The Unsung Hero

[Mark Toia]

Backing up data is one thing... Good to know that someone responsible is backing up data over many drives...
But I love the Transcode bit... Iove getting the raw files exporting / treanscoding to a perfect color setting I desire. It's the make or break part of grading.. Unless you final grade directly from r3d raw .. Which is my preferred :)

Yes sorry. I'm a control freak.

[gbalaji]

Not to take anything away from DMT/DIT's but, IMHO, the real unsung heros on any job with a Red Camera are the 1st AC's. On prep days they're for figuring out how to configure this crazy camera. They must intimately learn all the quirks of the camera as it goes through all the various builds. They have to feed all departments when the camera offers them connectors no one has seen before in places they can't reach. When the camera has a "Red moment" everyone looks to the camera assistant as if they built the thing or wrote the firmware. When they figure out how to make all this work, the Red-god's smile upon them and there are no problems on-the-day no one notices. When the Red-god's are angry and demand a sacrifice it's the camera assistants who are thrown into the volcano.

Well I believe DITs take care of that too not giving any opportunity for 1st Ac to be shame of and one who does that is proper DIT else he just a Data Manager.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Best Ted post ever :)

[Andrew clemson]

Not to take anything away from DMT/DIT's but, IMHO, the real unsung heros on any job with a Red Camera are the 1st AC's. On prep days they're for figuring out how to configure this crazy camera. They must intimately learn all the quirks of the camera as it goes through all the various builds. They have to feed all departments when the camera offers them connectors no one has seen before in places they can't reach. When the camera has a "Red moment" everyone looks to the camera assistant as if they built the thing or wrote the firmware. When they figure out how to make all this work, the Red-god's smile upon them and there are no problems on-the-day no one notices. When the Red-god's are angry and demand a sacrifice it's the camera assistants who are thrown into the volcano.

I'v spent the last few years as a combination of the two. 9 times out of 10 would be in charge of settings, magazine swaps and camera rig/rebuilds. Both in prep and DURING THE SHOOT.

Whilst this Generally means Im either able to make the camera work, or get the files prepped for post. I can rarely do both. Having said that, in the last year or so the local 1st and 2nd ACs have stepped up their game tenfold, so Im managing to settle back into a more post-centric role, which is nice.

Im not sure if anyone in other parts of the world have had similar experiences, but this is what it has been like here from the arrival of the first R1's

I think the cameras as they exist now require less of a "supernanny" than they did at the beginning, so the role of the DIT will evolve to a much more specialised (and respected) position.

thanks again Ted.

[Steve Freebairn]

We like you too Ted.

[PatC]

Go Ted!

[Jason Wietholter]

Thank you, Ted!!!

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Well, since Ted opened the door.

The DIT position, manifested in myriad ways in the real world, is at best a moving target - at worst, completely misunderstood. I do quite a bit of commercial spot work and the range of expectations for a DIT is all over the map. I have also discovered that most UPMs simply want to hire the cheapest person they can find who seems like they might be able to do the job. Because those doing the hiring are often only vaguely knowledgeable about the tasks involved they tend to look at day rates and kit rental costs since they do understand that.
A perfect example is the penny pinching producer who buys the cheapest hard drives they can find, which have only USB2 ports, and then ends up spending several times as much on overtime as they "saved" on the drives when backing up data takes until 3am because the bus is so slow. This focus on cost also makes it difficult for DITs who know what they're doing, and bring the right gear to do it efficiently, to get a fair rate.

In any case, I think I have an idea that would really move things in the right direction.

The DIT position should be a part of post, not production.

Whatever money would have gone into the production budget is simply reallocated to post. As soon as the mag comes off the camera its "in post", sort of like a can of exposed film taped up and handed to the driver. Equipping and training the DIT is handled by the post vendor, which makes sense in several ways:

1) The post house can prep the DIT van/cart/whatever ensuring that the field unit is up to the task specified. Who's better suited to managing this part of the infrastructure - the facility engineer at a post house or the staff of a camera rental house? Who is going to make sure they have a way to copy data to the SAN at a decent speed, that the field unit can join the facility network easily, storage format compatibility, automated asset tracking protocols, etc.

2) While being able to deal with "set-iquette" and other challenges of a working set are crucial to being a great DIT, the core competencies are mostly data/image handling tasks. I've worked with plenty of very tech savvy ACs but, no offense, some are gifted in other areas (some focus pullers are half wizard) but hardly up to the task of training DITs. The post vendor is fully aware of what tasks need to be done to fulfill their contract and can maximize their margin by having their "field agent" do as many of the tasks on/near set as possible. This approach also keeps the post vendor and the DIT from competing for dailies work/LTO archiving/etc since they are the same entity. It also means that the post super can choose which things to do on/near set and what to do back at the facility based on efficiency.

3) The post facility has "skin in the game" in terms of how the data is managed, organized and archived. Production just wants to hand off drives and let post figure it out. If post is able to organize everything right from the beginning then file formats, folder naming conventions, transcode settings, etc are all done right the first time. Some might argue it is no longer possible to make money in the post business - that may be true, but whatever chance you have is sure better if you aren't paying overtime to fix things the DIT either screwed up or did in a way that doesn't suit your pipeline. It also makes it much easier to implement a CMS (color management system) that can be accessed anywhere in the pipeline using consistent tools/values.

4) Potentially this can alleviate some of the jurisdictional issues swirling around the DIT position and its derivatives. Post has just added a field office (van/cart/etc) and a field agent (DIT, DAM, etc) to their service offerings to save production the time and hassle of transporting all media to another location. Video assist can still be 695, loading and removing mags from the camera can still be done by a 600 2nd, etc.

Cheers - #19

[Rocco Schult]

Not to take anything away from DMT/DIT's but, IMHO, the real unsung heros on any job with a Red Camera are the 1st AC's. On prep days they're for figuring out how to configure this crazy camera. They must intimately learn all the quirks of the camera as it goes through all the various builds. They have to feed all departments when the camera offers them connectors no one has seen before in places they can't reach. When the camera has a "Red moment" everyone looks to the camera assistant as if they built the thing or wrote the firmware. When they figure out how to make all this work, the Red-god's smile upon them and there are no problems on-the-day no one notices. When the Red-god's are angry and demand a sacrifice it's the camera assistants who are thrown into the volcano.

This is the point.

DIT/DFT/workflow (DMT, DUPS, DING, DONG, you name it)

[Cory Schulthies]

Great post Ted. Thanks for your kind words. Im hopeful that more and more Producers will realize the essential role that DITs/Data managers play. Unfortunately too many productions learn too late how important it is to have a qualified DIT/Data manager.