Post Deal Killer

[Dave Weber]

Help!

Can someone please tell me the quickest way to get footage out to edit. I spoke with someone at red and they told me to batch process with Red Rushes and then cut and color with Final Cut. I tried a test and found that Log and transfer in Final Cut was quicker.

Anyone else with a quick way to get footage into final cut?

My biggest client is telling me that this post slowness is going to be a deal killer and they will just go back to film.

Help Please!

[Mark Crabtree]

CineForm. There is a fast and comprehensive work flow detailed at cineform.com. It's PC or MAC. We use it for commercials and long format videos. We love it.

[Frank Weeks]

If you have a good mac pro, Red rushes is about as fast as it gets. Red Rushes uses all 8 cores. Adobe (CS4) will offer some very fast options in the near future.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

How is this "post slowness" any slower than dealing with film? Seriously, what are people smoking?

With a couple decently fast systems, it's possible to transfer most 4K footage into 2K ProRes (or CineForm) faster than you can get film developed, scanned and delivered on digital media. Now if they were saying it's slow compared to HDV, HDCAM, DVCPRO, etc.., I'd buy it. But slower than film? 1 hour of 4K REDCODE 36 @ 24fps should convert to 2K ProRes HQ in about 3~4 hours on an 8-core Mac Pro with decently fast drives. Even faster if you divide the load up amongst multiple systems.

Anyway, FCP L&T isn't the fastest or best solution. RedRushes can be faster, or slower, depending on your settings and gives you some more conversion options.

If that still isn't fast enough, then just skip RR and L&T and just load the _M proxies right into Final Cut and start cutting away. It's not great and you don't get to see transitions, etc.. But it can be good enough for a rough cut, then use a tool like Crimson Workflow to take an FCP XML of your cut and translate it to an XML that REDCINE can conform to. Do your base CC and spit out ProRes or DPX sequences that you can load back into FCP for final edit and finish in Color.

Cineform offers some other good options too. You can also cut with the QT proxy files in Premiere on the Mac. We should have native R3D support (no transcoding at all, just edit away) within Premiere and After Effects in the coming weeks with the release of Adobe CS4. I know it's hard to pitch a solution like that because it's not actually available, but it's so close and there's even a workflow video of it available online.

[Jeff Coatney]

How is this "post slowness" any slower than dealing with film? Seriously, what are people smoking?

With a couple decently fast systems, it's possible to transfer most 4K footage into 2K ProRes (or CineForm) faster than you can get film developed, scanned and delivered on digital media. Now if they were saying it's slow compared to HDV, HDCAM, DVCPRO, etc.., I'd buy it. But slower than film? 1 hour of 4K REDCODE 36 @ 24fps should convert to 2K ProRes HQ in about 3~4 hours on an 8-core Mac Pro with decently fast drives. Even faster if you divide the load up amongst multiple systems.

Thank you. Sometimes I wonder what people are smoking too. I think people don't want to learn new things. They like going through post on auto-pilot.

[Mark Toia]

I do this on a daily basis...

Drop your 2k or 1k proxies into your FCP time line...Make sure your Extreme RT and low for your playback...
Your now editing seconds after you shot it...

Make sure your Extreme RT and low for your playback...

When you finish your cut, just render your time line edit only, or do the crimson process, We do this day in, day out without any hick ups at all.
We use the 1K's in our lap tops and even edit on set.
If your only finishing in SD for TV, 1k is plenty sharp enough, some say to sharp.

Go to my site, see Griffith TVC... all done this way, even graded in FCP.

Simple as, Fast as.

good luck mate

[Esteban Sosnitsky]

Guys be tolerant.
There are some folks who come here from the video world in which everything is on tape, color corrected, flat, and in focus due sharpening.
Keep that in mind and use red rushes.

[Dave Weber]

How is this "post slowness" any slower than dealing with film? Seriously, what are people smoking?

Yes I agree. But it is what they are most comfortable with. We have had a few RED projects with them and time seems to be an issue. They feel like they are not saving any money with the time it takes to Post RED footage.

I am not a post guy but it looks like i need to become one to keep up with all of this. I have a limited knowledge of the post process and have cut a few things but this is way beyond my scope.

Thanks to all for the info.

Now I will see what happens.

[Simon Blackledge]

I do this on a daily basis...

Drop your 2k or 1k pr

Go to my site, see Griffith TVC... all done this way, even graded in FCP.

Simple as, Fast as.

good luck mate


Was the Griffith Uni ones done at 1k? from the proxies?

Loved the Yamaha Dirtbikes spot...

si

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yes I agree. But it is what they are most comfortable with. We have had a few RED projects with them and time seems to be an issue. They feel like they are not saving any money with the time it takes to Post RED footage.

When they say they would consider going back to film, you have to ask them these questions:

* How long does it take them to get 1000ft of film developed, scanned and delivered ready for edit?

* How much does it cost them to do the above?


So far, in my experience, people coming from a film workflow that use slowness in post for RED as justification for sticking with film are doing this for two reasons, or at least these are the two most common I have run into:

1. They have been pushed out of their comfort zone and don't want to be bothered with learning something new or they just don't want to give it a serious chance.

2. The post people are not directly responsible for the developing and processing of film that is shot. In other words, when production shoots film, it gets developed, scanned and delivered to post on HDD and/or tape. Post takes it from there. In this situation, when production shoots RED, then they simply hand over the R3D data to the post guys, now the post guys are suddenly in a position where they have to process and transcode files. From their point of view, this takes more time and money.


Speaking from my own experience / observations, I haven't yet found a scenario where RED saves time in comparison to most standard video and HD formats. Once it's converted to ProRes or Cineform, it's all the same though. This should change as R3D support goes native inside Premiere and others in the near future. However, vs. film, RED has been faster every time. ...Provided the right tools are used. If someone is comparing the transcoding of R3D files to film processing and they're doing the R3D transcodes on a 2.3GHz Macbook going from a RED drive to another FW800 drive, they will probably go insane and will seek out film. A good post facility with 6 octomacs and a nice SAN could pound out 2 hours of footage faster than a PA could deliver film mags to the lab, unless the lab is literally next door.

8-core systems are expensive, right? OK, how much did it cost the last time you developed 5000ft of 35mm neg?

If the RED process is too slow for someone, they should not be saying "bah, it's too slow, we're going back to shooting film!" Makes no sense. But if they were to say "bah, it's too slow, we're going back to shooting HDCAM!" that could be understandable, if it still fits the production, but also has its own set of compromises to deal with and sacrifices many of the key benefits of shooting with RED.

[Steve Sanacore]

Help!

Can someone please tell me the quickest way to get footage out to edit. I spoke with someone at red and they told me to batch process with Red Rushes and then cut and color with Final Cut. I tried a test and found that Log and transfer in Final Cut was quicker.

Anyone else with a quick way to get footage into final cut?

My biggest client is telling me that this post slowness is going to be a deal killer and they will just go back to film.

Help Please!

What's wrong with shooting film? Sure shooting digital is more convenient and I love it, but film is still a great option.

[Ramesh Jai]

I do this on a daily basis...

Drop your 2k or 1k proxies into your FCP time line...Make sure your Extreme RT and low for your playback...
Your now editing seconds after you shot it...

Make sure your Extreme RT and low for your playback...

When you finish your cut, just render your time line edit only, or do the crimson process, We do this day in, day out without any hick ups at all.
We use the 1K's in our lap tops and even edit on set.
If your only finishing in SD for TV, 1k is plenty sharp enough, some say to sharp.

Go to my site, see Griffith TVC... all done this way, even graded in FCP.

Simple as, Fast as.

good luck mate
Is the Griffith University spot on your website a 1K FCP render? If it is then WOW!.

But I do agree with you. The RED workflow is really easy except for the time when Redcine decides to mess up.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

since the last red qt update, i consider to not transcode for offline editing, onset editing works really good today with proxies.

[Paul Merritt]

Sounds like your producers are trying to hustle you: In that case triple your invoice. If it is your editors that are complaining tell your producers that the editors are incompetent and that you are doing your job in a most reasonable way.

[Dave Weber]

What's wrong with shooting film? Sure shooting digital is more convenient and I love it, but film is still a great option.

Not a damn thing is wrong with film. I love film! But ..... I don't rent film cameras nor do I shoot on them anymore. So for me and my business it is a problem.

[Dave Weber]

Sounds like your producers are trying to hustle you: In that case triple your invoice. If it is your editors that are complaining tell your producers that the editors are incompetent and that you are doing your job in a most reasonable way.

It's their editors that may be the incompetent ones. I haven't sat in with them to see what they are doing (right or wrong).

I am going above and beyond to find them a better solution than they are using. Just trying to take care of my clients.

Kind of RED Zen :meh:

[Paul Merritt]

Tough love baby. Take care of your clients by riding the guys that have dropped the ball in the first place. Best way to do that is research the suggestions given by the more experienced folks on this forum and then ride the editors until they get it right or they get out of the business. Sorry if I seem so cynical but many a boss has done the same to me and made me better for it.

[Dave Weber]

When they say they would consider going back to film, you have to ask them these questions:

* How long does it take them to get 1000ft of film developed, scanned and delivered ready for edit?

* How much does it cost them to do the above?


So far, in my experience, people coming from a film workflow that use slowness in post for RED as justification for sticking with film are doing this for two reasons, or at least these are the two most common I have run into:

1. They have been pushed out of their comfort zone and don't want to be bothered with learning something new or they just don't want to give it a serious chance.

2. The post people are not directly responsible for the developing and processing of film that is shot. In other words, when production shoots film, it gets developed, scanned and delivered to post on HDD and/or tape. Post takes it from there. In this situation, when production shoots RED, then they simply hand over the R3D data to the post guys, now the post guys are suddenly in a position where they have to process and transcode files. From their point of view, this takes more time and money.


Speaking from my own experience / observations, I haven't yet found a scenario where RED saves time in comparison to most standard video and HD formats. Once it's converted to ProRes or Cineform, it's all the same though. This should change as R3D support goes native inside Premiere and others in the near future. However, vs. film, RED has been faster every time. ...Provided the right tools are used. If someone is comparing the transcoding of R3D files to film processing and they're doing the R3D transcodes on a 2.3GHz Macbook going from a RED drive to another FW800 drive, they will probably go insane and will seek out film. A good post facility with 6 octomacs and a nice SAN could pound out 2 hours of footage faster than a PA could deliver film mags to the lab, unless the lab is literally next door.

8-core systems are expensive, right? OK, how much did it cost the last time you developed 5000ft of 35mm neg?

If the RED process is too slow for someone, they should not be saying "bah, it's too slow, we're going back to shooting film!" Makes no sense. But if they were to say "bah, it's too slow, we're going back to shooting HDCAM!" that could be understandable, if it still fits the production, but also has its own set of compromises to deal with and sacrifices many of the key benefits of shooting with RED.

Jeff,

As always, the things you say make sense to me.

I think it really is the comfort zone for them and the lack of computer power on the edit end. I know they are ramping up on their machines but maybe they are just not ready for the REDvolution yet.

I do have a DP friend that shoots for them all the time and he really loves shooting RED but because this is all new, he has a lot of questions too.

[Dave Weber]

Tough love baby. Take care of your clients by riding the guys that have dropped the ball in the first place. Best way to do that is research the suggestions given by the more experienced folks on this forum and then ride the editors until they get it right or they get out of the business. Sorry if I seem so cynical but many a boss has done the same to me and made me better for it.

I hear ya!

I spend so much time here looking for all of the answers that sometimes i just get more lost. But thanks to all my RED brothers and sisters out here, I usually get what I'm looking for.

[Paul Merritt]

Of course when I say do your research also make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row. Nothing worse than a DP talking smack when he looks like he doesn't know what he is talking about

[John Tissavary]

I can get you REAL-TIME output to ProRes from Scratch on a mobile vehicle, available on-set, in SoCal. One-lights, full grades, etc... are possible. This should satisfy your client's requirements.

That said, it sounds like your client needs to speak with someone that can explain to them how to workflow their Red footage to be _much_ quicker turnaround than a film > telecine pipeline. I can also do that for you.

Please send me an e-mail at jt(at)traktionfilms(dot)com


regards,

John T.

[Mark Toia]

Was the Griffith Uni ones done at 1k? from the proxies?

Loved the Yamaha Dirtbikes spot...

si

2k...
The ad went to cinema as well.. looked aweosme as a print..
All out of FCP...

[Greg M]

My biggest client is telling me that this post slowness is going to be a deal killer and they will just go back to film.



We just finished shooting a national spot and we edited the spot on location while shooting....on a laptop. By the time we wrapped, the offline was finished. We onlined the spots the next day in 2K and later that night our client was watching a 1080P Blu-ray dub in the privacy of his home.

What exactly is the "post slowness" you talk about?

[Mark Toia]

We just finished shooting a national spot and we edited the spot on location while shooting....on a laptop. By the time we wrapped, the offline was finished. We onlined the spots the next day in 2K and later that night our client was watching a 1080P Blu-ray dub in the privacy of his home.

What exactly is the "post slowness" you talk about?

yeah!...

[Dave Weber]

We just finished shooting a national spot and we edited the spot on location while shooting....on a laptop. By the time we wrapped, the offline was finished. We onlined the spots the next day in 2K and later that night our client was watching a 1080P Blu-ray dub in the privacy of his home.

What exactly is the "post slowness" you talk about?

WOW. Ok it must be OE on their part then.

Can you lay out your post steps for me so I can let them know their editors are not doing it right?

[Steve Sanacore]

Not a damn thing is wrong with film. I love film! But ..... I don't rent film cameras nor do I shoot on them anymore. So for me and my business it is a problem.

I didn't think they really want to go back to film anyway. I agree with others that they are just putting extra pressure on you with that threat.

[Dave Weber]

I didn't think they really want to go back to film anyway. I agree with others that they are just putting extra pressure on you with that threat.

I love being on the cutting edge of technology. But needing to have ALL the answers is taxing. I just want to shoot and have them do the rest. Guess I'll just keep dreaming. :umm:

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I'll let Greg outline his exact workflow himself, if he wants to... I haven't had the luxury of editing on set yet (not enough time or man-power with me behind the camera). Usually it's offload for backup and move on...

But keep in mind, like has already been mentioned, you can do your rough cut with the QT pointers (proxies) immediately after shooting. Generate an XML in FCP and use a tool like Crimson Workflow to load that XML into Redcine for conform. Load your DPX or ProRes conform back into FCP, finalize your edit... To work with DPX sequences, take a look at GlueTools. Right now it's a must have for FCS users who want to go beyond ProRes 4:2:2.

On set or not, you can jump in and start your rough cut with the proxies. For commercials, you could probably have your rough cut done before you finish transcoding all files to ProRes out of RedRushes, then just re-link the project to the ProRes files and finish your edit.

[Greg M]

I am out of the office, but to simplify the workflow;
We use R3D Data Manager to backup all the raw footage throughout the day as shot. From these copies we edited our offline using the quicktime proxies on a MBPro. Once the client approved the edit, we moved back to our facility and using Crimson we exported 2K DPX files and conformed the sequence in Discreet Smoke where we did the final grading as well.

The project was originally going to be shot on 35mm, but for budget and time reasons the client switched to Red. If we shot film the process would have added no less than 3-7 days to ship film, process, and telecine.

[Dave Weber]

I am out of the office, but to simplify the workflow;
We use R3D Data Manager to backup all the raw footage throughout the day as shot. From these copies we edited our offline using the quicktime proxies on a MBPro. Once the client approved the edit, we moved back to our facility and using Crimson we exported 2K DPX files and conformed the sequence in Discreet Smoke where we did the final grading as well.

The project was originally going to be shot on 35mm, but for budget and time reasons the client switched to Red. If we shot film the process would have added no less than 3-7 days to ship film, process, and telecine.

This is perfect. Digital and Jeff and everyone else ...... Thank You!

[Steve Sherrick]

There are some gotchas with the quicktime proxies however, so in fairness to those who are trying to pass along workflow tips to post facilities, etc. I highly recommend that you do some testing to make sure they work for your situation/client/style of project.

I love cutting with the proxies because it is immediate. But not every project is straight cuts, 1 or two tracks of video, etc. You may want to have speed changes, filtering, compositing, mixed formats, etc. In that case, you should really do some testing to see if the proxies will work for you. Also, a lot is determined by how you will be finishing. Will it be inside FCP, Color, After Effects, Smoke, Scratch, Davinci, etc?

With a variety of combinations of software and hardware, it's not always easy to pinpoint where things may go wrong. If you get the wrong combo of FCP, Red QT componet, Redcine, etc you may run into problems.

My point in all of this is to not necessarily steer you away from proxies but to point out that it is incredibly important to know where you are going in terms of offline edit and finishing. You need a carefully laid out workflow to avoid mistakes, and to seamlessly get from proxies/transcoded files to a final product. Point in case is that some people have found the proxies will not play smoothly on their systems while others have no problems at all.

As with any format, there has to be a system in place to handle it, and you want that system to be as robust and bulletproof as possible.

[Dave Weber]

There are some gotchas with the quicktime proxies however, so in fairness to those who are trying to pass along workflow tips to post facilities, etc. I highly recommend that you do some testing to make sure they work for your situation/client/style of project.

I love cutting with the proxies because it is immediate. But not every project is straight cuts, 1 or two tracks of video, etc. You may want to have speed changes, filtering, compositing, mixed formats, etc. In that case, you should really do some testing to see if the proxies will work for you. Also, a lot is determined by how you will be finishing. Will it be inside FCP, Color, After Effects, Smoke, Scratch, Davinci, etc?

With a variety of combinations of software and hardware, it's not always easy to pinpoint where things may go wrong. If you get the wrong combo of FCP, Red QT componet, Redcine, etc you may run into problems.

My point in all of this is to not necessarily steer you away from proxies but to point out that it is incredibly important to know where you are going in terms of offline edit and finishing. You need a carefully laid out workflow to avoid mistakes, and to seamlessly get from proxies/transcoded files to a final product. Point in case is that some people have found the proxies will not play smoothly on their systems while others have no problems at all.

As with any format, there has to be a system in place to handle it, and you want that system to be as robust and bulletproof as possible.

That is exactly what I am doing. I am testing for the best possible way for them to handle the RED footage. I am trying all kinds of different workflows for them and I will get them the top 2 or 3 that people are having success with.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Other ways to get editing quickly without the limitations of the proxies, if they have the systems to convert, is to create lower res (480p) transcodes from a 1/8th debayer in redrushes. This is very fast. Alternatively, its' possible to run the QT proxies through a converter to dump them into DV or HDV format or something on that level. This was broken for many people for a while when trying to use the proxies with Compressor, but I think the latest updates from Apple and RED fix this. I haven't tried it with the latest QT component.

[Uli Plank]

You can get transcodes to DVCPro HD in 720p with 1/4 debayer quite fast and it's a great format for offline if you need to try out a few more things than hard cuts.