Posted: 06/02/2015
Splurge Baby!
I want to shout SPLURGE from the rooftop! Remember when you first fell in love you wanted to let everyone know about your new relationship? That is how I now feel about Splurge. This technology is heaven sent for loggers, editors and just about everyone. Splurge represents every frame of a shot. Zoomed in, it is an interesting representation of all frames, however, zoomed out, splurge is spectacular. The user experience of splurge allows you to view the content of an entire shot before you even press the play button. This is equivalent viewing time or a complete shot from 10000 feet in the air. A bizarre concept but effectively viewing all the frames splurged together as a complete thought.
All At Once, Not One by One
Traditionally a camera card or camera reel (my era again) can contain any number of shots based time-code that is ascending. This can present itself with many clips depending on your camera’s time-code record or free run settings. Also included can be flagged start/stop data. That being all well and good puts Forscene cloud logging in the unique position of embracing a folder full of clips. It is just logical not to repeat the mainstream focus of logging one clip at a time considering that consecutive clips are usually related in some way. Forscene can handle folders full of media, incredibly efficiently with sort options galore. Viewing media in shot context simply produces a better quality logging experience comparable to an edit defining the media that is relevant at that moment.
I Can Type While The Media Keeps Playing
Much to the amazement of many folks, I can chew gum and walk at the same time. The experience in Forscene is much more dynamic than that because the player does not stop while working in other sections of the software. It is clear the most popular downloadable editor for “professional use” has never had this functionality available. I have always found stopping the player counter-productive from logging and tagging. Halting all playback destroys your thought process while trying to type descriptions based on what you see and hear. With Forscene, stopping the player becomes your choice, not the software’s forced behaviour. Continuous logging is where it’s at. Now, I can log “intra-clip” with as great detail as the content, as it represents moment-by-moment detail. This equates to sub clipping without stopping and it becomes all about speed, and granular relevant descriptions. It just makes sense: the more detail, the more accurate the search results. To add, logging from anywhere in the world with Forscene is the de facto standard to which all logging and tagging can be measured.
Look Mom, No Qwerty!
Keyboard shortcuts and re-populating a column with a word or two is one thing, almost all applications have this feature. But, Forscene’s, keyboard expansions work on another level. Complete, user, account and cloud control of assigning a word, phrase, sentence or paragraph, to a combination of keyboard characters or F Keys is simply genius. This is huge for production efficiency and control of the post process as well as relevant descriptions to really help through the edit process. Not to boast about single digit operation, but P.I Engineering has a compatible product called X Keys where you can assign your entire library of data to colourful keyboard surface. I must get myself one of those.
Publish and Compatibility
So, once your log is complete, Forscene was able to generate your log from Forscene to pretty much any other editor since metadata is intact throughout the process. I can publish lists via AAF and XML and even Avid Log Exchange. These formats are all different beasts and the data that is passed along can be richer in some of the binary formats like AAF. Either way, your log will work. Beyond everything you read, do not lose sight of the efficiency and speed of cloud post-production running in SaaS. Yes, all of this is available in Forscene, which is incredible, and the fact that I can do all of this anywhere, on any platform, makes your user experience brilliant.
As I said, I am just like you. I expect efficiency, new inventions that adapt what I already understand as the gold standard of workflows and make them even better. My goal is always to do the work once and deploy wealth of results for use in other areas. That is what cloud computing allows for, while continually respecting the standards that have been put in place.
Jeff
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