I am very often laying off animations to tape from Avid.

Graphic elements from AE, traveling mattes, sometimes I need
them in a traditional online. I not only need to get them to tape,
I need to create an EDL that reflects where the clips live.

plus

I'm a big believer in not archiving my Avid media files.
Heresy, I know, but here I'd like to share how I get around it,
and how easy, though sometimes tedious, it is.

I recently did a job where everything I edited came from a graphic designer.
A perfect scenario to show how I layoff the clips to tape and then
modify the master clips so they match the tape.

As you can see, I was trying to be organized with my imports.
I had created a different bin for each day I received QuickTime clips.

But now, I need them all in the same bin, so I create a new bin
and copy ALL the imported clips into it.

One of the first things I do to start organizing is to sort all my clips.
I do it alphabetically.

The key bin headings we're dealing with here are

TAPE
START
END

Initially, the tape field is blank, since these are QuickTime and AIFF imports.
The same would be the case if any of these were PICTs (no alpha).

So we'll turn on these fields, we'll need them very soon.

We're going to make a sequence out of all these clips,
so we can Digital Cut them to tape. It is vital that when we do this,
we layoff EVERY frame of every clip.

So I go through and MARK each clip. I load it, hit MARK CLIP,
load the next one, hit MARK CLIP........

To illustrate this, I've turned on the MARK IN and MARK OUT
bin headings. As I mark the clips, you'll see the INs and OUTs will
match the START and END timecodes.

FYI: this step took me 1 minute, 10 seconds to complete

Now that all the clips are marked, its time to put them all into a sequence.

I'll let the Avid do this for me.

remember, use the SHIFT or OPTION keys as you drag the clips over the record monitor

So I lay off to tape this sequence.

I can do this to any time I need to. If I was starting a new tape, I'd typically
choose something simple like 01:00:00:00. But just to prove to you that we
can lay this off to ANY tape location you need, we'll choose 01:05:30:00.

I actually modify the sequence. My whole spiel here won't work
if you change the start time in the Digital Cut tool.

Now all the clips live on tape.

We now need to modify the clips to show that their tape name
matches this newly created elements master.

Use whatever proper naming conventions you currently employ.

Think you've worked hard so far? You've done a lot, but the next step is the key.

This is the worst part of this, but it isn't hard, it just takes the longest.

What I will do here is modify the Start timecode of each clip so that
its timecode will match what is now on tape. I don't need to sweat the End timecode,
it will modify itself.

The first clip will get the same Start timecode of the layoff sequence.
Just copy and paste it.

remember, Command-C for copy, Command-V for paste

You'll then need to hit OK twice. That's the most irritating part of this whole thing.
OK! OK! Yes, OK! OK already!

Now, we'll copy the END timecode from first clip
and paste it into the START timecode for the second clip. Hit OK, OK.

Then, we'll copy the END timecode from second clip
and paste it into the START timecode for the third clip. Hit OK, OK.

and so on.

like this...

Want to see how this looks when you do the whole bin?
click here

This will seem incredibly irritating, but it took me only 4 minutes to modify all 48 clips.
That ain't that bad.

That's it. You're done. Each clip now says it lives on the right tape,
and each clip's timecode matches what is on the tape.

Proof? Here's the timecode window above my Layoff Sequence.
As I scroll through it, the timecode of each clip exactly matches the timecode
of the sequence, and by extension the timecode on the tape.

Here, you see a part of the actual edit I was working on.
All the timecodes you see now reference the tape,
instead of the default 01:00:00:00 they had when we started.

The End

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