DATA CENTRIC VISION - part 1

[Mark L. Pederson]

Warning:
This may be a long thread. If you are not familiar with the feature film production process, much of this may not make much scense.

Background:
So you know where I am coming from, my name is Mark L. Pederson, I am an independent film producer, technology and workflow fanatic, consultant, college professor at the School of Visual Arts, dreamer and schemer. Four years ago I co-founded a company called OFFHOLLYWOOD DIGITAL. More of the backstory can be found here:

http://abelcine.com/articles/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=37

My company has RED ONE #6 & #7, and those are the very first two cameras outside of the RED TEAM, so, I am a believer from day one. I do not work for RED. I had the priveledge of being asked to help out in the NAB booth last year because ... well, folks say I talk alot. And very "enthusiastically". I was asked back to help in the IBC booth and hopefully, I will be asked to help in the NAB 2007 booth as well (hint hint). I am sure I have met a number of REDUSERS at those shows and I hope to meet more of you.

MY DATA CENTRIC VISION
I was going to type this up and send it to the RED TEAM, but them I thought - they are pretty damn busy - why not "beta test" the concept in a thread on REDUSER and see what folks think first.

Here's the basic concept:

DATA CENTRIC FROM PRE-PRODUCTION TO DELIVERY

When RED annouced REDCINE I got all crazy and excited - "hey, a super smart guy like Graeme is going to make us a work-flow app we can use with the camera" - so, I started brainstorming features I wanted to see in the app. Around the same time, we put a SCRATCH system in our facility, and it has taken much of our pain away and got us hooked on using DATA effectively in a pipeline.

REDCINE is a tool for going between ACQUISITION (the RED ONE camera)and POST PRODUCTION (whatever NLE or VFX software or DI system) - it will also allow you to create offline versions for editing and then allow you to "match back" or PULL just the media you want from your original REDCODE RAW media (your camera "negative" if you will)

This is awesome. And some bells and whistles for us post guys will surely make this a killer tool.

Now, let's take this all a step further.

To keep this thread short let's focus on FEATURE FILM WORKFLOW and I will SKIP over PRE PRODUCTION for the moment - but there is some INDUSTRY STANDARD DATA here created in the SCRIPT BREAKDOWN PROCESS - used in the PRODUCTION SCHEDULE, and used by the SCRIPT SUPERVISOR to gather DATA for the EDITOR.

The motion picture industry has done an amazing job over the years of making PRODUCTION and POST PRODUCTION very, very seperate processes. I can think of a thousand examples - "we'll fix it in post", etc.

Enter Final Cut Pro. Desktop tools. Now, all the filmmakers, DPs and even producers say - I can do some of this myself. So the line starts to blurr. Now the DPs want to own DI software. I don't blame 'em - powerful DI tools can do amazing things. Things in POST are changing.

HOWEVER, what is changing on the set? Not a whole lot.

Think for a moment about how DATA is collected on a movie set during the production process:

Paperwork. Bad. Digital data: Good.

Now, imagine the camera assistant has little device - let's call it REDSLATE - it's about the same size as a Blackberry and it uses BLUETOOTH to the RED ONE (or REDTOOTH).

The Camera Assistant asks the SCRIPT SUPERVISOR what scene is up - the script supervisor looks down at her REDSCRIPTY - this is a TABLET touchscreen, with virtual keyboard interface transparently superimposed over ... the SCRIPT

the Script Superviser touches the SCENE NUMBER - which transmits to the AC's REDSLATE and he adds whatever additional data the DP asks for - this transmits to the CAMERA - AND to REDSCRIPTY.

No stopwatch for this Script Supervisor - when you cut, the camera TRANSMITS the END TIME CODE to REDSCRIPTY -

See where I am going with this ...

Unfortunately, work calls so I will see you in PART 2 -

Love to know thoughts -

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I love where you are going with this. I am not sure you want more than one device feeding scene numbers, take numbers and the like into the metadata however. It should be easy enough for the AC to simply ask the scripty or read the slate (if they aren't filling it out themselves anyway) to get the info to punch in. It would also be nice to be able to identify a take that was just finished as a circle take using the "PDA" type device you suggest. The whole tablet with layover set-up for the scripty seems like overkill unless you want them to enter a lot more than page/scene numbering.

Perhaps the answer is a RedSlate device with bluetooth that provides an industry standard style of logging information during production. The nice thing is that it doesn't need to be waved in front of talent at the beginning of the roll - just enter the info and hit some button on the RedSlate indicating the info is "ready" or "reset" and the next time the camera is triggered it sends it over, if there has been no update then the camera just uses the next take number in sequence until told otherwise. With a hard disk recording topology and a buffer :) then the operator can just blip the camera on and off when the director wants to roll through to the next take without fear the talent will start too quickly. Anyway, I digress.

Keep going with this, once a new set of best practices that takes advantage of the end to end data model is established it should yield serious cost savings - that will get RedOnes onto feature sets fast.

[Gbabymogul]

It's an interesting idea, for sure... I believe that Fincher used something akin to that (or the basic gist anyway) on his most recent film. There was an article on it on the digital content producer website. Here's an excerpt on the slate idea they employed :


“David asked for the ability to automatically slate footage,” Mavromates says. “We did not have a clapper on the set. So what they added was a capability for the data-capture person who throws the hard drives into record mode to enter basic information for a scene and whatever is recorded. The first frame is a framing chart and next five frames are a slate, automatically inserted, and then it goes to what he filmed. And the feature also means the data-capture person does not have to do anything from the second take onward. The last frame of the take provides a window to record other information, like lens height, lens length, aperture, and other conditions — those get burned into the very last frame of the take. That's important for tracking purposes in editorial, and it functions the same way a traditional clapper would. It's just that our slate is digital, not physical.”

With your idea, I like the idea of a blackberry/minicomputer with wireless access to the cam. I'd prefer to have the 1st AC enter the info (leaving aside the script supervisor, or at least having a blackberry for monitoring). And depending on the director (stylistic choices); they may have a blackberry to enter quick impressions after the take or tag specific ones for dailies/preview.

With the enthusiasm for a tapeless wokflow, roles are going to have to be modified, and new ways of manipulating data will have to catch up to the front runners or innovators. One thing you should keep in mind in this data centric paradigm, is that it's going to have to bridge the divide at first, so having hard copy steps along the way production->post may not be a bad idea. For example, using LUT stills, archiving to disk (LTO's)during the production , maybe a few frames of tagged scenes and on the set director notes printed out in a binder for review etc...

Coming from a film background; I find the new possibilities you're mentioning exciting. Especially, as an artist it feels liberating in a way. It's all about facilitating creativity.

Look forward to Part 2...

:) :) :)

[Lucas Wilson]

Mark,

Hey man... good stuff. Take a read of the two SMPTE docs that I pointed out. That, along with the SMPTE metadata dictionary, provides all the possible metadata fields you would ever need for on-set. The trick is devices that record and integrate this.

I'm currently working with a company in LA that has built a metadata recording system that starts on-set, and translates to post. It does pretty much what you describe... and coordinates with the continuity supervisor, script supervisor, and AD. You interested in taking a look?

Lucas

[Mark L. Pederson]

I skipped PRE PRODUCTION in my first post - so ... let's take a moment and jump WAY back to where the DATA begins ...

THE SCRIPT

The screenplay is numbered with SCENE NUMBERS

Then, (typically the Assistant Director) will "breakdown" the script. Many folks do it "old school" with a pen and highlighter - marking up the script and "tagging" ELEMENTS (cast, extras, stunts, etc.) then entering the additional data into scheduling software - the industry standard software is EP SCHEDULING (Movie Magic) -

http://www.entertainmentpartners.com/products_and_services/products/ep_scheduling/learnmore/

Now, there is a MUCH better way to breakdown the script by using an inexpensive industry standard screenwriting application called FINAL DRAFT. After the screenplay is written (or imported) into Final Draft - you can launch the Final Draft Tagger application - which make easy business out of "tagging" the elements - and automantically calculated PAGE LENGTH of each scene. (Final Draft 7 comes with TAGGER)

http://www.finaldraft.com/products/final-draft/tagger.php

Besides being able to print out reports for the various departments (Art Dept., etc.) this allows you to EXPORT a DATA file directly into EP SCHEDULING - which in turn generates endless reports used every day of a film shoot.

So by the time shooting starts - there is a great amount of DATA created from the SCRIPT during pre-production. The SCRIPT SUPERVISOR, in addition to checking "eye lines" and watching for continuity errors, is making notes on a special copy of the script which has "markings" that indicate where each take started and stopped, therefore showing an editor which shots/takes cover which parts of the scene.

NOW .. this is where it gets stupid. All this DATA in now markings, codes and notes written on a script put in a binder and delivered to the editor. This is just WAY TOO ANALOG!!

IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT ...

All of the PRE PRODUCTION DATA and all of the PRODUCTION DATA (created by the script supervisor, and the RED ONE CAMERA) are in one database file that can be IMPORTED into REDCINE and EMBEDDED (or, there could just be a seperate DATA BASE FILE linked by TIMECODE) into your OFFLINE media for editing AND create a FINAL CUT PRO PROJECT FILE or AVID PROJECT FILE which has ALL OF THE MEDIA ORGANIZED IN FOLDERS BY SCENE AND SHOT -

While editing - a PLUG IN allows instant cross referencing of this data INSIDE THE NLE -

damn ... work calls again .... stay tuned for PART 3

[Mark L. Pederson]

Mark,

Hey man... good stuff. Take a read of the two SMPTE docs that I pointed out. That, along with the SMPTE metadata dictionary, provides all the possible metadata fields you would ever need for on-set. The trick is devices that record and integrate this.

I'm currently working with a company in LA that has built a metadata recording system that starts on-set, and translates to post. It does pretty much what you describe... and coordinates with the continuity supervisor, script supervisor, and AD. You interested in taking a look?

Lucas
Lucas -

I just picked up the book ("The File Interchange Handbook")- hook me up with the company (or send me a link) so I can see what they got -

[Trevor Meier]

XML is the ideal format for this sort of interchange...

An XML script format would allow for a machine-readable script that transparently passes all of this metadata along the various stages from pre to post. Different stages and departments could access the metadata they need.

PRE PRODUCTION:

The script is converted into an XML file, which includes all the data necessary for breakdowns.
The schedule is created and becomes part of the XML file (either through a new application, or someone writing a conform tool from Movie Magic).


PRODUCTION:

First AC uses a camera remote (http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2444) to enter scene/take/look metadata. This travels with the shots through RedCine into the DPX headers.
When the camera rolls, the Script Super is wirelessly transmitted the camera metadata, start/stop timecodes, as well as typing in her notes on a laptop. At the end of the day, she conforms to a master production script XML file.
Other metadata is added, either manually via a computer or automatically by conforming to the data coming out of the camera, as production progresses. The Script Super oversees the script.


POST-PRODUCTION:

the Master XML file (with camera, scene, take, look lut, notes metadata etc.) is converted into a Final Cut project file, ready for linking to the media that RedCine spits out.
Since the data is XML, it would be relatively easy to add additional information such as cut list, director's notes, grading info etc. into this master file.

[Obin Olson]

I love this idea, RED TEAM..take note....

[Don Woods]

I love the idea. There is going to be a whole other part of using this camera that some people might not be thinking off. And that is how to handle the data that is coming from the camera and delivering it to the client. Information is going to be key in this process. The more information that is sharred the faster or more eficent the post process will be. I love the idea. But it could be even simpler. Just have a set of RED production tools. We all know that Graeme could code the shiznit out of this. And just run them on our black berrys, Trio's, and other PDA's. How about a plug in that works with final draft. They all take data off the camera via REDTOOTH
and talk with each other. Now take all of this data and use it in your Meta Data tags through REDCINE. Now that would be the way to go. Now Data baseing footage and taking it all the way from pre to post will be very easy. It will always have the same infromation. I know this would save me allot of time. And this is exactly what allot of clients and especily feature films want and have to have.

[Rick Darge]

I love your avatars !

My mom went to the School of Visual Arts way back when.. She used to sneak me into her classes and into the lab when I was only 2 yrs old.. No wonder why I'm so obsessed w/ this stuff

[Mark L. Pederson]

I love your avatars !


thanks - I will try to change it every week or two - keep things lively here on REDUSER -

I am working on PART 3 - and actually, I am building a detailed schematic -

I am slammed under deadlines and getting ready for Sundance so it may not be until next weekend -

[Mike Seymour]

Much of this is already working.
http://www.codexdigital.com/

Partly from the guys at Sohonet.
This is/was an early RED partner as I am sure you know if you were on the booth at NAB.
With its wide and fast bandwidth, Codex can record uncompressed 4K, 2 x channels of 4:4:4 HD (for A & B camera, or 3D-configuration shoots), or even a single HD digital film camera at speeds of up to 60fps
from their web site : "Industry standards-compliant - designed to interface with just about any digital camera system, including RED Digital Cinema System"



Using a palm - data can be entered just as your suggesting and added to the meta stream. This can be done wirelessly. Plus it can output instant low res quicktimes etc - and it of course has docing stations with drives encased for continuous shooting on serious feature film projects.
They had one at NAB last year - but it was way over in a weird hall.

Now this is not for the indie film maker - this is a box for the serious features guy - or post house - but your part one stated that you were thinking about full feature film pipelines.

Mike

[Joe Carney]

Here is a competitor to eps scheduling that claims it's better, more flexible...

http://www.company-move.com/

download free trial if you want. Would appreciate feedback from pros familiar with the process.

Joe C.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Here is a competitor to eps scheduling that claims it's better, more flexible...

http://www.company-move.com/

download free trial if you want. Would appreciate feedback from pros familiar with the process.

Joe C.

Joe - thanks fo this - downloading demo now - going to give it a full test drive - but I can tell you - intergrated call sheet and production report make this one a no-brainer - if you add up how many man hours are spent just plugging in this data on a feature it truly is crazy - this looks VERY promising - I'll let you know what I think after I bang it against the wall -

[Mark L. Pederson]

Much of this is already working.
http://www.codexdigital.com/
Using a palm - data can be entered just as your suggesting and added to the meta stream. This can be done wirelessly. Plus it can output instant low res quicktimes etc - and it of course has docing stations with drives encased for continuous shooting on serious feature film projects.
They had one at NAB last year - but it was way over in a weird hall.

Now this is not for the indie film maker - this is a box for the serious features guy - or post house - but your part one stated that you were thinking about full feature film pipelines.

Mike

Thanks Mike - I have seen codex - I did not know they have wireless datastream - going to look very close at NAB - also going to look close at the KEISOKU GIKEN stuff -

[Mark L. Pederson]

XML is the ideal format for this sort of interchange...

An XML script format would allow for a machine-readable script that transparently passes all of this metadata along the various stages from pre to post. Different stages and departments could access the metadata they need.
[/LIST]

You are correct Trevor - and Final Draft Tagger creates an XML file from the script -HOWEVER - in I have brainnstorming on WEB integration during the workflow and MICROFORMATS http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2006/12/11/microformats-part-0-introduction/http://microformats.org/ seems very interesting - I wish I could clone myself and develop this project full time -

[Joe Carney]

It would be nice if the film/broadcast industries develop something along the lines of the Open Document Format.
Here is a good primer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

[MikeCurtis]

Mark - touche, this is spot on about how it could/should work. PDA may be a bit small/UI cramped to pull all this off, perhaps a laptop might be more appropriate? That opens up other goodies, too, like stills extraction and embedding into the script database, etc...and like any good database, you should have lots of ways of looking at the data - don't think reports so much as views, a la FileMaker...oops, it calls them reports to. But keep these views live, dynamic, switchable, etc. - a script view, a VFX view, etc.

Obviously since lots of folks need to play, it is web client/server based. But, the whole thing could run on one laptop on set with a Wifi transponder...

[MikeCurtis]

PS - Mark -

my avatar thinks your avatar is hot.

I find this disturbing.

At least she has a shirt on now....

: )

-mike

[Joe Carney]

Mike, I write n-tier software for a living. You actually don't want direct access to the database(client/server) for security and development reasons. A fat or thin client to a mid tier interface (IIS, Apache, custom server...) which in turn talks to the necessary databases(s) is the preferred way now days. With VPN or similar security architectures you could use public wifi if needed. It's geting very easy and affordable to set up your own wireless hotspot on a movie set practically anywhere you can get electricity.

They even have wireless hubs that let you share a wireless broadband evdo card. If you got bars, you got a network.

[Lucas Wilson]

They even have wireless hubs that let you share a wireless broadband evdo card. If you got bars, you got a network.

EVDO has changed my life. My laptop and I bow before the Verizon Gods.

Lucas
-----
EVDO Monkey
Los Angeles