Data Management to On set DIT

[Jay R]

I'm currently working as a very basic data manager (just backing up and organizing files for post) but I am eager to get on set and do more (color grading, transcoding, working with the DP). I just wanted to know as someone new into this industry and job what kind of approach I should take to do this. I also want to know an average workflow. I understand the workflow is different for every show but can you help me understand what color grading on set is like and how to help the workflow of dailies. Thanks in advance!

Jay

[Paul Ellington]

I'm currently working as a very basic data manager (just backing up and organizing files for post) but I am eager to get on set and do more (color grading, transcoding, working with the DP). I just wanted to know as someone new into this industry and job what kind of approach I should take to do this. I also want to know an average workflow. I understand the workflow is different for every show but can you help me understand what color grading on set is like and how to help the workflow of dailies. Thanks in advance!

Jay

I try to use Thunderbolt and back everything up as I go... so --> two copies of everything right away. If Thunderbolt is not available I use ESATA. I own a ESATA HUB from LACIE where I go MAC --> LACIE HUB --> TO ESATA DRIVES... Then your SSD stack via 800 or an additional LACIE HUB if you can get it to work.

Also, Brook mentioned to me and I found it useful to use R3D DATA MANAGER. You need to buy it but it's worth it. Should be an easy sell to the production.

- PE

[Von Thomas]

Read my article in Creative Cow, http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-dit-tells-all.

One new workflow I've used lately (2nd unit DIT Pretty Little Liars) was conceived but Conrad Hunziker (creator of R3D Data Manager). Copy all data from cards to your main drive (in my case a Maxx Digital SAS RAID) using R3D Data Manger. Once you exposure correct and grade in Redcine X Pro, the RMD (RED meta data) is stored with the file. Next using R3D DM, copy all files (now with RMD's attached) to your 2 back up drives. All your corrections will now travel with the original files.

As far as Lacie, I would steer clear of any Lacie drives, as they have had a bad rep over the years of failure (I'm a witness). G-Tech too, has had problems in the past 2-3 years, and recently, I've had 4 drives (new) go south. I no longer recommend them to clients. Maxx Digital is now my go to storage solution, and to date, zero failure, and I'm happy.

Von

[Paul Ellington]

Read my article in Creative Cow, http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-dit-tells-all.

One new workflow I've used lately (2nd unit DIT Pretty Little Liars) was conceived but Conrad Hunziker (creator of R3D Data Manager). Copy all data from cards to your main drive (in my case a Maxx Digital SAS RAID) using R3D Data Manger. Once you exposure correct and grade in Redcine X Pro, the RMD (RED meta data) is stored with the file. Next using R3D DM, copy all files (now with RMD's attached) to your 2 back up drives. All your corrections will now travel with the original files.

As far as Lacie, I would steer clear of any Lacie drives, as they have had a bad rep over the years of failure (I'm a witness). G-Tech too, has had problems in the past 2-3 years, and recently, I've had 4 drives (new) go south. I no longer recommend them to clients. Maxx Digital is now my go to storage solution, and to date, zero failure, and I'm happy.

Von


I second that, I am talking about the LACIE to ESATA HUB, not hard-drive.

- PE

[Johnny Friday]

Paul, i think i know the Lacie Hub you are talking about...but have you seen the Sonnet Hub (not really a Hub, but Pcie slot)--as far as i know the Lacie Hub-via Thunderbolt is 3gb/s and the version 2 Sonnet with the new e-sata Pcie card is 6gb/s....so if you are unaware of that, you may want to check it out....i found it only a few days ago and now in my kit.

[Rick Allen]

The down side for me with the Sonnet is that you cant connect a monitor aswell. And potentially you can connect both the Sonnet and Lacie.

[Paul Ellington]

Paul, i think i know the Lacie Hub you are talking about...but have you seen the Sonnet Hub (not really a Hub, but Pcie slot)--as far as i know the Lacie Hub-via Thunderbolt is 3gb/s and the version 2 Sonnet with the new e-sata Pcie card is 6gb/s....so if you are unaware of that, you may want to check it out....i found it only a few days ago and now in my kit.

Been beggin' Mr. Muggee for a Unit for my Thunderbolt card but I shall Wait. I thought I expressed interested early on, I mean really early but life evens out naturally.

[Johnny Friday]

The down side for me with the Sonnet is that you cant connect a monitor aswell. And potentially you can connect both the Sonnet and Lacie.


Not sure what you mean Rick....on the new MBP you have two T-bolt connections....and with the sonnet expansion box you can daisy chain from it....so are you talking about connecting a monitor via t-bolt? I'm not aware of what monitors are t-bolt connections...but none of mine are...so I'll use the BM USB 3.0 box and my SDI monitor connected to that...But what is amazing are all these options we now have for mobile and in-house editing.

[Jay R]

Read my article in Creative Cow, http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-dit-tells-all.

One new workflow I've used lately (2nd unit DIT Pretty Little Liars) was conceived but Conrad Hunziker (creator of R3D Data Manager). Copy all data from cards to your main drive (in my case a Maxx Digital SAS RAID) using R3D Data Manger. Once you exposure correct and grade in Redcine X Pro, the RMD (RED meta data) is stored with the file. Next using R3D DM, copy all files (now with RMD's attached) to your 2 back up drives. All your corrections will now travel with the original files.

As far as Lacie, I would steer clear of any Lacie drives, as they have had a bad rep over the years of failure (I'm a witness). G-Tech too, has had problems in the past 2-3 years, and recently, I've had 4 drives (new) go south. I no longer recommend them to clients. Maxx Digital is now my go to storage solution, and to date, zero failure, and I'm happy.

Von

That was a great article. Thank you very much! I currently have a MBP with 2 LaCie thunderbolt to esata hubs going to 2 Gtech drives. One for back up, one gets sent to post. Would you be able to explain to me more in detail about how your exposure correct and grade in Redcine X? I want to understand exactly what I am trying to accomplish while doing this on set. There is more emphasis on color correction in post so what exactly is the purpose of pre grading on set?

[Mike Halper]

The down side for me with the Sonnet is that you cant connect a monitor aswell. And potentially you can connect both the Sonnet and Lacie.

The Sonnet expansion box has 2 TB ports so you can daisy-chain. If you connect your monitor to the second TB port it won't work. Do the TB devices pass-through the Mini Display Port protocol from the Macs?

[Rick Allen]

Sorry guys was thinking you meant the T-bolt to express card adapter :nonod: Which only has one T-bolt. I got the LaCie T-bolt to esata hub today and it, for the time being works great. I have the LaCie connected to two OWC raid5 Qx2's and then displayport to screen. Speed has been much better than what I was getting from my firmtek 34 expresscard. I wish it didnt need a power adapter but thats fine everything else needs power.

[Nick Pasquariello]

That was a great article. Thank you very much! I currently have a MBP with 2 LaCie thunderbolt to esata hubs going to 2 Gtech drives. One for back up, one gets sent to post. Would you be able to explain to me more in detail about how your exposure correct and grade in Redcine X? I want to understand exactly what I am trying to accomplish while doing this on set. There is more emphasis on color correction in post so what exactly is the purpose of pre grading on set?

The short, accurate answer is that what you're going for is subjective. Different producers/directors/agencies/post-houses will want different things. You should be in discussion with all of them to know what they expect in terms of their footage, and what they want to see on set and beyond.

If footage is shot correctly, it is, by it's nature, flat and a little washed out. To a color grader, it looks like it has amazing potential. To some producers and many members of agencies, it looks horrible. So on set, your role is to show the potential of the footage. To be able to call them over and say "Hey, I got that gray ugly footage to look like this in about 60 seconds, nothing fancy" so that they can sign off on it and know that they have what they need. The quickest way to do this, in Redcine-X Pro, is to make sure everything is RedColor 3 and RedGamma3, adjust your white balence (kelvin and tint), and give it a little bit of a contrast S-curve. Also, some workflows will expect ProRes, DNxHD, H264, or some combination of the above, exported from the R3D Raws by the end of your day. Know the limitations of your gear and temper expectations, especially if you don't have a Red Rocket card.

At least, that's what I do on set. For true grading, you want to swap out the RedGamma 3 for RedLogFilm prior to sending it to your color grading software of choice.

Some post houses will want the footage without any look applied, but that seems rarer these days. The beauty of Red is that anything you do in RedCine-X is metadata and can be EASILY removed.

Concurrent with this, you need to make sure that everything is accurately transferred to hard drives. Just dragging and dropping files is not good-enough. You need to use some sort of checksum to verify the data transferred correctly, without corrupted files or skipped bits. R3D Data Manager is the standard if you're just using Red media (it has a few additional tools that are built specifically for Red media), but it's good to have a backup like Shotput Pro (software that will run checksums on anything) as well. It's way, way better to sink $75 or $150 into checksum software, then to have a producer come back to you after the shoot and ask why a media file isn't working. The former is cash made back quickly when you don't have the latter preventing you from getting future work >_>

[Jay R]

The short, accurate answer is that what you're going for is subjective. Different producers/directors/agencies/post-houses will want different things. You should be in discussion with all of them to know what they expect in terms of their footage, and what they want to see on set and beyond.

If footage is shot correctly, it is, by it's nature, flat and a little washed out. To a color grader, it looks like it has amazing potential. To some producers and many members of agencies, it looks horrible. So on set, your role is to show the potential of the footage. To be able to call them over and say "Hey, I got that gray ugly footage to look like this in about 60 seconds, nothing fancy" so that they can sign off on it and know that they have what they need. The quickest way to do this, in Redcine-X Pro, is to make sure everything is RedColor 3 and RedGamma3, adjust your white balence (kelvin and tint), and give it a little bit of a contrast S-curve. Also, some workflows will expect ProRes, DNxHD, H264, or some combination of the above, exported from the R3D Raws by the end of your day. Know the limitations of your gear and temper expectations, especially if you don't have a Red Rocket card.

At least, that's what I do on set. For true grading, you want to swap out the RedGamma 3 for RedLogFilm prior to sending it to your color grading software of choice.

Some post houses will want the footage without any look applied, but that seems rarer these days. The beauty of Red is that anything you do in RedCine-X is metadata and can be EASILY removed.

Concurrent with this, you need to make sure that everything is accurately transferred to hard drives. Just dragging and dropping files is not good-enough. You need to use some sort of checksum to verify the data transferred correctly, without corrupted files or skipped bits. R3D Data Manager is the standard if you're just using Red media (it has a few additional tools that are built specifically for Red media), but it's good to have a backup like Shotput Pro (software that will run checksums on anything) as well. It's way, way better to sink $75 or $150 into checksum software, then to have a producer come back to you after the shoot and ask why a media file isn't working. The former is cash made back quickly when you don't have the latter preventing you from getting future work >_>

Thanks for the informative response. I feel like I have a better understanding to tackle larger projects. If I wanted to use HD Link with LUTs applied to give the DP an onset preview and we were working with RED, would you just create the LUTs with DaVinci or something and then recreate the "look" with redcine x and then transcode?

[Marc Wielage]

Read my article in Creative Cow, http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-dit-tells-all.

Terrific piece! Good job, Von.

[Nick Shaw]

Paul, i think i know the Lacie Hub you are talking about...but have you seen the Sonnet Hub (not really a Hub, but Pcie slot)--as far as i know the Lacie Hub-via Thunderbolt is 3gb/s and the version 2 Sonnet with the new e-sata Pcie card is 6gb/s…

The LaCie eSATA hub is 6Gb/s, although I have not yet actually tested mine with a 6G eSATA device.

[Mike Prevette]

Ugh Inder the specs on the lacie page it clearly states 3Gb/s http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10574