Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1468810
conforming could be a tricky mathematical exercise at times," he said. It began as a spreadsheet that was essentially a "fancy timecode calculator for working with timecode and footage offsets," explained Fife. Then in 2014, "mf- ChangeNote got a big overhaul when I was about to work on a major feature being cut in Premiere Pro, which had no built-in method for producing change notes. I hunkered down for a few months to create many new features and professionalize the application for public consumption." mf ChangeNote is a Mac- only appli- cation (OS X 10.8 or higher, 64-bit) that works for manual reconforms as well as automated conforming. It offers the ability to fix, annotate, format, or simplify a change note, and can be used to create change notes from scratch. That's a useful feature for Schwar- zweller, who works with several mixers at Fox Studios who prefer to mix on the Neve DFC console. "If you're conforming the DFC automation, you need to get an actual change note as a text file. Typically, you can get change notes from the picture department but on some movies they don't provide them and you need to create one," he explained. mfChangeNote is also useful for picture assistants as it can generate an accurate change note that simplifies shot moves in an efficient way. Their website provides a "helpful list of tips" in the section on "Creating a Change Note from Adobe Pre- miere Pro or Final Cut Pro 7" on the "Using mfChangeNote" page. Once Schwarzweller has the necessary change note, he loads that into Neve's En- core software that runs the console. "The DFC does its own calculations and gives you the overall changes in the reel. At that point, we check to make sure it's the same as what we have in Pro Tools. If it's not, then there's a problem with the change note and we need to address that, to sift through the changes and figure out where the discrepancy is," Schwarzweller said. mfChangeNote can print a logical, read- able hard copy or PDF of the change note that shows the expanded/collapsed state of the open change note window, making it easy to scan through and compare changes. Another feature of mfChangeNote is its ability to work in and convert time formats. Using the "Time Format" menu, users can choose to view time values in five different formats: 35mm Feet and Frame, NTSC timecode, PAL timecode, 24fps timecode, and Frames Only. (There's also the option to "Convert framerate…" if you need to change the timecode's counting base in relation to its timebase.) Schwarzweller pointed out another main difference with a console environment as opposed to a virtual S6 mix. "Sometimes when we're conforming the stems, we may actually do some repairing on the stems before we DPE (Destructive Punch Enabled) them and bake it back into a new file. We'll spend some time to crossfade some of the stems and patch them, pull the handles out on the music, and that type of thing to make sure we're all good. That allows us to not have to re-record over all the changes once we get the new length because we kind of fixed that in the stems," he said. mfChangeNote groups adjacent changes in a useful way. For instance, if the tail of one shot has been trimmed and the head of the following shot was extended, it will combine connected changes into a group that can be collapsed into a single summary line, or expanded to show every event. When running a reconform, mfChange- Note will perform the changes exactly as listed in the change note. For expanded groups, the changes will happen individ- ually (one row at a time) while collapsed groups will happen in "one big chop," ac- cording to the site, which also offers this bit of interesting advice: "mfChangeNote has the power to run some or all of the changes in your change note automatically in a sequence over your Pro Tools session. With this awesome power comes the ability to run roughshod over all your hard work, maxxing out the undo cue and making Swiss Cheese out of your fine, aged Wisconsin Cheddar. Don't hand this command over to an intern on their first day. Don't run this command while drinking Robitussin. You've been warned; Now, here's your mag- ic wand, Harry." Before implementing this powerful program into your workflow, it's worth checking out mfChangeNote's "Using mf- ChangeNote" page on their website. Each section under the Contents heading has helpful information about mfChangeNote's approach to reconforms, tips for using specific features, and suggestions that will provide a better end result. ■ Jennifer Walden is a freelance writer who specializes in post-production technology. 61 S P R I N G Q 2 I S S U E Luke Schwarzweller. Malcome Fife.