Case Study 1 - Shoot 2K Mode, Quick Turnaround

[Steve Sherrick]

As many of you know, I'll be attempting to put together a RED workflow guide for projects that are not finishing on film, i.e. HD and SD deliverables. One of the ways I'm putting this together is through case studies. Here is my first. I had to shoot a project this past weekend with a very minimal rig. It consisted of.

Camera
4 lenses (11-16, 17-35, 50mm 1.4, and 105mm 2.5)
A small microphone
Available light
Battery belt pack
(5) 8GB CF cards
Hyperdrive
.6 and .9 ND screw-in filters (pola available if needed)

I decided to shoot most of it in 2K, 16:9, RC36 23.98. I did a few shots in 3K and 4K, but the bulk of it is 2K. I used Rec709 mostly, occasionally switching over to RAW view. Did my best to keep exposure within range, with some success and some failure.

Turnaround time is quick. Need to have this cut and color graded in 2 days and that includes any pre-processing, transcoding, etc. Want to maintain very high quality. Final deliverable will be Blu-Ray and SD DVD.

Total amount of footage - 1.5 hours

Editing Style/Needs: There will be some speed changes, overlapping dissolves, some looks applied. Text will be used throughout. And some graphics may be used as well.

Challenges

Due to shooting in 2K mode, I'll need to squeeze out the most quality I can. This would lead me to believe that I'd want to debayer the 2K footage at Full to maintain the best 2K image I can. The 3K and 4K footage would be transcoded to 2K at half/high to save time.

In order to maintain flexibility during the edit, it seems to make sense to generate the files in a format that will be considered final. Don't think there will be time for a comprehensive conform process.

This will have to be done on FW800 drives. RAID is not available for this particular project.


Given these parameters, how would you approach this project? Keep in mind, the 2K limitation.

Thanks for the contributions!

[mikeburton]

- First, I would not be transcoding/editing in 2K. Totally unnecessary since it is an HD/SD Deliverable.

- Create One Light Looks via REDALERT (as many as needed per scene/shot). Transcode all data through RR/RC/RL/L&T or R3D Data Manager (NEW) whatever your fancy to 1080p or 720p in ProResHQ, half debayer setting for the 4K, Full Debayer setting for 2K.

- Ask yourself, do I need to deliver 1080p? If not, go 720p and save yourself the time in transcoding. The images will look great and playback on most computers without issues (average home specs, not editors or post guys bazooka machines).

- Edit in HD, Title/effects in HD, Send to Color, CC, Back to FCP and
downconvert once picture locked to SD format, create copies, ie, DVD, Web, Tape etc.

[Hans-Georg Daun]

Since you are apparently experimenting with Clipfinder already, here are my suggestions:

- load your clips into clipfinder
- do a quick first pass looking at all clips, delete the ones you will definitely not need from the Clipfinder document (this will NOT delete the clips themselves).
- save the Clipfinder document
- do a second pass where you open each clip in REDAlert (CMD-R). Perform basic corrections (one light) in REDAlert.
- render to ProRes HQ at "2K+ (high)" debayer resolution. This will automatically debayer your 4K clips at 1/2 res. and your 3K and 2K clips at full res. With these settings, my 2 x dual core 3GHz Mac Pro renders to 1080p at 1.8-2.0 frames/sec.
- import rendered clips into FCP, edit, finish.

Tip: if you want to render a subset of your clips, do not use "render selected clips only". Instead, open a second Clipfinder document, drag the desired clips over and render from there.

EDIT: A few more things came to mind to help with this very ambitious time line
- set In/Out points in REDAlert where you can so as to avoid rendering material you know you will not use (remember to check "use RSX In/Out points" when you render)
- If you set up a large batch render job you need to to check on it regularly. Render failures have been reported both with Clipfinder and REDRushes.


Hope this helps
Hans