frustrating meeting with Post houses

[Steve Sherrick]

However in After Effects: Adobe's 32bit linear light compositing works great in theory but is awful in practice. It's very slow and when you RAM preview, they store the full 32-bit values in RAM... so you can only view a few seconds. Also, it has a terrible color management mode which tries and fails to do the color management in realtime, meaning you can't get realtime playback even on a fast 8-core Mac Pro with tons of RAM.

So we work 90% of the time in 16bit mode, not linear.

I found this one out the hard way. :-)

[Michael Dalton]

Sorry life is frustrating in Toronto Bob, having worked at some VFX house I'm surprised that it's gone that way. However the bright side is that we don't need post houses for much longer. The future is soon to be online 4k edits with digital deliveries. Tape was the big thing us back. My distribute told me this week they are going tapeless, and I have been doing that partly with networks for a while. With the new BMD hyper deck (for those whole feel the need for a deck like machine) and hard drive delivery, the future is ours.

[Evin Grant]

The Ironic thing is every Alexa show I've worked on still does a transcode to a 709 corrected editing proxy and then goes back to the Prores 444 Log-c for the finish. I just finished an Epic pilot with Encore and they really have it down (They do "Justified" too).
With a post house that actually wants it to work, the workflow is as simple if not simpler than the Alexa and the image quality and "cinematic" feel is better. For my own 1080 projects i've been spitting out a prores LT editing proxy and a redlog/RC3 Prores 444 file final grading at the same time.

[Shane Betts]

With a post house that actually wants it to work, the workflow is as simple if not simpler than the Alexa and the image quality and "cinematic" feel is better.

Word.

[Ryan De Franco]

Mike Most, for all of us less experienced would-be colorists, what transcode settings do you recommend to ensure correct and appropriate log grading?

A great director/DP I know does all his edits in-house, his own editors, techs and workstations, his own hand deciding the color, clients are happy with no heavy post overhead, he makes more $ and has complete creative control... when I mentioned this to him he just sort of wondered "I never understood why people do it any other way."

[Justin Johnson]

Bob,

We have worked on 3 or 4 films now with Alexa footage.. it does look beautiful.. However, in regards to pulling keys, we routinely ask for the raw files and convert them ourselves to 1080p to avoid edge issues. Productions usually choose to de-bayer to larger resolutions because in screenings it looks sharper. Any green screens or blue screens will suffer from aliasing and sharpening effects on edges. Do some comparison tests if you have a chance.

For anyone wondering.. the reason for these issues derives from the fact that most bayer pattern sensors resolve to an "actual resolution" smaller than the stated resolution of the sensor.

I have not yet noticed these sharpening and aliasing issues with RED footage yet.. I assume its because the de-bayer algorithms are more advanced? ...

[jacob.schwarz]

Ah, you want a view LUT..... Working on that for you.

AE Linear light is a bit funky for sure :-)

Graeme

Greeme, if you could get us a view LUT for RedLogFilm that would be awesome!

[Rob Ruffo]

Well at least they said R1 is ok......

Production company i work with forbids the epic/scarlet/R1. Alexa, F35, 35mm or F3(444) only.

They dont even want F65... so weird.

The Old Fart Patrol is coming your way, and they are on horseback!

[Rob Ruffo]

Sorry life is frustrating in Toronto Bob, having worked at some VFX house I'm surprised that it's gone that way. However the bright side is that we don't need post houses for much longer. The future is soon to be online 4k edits with digital deliveries. Tape was the big thing us back. My distribute told me this week they are going tapeless, and I have been doing that partly with networks for a while. With the new BMD hyper deck (for those whole feel the need for a deck like machine) and hard drive delivery, the future is ours.

YIKES!!! NO!!! I would DIE having to do all my VFX myself. I would never sleep again. I am doing that now (long story) and it is a HORRIBLE experience. Give me a room full of geniuses any day (Like Rodeo FX here in Montreal). They are full time pros, not DPs like me trying to piece together something in my spare time. VFX is WAY more than online.

[Adam Palmer]

I just read an article in Empire magazine by Keanu Reeves discussing his new documentary Side by Side. He said that film was dying out but the Alexa camera is the best cinema camera out there