Explain Raw Shooting To Me

[Chris Parker]

I am curious. Since Red records RedCode Raw, does this mean that on-set, the color balance and white balance, etc. does not need to be fine tuned like when shooting with HD Cameras?

Is this ALL done in the RedCine process?

If anyone wants to explain this process in detail, it would be appreciated. Feel free to include how the final look it outputted to monitors on set is accomplished. Thanks.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I don't know much about it, but the VERY SIMPLE way of explaining it, and maybe I'm wrong, so someone correct me if I am is this:

RAW holds MANY information, all correctable. So indeed, you can change everything in post (white balance, colours, ...) and not loose any or at least not much quality. You are capturing like a neutral negative, do with it what you want in post.

[Jim Perry, Jr.]

http://www.hdforindies.com/
read the article: "Want more stills from a Red?
I got more stills from a Red - Offhollywood's stunt car shoot "

find the paragraph that starts with "That is one of the magic bits
about shooting with Red - most cameras have a sensor block, ..."

this may help.

[Chris Parker]

thanks jonplancy. that did explain a lot. so basically, you do set the hue/sat,etc. on the day, but it is only metadata that shows that applied look on the video outputs of the camera. later, these settings COULD all be tweaked in a 'telecine' type of process. that's how i understand it.

my big fear is that i am not a camera tech, but want to focus my efforts more on the workflow, and i don't want to have to be responsible for the 'look' of it like a true DIT in the HD world.

i want to be the guy who rents the cameras and provides workflow for the data, and i worry that my lack of skill in the whole hue/sat, etc. world will hurt me.

but it sounds like i could leave all this up to the camera dept., and then comfort them (and production/clients) by saying that the images are being recorded RAW and can be maipulated later.

any other thoughts anyone?

[jbeale]

Generally speaking, color, contrast, looks etc. can all be done in post. Any significant problem with overexposure, focus, or camera shake probably cannot be fixed. But I would not want to tell a customer "problem X can be fixed in post" without being really 100% sure that is true! :-)

[Scott Simmons]

Seems to me like this is almost a whole new position being created, a RED Color Specialist. While the DP's eye for image and color can't be underestimated, a good colorist is worth their weight in gold. If you have skilled colorist that is a RED expert in this new workflow then they could follow the production from pre- to the shoot on the set all the way though post-.

[Brook Willard]

The "color specialist" description largely falls under the DIT's job description.

[Chris Parker]

I personally want to keep the workflow as close to film as possible for my clients.

That means no colorist on set.

I would like to consider the RAW footage like a film neg., whereby they can take it to the transfer house (or wherever they want) for the colorizing and finishing.

I think my clients will want this. Keep it simple workflow. No need to start bringing a colorist out on sets. At least not the ones I am used to working on. That is best left for post.

[Graeme Nattress]

And that workflow works well too - just capture the scene with a simple look that looks "normal" and you'll have the best footage for post.

Graeme

[MikeCurtis]

short version - yep - don't worry about that stuff on set.

Shooting for a pfhat histogram will be the gravy.

-mike

[Jim Arthurs]

And that workflow works well too - just capture the scene with a simple look that looks "normal" and you'll have the best footage for post.

Graeme

In my younger days, getting a "standard-light" print off my 16mm and 35mm really helped me understand exposure. It's fine for pros to work with heavy and thin negatives, and have a lab do a "best light", but you should know how your footage and exposure looks compared to some sort of standard at some point in your career.

To quote one grumpy old-school color timer working at my old lab, "Huh, that shooter thinks he's hot shit... maybe I should run him a standard light instead of a best light and see what he thinks of his meter reading...".

I assumed that that would be a by-product of working with REDCODE RGB in some sense, in that your settings are baked in, and it has to look "normal" without any manipulation. Since that's on hold, and we have the more flexible REDCODE RAW as the one choice, maybe you could provide something like this...

... a "standard-light" one button processing for your files in REDALERT would help you know where you should aim for exposure at a given ASA? I think the problems we've seen with processed footage have to do with too many choices, and this could overcome that until a new user works his way around the various manipulation choices. It could also be applied to the live video out and the finders.

We have the current situation where new users are trying to go to the head of the learning process by "protecting highlights" and and other tricks without ever having explored a baseline exposure in the first place. There's a time and place to do all this stuff, but there's a lot to be said with just getting a good nominal exposure that doesn't need more than a baseline set of settings applied... just my two cents, and maybe this is already handled in some way...

[Scott Simmons]

I personally want to keep the workflow as close to film as possible for my clients.

That means no colorist on set.

I would like to consider the RAW footage like a film neg., whereby they can take it to the transfer house (or wherever they want) for the colorizing and finishing.

I think my clients will want this. Keep it simple workflow. No need to start bringing a colorist out on sets. At least not the ones I am used to working on. That is best left for post.

It seems to make the most sense to keep a RED workflow similar to film... but that means making the client understand that what they are seeing on the on-set video monitor is a flat, uncorrected image. This is easy with a video tap out of a film camera but maybe not so easy with this revolutionary new "video" camera. It's sometimes kind of hard to explain that to an ad agency person. But still, the film analogy for the RED workflow is a good one.

[Scott Simmons]

The "color specialist" description largely falls under the DIT's job description.

Please pardon my ignorance.. what exactly is a "DIT?"

[Joel Kaye]

Please pardon my ignorance.. what exactly is a "DIT?"

Digital Imaging Technician.

Kind like a camera sanitation engineer really.