Red Online Costs and Procedures...

[Erick Stoll]

I'm consistently warned of "online costs" in regards to shooting on the Red. I don't seem to be able to find a whole lot of information about this. What is entailed in taking your edit online, and what would it run me for a short film, 15-20 minutes?

Thanks

[Christian Tanner]

consider crimson. check out the site and a video tour here (http://www.crimsonworkflow.com/home.htm)

[Matthew Rogers]

Do you own your own computer that you can process and color correct the footage with? If so, then pretty much $0. If you are having to go to a post house and correcting there, it will be a bit more. I know scratch suites for color correction are going for $500 an hour with a colorist (who should be able to correct a short in a day.)

Your question is kinda like asking, how much does it cost to make a car. What kind of car, who's making it, is it basic or fancy, etc.

Matthew

[Joshua Brown]

consider crimson. check out the site and a video tour here (http://www.crimsonworkflow.com/home.htm)

I've never cut Red Footage, but I was under the impression you could simply use the proxies that the camera generated to edit and render from... all within FCP. What is the use of on/offline edits?

-Josh

[Liam Hall]

I've never cut Red Footage, but I was under the impression you could simply use the proxies that the camera generated to edit and render from... all within FCP. What is the use of on/offline edits?

-Josh

Yep, you can create a 2k master that way.

[Andrew Walker]

I was using Crimson until recently, which is a good workflow for taking your proxies sequence into Redcine and then bringing back whatever you need to FCP. But Color I found kind of saves you some steps and you can do your color correcting during your "online". I think its great workflow for most of my projects that I've been working on.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

only annoying thing with color is that it cant do a full debayer....i hope i missed an update and it can do it now

[Troy Smith]

Buy $2000 i7 Pc, cs4, edit r3d in prem, grade in afx, export to everything, works great for me, obviously afx is no great grading solution, but for short work you can get the job done if it's a low budget production.

[Cüneyt Kaya]

Buy $2000 i7 Pc, cs4, edit r3d in prem, grade in afx, export to everything, works great for me, obviously afx is no great grading solution, but for short work you can get the job done if it's a low budget production.

i prefer to export form ae as dpx sequence and grade somewhere else.

but yes a 2000 dollar PC with CS4 is the best you can do now

[Troy Smith]

Yea for sure, else where to grade is the best.

[Frank Cueto]

*DISCLAIMER- I own a post facility.
Now that I got that out of the way...

We feel that the 3-4Grand you might spend in a day on-lining/grading your work will end up giving you a better end result than doing it one man show style. True, not every project merits this kind of attention to detail, but most of our projects used to be 35mm stuff and now it has started to transition to RED, so already our clients are seeing a saving by going red.

Another good thing about taking it to a post house is that you get more eyeballs to look at it, and that can only be a good thing.

Last but not least, if you build a working relationship with your local post house, a time might come when you will need something special (PSA, great idea with no budget, that ONE FAVOR) and its very likely the post house (if there is down time available) will fit you in and help you out. THese situations are usually 2 hours before delivery of THE project and something has crashed or gone terribly wrong ;-)

-Frank

[Tim Whitcomb]

For a short, curious why you need more than nicely finished proxies? an online is really a waste of money if you dont have distribution... (unless you have money to burn and/or you feel somehow you will recoup the costs... there are plenty of render heavy but low cost desktop finishing solutuons... color, crimson, monkey...

that said, the tools of being able to have high res playback are great.. but they are just tools... there is no substitute for an experienced colorist... and a post house that can help you with deliverables... masters etc. is invaluable...

also HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you get your post house involved BEFORE you shoot...
can save a lot of $ on the back end with a meeting ...

tell a great story, find great actors... because a 2K or 4K master can do nothing to help the former... no matter how great it "looks"

[GlennChan]

IMO:
Get a copy of DV Rebel.
http://rebelsguide.com/DV_Rebels_Guide/The_DV_Rebels_Guide.html

Learn how to use After Effects, and use that to "online" your footage. Color correction, motion stabilization, VFX... all that can be done in AE.
*This is assuming that you like post and have the inclination to learn it.

You can get very good results doing it yourself, you'll learn about what's possible in post, learn something new, and avoid spending money which you can use for better things. The quality of the end product mostly depends on the operator/online editor and time.

AE will likely have higher quality from a technical standpoint (e.g. if they master onto HDCAM SR... that's unnecessary compression)... though in the end the technical differences will be negligible.

[Craig Parkes]

Online costs are DIRECTLY related to your distribution methodology - it's not about what your content is, what kind of short it is etc, it's about where you want to be able to show your short and how.

If you want to be able to show your short at the HIGHEST possible exhibition standard at major festivals (print to film or 2K DCI compliant) then expect to factor in the cost for a proper post production facility to grade/master and print to film. Any good film post production facility should be able to help you out here. It will be costly, but it helps you build a relationship with people who take their business i.e the CINEMA business, very seriously. It's a good idea to do this if you want to be in the business of showing things in CINEMA.

If you expect to show your short at a broadcast level exhibition standard/often also used for major and mid tier festivals - expect to factor in the cost of grading on a properly calibrated broadcast standards monitor (HD if you are mastering to HDCAM, SD if you are mastering to Digibeta) fed by SDI. Any good video post production facility should be able to help you out here (although some places may not be HD ready yet, especially in smaller markets - if you want to finish to HD you will obviously need to look elsewhere). It will be less costly than the above option, and it's a good idea if you want to build contacts in the broadcast post industry, or want to have a widely acceptable master that someone with knowledge has vetted for you.

If you want to show and distribute your short yourself, and it's mainly going to be seen on people's TVs, grade it yourself using tools you have available, and take a DVD master round to your friends places and check it out on all their DVDs. If you are happy with the quality of what you see, then it will have only cost you your time and the equipment you needed to edit the project anyway. However, if your project THEN becomes very successful, you may have screwed the pooch in terms of getting the higher quality master down the line.

In the world of short films, my advice is ALWAYS aim for the first option if possible, because why on earth are you making a short if not to learn the process of making cinema.

If you are making internet shorts, or sketches for tv, or anything else that has a different delivery methodology then one which involves being huddled in a large dark auditorium surrounded by a bunch of other people, and have just chosen to use Red because of it's ability to get the sort of pictures up on screen you want, then outside of setting up your camera looks and the time taken to transcode your footage to your intermediate editing format, there really is very little cost difference in post to HD or even SD video editorial.

All in all - know your deliverables, once you know that everything will be much simpler.

[Erick Stoll]

Online costs are DIRECTLY related to your distribution methodology - it's not about what your content is, what kind of short it is etc, it's about where you want to be able to show your short and how.


Great, thanks for the info. I imagine that the 2nd option will be most viable and beneficial for us. What exactly does broadcast level exhibition standard entail, and how much would it cost to do that? Also, how would we choose what we want to master to? What does that even mean?

Thanks.

[GlennChan]

Broadcasters will have certain technical requirements as to what they want, and some of their rules can be pretty arbitrary (and nonsensical). You can pass their QC with a $600 broadcast monitor... because the QC process entails looking for objective criteria to ding a master on and they don't make subjective assessments. Of course, the rest of the equipment you'd need would cost at least tens of thousands of dollars (real scopes, VTR, etc.). *This depends on the broadcaster... the lower end guys are less picky.

Also, their requirements will vary depending on their workflow (some want HDCAM SR because they want particular audio on all 16 channels of the master), how long bumpers are, etc.

2- This does not sound like the kind of project that would be broadcast. I assume you're making an independent film. Very few broadcasters will pay reasonable money to broadcast them.

If it's an independent film, it probably has a terrible return on investment and is therefore not a business. So I wouldn't burn money unnecessarily.

What matters if whether or not the film/content is good. There's lots of indie films in general, and while most have terrible production values there are still a lot of films with very good production values. Unfortunately, a lot of them don't have great stories + storytelling so they don't go very far.

[Tim Fassnacht]

I've never cut Red Footage, but I was under the impression you could simply use the proxies that the camera generated to edit and render from... all within FCP. What is the use of on/offline edits?

-Josh

Hi Josh!

Sounds like you've got alot of catching up to do. Most of us out there have quickly realized that cutting with the proxies is a pretty inefficient way to do an offline. At the desktop level, I would suggest looking into Han's Clipfinder to Native Workflow in FCP. This is a great way to cut with offline self contained files with the codec and resolution that works best for your system while being able to arrive with a 2K timed master when all said an done with the online.

To start, you'll need a bit of background on R3D Native in FCP from here: http://www.red.com/support/download/106

as well as an explanation of the Clipfinder approach here:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22562&highlight=Clipfinder+Native

oh, and you'll need to download software from here http://www.red.com/support/download/102 and here http://www.daun.ch/software/

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

[Brandon Kraemer]

Most of us out there have quickly realized that cutting with the proxies is a pretty inefficient way to do an offline.

I guess I humbly disagree, but it depends on how much footage your working with and your turn around time too. With proxies you can begin to edit as soon as you copy the files to your RAID, and you end up transcoding only what you use. I think its rather efficient, but I haven't worked with clip finder much. I also have no issues working with proxies in real time, and the sequence dimensions don't matter so long as I can play back my timelines in real time via my Kona card.

[Joshua Brown]

Hi Josh!

Sounds like you've got alot of catching up to do. Most of us out there have quickly realized that cutting with the proxies is a pretty inefficient way to do an offline. At the desktop level, I would suggest looking into Han's Clipfinder to Native Workflow in FCP. This is a great way to cut with offline self contained files with the codec and resolution that works best for your system while being able to arrive with a 2K timed master when all said an done with the online.

To start, you'll need a bit of background on R3D Native in FCP from here: http://www.red.com/support/download/106

as well as an explanation of the Clipfinder approach here:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22562&highlight=Clipfinder+Native

oh, and you'll need to download software from here http://www.red.com/support/download/102 and here http://www.daun.ch/software/

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Wow, thanks, that is really informative. I'm just used to shooting with low bitrate footage anyways and I've been editing it for years. And from my limited interation with R3D's I simply thought grabbing a "low res" proxy would do the trick. Will be good to study up on this whole online/offline edit process.

-Josh

[Craig Parkes]

Great, thanks for the info. I imagine that the 2nd option will be most viable and beneficial for us. What exactly does broadcast level exhibition standard entail, and how much would it cost to do that? Also, how would we choose what we want to master to? What does that even mean?

Thanks.

In this case, with broadcast level exhibition you are not really looking at conforming to a particular broadcasters recommendations - more that if you go through a broadcast place they will be aware of general technical specs that any sort of program should conform to for broadcast.

They should also have appropriate tape decks for your project (either Digibeta if you are mastering to SD - generally still an accepted format for short distribution and exhibition, or HDCAM-SR if you are wanting a full HD master.) or should at the very least be able to supply you with an uncompressed Quicktime (generally either in one of the Uncompressed Avid Codecs, Aja Codec, Blackmagic Codec, or Apple Codecs) on a disk/hard drive that means if you need to master to tape or anything else later on you have an uncompressed deliverable of your short from which to master to later.

The knowledge and equipment that a broadcast place will generally bring is a properly calibrated monitor with SDI feed, allowing you to see an 'industry standard' view of your film. These may not be 'optimal' viewing conditions depending on the quality of the post place you have gone to, but it's a pretty accurate picture of what it would look like on Television, and if being projected by anyone who knows what they are doing when it comes to video.

If you don't go through this step, the look of your film may be wildly divergent on a probably set up monitor to the look you were going for when you put it together. So you send it to a festival where the projectionist knows what they are doing and it gets screened quite differently to how you thought it would look.

Now, at lower tier short festivals where people DON'T know what they are doing - (a surprising number really) having a broadcast quality master isn't necessarily any insurance that the short will be projected well - because they may not follow industry standards - but generally a well graded short in broadcast spec will fair better than something that's been done elsewhere.

And of course, if you do get short distribution, which won't pay the bills generally but can be nice, having a broadcast spec master will allow it to be shown of television without you getting a phonecall on delivery saying it's all way of spec and you have to spend a how bunch of time and money that you don't have, and it should have been done yesterday, otherwise it can't be aired - and then the distributor is hounding you and it's a headache for everyone (and may effect your future chances with distributors - it's a small industry and making things easier for people really does help.)

Technical stuff won't turn a bad short into a good short, and (aside from bad sound) won't turn a good short into a bad one. However, making festival directors lives easier, distributors lives easier, and broadcasters lives easier may be the difference between a few good relationships and a few sour relationships - and at the business end of film making for directors and producers, relationships are pretty much our stock and trade.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Buy $2000 i7 Pc, cs4, edit r3d in prem, grade in afx, export to everything, works great for me, obviously afx is no great grading solution, but for short work you can get the job done if it's a low budget production.

Don't know about you guys, I've graded all of my shoots in AE with excellent results. Maybe I'm doing something different?

[Craig Parkes]

Don't know about you guys, I've graded all of my shoots in AE with excellent results. Maybe I'm doing something different?

AE isn't realtime, has interface hassles, doesn't offer any sort of conform that I know of without Automatic Duck (or editing in Premiere - although I am not sure how stable that is?) has a bit of a steep learning curve for people who are used to other sorts of grading.

From a technical point of view, After Effects is great for grading (assuming you are using the right plug ins etc and can get accurate monitoring via hardware.)

But it's not designed for grading, and when compared to software that is, the differences show.

[GlennChan]

But it's not designed for grading, and when compared to software that is, the differences show.
AE can do windows/splines and glows that look right. Other software doesn't. e.g. Final Touch didn't do windows correctly... you get this Mach banding effect in some cases.
And there are some systems that do glows that don't look right.

Yes, AE is a pretty slow way of doing things (because the interface isn't designed for color, conform takes longer, and rendering). But you'd probably prefer a lower budget and be able to get good results (as long as the operator is good) as opposed to getting it done fast.

2- The other reason why AE is good for indie films is because you can stabilize shots, paint stuff out, etc. etc.


And of course, if you do get short distribution, which won't pay the bills generally but can be nice, having a broadcast spec master will allow it to be shown of television without you getting a phonecall on delivery saying it's all way of spec and you have to spend a how bunch of time and money that you don't have, and it should have been done yesterday, otherwise it can't be aired
That's not how it works.

The broadcaster won't put itself in this situation since it knows that not all masters meet their criteria/requirements (especially since broadcasters all have different requirements). Getting masters rejected happens to experienced post houses and is not necessarily a big deal.
In any case, it's extremely unlikely that you'd get a television broadcaster anyways and if you do, you'd have to do additional work on your master anyways to meet their specs / make a version of it that meets their specs.

The stuff about souring relationships is spreading FUD.

3- This is not going to television. To make the colors broadcast legal (which varies from broadcaster to broadcaster anyways), you'll have to make them fit with broadcast safe colors and this will impair your colors / impair the technical quality of your film.

4- The big picture is that almost all independent films go nowhere, but you gain experience making them, hopefully gain some recognition for your skills and/or network with like-minded people.

I wouldn't pay for online editing and/or additional finishing (e.g. audio)... defer this cost until you need it.

[Craig Parkes]

Glenn, I like to think it's not FUD, just a point of view.

Lots of project go to television, or at least to DVD. I'm not talking about have music & effects on the correct track or legal blacks here so much as being able to see your short on a decent monitor for broadcast if that's your output, and not doing it yourself and getting an NTSC version sent to PAL land etc.

I should mention that around these parts, if it's a short, everyone does extremely cut rate prices, or often helps out for free, if they like the film maker.

From the point of view of a short film maker who has produced shorts, on my own dime, that have ended up being broadcast, and has used the experience going through the process to get industry work - I am preaching from my own experience.

The understanding you gain from working with other people if you DON'T already have that knowledge is very valuable.

Now, if you let it cost you a lot of money - then I don't agree with that.

But if you are SERIOUSLY looking at getting festival acceptance, some form of short distribution other than on the net (much more viable in countries other than America - there is a market in the rest of the world, albeit a small one.) and also want to expand your knowledge of the technical side of things in general doing all this stuff doesn't hurt at all, if you have made the effort to make the contacts and the work you are doing makes someone sit up and go "You know what, I'd like to help them out.".

I agree with deferring costs until you need them. However, if you can get them for cheap/very little and expand your contacts at the same time, that should be your aim.

Maybe it's different where you are - and people aren't willing or able to help out those trying to make it with their shorts, in which case you can certainly do it all yourself to great effect. But you shouldn't start from the point of view of not ASKING for help, if you ask, it often is delivered, and there is advantages to building the relationships that come with that help.

Also, you should always aim for the highest achievable standard for your short - saying it's just a learning experience is fine if this is a hobby - but if you want to make it a career you should always be aiming to deliver the best possible master that you can that has the most likelihood of getting you noticed on an international stage.

[GlennChan]

Fair enough.