily, most manufacturers offer free utilities for converting their files into a more edit-friendly format, if needed, and many modern non-linear editors (NLEs) offer a wide range of support for most common formats so you shouldn’t have any issues. If you do run into problems, or perhaps are looking for something a bit better than the software that came with your computer, you will want to work with a full-fledged NLE.

Adobe fans will likely gravitate to Premiere Pro CC, a great option that is part of Creative Cloud and has exploded in popularity over the past few years. If you don’t want to shell out any extra cash, Blackmagic Design offers a free version of its renowned DaVinci Resolve color-grading software, with some limitations (export is limited to UHD 3840 x 2160, for example), which over the past few years has evolved into a very capable NLE. Other common choices include Avid Media Composer and Apple Final Cut Pro X. My personal recommendation is to try out each (they all offer trials) and experiment to see which you prefer. Currently, I use a combination of Avid Media Composer and DaVinci Resolve, but I’ve used Premiere and Final Cut Pro 7 and X and all have been equally capable of cutting a film. If you simply want to convert footage to make it work in your current NLE, your best bet is to rely on the camera manufacturer’s software or use the free version of DaVinci Resolve’s conversion tools, since it is widely compatible and works with up to UHD 4K.

There are other reasons to transcode your footage. H.264 and H.265 are very compressed, but they do a good job, so they are great for DSLRs and mirrorless cameras to save space but not so great when it comes to editing. Every time you play a video, your computer is decompressing the file and creating the image. Compressed formats make it so that your computer has to work overtime to decompress the footage and apply edits and effects in real time. Using editing formats like ProRes and DNxHR allows you to work on footage without straining your system. This is really useful for less powerful computers or laptops. One other option is proxy files, which are lower-resolution copies of your files that are only used for editing and are then replaced with the original footage once you are ready for export. Some software will even create these files automatically when you import your footage, making editing easier, but you will likely need to set that up. 

A quick note on containers—just because a file says *.mp4, *.mov, or something else you recognize, it doesn’t mean that it will always be compatible. Sony puts its XAVC S format in a *.mp4 format, but XAVC S does have some limited compatibility, since it is relatively new. ProRes, DNxHR, Motion JPEG, and other codecs are all likely to be in *.mov containers. So don’t be fooled by a file extension into thinking you can just import the files seamlessly.

Tips for editing

Organization can’t be stressed enough. Keeping everything from your folders to your timelines to your exports clean and understandable will make a huge difference, and is even more important if you work with other editors or collaborators. While bins and folders can be set up as works best for you (with proper labels, of course), timelines, the area in which you will be working in your NLE, should be organized more carefully. For example, a short interview with b-roll might just have the interview on track 1, b-roll on track 2, and titles on track 3, and then for audio, the main person’s interview can be track 1, the b-roll can be on track 2, sound effects can be on track 3, and music can be on track 4. These are quite simple edits, in the grand scheme of things. Films that rely heavily on action sequences or special effects can easily break 20-30 tracks, and once you start getting deep into sound mixing and sound effects, you can find yourself equally deep there, as well, but for your first edits, try to take it easy on yourself.

Make use of your second viewer window and use in/out markers to make adding clips to your timeline much easier. Without affecting your timeline, you can easily use your second viewer window to preview footage before you throw it into your sequence. Using in/out markers, you can even ensure you are pulling only what you need from the clip instead of an overly long piece that will need trimming on your timeline.

Another useful thing to do later in your editing process is to make duplicate sequences before you make major changes. Similar to the way one might make a second layer or copy of your image before attempting to do some work, a duplicated sequence can save you if you decide that the new idea isn’t working out. You should also attempt to learn some of the keyboard shortcuts of your NLE. This software is extremely advanced and contains a ton of features to sort through. Even by just learning some of the basic shortcuts, you can dramatically speed up the editing process.

If you are running a double-system setup and need to sync sound in post manually, you should be looking at your waveforms. Hopefully, you used a slate or other sufficiently loud noise (I used to have my actors clap if I was working with a tight schedule, but I really wouldn’t recommend this process unless it’s an absolute necessity) and then you can look at the waveform of your camera’s audio and compare it to your recorder’s audio and sync based on where it spikes. Some current NLEs even have built-in auto-syncing tools, which can be lifesavers, or there are other options such as PluralEyes to get the job done.

I’d like to make another note about organization! It really is the most important thing you can do—things get complicated quite quickly.

Log gammas, picture profiles, LUTs, and more

If you have the basics of editing down, and find yourself doing some decent color grading, you can jump into what some call “advanced” or “professional” features. More and more still-photo-oriented cameras are outfitted with Log or Flat gammas, which claim to provide an extra few stops of dynamic range. How does this work? Think about your basic video file as a series of 8-bit JPEG images, which compared to your raw files, have limited data the second you start pushing and pulling the data. So, camera manufacturers employ this trick to move the information into a logarithmic curve, as opposed to the normal linear interpretation. This creates a very low-contrast image that pulls up the shadows, so you can better expose for the highlights without losing information in the shadows. It works fairly well in tougher situations, but now you have a super-flat, desaturated image to work with that is going to look fairly ugly compared to your finished ideal. Having an external monitor can greatly help when you are shooting log; they can use a LUT to add contrast and saturation to the scene to make monitoring easier.

Speaking of LUTs, or Look-Up Tables, a quick explanation is that they have the information to remap the data from your super-flat footage to give it a preliminary “look.” In many cases, such as Sony’s S-Log2, a LUT is used to simply make it look like a more conventional image so you can evaluate the scene quickly without sacrificing the extra data provided by the profile. Sometimes, though, you can use a creative LUT to apply a look that will approximate how you envision the final scene. LUTs are extremely useful and many NLEs will support them, allowing you to work with log footage without going crazy, or to quickly demonstrate the final appearance without exerting too much effort. If you really want to get into the details of LUTs, read An Introduction to LUTs—it tackles almost everything you need to know.

If you are going this advanced route with your shooting, you are going to have to learn about color grading (the film term for color correction and other related edits). This demands its own article, but if you are coming from the photo world, performing some basic contrast and color adjustments should be familiar. You may want to look up some of the new tools at your disposal in grading, such as waveforms and three-way color correctors.

Final note: the benefits of having an editor

I have been fortunate enough to have a couple of good friends who are editors, and trusting them with my footage has been a great help when crafting a film or video. A dedicated editor casts fresh eyes on your footage and the project as a whole, which makes them more likely to cut out unnecessary scenes or ignore some shots to make a single, cohesive piece. As the creator of the story and footage, sometimes we make bad decisions by hanging onto a scene that doesn’t quite work, or a shot that took a lot of effort—just because we like them. Frankly, someone who enjoys editing and is more dialed into all the different tools and software will be much faster and likely better than you when it comes to editing. So, if possible, I would highly recommend finding a friend with whom you can work. If you can’t, take a break between shooting and editing. This will give you some distance from your footage and hopefully help you cut together a better story. There is a reason they say that you make the film in the cutting room.

You’ve reached the end of Part 4, which is filled with dense and difficult information, especially if you have never attempted to work in an NLE before. I couldn’t cover absolutely everything in just one article, so if you have any questions, please feel free to pose them in the Comments section, below. We are almost at the end of this series, but there is still one more article on the way.

Part 1: Getting Started

Part 2: Helpful Tools

Part 3: Audio, Audio, Audio

Part 5: How Video Complements Stills