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shashbugu
09-04-2008, 11:29 PM
Notes to the Red team about the Adobe workflow.
In the very near future I believe, Adobe will be the go to system for most Red Users. I am in the Last Stages of finishing a feature length film. I had to take a 2.5 week hiatus because our red camera suffered some hardware damage (no fault to Red). Well in that time I decided to cut a little trailer/teaser for my distributors. Mind you I shot a music video and done some tests with the Red so I am familiar with the post workflow. Well those were short form projects cut on final cut pro, footage exported to pro-res from redcine. The were no effects just color correction in color. Well what I am getting to is this time with almost 2.5 terabytes of footage and a lot of hvx footage for car interiors, chase scenes etc, this simple trailer was hell. I think what I am getting at is Adobe’s ability to handle mixed formats is very important. Red is making a smart choice in its first minor NLE support away from Scratch.
A few important notes .
I am a big fan of Adobe PPro CS3, I have used it on many projects Along side FCP. Red has direct contact with Adobe. Here are some issues with the program I believe Red should quickly point out to Adobe before CS4 comes out. All long formwork crashes with out of memory messages from Premiere whether on the Mac or PC. Audio drifts really badly and a lot of third party plug-ins don’t work. However all of the above except for the plugin is thrown out the door with the use of a hard ware card like Blackmagic, I don’t know why. We also need good XML in and out, omf in and out. The interface is great.
There are a few important tool RED has to be able to create as a plugin or directly link to Premiere like Red alert and Redcine. The best work flow would be to able to directly open clips in a sequence directly in Redcine for correction Red Style. Redcine is 20% of what Color is. I know Red has no reason to want to compete with color in any sense of the word. But I know with the number of Cameras, both motion and still Red is producing I think its important to beef up Redcine, not for competition sake but to Allow Red Users the full satisfaction of the Red Experience. After all everyone knows the software inside the red camera is remarkable, Why not extend this externally. After effects is a good color correction tool but lacks the intuitive simplicity of color. I know Adobe has no plans to enter that market, and frankly it would make no sense for them to. There are good shot to shot plug-ins like Redgiant ‘s Magic Bullet Looks, (which I believe has the potential to be rebuilt into a great final conform tool. This I know will happen in time as the creators use Film master on their own projects and are learning the frame work and infrastructure of a great conform tool) but Redcine offers a whole different approach to working with raw metadata and files. Its arguably the most compelling high end interface since Discreet smoke and Fire. I know I am asking for a lot, but I feel Adobe can really work on the premiere engine for long form feature work, since a whole lot of people will finally look at their program as a viable commercial grade NLE.
All I ask for is RED Talk to Adobe for the good of All

John Tissavary
09-05-2008, 01:06 AM
Some good points, but one thing - Scratch is not an NLE (non-linear editor), It's a DI system for data management, conform, and grading, like the Nucoda Filmmaster product you mentioned in your post.

Memory issues with Premiere really do stink. But with careful planning they are avoidable. I find CS3 fairly reliable unless I'm working in too high a resolution, and considering CS3 is resolution independent, it's easy to work in 1k or whatever, and then render to the res needed. But the render engine could be faster, and it's definitely possible to run into memory issues during rendering.

I think one of the reasons that hardware boards solve the problem is that in some cases they circumvent Adobe's own render engine in favor of their own.


cheers,

John T.

chocblu
09-05-2008, 01:22 AM
Just a few things.

Im a little confused by what your saying about FCP on the one hand and what your wanting from PP on the other.

Your saying it was a nightmare in FCP to do these short films right?
Bearing in mind i havent edited much red footage yet, but have done a feature with P2 media. I would like to hear what problems you found.

On the other hand your saying that Memory Management Sucks (not something i had a problem with in FCP) you want good xml and omf export (FCP does) and that AUDIO DRIFTS!!! (this didnt happen over 90mins of footage with FCP)....

Could you clarify why these glaring problems (in my opinion, taken from your experiences) are making you say that RED work on FCP is horrible AND you would rather use PP?

stating my preference I like FCP, and my biggest problem with it is that Media Mangler is painful...

But apart from that i like the way it works.... I agree drag and drop is nice in premier, but i dont really like the interface and im not sure how it is more Resolution agnostic than FCP. though im very willing to be educated...

In fact please tell me how it is. And im absolutly not trying to pick a fight with Premier vs FCP. Personally I wish that premier WAS my prefered Editor, because cineform works great with it and so does AE. Im just much more proficient with FCP and love XML...

Cheers

Mark

shashbugu
09-05-2008, 08:35 AM
sure I meant audio drifts and omf export in premiere pro.
I also meant with the short form work everything was great in FCP.

but with mixed media I had to use red Proxies in FCP whilst onlining P2 media. My solution was to create different project sequences and bring them all into the master FCP timeline, render out all as Prores export to color then export an XML to after effects for highres 10 bit output through premiere via Black magic decklink out to digibeta deck .

I am sure there are faster ways.
I have only edited the trailer this way. I want to use premiere for the whole movie.
it will support both the P2 and R3D files and out to decklink. I am already importing the the proxies into pre pro just for the audio.

Obin Olson
09-05-2008, 11:05 AM
very valid points Shash makes here...

We are finding that a color correct looks best in redcine outside a MAJOR color package, and much better then Premiere or AfterEffects color tools. Even though Redcine is simple it knows how to deal with the red footage.

Adobe has MAJOR problems dealing with Longform workflows. MAJOR show stopping RAM issues....I hope cs4 is better

David Wilson
09-05-2008, 11:36 AM
We are experiencing very much what Obin is saying here. We find we are able to get to astonishingly pleasing color correction very very quickly with RedCine.

We are a small museum and not in the league to be considering a MAJOR color package and are pretty committed to CineForm/Premiere workflow which is working just great except for these color correction issues (which has nothing to do with CineForm really.)

We are struggling in Color Finesse within Premiere to get even close to the rich luminous color qualities we are able to achieve almost effortlessly in RedCine.

Color Finesse (which we're somewhat new to) seems to be a very powerful tool, especially considering it's affordability. It appears pretty much capable of getting anywhere in terms of color - it's just a significantly longer process - maybe with more experience.

At the end of the day, however, RedCine is working so well for us for color colorection, am I right in hoping there will be a way to save the color metadata from RedCine into the R3D and then import the data with the file through CineForm into Premiere?

shashbugu
09-05-2008, 07:23 PM
"At the end of the day, however, RedCine is working so well for us for color colorection, am I right in hoping there will be a way to save the color metadata from RedCine into the R3D and then import the data with the file through CineForm into Premiere?"

very good question?

I wish I could beta test the Plugin, and help with the feedback.

Obin, from your past posts I know you are an After effects guru, what has been your workflow with the plugin?

Thor Wixom
09-05-2008, 07:25 PM
I have edited a feature in Premiere Pro, and a long form action sports movie (70 minutes). The sports movie had over 3000 clips in it. I never had a problem with audio drift.

Audio sync is another issue altogether, though. Premiere Pro needs a major overhaul in this area.

-Thor

Darren Orange
09-05-2008, 07:47 PM
I feel that the Crimson workflow is still the best route to take. From there any detailed tweaking could be done in Color or AE (if greater than 2K) if need be.

shashbugu
09-05-2008, 08:24 PM
its definitely a good working solution for Red only proxies files, thats what its built for, a lot of us build effects plates from HDR still images, use the hvx for high speed running chase scenes etc. the REd is a very heavy camera as you know, and the Hvx images and Red intercut pretty well at 720p, its not easy to use the crimson workflow on different formats, unless you do a final conform in an expensive suite. please let me know if I am wrong, I am not an expert on that workflow

shashbugu
09-05-2008, 08:51 PM
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=18371

this is a free app for working with red alert and exporting pro res files with FCP

shashbugu
09-05-2008, 09:46 PM
it also performs a full conform

Obin Olson
09-06-2008, 01:45 PM
RedCine has some sort of "high end" programming behind the color curve I swear now...something is not the same in redcinewood as other apps outside of "highend" stuff...

Effortless color times that look FANTASTIC is RedCine, the ONLY limitation is TOOLSET. Premiere and AfterEffects tools can't hold a flame without 3-4x the work...strange...

David Wilson
09-06-2008, 02:55 PM
Effortless color times that look FANTASTIC is RedCine, the ONLY limitation is TOOLSET. Premiere and AfterEffects tools can't hold a flame without 3-4x the work...strange...[/QUOTE]

I could not agree more obin... Does it seem possibility that files could be saved from RedCine with the color metadata attached and subsequently brought into the Adobe Suite (through CineForm) with the metadata intact?

"Best of all possible worlds."

shashbugu
09-08-2008, 08:30 AM
the one important tool missing is a color wheel, like in color or colorista, a couple of marquee, vignette or matte tools will be just perfect. I do see a button and dialog box for plugins. hmmm someone talk to Graeme Natress, or redgiant software anyone who makes pluginsfor assimilate can make them for redcine. Also how come redcine does not show up in Apple Automator, to proxie-render projects?

Paul Leeming
09-11-2008, 11:24 AM
Independent colour adjustment would make RedCine 99% perfect.... :)

alex trettenero
09-12-2008, 04:31 AM
Independent colour adjustment would make RedCine 99% perfect.... :)

yes!
but that would also give headaches to assimilate's sales department.
a perfect "free" redcine would make 100k dollars scratch far less appetizing.

i'm personally not abig fan of having a 30k shooting gear, 6k editing system, and a 100k conform system.

that's why i've always been loving adobe software.
and now i love fc studio, too.
they run beatifully side by side on my mac.

my bet would be:
a mix of premiere and fcp for editing.
after effects with the interface and a couple of features borrowed from combustion...
a 4k really working version of color for cc (with a much better integration with the editing suite..)

all fot 1,2k dollars?

where do i sign the check?