Grade - FCP or RedCine X?

[James Page]

Hi

I'm rendering footage to edit, and looking at my grading options.
I'm working on a relatively low powered setup, so rendering footage is a time intensive process, and i'm looking at ways to streamline my workflow.

My planned workflow up til this point has been thus:
1) A basic 1 light (usually just adjusting colour space/gamma and white balance)
2) export to 2K ProRes 1/2debayer files
3) "offline" in FCP
4) rexport the used clips at 4K full debayer
5) relink these files in FCP
6) Grade using FCP/Colorista

Obviously, this takes a while, since i edit on low res files, then have to re render the used clips (checking the used clips manually since there isn't an easy way to get an edit from FCP to RedCine X and back again)

But I wondered, am i better off getting the footage as close as possible in RedCine X before I edit? a "Pre-Grade"? I know the disadvantages, but what are the advantages of this?

All constructive comments gratefully received.

[Jith Paul]

Hi James,

I have a suggestion that may help with the streamlining.

After step (3) in your workflow
(3)(a) Export your sequence as XML from FCP.
(3)(b) Use ClipFinder (search for it on google, the free version works for this recommendation) to open the XML file and reconnect it to the source R3D files, create a new XML file that is conformed to the RED reference proxies in whatever size you want your final render to be (4K, 2K etc...)
(3)(c) Reimport the conformed XML into FCP and send the sequence to Color. If you have the appropriate plug-in installed (from red.com/support), you should see a RED tab in color which will give you access to the meta-data.

skip steps (4) and (5) and move to step (6) in your workflow.

Hope that helps,
JP.

[James Page]

Hi James,

Reimport the conformed XML into FCP and send the sequence to Color. If you have the appropriate plug-in installed (from red.com/support), you should see a RED tab in color which will give you access to the meta-data.

skip steps (4) and (5) and move to step (6) in your workflow.

Hope that helps,
JP.

Hi Jith,

thanks for the suggestion, i have attempted that before, but my Color doesn't seem to wanna know. i send stuff from fcp and it just asks me to open a project.

Also, I don't think the new colour science is available for color yet, is it?

[David Battistella]

Hi Jith,

thanks for the suggestion, i have attempted that before, but my Color doesn't seem to wanna know. i send stuff from fcp and it just asks me to open a project.

Also, I don't think the new colour science is available for color yet, is it?

The new color Science is available and working with Apple Color V1.5.x and has been trouble free since I have installed it. The only control you do not get is FLUT, but you get everyting else including teh new Color Science.

David

[David Battistella]

In terms of relinking the files in FCP. Why not relink the R3D F proxies in FCP so that you can access the full quality of the R3D and then grade and render. It will save you the second pass of rendering

[James Page]

In terms of relinking the files in FCP. Why not relink the R3D F proxies in FCP so that you can access the full quality of the R3D and then grade and render. It will save you the second pass of rendering

so grade using the F proxies in FCP? and then export to ProRes 4444?