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This first tab contains a file browser for selecting footage.

FilmConvert can process the following file types:

• Quicktime - various cameras
• R3D - RED digital Cameras

Use the file browser to find the footage you wish to process. Selecting a folder will show you all the footage for all sub-folders 2 deep. This way, you can select all the R3D shots from a folder containing multiple RDM reels. To load shots into FilmConvert, select and drag the shots from the clip browser into the shot list on the right. You can use standard commands like select all. To remove unwanted clips, select in the shot list and press delete. When you are finished, click tab 2 - the Film Settings tab to begin adjusting your clips.

You can use this feature to load a finished cut into FilmConvert, and render only the clips that were used. This saves time over rendering all footage prior to editing.

Please note, your complete timeline is not represented in Film Convert. This feature simply allows you to load the clips that are present in your timeline to simplify selecting the necessary clips.

The basic workflow is:

1. Export an EDL or XML from your editing software
2. Import the EDL / XML into FilmConvert
3. Color and render your footage
4. Save a new version of your project in your editor
5. Re-connect the rendered footage in the editor

You can also render to DPX or TIFF and use the EDL / XML to create the timeline in external grading software. We won't cover that workflow here, but most of the same concepts apply.

Step 1: Export an EDL or XML from your editing software

For most software, this is as simple as selecting File > Export. FilmConvert accepts Final Cut 7 XML, Avid Filmscribe, CMX 3600 EDL and FCPX XML.

Step 2: Import the EDL / XML into FilmConvert

• On Tab 1, click the Import button at the bottom right
• Choose the folder which contains the source footage from your project
• Select whether to match Quicktime or R3D. If your timeline contains both, then you will need to perform the render twice
• Choose the EDL or XML format from the dropdown
• Choose the EDL or XML itself using the browse button
• Click load EDL / XML file

FilmConvert will then read the file, and search for the timeline clips in the chosen directory. At the end it will report on the number of matched clips. EDL and XML often contain extra rows that are not actually part of the timeline. FilmConvert may see these and report that it can't match them - this is usually ok. As long as the number of matched clips looks correct, you should be ok.
After the match is complete, hit close. The shot list should now contain the clips from your EDL / XML.

Step 3: Color and render your footage

Notes on EDL / XML rendering

• The Film Settings tab will contain the clips used in your timeline.
• You have access to the entire clip, regardless of where the in and out points were in your cut.

Step 4: Save a new version of your project in your editor

We recommend that you save a new version so that you don't mess up your original project.

Step 5: Re-connect the rendered footage in the editor

• This step is different for each of the editing platforms
• Some editors allow you to right click and select reconnect footage. If not, you will have to force a reconnection.
• To force reconnection, find the folder that contains the original source footage and rename it. Or if it's on a separate hard drive, eject that drive. This will prompt the editing software to try to find the missing footage, usually with a reconnection dialog box
• In the reconnection dialog box, select the folder where the footage from FilmConvert was rendered to.
• If the editor is smart, it will automatically reconnect all the clips in one go. Some editors might ask you to manually choose each clip.

Your timeline will now contain your cut with the FilmConvert look applied to it. You can then render out the finished product, or process and grade further using any other tools you have available.

Viewer

• Viewer shows a preview of the clip
• File is the file name of the selected clip
• E: shows edgecode timecode
• D: shows time of day timecode on R3D clips
• Play button starts playing the selected clip in a loop - Quicktime only
• sRGB dropdown for motion film stocks only, allows you to choose to process clips in sRGB, or in Status M - a high end log format for feature films
• Bypass button allows you to see the original digital camera look
• Zoom button zooms the viewer image to to 1080p. For most people this means it will zoom in. If your screen allows the viewer to be larger than 1080p, this button will zoom out to 1080p. Think of it as 1:1 pixels for 1080p footage. When zoomed in, you may drag the image around to pan.

Shot list

• Select all button selects all the clips in the shot list. While selected, you may apply a preset to all clips
• Select right button selects all the clips in the shot list to the right of the selected clip. While selected, you may apply a preset to all clips
• To remove clips from the shot list, select them and press the delete key

Presets

• Factory shows a list of the factory presets
• User shows a list of the user presets
• Applying presets presets are applied to the selected clips in the shot list. You may select more than one clip, and then click a preset to apply. The name or number of the applied preset will appear on the clip in the shot list

Save Preset / Reset bar

• Save Preset button will save all the settings from the right hand setting bar into a user preset, in the bottom left of the screen.
• Reset All clears all settings, and sets them to the default - which is 5207 at 100% grain on 35mm 3 perf film

Camera Section

• Exposure Performs an adjustment prior to the film emulation being applied.
• Temp Adjusts the color temperature. For Quicktime based cameras, this assumes that the clip temp is 5600 (daylight). Moving the slider to the left makes the scene cooler. Moving to the right makes it warmer.
• Use metadata For RED footage, you can default to the camera metadata for both camera settings.
• Reset Sets the settings back to their defaults.

FilmConvert Section

• Stock chooser drop down Click on the name to select a film stock emulation. Alternatively you can click on the left and right arrows to cycle through the stocks
• Color slider This adjusts the balance between the original digital camera color palette, and the film color palette. Typically you would leave this at 100% film
• Curve slider This control allows you to reduce changes in luminosity, so that the original exposure of the digital footage is preserved. Setting the slider to 0 with the color slider at 100 will give you the hue and saturation of the film stock, with no change to the luminosity.
• Grain slider Adjusts the amount of grain applied to the image. The default is 100%, which is an accurate representation of the grain for the selected film stocks. Some stocks have more grain - such as D3200.
• Size drop down Selects the negative size to emulate. Smaller values such as 8mm are fuzzier with larger grain. Larger values have smaller grain.

Color Corrector Section

• Shadows, midtones, and highlights This is a standard color corrector, any adjustments made will affect the image in the following ways:
  Shadows - adjustments will affect pure black 100%, mid grey at 50%, and pure white at 0%.
  Midtones - adjustments affect pure black 0%, mid grey 100%, and pure white 0%
  Highlights - adjustments affect pure black 0%, mid grey 50%, and pure white 100%
• Color wheels The 3 wheels adjust the color of the shadows, midtones, and highlights. Drag the white knob around the circle to add color.
• Sliders The sliders adjust the image by adding or removing brightness in the manner described above. Adjustments happen before the color wheel adjustment - so you can use these sliders to control how much of the image is in the upper highlight area before applying the color cast to it.
• Saturation slider will saturate or de-saturate them image.

Levels Graph

• Graph shows the relative amount of luminosity in each color band. Dark images will show larger values on the left side of the graph, bright images on the right side.
• Clipping indicators To the left and the right of the graph, these bars show up when you have pure black or pure white in your image.
• Black, mid, white sliders Use these to se the clipping point for black and white, and where the mid point grey lies
• Before / after buttons selects whether the graph is shown before or after the Black, mid, and white sliders. Before functions like a standard photoshop levels graph. After is used for showing the results of adjusting the sliders

Render Queue

The Render Queue contains all of the shots in your shot list. If you need to delete shots, you can do so from either the Choose Footage tab, or the Film Settings tab.

Press "Render Clips" to begin the render.
When each clip is rendered, a small play button appears. Clicking this will open the folder containing the rendered clip.

Destination

• Overwrite Existing Files with this box un-checked, if you have previously rendered part of a queue, FIlmConvert will skip those files, effectively allowing you to resume a render queue. With it ticked, all previously rendered footage will be overwritten.
• Path box & Browse button use the Browse button to select a destination folder to render to. The path dropdown box will show a list of recently used destination folders.

Format

• Format choose from a variety of formats and codecs
• Resolution choose the output resolution. Smaller resolutions will affect grain. In SD resolutions, grain will effectively be removed in most cases. You can choose a custom resolution.
• Stretch If the source footage has a different aspect ratio to the Output resolution, then you can choose how FilmConvert will fill the output image. For instance if you camera shoots in a 2.35 ratio, and your output is 1080p 16:9, then choosing fit width will result in black bars above and below the picture. Choosing fit height would fill the picture but crop information from the left and right of the frame. Stretch to fit will preserve the full image, but will result in non square pixels. This would usually be chosen when exporting to PAL, NTSC, or exporting footage shot in an animorphic mode.

Folders and File Names

This box appears when exporting to a still format such as DPX or TIFF.

• File Names Orignal filenames will export frames as movie_name.000000.tiff and similar. Choosing frame numbers only will render as 000000.tiff and similar.
• Folders Use this option to choose the folder structure for the individual frames. Choosing one folder per reel will do as described, this would be similar to how you might receive frames from a film scan. The other options will create a folder for each clip.
• Timecode This option selects how the 000000 part of the file name is calculated. For cameras with timecode, you can select for the number to represent timecode at the source fps. Or you can select to start each clip at zero.
• EDL /XML This option is valid only when using an EDL or XML as a shot list - when you have multiple cuts from the same clip, you can put each cut into it's own folder, or into a the same folder, or choose to render the entire clip ignoring the in and out points.

To Activate the stand-alone FilmConvert software:

Download the attached .FKV file attached to your purchase confirmation email. This is your registration key.

Install the Trial Version of FilmConvert

Run Film Convert

Select "Film Convert" > "Register Film Convert" from the Menu Bar

Click the "Open FKV File" button

Select the .FKV file that you downloaded earlier

Your software will now be activated and the trial watermark will be removed.

There are two versions of the Stand-Alone application.   FilmConvert.app, and   FilmConvert 64bit.app. The older FilmConvert.app uses older 32bit Quicktime libraries that are being phased out in later versions of MacOS. the 64bit version uses libraries that are only available in Mac OS 10.8 and 10.9. Where possible, it is best to use the newer 64bit build of Film Convert.

FAQ for common film convert errors.

To uninstall Film Convert:

1. Delete Film Convert.app and Film Convert 64bit.app from the /Applications folder.
2. Open a Terminal window and run the commands:
   • defaults delete com.rms.Film-Convert-64bit
   • defaults delete com.rms.Film-Convert
3. Delete the ~/Documents/Film Convert/ directory

Camera profiles are stored in the directory:
Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/RubberMonkey/ Note: Camera profiles shared with all of the plugins, so if you are only removing the stand alone you will want to leave these in place.