Newbie question: Overlapping cut out and Cut in of two shots

Flow Production Tracking
1

Hello. I have a big problem and we don’t know how to fix it. Our animators are all going crazy over this one. We are using Shotgun Desktop.

In my studio we had to add frames to the animation scenes, so the layout scenes look something like this:

           cut in    cut out   duration

shot 1 -----1------ 50-------50
shot 2------51----150-------100
shot 3 ----151-----170------20

Now we added frames in animation
shot 1 -----1-------80 ------ 80
shot 2-----81------200-----120
shot 3-----201-----230-----30

The scenes in Maya (all individual scenes) already have animation from the frame 1 to 80 in the first case but shotgun says to the next department, FX to work only from 1 to 50.

If I change the cut out and Duration of Shotgun so the FX department knows that they need to work 80 frames instead of 50 on shot 1 but then start the shot 2 on frame 50 and make it last 120 frames it would look like this:

           cut in    cut out   duration

shot 1 ----- 1 ----- 80 ----- 80
shot 2 -----51-----170-----120
shot 3-----151---- 180 ----30

Some frames overlap from shot to shot but it will keep its correct length. Is this the correct aproach to this problem? Or how can we change the duration, etc of shots in a way that everybody’s scenes know in what frame their scenes need to start?

At this point we don’t care about visualization of the versions in Screening room or RV. We just want this fixed without much trouble.

Thank you and sorry for asking. It may be obvious to some but I’m not sure.

3 Likes
2

Hi @Luis_Bolan,

It looks like you are having some issues over terminology, hopefully I can clarify things and you can see where you go from there.

Cut In and Cut Out are really for editorial and finaling as this reflects exactly what is to be shown in the cut. The full range of the shot including handles etc (in a VFX context) you would start with Head In and Tail Out bring the full range of the shot, regardless of cut. Now this is if you are treating the shots independently with their own frame ranges (pretty standard with post VFX).

f144a24747584eab8bf860c713f4394b
f144a24747584eab8bf860c713f4394b2250×822 30 KB

Now as you are working from an animation context, it looks like you are using a frame count for the whole scene, starting a 1 for each shot, but the shot range is offset based on the entire scene, rather than independently for each shot.

So you need to decide how you want to capture the fact that you want your animators to work outside the cut range and by defining with 2 ranges Head In and Tail Out / Cut In and Cut Out you can clarify what is being worked on and what needs to be delivered, as well as ensuring that in editorial the cut remains as it should.

Another method that some studios employ is having a Comp/Work range (user created fields) to capture handles but this relates to using plates more so.

I hope that helps.

-David

5 Likes
3

It helps. Thank you.

2 Likes