AFTER EFFECTS and SCRATCH comparisons...

[Seung Han]

This is not intended as a flame war but a basic, or even better, a comprehensive comparison between these two options for working on RED projects.

First, I am familiar with After Effects although I haven't used it professionally in over seven years. Back then, I used it quite a bit for titling, color correction, animatics and compositing on a mac for commercials and TV shows. One post house I worked in had an Avid Illusion (discontinued?) on a SGI machine to bump prices for clients, but I always quietly took the files to AFX because I just thought it was such a better software even though rendering was a pain.

I don't know much about Scratch except that I have to contact somebody for prices ;-) Are these two even comparable if the project is not intended for a film out? What would be the main differences between workflow in short and long form projects? Is there a huge advantage to Scratch? If so, what are they?

I don't know where AFX is now or where it has come in terms of rendering with present day computers and graphics cards, but I do remember that it was a very good program to create and fix images. Is this not the case anymore or is RED footage just out of its reach?

[M Most]

What would be the main differences between workflow in short and long form projects? Is there a huge advantage to Scratch? If so, what are they?

I don't know where AFX is now or where it has come in terms of rendering with present day computers and graphics cards, but I do remember that it was a very good program to create and fix images. Is this not the case anymore or is RED footage just out of its reach?

Scratch is designed for conforming, color correction, and generation of deliverables for high resolution imagery. After Effects is designed for compositing and motion graphics. I don't see the comparison. It's like comparing Final Cut and Photoshop.

[Seung Han]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. I've been out of the loop for a while and in some of the threads I've been reading when ppl are talking about color grading, Scratch, Color and AFX gets mentioned, so I was wondering what the main differences were.

Also, I used to color correct quite a bit in AFX but it was mostly in short form projects.

[Joel Kaye]

Also, I used to color correct quite a bit in AFX but it was mostly in short form projects.

You can color correct in AE. All the tools you need are there or available as plugins. It's 32 bit. It's been used on feature films. Red Giant's Colorista is a nice little 3 way color correction plugin they based on higher end systems. A zillion other plugins are available.

Will it be as easy or enjoyable as using a Scratch system? I personally don't know but I'd seriously doubt it. But I'm fairly certain you could produce top notch results in AE. Just slower. Post houses can't afford to be slow. They pay top dollar so they can be fast.

RedCine might be all you need for day to day usage - we haven't even seen it yet.

[Lucas Wilson]

You can color correct in AE. All the tools you need are there or available as plugins. It's 32 bit. It's been used on feature films. Red Giant's Colorista is a nice little 3 way color correction plugin they based on higher end systems. A zillion other plugins are available.

Will it be as easy or enjoyable as using a Scratch system? I personally don't know but I'd seriously doubt it. But I'm fairly certain you could produce top notch results in AE. Just slower. Post houses can't afford to be slow. They pay top dollar so they can be fast.

RedCine might be all you need for day to day usage - we haven't even seen it yet.

Joel's pretty much spot on with his comments. Can AE grade an entire feature and do a good job? Absolutely... and I know a lot of people who have done this.

Is it as fast as a colorist with control panels tied to a realtime system like SCRATCH? Probably not...

Mike is also correct that it's like comparing Apples and Orangutans, they are very different products designed for very different purposes.

Lucas
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ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Simon Blackledge]

During my Scratch demo we did a little 4 layer comp, quite neat.. needs more tools in that area for sure. I really wish it had a comp module though :(

[Daniel Reichenbach]

Had a demo of SCRATCH, great tool but:

1. to expensive
2. to expensive

not really compatible with RED philosophy: great tool for a great price in as lot of hands as possible.

[Adam Jeal]

Had a demo of SCRATCH, great tool but:

1. to expensive
2. to expensive

not really compatible with RED philosophy: great tool for a great price in as lot of hands as possible.

Really!!? It's a damn sight cheaper that Autodesk Lustre, Filmlight Baselight, Nucoda FilmMaster, DVS Clipster and Iridas Speedgrade.. The way it handles media is the smartest out of the lot as well.

Ok, it's not in the Apple color price bracket but would you trust Color to DI your feature film?..

I should mention that I am currently beta testing Magic Bullet Looks Suite 3 and that, along with Colorista and AE is looking like a good no-budget option to me.

[M Most]

Had a demo of SCRATCH, great tool but:

1. to expensive
2. to expensive

not really compatible with RED philosophy: great tool for a great price in as lot of hands as possible.

You're thinking as an individual, not as a business. In the business world, what you pay for something is only important insofar as you can get a good return on your investment. It's not about getting everything dirt cheap, it's about having solid equipment that's well supported by a company that's easy to reach and that understands the needs of their market. DI systems are used by companies that take on a lot of responsibility for creative collaboration, high quality, and quick turnarounds. They need a very high degree of reliability, a solid feature set, the ability to access the tools quickly and accurately by the creative personnel they employ who have to satisfy some rather extreme client demands, and the ability to quickly fix things that go wrong. That's why most professional devices - including those built out of software - also carry yearly support fees, because the support is needed and expected, so the manufacturer must provide it. This does not and should not come for free, at least not if you want your company to be in business next year and the year after. It may seem "too expensive" to someone who's looking at is as a personal tool for their own use, and is not going to make money with it, but for those who are actually in the post business, it's a very affordable tool with a lot of bang for the buck compared to its competition.

I'm guessing you also consider things like $85K DLP Cinema projectors to be "too expensive" as well. But if you're producing either accurate film prints or Digital Cinema deliverables, it's something you need in order to ensure that what you and your clients are looking at is representative of the final product they're buying. These are devices for professionals - a relatively small market - and are priced accordingly. Not to mention that Scratch has been around for a few years now. It wasn't built for Red, it was built as a data centric post tool for the DI marketplace, which does a lot of work on pictures that are shot on various formats - primarily film. Their willingness to embrace Red and its file format is great, but it's far from being its only reason for existence.

[Joel Kaye]

Had a demo of SCRATCH, great tool but:

1. to expensive
2. to expensive

not really compatible with RED philosophy: great tool for a great price in as lot of hands as possible.

It's not really fair to call it too expensive unless you can point to a competitor offering the same features/support for far less.

The idea of it being RED theory incompatible is sorta interesting considering RED aligned itseful more with Final Cut theory of market disruption. RED is still pretty pricey though compared to what the average Final Cut editor/shooter can probably afford. I don't think they hit the target perfectly... but that target may be impossible to hit right now.

As RED progresses it may well be fair to call a lot of other cameras out there "too expensive". Ultimately the market calls a product that name in the form of year over year sales figures. Or month to month.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

In-compositor-grading is cheap... if you don't value your time.

[Seung Han]

Hmm...

I guess I knew making this thread there was a price discrepancy between the two products. I was more curious what the main difference in features were. Someone mentioned a demo with a 4 layer comp...is this 4k or 2k? in real time? I remember AFX becoming quite fast with a good grx card seven years ago, I'm assuming it is much faster now on a loaded mac pro.

So, Scratch is faster, modular in software and hardware and mainly for conforming and finishing for film out...?...

Working in short form, for commercials, music videos and industrials without cgi or heavy graphics, I always thought Avid or FCP coupled with AFX was fast enough seven years ago. Is this not the case in post anymore?

I understand why you would need a top end macine to conform and finish a deliverable for a film 30min + or any other long form for broadcast, but is this workflow necessary for short form these days?

[Stephen Gentle]

One thing that I hate about grading long edits in AE is that every clip needs it's own track... Breaking sequences up into different comps helps a little, but it's not really intended for really long stretches. Scratch would definitely have a better interface for grading.

Plus, rendering is annoying in After Effects - a real time system would be a lot better.

[Lucas Wilson]

So, Scratch is faster, modular in software and hardware and mainly for conforming and finishing for film out...?...

It's really hard to describe the essence of a fairly deep product in a couple of sentences. I always hated the concept of the "elevator pitch." : )

Seung - where are you located?

Not just Seung - buy anybody - an open invitation: if you want to see SCRATCH or see a demo of SCRATCH, please contact me offlist. We do demos all the time... we like doing demos.... we like showing a product that we are proud of. We have partners and employees all over the world, and can do a demo just about anywhere.

Lucas
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ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Joel Kaye]

Working in short form, for commercials, music videos and industrials without cgi or heavy graphics, I always thought Avid or FCP coupled with AFX was fast enough seven years ago. Is this not the case in post anymore?


For short form stuff AE should be fine. It now uses all 8 cores on the new Macs for rendering which speeds it up. After Effects is probably more usable than ever these days. You just need to get precomposing, nesting and prerendering all figured out to keep things moving along. But you can do full 2K that way.

Even long form stuff you could just break into sections.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Working in short form, for commercials, music videos and industrials without cgi or heavy graphics, I always thought Avid or FCP coupled with AFX was fast enough seven years ago. Is this not the case in post anymore?

I understand why you would need a top end macine to conform and finish a deliverable for a film 30min + or any other long form for broadcast, but is this workflow necessary for short form these days?

It is if you need it by the end of the weekend to go on the air monday and you have 3 other jobs to do by the end of the day.

Personally I've edited by manually deleting frames from image sequences. I once edited in notepad with a stop watch and a sequence of storyboards I flipped through in windows preview. (I ended up only having 2 minutes between final render and delivery so rendering out exactly frame for frame the shots I needed really payed off ...(long story).) But I wouldn't *want* to do it that way.

If you aren't a colorist. You don't make $100,000 a year grading and you only work with short form media. You would have a really hard time justifying the cost.

Nothing is necessary. Technically photoshop and some clever batch operations will do the trick (been there done that) in a pinch. But if it costs you more every year in time than upgrading...

It's always been my experience in any computer software that the faster and more fluidly it operates the better results I get. Not because the software is more 'powerful' but because I can make more changes more quickly. Consider also that if you're worrying about complex EDLs, bad interfaces and waiting for a render... you're not being creative, you're not coloring and it's time you could have been experimenting with more options.

Me: Cheap bastard that's going to use combustion--or see if I can find a real colorist to do it for me.

[Seung Han]

Seung - where are you located?

We have partners and employees all over the world, and can do a demo just about anywhere.



I'm in Seoul, Korea and just got a new office production space today for my feature film! Planning to build out a small edit suite with FCP and also a sound studio for mixing and music. Just starting to figure out workflows for my film, long form, as well as other short form projects, commercials and music videos. I am hoping to finish the short form projects on FCP with AFX but very curious about the different levels of Scratch for long form. If it makes sense as an investment right now. Yes, it would be very good and informative if a demo here could be arranged. Thank you Lucas.


For short form stuff AE should be fine. It now uses all 8 cores on the new Macs for rendering which speeds it up. After Effects is probably more usable than ever these days. You just need to get precomposing, nesting and prerendering all figured out to keep things moving along. But you can do full 2K that way.

Even long form stuff you could just break into sections.

I am very rusty on AFX but back in the day, it was my favorite software with AI, intuitive but very deep. I felt bad the companies were charging time on SGI Unix machines, but I found I was more creative in AFX and therefore actually saved time even though it needed a full res rendering at the end. Yes, learning curve in the beginning can be a little steep for beginners in terms of precomposing, nesting and basic understanding of masks and compositing but once you 'get it' the program is very fluid for creative flow. Good to hear it is running well with new hardware. What current grx card would you recommend with it?


Personally I've edited by manually deleting frames from image sequences. I once edited in notepad with a stop watch and a sequence of storyboards I flipped through in windows preview.

Sounds like you just created a digital flatbed ;-)



Consider also that if you're worrying about complex EDLs, bad interfaces and waiting for a render... you're not being creative, you're not coloring and it's time you could have been experimenting with more options.

I think this is why it is worth taking time to develop a comprehensive workflow between editing and graphics with whatever level of hardware or software you have. As long as the creativity is not blocked and good work can be produced. I usually see the best work from young artists made from their personal macs...

[Lucas Wilson]

I'm in Seoul, Korea and just got a new office production space today for my feature film! Planning to build out a small edit suite with FCP and also a sound studio for mixing and music. Just starting to figure out workflows for my film, long form, as well as other short form projects, commercials and music videos. I am hoping to finish the short form projects on FCP with AFX but very curious about the different levels of Scratch for long form. If it makes sense as an investment right now. Yes, it would be very good and informative if a demo here could be arranged. Thank you Lucas.

Seung,

We have a good partner in Korea based in Seoul, and we also have customers in Seoul that you may know - MIX and 2L Film are the most recent. I've been to Seoul a few times now... : )

Please contact me offlist at lucas at assimilateinc dot com and we will arrange a demonstration.

Best,

Lucas
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ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA

[Seung Han]

That's great. I will contact you next week. Very excited to see this in action in Seoul!


Seung,

We have a good partner in Korea based in Seoul, and we also have customers in Seoul that you may know - MIX and 2L Film are the most recent. I've been to Seoul a few times now... : )

Please contact me offlist at lucas at assimilateinc dot com and we will arrange a demonstration.

Best,

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA