Conforming a 3D Feature on AVID Pt. 2

The good news: I have successfully conformed the movie back to it's raw R3D files.

The bad news: Still no luck on getting it to conform in 3D.

To save some time and at least get something done, I went through and entered the tape name for only the files being used in the current edit. I'll go back and get them all entered so the editor is free to use anything not currently used in the edit.

****This is where this process became so time consuming, and I got hired on so many other jobs, that I forgot to ever come back and finish this post.

So...long story short:

I got in contact with a mysterious person (possible ex-employee) who got in touch with another mysterious person who tried to help me, but I never heard from them again. I'm not allowed to say who was helping me or how or specifically which step of the process, but nothing ever came from it, so it doesn't really matter. Though it was kind of neat to sort of feel like the AVID gods came down from Mt. Post-production to help a mere mortal with an impossible problem, until they forgot they left their oven on and left.

While I was hired on an incredibly long commercial, my director made a lot of calls to AVID and basically discovered they had no and did not plan to make a solution to convert a 2D edit to 3D. End of story. So I ended up coming in and one by one, switching each clip for it's stereoscopic mate. With the help of timecode and setting match edit to a convenient hot key, it was an annoying and time consuming process that gave us a new set of problems. Anywhere where there were effects (fades, text overlay, etc.) the image went way out of whack like when old school antenna TVs are having signal issues. It was over a month ago that I worked on this so I'm trying really hard to remember what we did to fix it without having an AVID system in front of me. I believe it had something to do with going down a few layers and removing something.

I think the main useful bulk of 3D AVID information is in the blog post before this.

Bottom line: Don't start a 3D edit in 2D unless you want to spend lots of time replacing edits. Find an assistant editor who knows how to make stereoscopic clips in AVID (i.e. me!). AVID won't save you. Oh and if you plan on making a film before the technology to finish it exists, invest in a time machine.

Oh and as an added bonus, because this also tripped us up, if you're using KiPros, beware of certain typed of walkie talkies causing them to cut if used near by or near long cabling.