Red - Scratch - Avid - Flame

[simonpeterarnold]

Hi guys,

I have so far managed 3 red post projects which we have conformed in Baselight/Flame. 2 were cut on FCP and managed them ok using the crimson workflow to DPX in redcine and conform and grade in Baselight finish or Flame. 1 was cut in Avid after some head scratching manged to work through the Crimson route again after converting EDL in FCP to XML.

I have another job pending in which they want to cut on Avid and post and grade in Flame/Baselight. The offline house are very nervous to use files to edit as they have been burned with the last 2 Red jobs ( I think down to the Post house being not up to speed) so they want to transfer to tape and cut as you would for telecine material. They have been advised to choose a Scratch workflow to get them to tape. We do not have scratch as we have chosen Baselight as our main DI route.

My concern is that when we conform we want full control over the debayered material so we can get the best starting point for the grade. To do this we need to go back to the R3D files and I want to use Crimson to produce our pull list. If the EDL is cut from tape and not the files how do we match back to original R3D files as none of the metadata is going to be preserved I know timecode will match the originals but how does this get round duplicate timecodes if you do not have original reel metadata. Also how will my EDL work for the conform without matching reel id's. Are we tied to going back to Scratch to conform and produce DPX from the EDL or am I worrying about nothing.

[Lucas Wilson]

Hi,

One of the options for tape output in SCRATCH is to force source timecode to tape. So, the workflow would be:

1) Load all clips into SCRATCH
2) Sort by Source Timecode on the Construct
3) Regen: SourceTC on Output
4) Output

This will give you a tape with ascending source timecode on tape that matches the original sourceTC of the R3D files.

Another option is to perform a simple EDL Trace, which is exactly the operation you are performing. If you have the original EDL from the SCRATCH construct, and the edited EDL, then there are several programs available that you can use to do a straightforward trace.

So - even if the SCRATCH tape has new, continuous timecode, you can still get back to what you need.

Best,

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

[simonpeterarnold]

Thanks Luki. What programs are availale to trace back the EDL to source files as I am not aware of them currently. Is it an easy process, and will it work with spanned R3D files, also if TOD code is used what happens if I get two clips with matching code? which is more than probable over a few days shooting.

[Lucas Wilson]

Thanks Luki. What programs are availale to trace back the EDL to source files as I am not aware of them currently. Is it an easy process, and will it work with spanned R3D files, also if TOD code is used what happens if I get two clips with matching code? which is more than probable over a few days shooting.

The first place I would look is to any facilities that you know which have a linear bay. Pretty much any Sony or CMX or GVG machine have trace enginers. This was an extremely common practice in linear days - tracing new mixdown submasters back to original sourceTC.

If you can't find a linear bay, then probably the best one is Edit Lister / Edit Tracker

http://www.mcqpro.com/html/EListerTracker.html

If you really want to go hardcore, you can also do it pretty easily with some Excel scripts. Years ago, I hacked some trace scripts that weren't pretty, but they worked. They basically converted timecode to framecounts, matched framecounts, and converted back to timecode. It was ugly, but worked.

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

[Ryan Patch]

That's baller.