1. Field of the Invention

The present invention is in the technical area of production of digital video presentations, including special effects, and pertains more particularly to an efficient method of tracking changes in visual effects from one version of a production edit to a later version.

2. Description of Related Art

Present day editing in film making, involves a Picture Editor assembling the cut of a movie or series and repeatedly cutting to refine the scenes to make them work and appear seamless when viewing. The challenge in creating visual effects in this working environment is that picture editing cuts are made so quickly and often that maintaining the status and working length of a visual effects shot is highly difficult and laborious.

A critically important job in film production in the digital age is that of a Visual Effects Editor. The Visual Effects Editor's main job, which is central to the present invention, is to track every visual effect (VFX) shot in a timeline of a production edit that needs any type of VFX and giving it a shot ID.

The VFX Editor has to know when a shot is cut out, when a new shot is added, when a shot is slipped or rolled (extending or shortening the beginning and end of a VFX shot). All the while, making sure that the shot works with sound and syncs or affects sound. The process of producing the finished product also involves maintaining the shot status for the many more contributors who are VFX vendors and actually work on these VFX shots in high resolution, 2 k or 4 k files.

VFX Editors all have some sort of proprietary database to log and keep records of all shots that are work in progress at the vendors, until they are considered Final, meaning they are ready for feature or television release. These records are usually called Count Sheets or Line Up sheets.

A common method to check and keep re-checking changes in VFX shots in an editing timeline is to gang sync, meaning selecting an old reel and syncing it to a new reel and manually spot checking each VFX shot one by one. Another way is to manually check each shot against the data in the Count Sheets with each timecode from the editing timeline. Both of these methods are extremely time consuming and labor intensive to the point of adding weeks and thousands of dollars to a given editing project.

What is clearly needed is a process that can look at data from one reel and data from a second, later reel, and determine all changes in a rapid and efficient manner, ending in a report detailing all changes.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method for determining edits made between two versions of a subject video reel, comprising selecting an original edit decision list (EDL) for the subject video reel in an interactive interface displayed by the application executing on the computerized platform, the EDL representing an ordered list of all reel and time code data showing where each video clip is located in the reel. The steps of the method begin with selecting a revised EDL for the subject video reel, to be analyzed for changes to the original EDL for the subject video reel; selecting a folder for storage of a VFX result file from the analysis of the original and the revised EDLs of the subject video reel; and initiating execution of an application for analysis.

The process continues opening the original EDL; reading every line of the original EDL, identifying event names representing each shot and identifying a source file, each event including at least a camera time code for the shot length, and a location time code indicating location of the shot in the source file. Next, locating events and picking up the in and out time codes from the shot names, and identifying those shots in separate events having common in and out location time codes; noting shot names and camera time codes for shots found to have common in and out location times, storing the shot names and camera times in a first temporary file; identifying every VFX shot and storing VFX names and time codes in the first temporary file. Opening the revised EDL file, and searching the revised EDL file for the VFX shots occurs in the next step. The software then notes camera times for the VFX shots in the revised EDL file and noting any new frames and missing frames from the individual shots. An analysis occurs between camera times for the shots in the first temporary file with camera times for the same shots in the second temporary file.

A resulting EDL file is prepared from the information is determined and stored, the result EDL file listing exclusively all VFX shots in which changes were found, detailing the changes determined from the differing camera time codes between the original EDL file and the revised EDL; and then the result EDL report is stored in the folder selected for storage in the interactive interface.

One embodiment teaches that the report, prepared and stored, notes added slates or missing slates in each event where changes were found. Additionally, the report may list all VFX clips by name in order, and changes associated with each VFX clip from the first date and the later date. The report at least details head and tail frame revisions in the VFX clips. An additional embodiment teaches that the VFX clips listed in the in the result EDL report are icons functioning as links to actual locations in the video reel where edits occur, enabling display of that reel portion, wherein once at the actual location, further VFX edits may be made.

