Film Workflow and Red Workflow Comparison

[Beatrice Palicka]

My background is in cinema and I’m used to a more traditional film workflow. I’ve edited on a flatbed, Avid Film Composer, and FCP. I put together a list that compares the film workflow with the Red workflow. The list doesn’t include any audio, opticals, and titles.

Film Workflow

1. Film negative
2. Developing
3. One light print
4. Editing on a flatbed
5. Generate cutting continuity list with keycode numbers
6. Negative cutting
7. Color-timed answer prints
8. IP/IN, Dup. negatives
9. Release prints
10. Low con print
11. Color correction on Da Vinci
12. Telecine to a digital master
13. Dubs

Red Workflow

1. 4K Redcode Raw
2. Redcine processing from Raw to RGB: Demosaic, Mysterium profile
3. Redcine correcting: White balance, saturation, exposure, brightness, shadow, contrast, curves, output gamma
• Redcine re-sizing: 2K, 1080P, 720P, 480P
• Redcine encoding: 10 bit 4:2:2, DVCPRO HD, H.264, DV, TIFF, DPX, JPEG 2000, CINEON, PSD, JPEG
4. Editing in FCP, Avid, etc.
5. Generate EDL
6. Second Redcine conversion for different delivery masters.
• HD/SD Video - Rec. 709 color space, gamma 2.2, 10 bit 4:4:4 or 8 bit 4:2:2
• D-Cinema (DCI) - XYZ color space, gamma 2.6, 12 bit linear color resolution
• Film - Kodak LUTs, gamma 2.6, Kodak Vision color print film, Fujicolor positive print 3513/3516
7. For film-out only (see #7 above)
8. For film-out only (see #8 above)
9. For film-out only (see #9 above)
10. N/A
11. Advanced color correction (Lustre and 2K projector, Scratch, etc.)
12. Digital masters:
• HD/SD Video - HDCAM SR, D5, HDCAM, Digibeta
• DCI approved data files (TIFF, DPX, JPEG 2000)
13. Dubs:
• DVD
• HD DVD, Blue-ray

I also have some questions.

Redcine

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences now requires that all films for awards consideration meet the DCI specifications. That means that unless filmmakers are able to show their projects in 35mm film, they must present their projects on a DCI-approved server with the appropriate DCI-approved video projector. In the past, documentaries didn’t have to have a theatrical release as long as they were shown in one of the Academy approved film festivals. Most film festivals now have digital projectors that screen HDCAM tapes, but I don’t know any that have the DCI approved projectors and servers. If I need to work with post houses, I think that they would want the original 4K Redcode Raw files so they can incorporate them into their pipelines. This whole process can get very time consuming and therefore expensive. Graeme mentioned that it takes 1.7 seconds to demosaic one frame. What can Redcine do to make this process easier and what can be done on a Mac to save time in the post house? Also, I would like to know the exact steps that were taken to bring the Red images to the Sony 4K projector.

File Management and EDL

I remember the early days of Avid when the EDLs didn’t accurately match the film’s keycode numbers. There were some filmmakers surprised when they saw their first answer prints projected onto the big screen. My negative cutter developed a computer program that caught all the mistakes, but then he charged twice as much for all Avid projects. Has the Red team done any testing in this regard yet?

Audio and Time Code

Will the camera record both non-drop and drop frame time code? Is the in camera processing fast enough to keep the audio in sync? Where are the 4 volume control knobs on the camera located?

Color Management

Filmmakers will be working in different exhibition formats that have different color spaces and gammas (see #6). Therefore, color consistency will be important. Kodak sells Look and Display Manager System software that enables colorists to match the exact look of a scene. The Red team mentioned that LUTs could be downloaded into the camera via an SD card. I like the look of the older Kodak Eastman EXR 5245/5248 stocks, and would like to know whether Kodak 3D LUTs could be imported into the Redcine and then displayed in different color spaces. I know the Redcine is not an advanced color correction tool, but it does allow for some correction.

Monitors

My high-resolution CRT monitor has died on me and I’m now using the 23” Apple Cinema HD display. It’s not appropriate for any critical color correction and perhaps not good enough for Redcine correction. Some people suggested the Eizo Color Edge monitor, but things will change by NAB. It would be great if Jarred could put together an article section that describes all the recommended equipment for Red.

All help is greatly appreciated.

Bea

[Sanjin Jukic]

Have a look and compare some segments of the workflows from the directors like Martin Scorsese's (shooting in 35mm film) and Michael Mann (shooting digital with Viper or Cinealta).

- Departed
Exclusive: Scorsese: Gangster Style
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/fieldprod/revfeat/video_scorsese_gangster_style/

- Aviator
Scorsese's Color Homage
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/di/depth/video_scorseses_color_homage/

- Miami Vice
Digital Vision-Michael Mann
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/hdhdv/depth/video_digital_vision/index.html

-Miami Vice in HD
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/hdhdv/depth/miami_vice_in_HD_05232006/index.html

-Building Collateral
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/fieldprod/revfeat/video_building_collateral/index.html

-DI As Workflow
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/digital_intermediate_2004/index.html
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/images/1104MMDI.pdf

[MikeCurtis]

Bea - DCI spec is only used at the very LAST stage of production - at this point, the toolsets are likely to be only available to high end facilities like eFilm, etc.

As a content creator, you'll just need to make a high end digital master, like a DPX sequence, and provide that to a post house for the near term is my understanding (if you even take it that far yourself).

As a practical matter, for those needing a DCI spec master, you'll take your EDL and DPX files out of Redcine (generated from a Red Pull List) to a post house (or they may handle the conform for you), where the material will get color corrected in a calibrated environment, then after final approval, THEN get converted to DCI spec compressed CIE XYZ color space DCI spec compliant JP2K.

There, that enough acronyms for you?

: )

While we all want to think about making 4K films, as a practical matter, I'm betting 90-95% of the content generated in the first year from Red cameras will be HD masters, maybe 5% will be 2K masters (even if shot 4K RAW and converted to anamorphic 2048x1556 traditional 2K masters), and maybe 1% will actually get mastered to 4K DCI spec.

Just my gut guess.

But having the OPTION of 4K mastering is GREAT, especially at this price point.

-mike

[Beatrice Palicka]

Sanjin, thanks for the links. The Third Man is one of my favorite movies.

Mike, thanks for your response. When I went to NAB last year and met the Red team, I thought 1080P and 720P were the only practical options. Then the 4K Redcode Raw was announced and things changed. People will be able to store the digital negatives for future use. My filmmaking experience has taught me to plan things to the very end and know precisely delivery requirements for distribution. I know filmmakers who lost their distribution deals because they couldn't deliver.

Mike, you're right. There will be a very small percentage of Red movies projected onto the big screen in its full glory, but I like to think positive. One of my former USC classmates won an Oscar nomination for his documentary Spellbound. He is the kind of filmmaker who seeks all the necessary information ahead of time and doesn't wait until the distributors start calling.

I enjoy reading your blogs and thanks for the input.

Bea

[Stuart English]

Thanks for initiating this thread Bea.....

File Management and EDL

Although its true that there have been a lot of problems with EDLs matching film keycode, two things change with RED. a) Our camera uses timecode not keycode and b) VERY HOPEFULLY in a file based system such as RED, all the editing will be done at exactly the same frame rate and timecode format as the image is captured in.

One of the big issues with film capture / DVCAM off-line / D-5 HD conform, is when 24fps film gets converted to 29.97fps video (complete with drop frame timecode) and then is mastered at 23.98fps or 24.00fps

In RED's case you'd hopefully shoot 24fps NDF, create a DV or DVCPRO HD codec movie for off-line also at 24fps NDF and then export DPX files or uncompressed HD also at 24fps NDF. Not so much to go wrong there !


Time Code

Yes, the camera offers both non-drop and drop frame time code. With a heavy operational preference to non-drop ;-)


Audio.

Yes, in camera processing is fast enough to keep the audio in sync.

If your production absolutely needs 4 discreet audio volume controls, then I'd just say that either a) you could run seperate sound or an outboard sound mixer, or b) one of the reasons for having USB ports on the camera is to enable 3rd party accessories to be developed - such as "virtual" sound mixer panel that can communicate to the camera via USB and adjust the internal digital volume controls.... Hence lots of flexibility in the design.

[David Limpus]

Stuart may I ask about what combinations can and can't be used with the varible frame rates?
And how is the timecode regenerated?

[mezmo]

Hi Beatrice.
Thanks for the discussion on Red workflow. I,m also looking for a Feature
Film path and am a little shakey on the whole subject.
Is it possible (maybe mike can help here also) to Process Raw to RGB,
Correct, Resize to 1080p, Encode (if needed) to 10 bit 4.4.4, then in FCP
rough compile and store about 10 x 2 hour source reels of O.K. takes.
Then dump the whole lot to 10 Sony HDCAMSR format tapes.
Yes, machine hire and a large system are required but your film is now
backed up to tape.
If I recall correctly the SRW5000 with a 5003? board will do a realtime
colorspace convert to HD 720/1080 @ 4.2.2. for HD editoral. Gamma ???
It may not be a 2K result but the master RGBSR tapes can be then compiled
and graded anywhere on sytems like I.Q.,E.Q., Scratch etc. with filmout masters on disk in DPX and Video Deliverables available from the same
system.
Just trying to lock down a simple reliable workflow, any help greatly
appreciated.
______________________
Mezmo

[Thomas Mathai]

Thanks for initiating this thread Bea.....

File Management and EDL

Although its true that there have been a lot of problems with EDLs matching film keycode, two things change with RED. a) Our camera uses timecode not keycode and b) VERY HOPEFULLY in a file based system such as RED, all the editing will be done at exactly the same frame rate and timecode format as the image is captured in.

One of the big issues with film capture / DVCAM off-line / D-5 HD conform, is when 24fps film gets converted to 29.97fps video (complete with drop frame timecode) and then is mastered at 23.98fps or 24.00fps

In RED's case you'd hopefully shoot 24fps NDF, create a DV or DVCPRO HD codec movie for off-line also at 24fps NDF and then export DPX files or uncompressed HD also at 24fps NDF. Not so much to go wrong there !


Time Code

Yes, the camera offers both non-drop and drop frame time code. With a heavy operational preference to non-drop ;-)


Audio.

Yes, in camera processing is fast enough to keep the audio in sync.

If your production absolutely needs 4 discreet audio volume controls, then I'd just say that either a) you could run seperate sound or an outboard sound mixer, or b) one of the reasons for having USB ports on the camera is to enable 3rd party accessories to be developed - such as "virtual" sound mixer panel that can communicate to the camera via USB and adjust the internal digital volume controls.... Hence lots of flexibility in the design.




My issue with exclusively using timecode is that there is always a good chance that the user hasn't set the timecode correctly.

I've had the fun experience of dealing with users who sent me tapes where more than a few of them have timecode that start at hour 1.

Maybe it makes sense to default the camera to always be on non-drop timecode, and the user has to change it somewhere in the settings.

Since Scratch will support RedCode, there probably won't be a need to convert to DPX, but not all color grading software may support it for a while.

When you convert to DPX, you have to decide with your DI facility where in the process you want to convert it.

Will it be like a cut neg show, where you finish editing, then conform the high res Red media to your edit and convert each reel to DPX and send that to the DI facility.

If there are last minute edit changes, you have to resend those sections.

Otherwise you can convert all the selected takes to DPX and send those to the DI facility and provide edit lists and reference tapes later as you fine tune your edit. The DI facility will match your edits, drop in new shots, etc.

[Beatrice Palicka]

Stuart, thanks for your reply. Your time is greatly appreciated.

Mezmo, Redcine will do all that processing, correcting, resizing, and encoding as long as you have the appropriate computer. My old G5 is not going to work and I'll have to upgrade to the newest and the latest.

Dumping all the 20 hrs. of footage to HDCAMSR tapes will be expensive and perhaps unnecessary unless you're doing a project for an HD channel like the Discovery that requires tapes for their archives. Also, you'll be limited to the 1080P resolution. I'd like to keep a data centric workflow as much as possible and avoid all the middle steps. During the production and post I'll have redundant drives. Once the project is finished, I'll look into the long term archival solutions. Hopefully, hollographic media will be available by then.

After picture lock, I'll pull down all the selected takes from the original 4K Redcode Raw files and apply a second Redcine conversion. This time the files will be processed with film gamma 2.6, XYZ color space or Kodak Luts, and encoded to DPX files. Then I'll take the DPX files to a post house for final finishing.

This brings me to more questions.

1. Redcine conversion to different formats that have diferent gammas and colorspaces will be time consuming. Is it possible to save the processed Raw to RGB files without doing any correcting, re-sizing, encoding and come back to them later?

2. Is it possible to import Kodak LUTs into Redcine?

3. Does the Red team have any monitors that they could recommend for Redcine correcting?

Thanks to everybody for their help and input.

Bea

[Appleton]

After picture lock, I'll pull down all the selected takes from the original 4K Redcode Raw files and apply a second Redcine conversion. This time the files will be processed with film gamma 2.6, XYZ color space or Kodak Luts, and encoded to DPX files. Then I'll take the DPX files to a post house for final finishing.This has me curious. Why not take your EDL, SD LUTs, Metadata and conform from REDCODE RAW files to uncompressed TIFFs or DPX for final color grading at the post house ? i assume that rendering those kind of files in the resolution necessary (2K/4K) for final color grading will be immensely time consuming and expensive if done in a home studio.


2. Is it possible to import Kodak LUTs into Redcine? I know the LUTs can travel with the metadata, but it would be interesting how integrated they can be into the conversion process.

Thanks.

[Beatrice Palicka]

Appleton, I share the same curiosity like you do. The specs have not been finalized yet and therefore, it's not very clear what precisely could be done in a home studio. The Red team has been using Apple computers and working with Lukas from Assimilate that makes Scratch. The post houses and labs like to charge by the hour. If their equipment is tied down to process all the Redcode Raw files, the post budget will explode. Most post houses like to work with their own pipelines and they may not support Redcode. Laser Pacific is now ready to work in 4K, but they use Lustre. I don't know any facility that uses Scratch.

I want to learn about all the different options that will be available so I can make the right decissions and minimize post budget expenses.

Thanks

[Thomas Mathai]

After picture lock, I'll pull down all the selected takes from the original 4K Redcode Raw files and apply a second Redcine conversion. This time the files will be processed with film gamma 2.6, XYZ color space or Kodak Luts, and encoded to DPX files. Then I'll take the DPX files to a post house for final finishing.

This brings me to more questions.

1. Redcine conversion to different formats that have diferent gammas and colorspaces will be time consuming. Is it possible to save the processed Raw to RGB files without doing any correcting, re-sizing, encoding and come back to them later?

2. Is it possible to import Kodak LUTs into Redcine?

3. Does the Red team have any monitors that they could recommend for Redcine correcting?

Thanks to everybody for their help and input.

Bea

It really doesn't make sense to apply luts fist to images you plan to go through a DI. You should be able to convert the RAW footage to unprocessed RGB files.

It's one thing to see the RAW footage through a viewing lut, to see how things are progresising, but another thing to apply a lut to footage and hand to someone else to further color grade.

Even if you get a general idea what your look is for scene on set, things are bound to change by the time you go through the post process. So it makes more sense to work as close to the Raw unprocessed image as possible.

[Appleton]

Appleton, I share the same curiosity like you do. The specs have not been finalized yet and therefore, it's not very clear what precisely could be done in a home studio. The Red team has been using Apple computers and working with Lukas from Assimilate that makes Scratch. The post houses and labs like to charge by the hour. If their equipment is tied down to process all the Redcode Raw files, the post budget will explode. Most post houses like to work with their own pipelines and they may not support Redcode. Laser Pacific is now ready to work in 4K, but they use Lustre. I don't know any facility that uses Scratch.

I want to learn about all the different options that will be available so I can make the right decissions and minimize post budget expenses.

ThanksI concur.

The fact that post houses like to differentiate themselves from each other with different hardware/software and even color grading LUTs adds to the confusion.

I guess we'll have to wait to see the costs of processing RED RAW to uncompressed TIFFs or DPX files, for comparison sakes.

I like your thread. Very informative.


It really doesn't make sense to apply luts fist to images you plan to go through a DI. You should be able to convert the RAW footage to unprocessed RGB files.

It's one thing to see the RAW footage through a viewing lut, to see how things are progresising, but another thing to apply a lut to footage and hand to someone else to further color grade.

Even if you get a general idea what your look is for scene on set, things are bound to change by the time you go through the post process. So it makes more sense to work as close to the Raw unprocessed image as possible. Different workflows, I guess. If you go through months of prep, making customized LUTs; it's akin to choosing a film style (emulsion, exposure index) that compliments the story.

You customize a look to the aesthetics of the story from preprod -> exhibition. I suppose that's why Kodaks Manager is used, so the exhibition look's made at an early stage.

You can conform for final master without using them, if for whatever reason you want to make changes.

I'm confident there will be multiple workflows with the RAW footage.

Thanx.

[Thomas Mathai]

I concur.

The fact that post houses like to differentiate themselves from each other with different hardware/software and even color grading LUTs adds to the confusion.

I guess we'll have to wait to see the costs of processing RED RAW to uncompressed TIFFs or DPX files, for comparison sakes.

I like your thread. Very informative.

Different workflows, I guess. If you go through months of prep, making customized LUTs; it's akin to choosing a film style (emulsion, exposure index) that compliments the story.

You customize a look to the aesthetics of the story from preprod -> exhibition. I suppose that's why Kodaks Manager is used, so the exhibition look's made at an early stage.

You can conform for final master without using them, if for whatever reason you want to make changes.

I'm confident there will be multiple workflows with the RAW footage.

Thanx.


There's always going to be tweaking of a look even if it doesn't deviate too far from what was first decided.

The question becomes do the filmmakers want to get involved in lut creation when they are going to be doing color grading elsewhere. This starts complicating things especially if the final results aren't satisfactory.

Creating LUTs is like making the secret sauce, no one wants to reveal how they do it, and every post house has their own custom methods.

If filmmakers decide to do their own color grading, then it may make sense to bake in a look ahead of time.

Though it's alwyas been a good rule of thumb for digital filmmaking to shoot neutral and take care of the tweaking in post.

[Lucas Wilson]

Laser Pacific is now ready to work in 4K, but they use Lustre. I don't know any facility that uses Scratch.

Hi Beatrice...

fyi.... SCRATCH customers in Los Angeles (partial list) - Laser Pacific, Encore Hollywood, Modern Videofilm, Fotokem, HTV, Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues, FilmworksFX. Contact me off-list if you need for specific people to talk to at these facilities about SCRATCH.

Cheers,

Lucas
-----
Workflow Illuminatus
Assimilate, Inc.
Los Angeles

[Appleton]

The question becomes do the filmmakers want to get involved in lut creation when they are going to be doing color grading elsewhere. This starts complicating things especially if the final results aren't satisfactory.
Some will and some won't. Usually there's the creative drive behind it and the budget to support it.

Whether it will be cheaper to spend the money in preproduction creating custom LUTs or achieving it in post during final color grading is sort of unknown right now. The difference can mean many hours of a colorists pay and and suite time.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate any particular scenario.

Lucas, doesn't Arri's LUTs and Kodaks LUTs come with Scratch ? do you have a separate software for that or is hardware dependant ? What do LUT licenses go for now ?

Thanx.

[Lucas Wilson]

Whether it will be cheaper to spend the money in preproduction creating custom LUTs or achieving it in post during final color grading is sort of unknown right now. The difference can mean many hours of a colorists pay and and suite time. ...

How and when to use color on-set is one of the biggest questions in today's cinematographic community. SCRATCH has been used in a few productions as an on-set LUT generation tool that feeds to post and color. It takes a different set-up, and a different set of skills.

Some directors and DPs love it - some hate it. Like so much else, a lot of times it boils down to preferences.

I'm actually writing this post from inside a major motion picture studio's executive screening room - where we are doing SCRATCH demonstrations for several different features' Visual Effects and Post-Production Supervision teams. It has been fascinating listening to the different supervisors talking about their philosophy of LUTs and the general concept of how color metadata moves from pointA to pointB.

Same problems, same tools - wildly different attitudes.


Lucas, doesn't Arri's LUTs and Kodaks LUTs come with Scratch ? do you have a separate software for that or is hardware dependant ? What do LUT licenses go for now ?

Arri has a few test preview LUTs available for free on their website.
http://tinyurl.com/ycqqjw
Kodak LUTs are generated either through KDM (Kodak Display Manager)
http://tinyurl.com/yzm3mz
or the Cinematographer Version of KLMS (Kodak Look Management System.)
http://tinyurl.com/yeu3em

I've forgotten what the cost for each of those programs is, but I'm sure Kodak will be happy to tell you! :)

Cheers,

Lucas
-----
LUTman
Assimilate, Inc.
Los Angeles

[Appleton]

Thanks, Lucas :)

[mezmo]

Hi Guys
Just a little note on LUT,s, I notice on www.digitalpraxis.net they
are developing a LUT & cube format conversion service.
If I understand this correctly it could allow the swapping of LUT
info between different systems and help ease some of the LUT pain.
The DI post house we have for our latest project will set LUT's using Truelite
for referencing every machine in the building including the Lab.
Other post houses use similar systems. This seems to be the norm.
It does lock up the project under one rooof.
Is this be a good thing or a bad thing?
______________________________
Happy Posting Mezmo

[Lucas Wilson]

Hi Guys
Just a little note on LUT,s, I notice on www.digitalpraxis.net (http://www.digitalpraxis.net) they
are developing a LUT & cube format conversion service.
If I understand this correctly it could allow the swapping of LUT
info between different systems and help ease some of the LUT pain.
The DI post house we have for our latest project will set LUT's using Truelite
for referencing every machine in the building including the Lab.
Other post houses use similar systems. This seems to be the norm.
It does lock up the project under one rooof.
Is this be a good thing or a bad thing?

I guess that depends on what you consider a good thing or bad thing! :)

Steve Shaw (the owner of digitalpraxis) is a smart guy and his LUT software is fairly elegant. Filmlight (the makers of Truelight) take a very proprietary attitude towards their LUTs. Truelight LUTs are encrypted, and Filmlight charges a *lot* of money to their customers for the right to unencrypt the LUTs and put them in plaintext. I personally don't agree with that attitude.

A LUT is just a text file. Converting a LUT from one format to another format is usually just a matter of simple text formatting if you know what you're doing.

Reverse engineering a LUT is usually also fairly straightforward. Reverse engineering a 2D LUT is pretty easy. Reverse engineering a 3D LUT is harder, but not impossible. As is the case with a lot of new technology, the people who hold the "keys" to the technology try to button it up as tightly as possible before the genie gets out of the bottle, so they can make money. But doing that with LUTs is just weird.

As long as you know how a program expects its LUTs to look, a pretty simple script (or 10 minutes in Excel) can convert pretty much any program's LUTs to any other program's LUTs.

Lucas Wilson
------------
LUT Liberator
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
Los Angeles

[Thomas Mathai]

Hi Guys
Just a little note on LUT,s, I notice on www.digitalpraxis.net they
are developing a LUT & cube format conversion service.
If I understand this correctly it could allow the swapping of LUT
info between different systems and help ease some of the LUT pain.
The DI post house we have for our latest project will set LUT's using Truelite
for referencing every machine in the building including the Lab.
Other post houses use similar systems. This seems to be the norm.
It does lock up the project under one rooof.
Is this be a good thing or a bad thing?
______________________________
Happy Posting Mezmo

At the end of the day, the final results should be what you want.

If you did your DI from beginning to end under one roof, it's probably much easier to backtrack and fix issues than if the images were done in stages at different places.

Colorists always rather work with the unprocessed raw image instead of having to tweak an already corrected image.


While it may make sense to create a master LUT that you can have sent to different post houses, you have to remember that post houses all calibrate differently from each other, so it is a good idea to have reference frames to show what the look is.

[mezmo]

Thanks Luki and Thomas for your help on my LUT question.
I guess when grading starts on this project (compiling at the moment)
we are locked into the encrypted Truelite system for LUT's.
We also a have a small amount of VFX work be done offshore (it's cheaper)
so I suppose with some good reference frames we can get close to
duplicating the look of the film.
Thanks again, Mezmo
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