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Posted by Linda Clinker on 1 September 2006
One (well... three) of my favourite films of recent years has got to be the Lord of the Rings trilogy and like many of you yes, I’ve got the special extended DVD box sets, the books and… er… I may even admit to owning a couple of action figures as well (all in the name of ‘research’, you understand) and there’s nothing I like better than to curl up on the sofa, armed with a (big) mug of tea, digesting all the behind-the-scenes documentaries and going several shades of Envy Green at the lucky folks got to work on such an awesome production.
But I digress: being a Sound Gal, pretty naturally, I paid extra attention to the audio special features – whereupon the question popped up in my brain as to how on earth (Middle- or otherwise) did the sound design team keep track on what sound and/or edit was used where, when, which version of the cut, and keeping tabs on what was being used for the theatrical release and/or for the extended release on DVD. For any film, it can be a bit of a juggling act and occasional nightmare but for something like LotR, a three-film production that took several years to complete, with innumerable scene versions and cut changes, the mind really boggles.
Enter assistant sound effects editor Katy Wood. Her job was to sort out the Avid Change Notes and create the cut guide track needed by the sound editors for conforming the scenes. As you can imagine, a film with so many visual effects can run through many different versions of the same scene and each time a change comes through to the sound design team, it may take hours for the sound editors to adjust their work accordingly, thereby interrupting the creative flow and eating into delivery schedules.
There has to be a simpler, less time-consuming way – and there is. It’s called Virtual Katy (in honour of the forementioned Ms Wood), created by LotR Sound Effects Editor and now CEO and Head of Development for VKDL (Virtual Katy Development Ltd), John McKay. John has nearly 30 years experience in the film and TV industry and is regarded as one of the foremost experts in the post-production management field. So at 7am New Zealand-time one Sunday morning (8pm London-time) he very kindly took the time to walk and talk me through one of the most incredibly useful pieces of software that I think I’ve ever seen. And by using a nifty little app called Glance, he was able to ‘share’ an exact real-time updating image of his desktop with me on my Mac laptop monitor so that I could see exactly how VK works.
Think of it as the ultimate conforming and asset- or change-management tool: a piece of software that will
instantly wipe out hours of manual sifting, sorting, re-syncing, and replacing audio files at the touch of a few
very well-thought out buttons.
Virtual Katy works by finding and comparing the differences between two or more versions of a picture edit. It does this by making comparisons between a new version CMX3600 EDL and other selected previous EDLs or an Avid Cut List. It then creates a VK ChangeList EDL which it uses to non-destructively re-compile a Pro Tools session that matches the corresponding changes in the picture edit. And it does this within a fraction of a second. VK can analyse multiple video layers, for both PAL and NTSC (but to avoid potential sync issues relating to 3:2 pulldown on NTSC EDLS, use an Avid Film Cut List format as the Cut List refers to feet + frames. This will ensure phase accurate results.), at all standard film and TV frame rates (24, 25, 29.97, and 29.97 drop-frame) in up to 36 different versions of a particular cut. For example, John told me that for the extended versions of LotR, they were able to re-conform by going back and using the EDLs and therefore the Foley from six months before.
And because VK works with details gathered from the timing information contained within the EDLs and not with the physical audio files themselves, your session can be conformed with all its media offline, saved, and then re-opened when the media is made available again. And it will automatically update the ADR and sound effect databases. What’s more, Pro Tools plug-ins, automation, and fades are all retained.
Virtual Katy works with Pro Tools v6.2.2 and higher on Mac OSZ 10.3.9 and Windows XP and also Pro Tools v6.4LE with the DV Toolkit using Digi 002, Dig 002 Rack or Mbox.
Virtual Katy has two distinct post-pro audio products under the same banner: ‘VK Conformer’ and ‘VK2’.
Speaking of Digidesign, they have partnered with Virtual Katy Development Ltd and now offer a free version of VK Conformer bundled with Pro Tools|HD Core systems and DV Toolkit. What’s more, customers who receive VK Conformer are eligible for a free 30-trail demo of VK2 whereafter they can choose to upgrade to VK2 directly via the Virtual Katy website (www.virtualkaty.com) or through an authorised VK reseller. However, upgrading to VK2 will still leave the user’s version of VK Conformer fully functioning.
VK Conformer is – to use their term – a “work horse” auto-conformer that performs the sole purpose of non-destructively conforming and recompiling
Pro Tools sessions. It was developed from the original ‘Virtual Katy’ that was designed, built and extensively used during the making of Lord of the Rings.
It re-conforms by the use of an Avid Change Note or CMX3600 EDL.
VK2 is VK Conformer’s Big Brother and is accurately referred to at Virtual Katy’s website as being “the ultimate auto-conform and change management tool”. VK2 can handle all major formats: EDLs, Avid Cut Lists and Change Notes as well as OMF/AAF files. It also allows for the rebalancing of movie reels. With VK2 the user can view the entire history of a particular shot within a project, track the movement of material from one reel to another, find and be advised of deleted material returning to the cut and process up to 2500 picture edits in less than a second.
This is the Virtual Katy product that I was given to review, so I can go into it in a bit more depth than I can VK Conform.
Installation is easy: all I had to do was download it from the website, use the Mac’s installer to add it to my ‘Applications’ folder at which point I was given a license by VKDL which I received upon synchronising my iLok For non-review purposes, both VK Conformer and VK2 can be purchased from Virtual Katy from their ‘Purchase’ page or from an authorised VK reseller.
In operation, VK2 is incredibly fast. It’s very slick and it’s simplicity of use and logical GUI belies just how powerful a tool it is. Where most other conform tools are page after page of black-and-white text and a lot of fiddling about, with VK2 you can instantly see what’s-going-where in glorious colour and review the changes before it recreates the Pro Tools session.
Using VK2 is as simple as importing your EDL, either by selecting the ‘import EDL’ button, via the Edit menu or by the drag-and-drop method, importing singly or in groups – VK will instantly import the data.
The first thing to do is select the correct timecode base from the drop-down menu. Then, I used the ‘import EDL’ button to import my source EDL (the EDL of the picture before changes were made) whereupon I was asked to name the folder (for logic’s sake VK2 defaults to the naming convention of “Version 1” for the first import – which the user may change – and will incrementally increase version numbers with each successive import) and then I imported my ‘target EDL’ (the EDL after the picture cut was changed) VK2 will instantly create a comparison between – in this case – the two versions and will automatically create a Change Plan – the timecode equivalent to a Change Note. This is what is used when VK2 creates your new correctly conformed Pro Tools session.
What is extremely handy is that the user can check each and every EDL individually by selecting the desired EDL and then clicking on the appropriate option:
Filters – for example: video editors might label material received from another source as AX (meaning ‘auxiliary’) and as VK2 cannot work correctly with this material, the user can choose to filter these reels out.
Events - view an events list of the cleaned EDL detailing the information contained within it Import Errors – This shows all the events that have been filtered out: source reels being ignored, timecode errors, comments, etc. The user can also select the Change Plan to graphically view the changes before making any revisions and also select events to graphically show the movement of the relevant material.
At this point, any changes can then be done in Preview mode, where the user can preview the conform visually and modify any region boundaries before committing to the conform, cancelling the conform or hitting the Conform All (or Conform Selection) button.
The next and most vital thing that has to be done is the Destination Hour must be set forthe conform. This is the hour that the conformer will compile to and should be set at a time before the original Pro Tools session start time (eg. 00:00:00:00 instead of 01:00:00:00). What also needs to be done is that session start time in the Pro Tools session must then also be changed to create the necessary space needed to conform the audio files into. This is done in the Session Setup window within Pro Tools itself. Just remember to click the ‘Maintain Time Code’ button whereupon your audio files will be shunted the appropriate amount of time down the timeline. The Destination Hour in VK2 and the Pro Tools session start time must obviously match for the conform to work.
Then, use the I-beam selector to select all the required Pro Tools tracks that are to be conformed into then go back to VK2 and hit the Conform All button and hey presto, the correctly-conformed audio files will be inserted at the head of the session with all it’s automation, etc in place.
John McKay described the process as follows: “VK is like a big macro: it makes use of Pro Tools’ copy-and-paste facility.”
As a slight sidenote, if there is an instance during the conform where a region selection cuts through an existing fade, the fade will disappear but the audio will remain. All the editor will then need to do is recreate any missing fades manually. Or, if the region to be copied includes a fade only, VK will automatically increase the in-and-out points by a frame before compiling, as Pro Tools will not allow for a fade to be copied without its contributing region.
And to finish, just reset the Pro Tools session start time to the original timecode and save your session with a relevant new name.
And that’s it!! You now have a session that matches the new picture edit in a fraction of the time that it would take a person to do the necessary changes manually.
After seeing the incredible power of Virtual Katy up-close-and-personal, I can certainly see how it makes the otherwise time-hogging operations like managing sound design changes required to fit the numerous re-edits for films, TV shows (it’s being used on Dr Who and South Park to name but a few) re-versioning, etc a far more simple, super-fast and pleasant experience. I can think of a hundred and one instances in my working life where I wish I’d had VK2 to hand and I’m sure almost every other person who spends their lives working with audio will agree.
Sometimes a piece of software comes along that makes us wonder how the hell we managed without it. Virtual Katy is that piece of software.
So John and Katy, the next time either of you are in London, on behalf of sound effects editors everywhere, I think I owe you both coffee.
Audio Media September 2006
72 Hours
2-3 weeks
Immediate
On Going