Starting a Project

Before you create your project, we recommend that you revisit a few technical decisions. In Chapter 1, “Shooting with Editing in Mind,” you learned about the many variations in frame size and frame rate. Now it’s time to implement that knowledge. Be sure you can answer these three questions before moving forward:

• What is my delivery frame size? Are you delivering in HD? Is that 1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720? Is the delivery for broadcast or output to tape? With many broadcast formats, you might be getting into non-square pixel dimensions (like 1440 × 1080). Always double-check with your client or technical contact. If you’re just working on a personal project, you’ll simply match the settings of your dominant frame size. It’s important to note that if you are delivering a master file for HD, 1920 × 1080 will give your client the most options (it’s easier to scale down than up while maintaining quality).