How to use storyboard, logging & timeline views

Posted: 15/12/2014

This video shows you how to navigate and use the storyboard, logging and timeline views in Forscene, which are all located in the same editor window.

Transcription of the video

When you load a file or clip into the play window or a sequence into the record window, this window will automatically open.

Right clicking on the button in the top right corner of this window allows you to choose between storyboard, logging or timeline views for your edited sequence, indicated with an orange ‘R’, or your source media, indicated with a blue number. This number refers to the play window number.

Let’s begin by looking at the logging information for the media in our play window. The logging window displays the logging entries for the media in your play window.

As you can see, our media has already been logged – with descriptions of the content at specific time codes. Watch our logging tutorial videos for a step-by-step demonstration of this process.

Once media is logged, you can use this window to help search for and view specific shots. Right click on any open column header to choose what columns are displayed. Right click to choose multiple columns, left click to choose one column and close.

You can double click on a time code to view that specific shot in the play window or simply drag the entire clip into your record window to add it to your sequence.

Print or export your logs and search for words that you have associated with specific time codes during logging.

If we right click on the logging button and choose storyboard view for this same media, you are shown a more graphic or visual representation of the media currently loaded in the play window. Each thumbnail here represents a logged clip, and the text is from your shot description logging column.

You can also search for logging descriptions in storyboard view and then either double click on the thumbnail to play that shot in the play window or drag it into your record window to add it to your sequence.

If we click on the storyboard button now it will switch between the last two views we’ve worked with – in this case logging and storyboard. Right click shows all the options.

If we now choose timeline view, your source media is shown as video and audio tracks on the timeline.

You can use this button to zoom in or out of the timeline. Use the sync display button to view and hide the white boxes that represent sync – the sync display track underneath the timeline always shows synced tracks. And use the navigation ruler to go to different points in the clip.

As you’ve seen, the logging, storyboard and timeline view for the play window provide you with different ways of viewing and working with your source. Similarly the logging, storyboard and timeline view for the record window provide you with different ways of viewing and working with your edited sequence.

Let’s start with the logging window. Here you can see the three clips that we added to our sequence from the blue logging, storyboard and timeline views.

The orange logging view is similar to the blue logging view, in that it is a searchable written log of your clips, but it differs slightly – showing clip icons instead of time codes and only displaying some of the logging information.

Logs that effect the whole sequence, or an entire clip within that sequence, are indicated in orange – these can be edited and any changes made here will update in the original source logs and vice versa.

You can also add new logs to clips within the sequence in this view. Logs that only relate to part of a clip within the sequence are indicated in blue – as a safety measure these cannot be edited, as the orange logging view doesn’t show time code in and out points. You will need to go back to the blue logging view to amend the log.

You might use the orange logging view to find specific clips in your sequence or to edit your logging metadata for online publishing.

The orange storyboard view is a good place to start editing your sequence. It has all the same functionality as the blue storyboard view, but also allows you to change the sequence of your clips by simply dragging and dropping them into new locations. So it’s a great place to get your sequence of events right before using the timeline view to fine tune your edit.

You can see our three clips from earlier over here. These are the tracks that display by default in timeline view – a video track, four audio tracks and a title track. Right clicking on any of these reveals sub tracks.

Right click on the video track for colour correction or pan and zoom; on any of the audio tracks to adjust audio levels or audio panning; and on the title track for pan and zoom.

Add or remove additional video and audio tracks by left and right clicking on these buttons. Click on the tracks button to choose the tracks you want displayed on your timeline.

This is the patch panel – where you can patch source video and audio to different tracks in your sequence. You can also disable tracks if you only want to insert video or some audio from the clip into your sequence. The patch panel only appears in the orange timeline when you have a clip open in the play window. Closing the source clip removes the patch panel.

The timeline title bar displays your sequence’s name and duration and provides some editing tools, including:

• The audio record button – to record audio directly onto the timeline you need to launch Forscene in ‘Edit – voiceover’ mode.
• The sync display button – to choose whether to visually depict sync on the timeline.
• The edit point button – to insert or remove a cut at your navigation ruler’s position.
• The transition button – Left click to add a dissolve to the video track, right click to add a dissolve to the audio track. And then edit the transition on the timeline.
• The gaps button – left click to open up a gap at your navigation ruler’s position or right click to close the gap.
• The sync button – to lock or unlock sync on video and audio tracks
• And the navigation zoom button – left click to zoom in, right click to zoom out.

Forscene tracks how many edits you have performed in the current session. To undo your latest edit left click here, and right click to redo.

Underneath the timeline is the absolute ruler – it shows what percentage of media you can see in the timeline and gives you a sense of orientation. Lastly, use the grabber in the corner of the timeline to adjust the size of the window.