Another Adobe Workflow Video (short and sweet)

[Dustin Solomon]

This is a very high level explanation of my workflow on a recent feature film. It covers the process from after I import the R3D footage into Premiere until I export it out for DCP. This project was approved by Dolby and packaged digital cinema, so this works. :)

Please check out the trailer for the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTSzNPUOGWo

[Sascha Rossier]

great insight, Dustin. And great trailer as well ... Hope to see this movie over here in switzerland too someday;-)
Can you please share a quick rundown about the workflow for your audio post on this feature. Cause i pretty much use the same workflow as you did but sometimes stumble over the audio post. Especially, when theres a reedit of a scene, that the audio was pretty finished already ... Same thing with visual effects, that are already done and then the edit changes again just a little bit ... How do you go back and forth and manage to keep all your audio, vfx and cc in sync with the new edit ?

[Tom Daigon]

I know there are many ways to have an effective workflow. I prefer to do all CC in the PrP timeline. Given the simple tweeks you demonstrated, Im surprised you dont just use the Red Source settinga you showed early in the tutorial. I use Colorista 2 on a clip by clip level since the kind of projects I work on dont really ever achieve "lock". Sending a long form piece to AE would seem to tempt Murphy's Law to kick in. But of course, whatever works.... :D

Now if SpeedGrade ever supports the ability to dynamically link to a clip on the PrP time line, I would definitely go that route.

[paulherrin]

Dustin, were you using any color management? What kind of monitoring did you use? Did you grade for Rec 709 or P3 space? Those would be high level workflow details...

I appreciate your effort on sharing this, and the story seems interesting so I'm excited to see the film come about. Alchemy is very interesting. Maybe I'm just not in the target audience, but it seems like we're mostly all pretty well aware by now of the adobe/red workflow benefits and basic footage handling in premiere/ae. Perhaps you were being sarcastic, but I'd classify this information as elementary before I'd say it was 'high level' - not to diminish your work, just to be realistic about what you're sharing... Sorry if you were joking and I just didn't get it, but I would legitimately like to know more about your project and workflow, and I was just a little disappointed... sorry.

And surely you had some problems somewhere along the way... any pitfalls?

[Nick Mahar]

Awesome video! definitely helped a lot and the footage looks great!

[Todd Kopriva]

Paul, I interpreted "high-level" the way that I think Dustin intended it: an overview.

This movie was an excellent overview, Dustin. Thanks for posting.

[paulherrin]

I see. Didn't mean to take away from the video, it is a good overview. Thanks for the effort Dustin, great work :)

[paulherrin]

Todd, maybe you can answer a question of mine... I've seen it done but I'm having trouble finding the workflow example I saw and I can't recreate it.

How in the world can I send an edit to After Effects where I have all the clips individually in a composition linked to the individual clips in Premiere while preserving realtime changes to the edit in Premiere? I'm only able to get a 'compressed' composition in premiere with no cuts, or a compressed composition in ae, or no linking of changes between the two. I want to work in After Effects just like I've done a regular Premiere Project import, but get the flexibility of inheriting updates/changes to the edit anywhere down the line. Am I crazy, why can't I figure this out? please help... :)

So what's the best way to work in AE before picture lock?

[Dustin Solomon]

Sascha
Revisions can kill a project, no doubt. Going into this film we knew that we were on a very limited budget and a tight schedule. We wrapped principle photography at the end of October and the producers had already set a premiere date for May 10th. We discussed the importance of locking the picture as much as possible before entering audio and vfx. To this end, we only did the bare minimum needed to get successful screen tests and gather feedback on pacing and story. We ended up showing it to over 100 kids in various screenings and felt that we had taken the edit to a place where we could move forward confidently. So we locked the picture and moved on. Of course as we approach distro, we are going to have to address changes there, but only time will tell.

As far as audio, I linked the audio in premiere and generated OMFs for the audio house. We had a few minor sync issues here and there, but overall it was pretty straight forward.

Tom
The thing that I love most about the industry at this time, is that there are almost limitless ways and programs that you can use to complete your project. They key is finding a method that fits your work style, logic, schedule and budget and dive in. I did do the bulk of color work in the source editor (basic color temp and balance), however, the fact that I do not have any scopes to monitor my levels is why I didn't use the curve editor. I found I was more confident in Color Finesse because I had fast feedback from the scopes. The scopes in Premiere are a bit sluggish with R3D files.

Also, thankfully Murphy and I have a good relationship, so pulling the entire project into AE wasn't an issue. It actually loaded shockingly fast and, once I grouped the edits into scene precomps, it was very easy to navigate.

Paul
Todd is right, I just meant that this was just an overview. In fact, my motivation for this was in the past few years I have worked with 2 DPs and 3 directors that don't seem to understand the workflow. So this video was intended less for editors using premiere and more for film makers who may have doubts/concerns about the workflow.

As far as color management, I am not a professional colorist. We specialize in lower budget films, so we try to keep the hardware to the basics. I did a little research and ended up purchasing a Samsung 60" plasma. It had extended color controls that allowed me to calibrate it fairly well, at least to the point that I knew I was 90% accurate. When I screened in final project at Dolby, the colors were almost spot on, the only thing was the DCP was slightly more saturated than what my monitor was showing. I didn't use any color space on the project and just 16bit AE project and 8bit DPX for final out.

As far as pitfalls, I didn't hit anything show stopping along the way. Did a few things twice as I ironed out what worked best, but that is to be expected.

-
Thanks for the questions and comments, I like seeing other people's perspectives.

[paulherrin]

Awesome. Makes sense :) I guess there are a lot of people, even those familiar with red, that seem to be confused about the overall workflow - so I think this is a nice demonstration of that... that helps us all out when more people start to understand it. I just got confused by the 'high level' thing, my bad. :) I was just disappointed cause I thought we were going to be looking at some phd level stuff... maybe next time ;)

Once I figure out this little pp~ae problem I'm having, maybe I'll try to come up with an 'advanced' tutorial geared towards colorists/vfx artist that need the more technical stuff.