Ground Force:
Final Cut Pro Has Changed Our Lives
The BBC’s flagship gardening programme, Ground Force, now in its seventh year, has been busy broadening its horizons. In the past year or so, the show has become a big hit in the US, and recent episodes took place as far afield as the Falkland Islands and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.
Yet, despite the globetrotting flavour some of the programmes have acquired, many of them were edited about as far from the madding crowd as it’s possible to get — in a small cottage in the heart of rural Norfolk, where dogs, ducks and chickens roam free amongst the cutting-edge hardware and DigiBeta tapes.
The programme’s producer / director, John Thornicroft, along with his partner and the programme’s offline editor, Susan Spivey, have created a post-production facility in their rural home, based around Apple’s Final Cut Pro video editing software.
John explains: “It’s always been a dream of ours to work together from home and Final Cut Pro has given us the means to do it”.
The software runs on a dual-processor Power Mac G4 system attached to a 22-inch Apple Cinema Display. Additional kit includes an iBook and a LaCie d2 FireWire hard drive.
“The key thing about the system is that it's techinically reliable, as wll as an affordable option that works for us.”
The show is shot on DigiBeta with separate DAT sound; both sets of tapes have matching time-of-day timecode. The London-based post-production house where the Ground Force online edit takes place slaves a DAT machine to a DigiBeta player to generate a DV version of all the relevant footage and audio, complete with burnt-in timecode.
Back at the cottage, Spivey uses a Sony DSR20 DV Recorder to digitise the DV tapes via FireWire. At this point, the burnt-in timecode can be used to double-check that the correct timecode has been taken into Final Cut Pro.
Spivey says of the Apple software: “There are lots of different things about the software that make it good to work with. For instance, the fact that projects are displayed on one screen. As a professional editor working with systems such as Avid and Lightworks in the past, I have had to work with two-screen displays; I prefer one screen and, of course, it takes up less space.
“The system is simple. I like the fact that we’re only dealing with one FireWire input rather than all the masses of plugs and cables that seem to go with other systems.
“I also love the dual-processing aspects of FCP. For example, I can write notes for the online edit at the same time as having Final Cut Pro projects open, or I can have more than one FCP project open at the same time, or use the same graphics and music across multiple projects”.
Thornicroft adds: “The key thing about the system is that it’s technically reliable, as well as an affordable option that works for us”.
Once the Ground Force cut is complete, it is output to VHS to create viewing copies, while Thornicroft transfers QuickTime versions onto his iBook to write the commentary.
Spivey downloads an OMF on to DVD-RAM for the audio dub and an Edit Decision List (EDL) is generated for the Avid online. Then it’s off to London for Thornicroft to complete the sound mix and online edit.
Linking Final Cut Pro with the Avid setup is straightforward. Thornicroft says: “The post house in London work well with our EDLs, which we email to them on completion of the project”.
Spivey is equally as enthusiastic about the new setup: “To date, I have cut 36 revisits [the 3-minute segments that depict the team revisiting a garden they have created], nine regular episodes, two Ground Force America one-hour programmes, an hour-long special shot in Jamaica, and a two-year project called Charlie and the Duchess, about the creation of a £14million garden by the Duchess of Northumberland. Because of the extended shooting period, we were able to return to this project as and when we needed to, and save all the costs of having to re-hire Avid suites and re-load material periodically at post-production houses”.
“Final Cut Pro has changed our lives — it’s always been a dream of ours to work together from home and FCP has given us the means to do it.”
FCP has proved affordable, robust and easy to integrate with other systems used in the project, but what has really won it points is its flexibility. “Take a typical day”, says Spivey, “we can both be together at the cottage working, with dogs, chickens and ducks scattered all around. Previously, we both had to be in London, staying in the flat during the week and travelling out here on the weekend. John still has to spend time at onlines, dubs, shoots and sessions with the other offline editor, but at least some of the time we’re here together”.
Thornicroft adds: “Final Cut Pro has changed our lives — it’s always been a dream of ours to work together from home and FCP has given us the means to do it”.
