Best settings for stock footage from raw footage

[J.P. Scott]

Hey Guys, I posted this in the "Red Alert" thread and thought that this would be a better fit. Below is the original post and the replies. Please help if you can :) Thanks!

Hey All:

So I am going to be selling a lot of red footage from a project of mine on a stock footage site. I am thinking prores 422 (HQ) should be fine and I was thinking (half high) for the debayer. The original footage was shot in 4k 16:9 and I am scaling it down to 1920x1080.

I am not going to do any color correction but I was thinking of possible altering some of the settings like the color space or LUT (which I know very little about). Currently I think I am just exporting what the camera originally shot with redspace for both LUT and color space. I noticed that when I exported a clip with redspace (without changing any settings) that it looked washed out and a little on the brighter side. I also noticed that the darker area were quite a bit brighter and pretty noisy and I could see faint vertical lines (maybe debayer lines?).

Again I just want to supply the company with good stock footage that has the ability to be color corrected to some degree. I also want it to be as visually appealing and not as washed out as it currently is. I don't have a color calibrated monitor and probably shouldn't get into anything too complicated since I have little experience and knowledge with the intricacies of RED and the like.

Thanks!

JP

If you are going to sell or supply stock footage, you want it to be the best looking it can be...that of course means coloring and editing....no way around it...otherwise bad looking footage--washed out and desaturated---would you buy it? Part of the job of supplying stock footage---if you plan to do this for a living, your reputation is also at stake. I may shoot 1 hour of footage and have 6 hours of post...that's about normal for me 1:6 to 1:8....for STOCK....

Johnny:

I won't be doing it for a living, I've had some clips on this sight for a few years now and have made about $4,500 over that time. That is with only 250 clips or so and all are HVX200 SD and HD. I didn't do any color correction for those, I was just starting school and knew very little about the technical aspects of post and coloring, I just had a camera and took it to some cool places.

With this new batch (I haven't added to my old stock for 3+ years now) I will be adding about 300-400 new clips all shot on RED @4k (I will scale down to 1080 for stock). I agree and understand that I would want all my clips to look as best as they can but I don't know much about coloring/grading and I only have my laptop screen for reference. I also want to make sure that the footage I supply is re-gradable by the purchaser and that I not change something in post that hinders that to any excessive degree. Is 422 (hq) with a half high debayer good enough for the purchaser to make decent color corrections of their own?

I know there is no easy way to make footage look great or even good. But there must be some "easier" tweaks that I can do to make the footage look better (ie. more saturation, less noise, less washed out etc.). I've seen some stuff posted here that looked great and it said that no color correction was done on it just different setting (ie. gamma or redspace or something else).

Do you have experience with selling/supplying stock footage? Any suggestion for where i can start on CCing my own stuff?

Thanks,

JP

Start in REDCINE-X. Make them look good to your tastes on your monitor. Try not to clip blacks or whites by watching the scopes/waveform. Experiment as needed. You'll never know what look people will be going for with stock footage so there really isn't a wrong way to do it as long as it still contains all the information. Try to stay away from really crazy looks but you should certainly color correct the footage. The better it looks, the more likely people will buy it, this is how you'll make some money. Some stock libraries accept R3D files as well.

Getty library submission info:
http://contributors.gettyimages.com/...article_id=688

If you're really lost and want someone else to correct them, many on REDuser, myself included would complete the grades with calibrated monitors and software for a reasonable fee.

Thanks. I realize now that redcine x is deffinitly the way to go. I was using the old red alert in the beginning because it was quicker and easier but has a lot less control.

I was doing just that "making them look good on my monitor" and messing around with settings. I'm afraid that I don't know how to tell if I'm "clipping" I know what it means but not where to check for it. Do I basically make sure that all of the fuzzy lines in the scopes never go past the end of the scope, essentially clipping the information?

I supply to thought equity motion which has been pretty good. I don't have a lot of clips (250 maybe) so I only sell 1-5 a quarter right now. I don't know if I'd try to switch to getty but they seem to have pretty identical price points too. Anyone know what getty offers suppliers in terms of a split (ie. 50/50, 15/85. 35/65 etc.) I know that adding these red clips (300-400 of em) will help me out sales wise. They are well lit and have a lot of production value (ie. private jets, resort pools, dingy motel, 20 story city highrise, bar etc)

JP

PS: I will be moving this thread (aka. starting a new one in the redcine x thread, which is where I should have put it in the first place.
PPS: I would also be interested to see if anyone in or near Pasadena, CA would be interested in helping me with some of this footage? Maybe I could pay to be taught a bit or have my clips graded or both.

[Frederick von Sulle]

Try www.iris32.com. You can post directly R3D files. They have developed FLEXFORMAT a way to prepare the final result on the fly. You just grade your footage in REDCINE and upload the R3D file. IRIS32 then delivers what ever standard, resolution, codec or compression the customers wants.

[Thomas Pohl]

If you shot on RED you should also give the customer the great possibilities of the R3D files. So if you license your footage via plattforms that distribute RED RAW files the question about pregrading becomes less important.

Cheers
Thomas.

[David Rasberry]

Try www.iris32.com. You can post directly R3D files. They have developed FLEXFORMAT a way to prepare the final result on the fly. You just grade your footage in REDCINE and upload the R3D file. IRIS32 then delivers what ever standard, resolution, codec or compression the customers wants.

Looked at your site. IRIS32 looks very promising.

[Frederick von Sulle]

If you shot on RED you should also give the customer the great possibilities of the R3D files. So if you license your footage via plattforms that distribute RED RAW files the question about pregrading becomes less important.

Cheers
Thomas.

If you look at our clip purchase options you can see that we offer all options and also the option to purchase the RAW R3D file

[Johnny Friday]

If you shot on RED you should also give the customer the great possibilities of the R3D files. So if you license your footage via plattforms that distribute RED RAW files the question about pregrading becomes less important.

Cheers
Thomas.

Thomas,
i get what you are saying, but have to disagree with you. I'd say the more you put into the look and making the footage the best grade possible, the more you get people interested and in the end buying. I've seen this time and time again with footage i've sold up against old footage i did not grade as well as footage i've seen from others where they have virtually the same shot, but mine was chosen time again. I have to say it also builds upon ones reputation as well......and that's just as important when i have a producer that will continually call me for footage because they know the quality of the end product.....yes we here on RedUser know all about the possibilities of RAW...but you would be very surprised or not of all the production houses or producers that really don't get it yet and in many cases in the doc world....no time for it. They want what they see and they want it now....and little in budget to go coloring RAW files.

[Thomas Pohl]

No doubt John - you'll never get a second chance to have a first impression. So it's totaly right what you're saying. That's the reason why we take so much time too to grade our RED Footage. I just meant it becomes LESS important if you offer the RAW data because the pros know that the preview clip is just one interpretation of the footage.

Cheers
Thomas.

[Frederick von Sulle]

No doubt John - you'll never get a second chance to have a first impression. So it's totaly right what you're saying. That's the reason why we take so much time too to grade our RED Footage. I just meant it becomes LESS important if you offer the RAW data because the pros know that the preview clip is just one interpretation of the footage.

Cheers
Thomas.

Thomas, I believe both concepts are important. The semiprofessional market is not able to deal with RAW files. The professionals certainly prefer a RAW file. I agree with you that grading is what makes the difference. I further believe that footage should always be graded by the author and the first impression should be just "wow".