Equipment & Resources
Editing Suites Rules for Graduate Students
SECTION I: AUTHORIZATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
All of the following must apply for the user to be considered authorized and qualified to use Final Cut Pro/Avid/ProTools Graduate Student resources.
1) STUDENT/USER STATUS: Facility users must meet the following conditions to be authorized users:
a) Facility User must be a registered and currently enrolled graduate level student of the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Radio-Television-Film or currently appointed Production Area faculty. Undergraduate “Project assistants” (such as assistant editors and etc.) can use facilities to only work on Graduate Student work.
b) Facility User must be currently enrolled in course work with RTF post facility resources specifically assigned to that course work
c) Facility User must be “current” with all tuition and related fees and free of any of the following encumbrances: 0
(1) Academic suspension on the University, College, or Departmental level
(2) Pending or active suspension from use of any Production Area resources for rule violations. (All such suspensions from use of equipment are cumulative in impact and include Production Check Out, Studio, and all Post Production equipment resources).
(3) Latent or unpaid:
(a) Departmental fines
(b) Broken or missing equipment replacement fees
(c) Tuition/fees
(d) Share of equipment insurance premium
(e) Studio use violation fines
Editing Suites for Graduate Students
2) TRAINING
Facility Users are considered qualified to use postproduction resources, when they have met the following minimum technical training requirements:
Avid/Kona/ProTools: Must have a demonstrated level of competency with the related hardware and software. Technical Staff and Production Area Faculty require students to have training consultations with PostProduction Tech Staff before signing up for editing time. Must also have 15 to 30 min. project consultation and introduction to the suite by Technical Staff.
Any student/user, who has not fulfilled these minimum requirements, will not be permitted to utilize the post production rooms.
SECTION II: SECURITY PRIVILEGES/GUIDELINES
Authorized and qualified users of post production and studio facilities are granted limited access to security information expressly for their individual usage of suites and studios for bonafide academic course work and projects. This access privilege is exchanged, in part, for a pledge of complete compliance with the rules governing the use of the suites and studios, and the protection of property and projects therein.
Each post production suite will be equipped with a lock box for keyed entry into that suite. The codes will be changed at various intervals by Technical Staff to protect the assets in these rooms. It is the responsibility of the user to obtain the codes necessary to perform their course work from their Supervising Faculty and NOT TECH STAFF. When changes in codes are made, updates of changes will be made available promptly and directly only to appropriate Production Area Faculty.
1) At no time may a code be transferred from student to student, or to any other person through any form of communication. A code and key access that has been offered to the user is a temporary license to use the suite for authorized purposes only.
2) At no time may a key be transferred from person to person, removed from the immediate premises (CMA/CMB complex), nor placed in another on premise location other than the key box secured to the door (during/after scheduled use), or within the room (during the scheduled period of use). Breach of security by
any of the aforementioned, or other means, will be subject to disciplinary action, including, but not limited to, suspensions from further use of the facility.
SECTION III: SCHEDULING AND ALLOCATIONS
Post Production resources are made available for advanced scheduling on a limited basis to assure equitable distribution of “primetime” hours. Reservation/usage is allocated per project. A project must have a single defined user name. A user must have written authorization from Production Faculty to work on more than a single project simultaneously. (Such use may be subject to further scheduling and allocation limitations, depending on the semester's demand/traffic).
1) ADVANCE RESERVATIONS
a) INTERVALS OF SCHEDULED USE
Authorized and qualified users may sign up for one off-line Avid/Kona and/or one ProTools room per schedule cycle. IN OTHER WORDS DON'T SIGN UP FOR MORE THAN ONE SUITE AT A TIME! CAN'T USE TWO SUITES AT ONCE SO DON'T SIGN UP FOR TWO.
A schedule cycle (week), as posted on the reservation sheet, will run from Monday to Sunday. Advance reservations may be made for ProTools and Avid/Kona for a maximum of four blocks of four hours per schedule cycle. (Four Hours per day, for a total of sixteen hours per schedule week). Reservation sheets are posted by 2:00 pm CST on Thursday of each week, for the following schedule cycle.
b) ADDITIONAL RESERVATION PRIVILEGES
After an open scheduling period (Thursday to Monday), users may schedule additional sessions from available time up to a maximum of 24 hours each. This opportunity is made available at noon each Monday. Technical Staff may remove any hours scheduled in excess of 24 hours per schedule cycle for re-advertisement of availability.
c) FORFEITURE OF SCHEDULED SESSION: “NO SHOW” AND “STANDBY”
Anyone arriving later than fifteen minutes after the first scheduled hour of his or her reservation must yield to another's claim to the session time. All users are allowed to wait on an informal “standby” status to capitalize on a “no show.”
d) REQUIREMENT TO USE SCHEDULED SESSION TIME
You are required to show for all scheduled sessions. A user will not receive compensatory session time for the scheduled hours he or she failed to utilize. Please notify tech staff Jeremy Gruy or Susanne Kraft If you are not going to be able to use your scheduled time.
e) CONCLUDING A SCHEDULED SESSION
At the end of any four consecutive hours of a scheduled session, the user must yield to the next user in queue, whether the next user is scheduled or awaiting use of unscheduled session time. It is good form to wrap up work at least ten minutes before the end of the session, and release the room “on the hour” to the next user.
2) UNSCHEDULED AVAILABILITY
a) THE FIRST TO ARRIVE IS THE FIRST SERVED FOR UNSCHEDULED SESSIONS
Unscheduled session hours are available to any authorized and qualified user on a first to arrive, first served basis. Unscheduled hours claimed for use are still subject to a maximum of four hours of use, if another user is waiting in queue. A user of unscheduled session time should yield to the next user waiting in queue.
3) GENERAL SIGN UP RULES
a) A USER MUST USE THEIR NAME AT ALL TIMES
A user may not sign up under another individual's name, nor sign up as a proxy for another user. Users must be present to schedule their own sessions. Falsifying reservations in any way may be interpreted as Scholastic Dishonesty and forwarded to the Dean of Students for resolution and judgments.
b) A USER MAY NOT REMOVE ANOTHER PERSON'S NAME FROM THE RESERVATION SIGN UP SHEET
A user may not remove another's name from the sign up sheet. However, any user may identify reservations that they suspect are not permitted by the rules to Technical Staff or Faculty. This reservation may be removed and re-advertised.
Color Correction Suite:
The 4C Control Room Color Correction suite is intended for high resolution conforming and color correcting of 10 bit or greater On-line media for graduate level film/video projects, wherein a high quality video monitor for quality control and accurate color representation is required. Users should enter the “Color Correcting” conforming phase of their project after picture is “locked,” and all editorial decision making is complete. This suite is not to be used for anything else. Offline DV editing, DVD burning, general rendering and etc., is not allowed. Because of the high demand for this resource, media is subject to removal by Technical Staff without notice if it remains on the system for more than14 contiguous days.
(1) LONG TERM STORAGE Under no circumstances will media be allowed to reside on University owned drives for a regular or Summer semester, while the post production activities on the project are dormant, or while the user is neither registered nor enrolled. Hard drives are not intended for archiving of media. It is highly recommended that any media over one month old be purged or utilized as it will otherwise likely result in poor system performance.
(2) USER INITIATIVE TO PURGE AND BACK UP MEDIA
Technical Staff prefers that users selectively remove
their older media and backup their media (and project
data) on a regular basis.
(3) TECHNICAL STAFF MEDIA MONITORINGAND AUTHORIZED ACTIONS
Technical staff reserves the right to remove media
and/or data at any time, without notice, that:
* May adversely affect system performance or poses a risk to system performance
*Is not registered and identified to an active, authorized project each user is required to register Project and User Name(s) with Technical Staff
* Exceeds 200 gig limit allowed for the user or project on Department owned media drives or internal drive.
The Technical Staff makes every effort to keep equipment serviceable and updated. Maintenance will be performed with consideration to authorized projects in progress. This notwithstanding, the University, College, Department, Faculty and Technical Staff will not be required to compensate project time lost due to technical problems caused by any user's (users') practices, equipment failures, or time required for routine or emergency maintenance.
SECTION IV: OTHER GENERAL POLICIES AND REMEDIES
1. Under no circumstances may post production suites, studios, or any other R-T-F or College wide facility, equipment, or service be utilized in any manner for monetary gain or profit, or for activities or projects unrelated to course work without University, College, or Departmental supervision and explicit sponsorship from the Department.
2. Under no circumstances may anyone who is not an actively enrolled student of the University of Texas, R-T-F Production Faculty, or R-T-F staff person access or utilize equipment without written permission of the Department Chairperson or Production Area Head, or their authorized proxy. If such exceptions are allowed and approved, such persons must also adhere to all other rules of use and qualifiers references in this and any other related document. Such persons must be fully certified and trained by appropriate Technical staff persons before using the facilities. Undergraduates may be granted user privileges by the same process of qualification and with appropriate authorization criteria referenced herein, but must also have written approval from Production Area Faculty.
3. Absolutely no food or drink will be permitted in the postproduction suites or technical areas. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the CMA or CMB facilities.
4. No software, third party utility or outside equipment may be installed in production, postproduction, studio or other technical areas without the direct supervision of Technical Area staff. Technical Staff will not certify use of software that has not been licensed by or permitted to the University of Texas.
5. No user may disconnect, reconnect, or move equipment, nor change factory or recognized settings of any equipment or software without approval of Technical Area staff persons.
6. No licensed software or utility may be copied or otherwise reproduced and removed from a workstation. Such actions will result in immediate suspension from use of all facilities and any further disciplinary action deemed appropriate. As this action may infringe on the rights of copyright owners, the user should be aware of their exposure to civil and criminal remedies that the owner of said copyright might pursue.
Privileges of use may be interrupted or revoked at any time for acts unfair, careless, or negligent, or a violation of any accepted and/or posted rule of use, as interpreted by a member of the Production Area Faculty and/or Technical Staff. Suspensions may be applied immediately, but may not limit further disciplinary action should the infraction also violate Departmental, College or University level good faith guidelines for academic honesty.
Statement of Understanding of Post-Production Rules
(Revised August 10, 2007)
I have read, understand, and will comply with all of the Postproduction Rules
A copy of these rules has been given to me. I understand my privileges can be suspended for violations of Post Production Rules.
Printed last name___________________________________
Printed first name__________________________________
Signature Date ____________________________________
Class _____________________________________________