DIT Pre-Pro questions

[Jay A. Kelley]

I would be very grateful for some thoughtful info from the DITs on the board.

I'd like to know your different processes in regards to PRE-PRO as a DIT on a medium - large budget shoot ($5mil - $150mil +) TV shows can apply too.

What I am interested in is this:

Once you get the job, who are the first 5 people on the production you contact, and what information are you looking for?

This is #1 of three questions I will be asking.

I would be grateful for the most specific answers you can give.
(There will be goodies for the people that really go above and beyond here!)

Thanks

Jay

[Tom.Wong]

I think the 3 top people to talk to as soon as possible (not necessarily in this order) are DP, Director, Producer, and if possible editor or someone from their post side of things.

The questions I ask (also not necessarily in this order)

1. Know what the camera package is, intended setups, equipment, where you are shooting etc. This will allow me to gauge what I need to pack up with me (usually I bring more than what's required) But I also start planning offloading methods, what's the fastest most efficient way of getting those cards or drives offloaded without hanging up production, while assuring the DP and Director are getting the image they want.

2. Budget of course, the amount I'm being paid to the equipment I bring to the services offered. On set transcoding with one lights are an additional fee. A great deal of the time it's just the media management, helping with camera support and answering a lot of tech questions along with guiding DP's who are new to RED with exposure methods and etc. I tend to ask production for the drives with the fastest connections possible on their budget. (esata at a bare minimum) Or I offer to build drives for them to help them save on cost, and it scales from low to high budget. From your g drive to RAID, or even LTO.

3. Last is basically asking the kind of look they are going for. Helping them develop that with the camera and delivering it to post. This applies more if they need transcodes on set for the editorial or dailies. Applying a lut to the camera or doing immediate one lights you have to know what they want the look to be, and do all the tests you can. Makes you shine that much more when you can give a level of reassurance that they are getting what they want. Combined with seamless offloads it makes for a good time on set.

Always try to do a checkout of the equipment, see what production will swing for you, and see what you need to bring yourself. I usually bring everything as a backup, but try to use as much as production gives me as possible to save the shelf lif of my own equipment. If they offer me the Mac Pro for offloading and one lights, I'm gonna use it. If they offer me a generator, tent and stands, I'm using it.

There's a lot to cover but the job entitles a lot, and you are the bridge from production to post. Lot of people look at it as a media management position, but I like to see it as a quality assurance position :)

[Jay A. Kelley]

Excellent answer Tom.. I'd like to focus on your last sentence... The "Bridge from Production to Post".

Yet you say at the beginning of the post that you speak to editor or someone from post side of things "if possible".

Is this hard to do? May post people complain the DITs do not communicate with them.. Do you find it's the other way around?

Jay

[Wil Klassen]

Tom, thanks for the awesome post! (and Jay thank you for asking it!) I for sure have that in my Red Book!

[Tom.Wong]

I spoke only more on general terms, for very high budgets you'll have more opportunity to talk to all the people you need to. Ideally you'll be part of pre production all the way to the beginning of post, and you'll have the ability to talk to the post supervisor, and editor and see what they need to make things right for them. Workflow constantly changes for the project, so that's just one of those things the team has to figure out to see what suites them the best.

Speaking personally, I haven't work on any projects with budgets beyond several hundred thousand dollars, so someone like Brook and several other veterans on this forum are the people to talk to about that, but generally 75% of the projects I work on, they don't even know who's going to edit it yet. Then you've got editors that have never worked with r3d before, I usually have to talk them through a lot of things. I do my best to try to get as much info as possible, cause personally I think the position gets misinterpreted as simply as the digital loader and nothing else. I'm sure on the much higher budgets it won't be so, still working my way there :)

slowly but surely right?

[Chris Ratledge]

It varies per job.

On my current gig just getting the job involved contacting a plethora of folk. UPM, Line Producer, DP, Editor. Around $1M budget.

UPM/Line producer: #1 concern for me is budget. Sometimes I ask, sometimes I give an estimate up front based on what information I already may have. Pretty much everything is up for negotiation to a point, but ultimately this is 100% personal unless the unions are involved. LOTS of production details. Locations, schedules, sets/stages, Days/nights, INT/EXT, FX (rain towers, Fans, etc) Then I get into what they have planned for data backups, which will often lead to a conversation with the editor or post in some fashion.

Camera specific stuff I ask the DP.

[Tim Sutherland]

I usually try to talk to the DP, UPM, First AC, Post Supervisor, Sound Mixer, Colorist, and Telecine operator. (Usually in that order, except for Sound Mixer)

The DP is who I work for, managing their footage and their looks and helping maintain and protect that throughout the process. I usually find out the basics of what they expect from me and how involved they want to be in the specifics of what I do.

The UPM is the person I make my deal with for myself and my equipment, which I can only do after speaking with the DP about what he or she needs for the project.

The First AC is the practical head of the camera department, plus he or she will have a pretty big impact on what camera-related equipment and accessories are needed, and how the camera is going to physically be built.

The Post Supervisor (usually after discussions with the DP and editorial) will let me know what aspect ratio, frame rate, framing guidlines (ie protect 4x3 for TV series, which is still usually the case), and camera firmware build they plan using for the project. I also ask what the workflow is once the footage leaves the set and my hands, as well as what applications and hardware they are using for each step of the workflow so I know how that is going to impact on-set decisions, both workflow and image-wise. I also explain what gear I will be bringing in and arrange what kind of medium they want to transport the footage on, whether they are formatted FAT32, NTFS, or HFS. I make sure that the DP is aware of all of these decisions to make sure he is in agreement with all the methods being decided upon. Again, I work for the DP. I also ask the Post Supervisor to get my info on the Post Production Contact list so that if someone from post needs to get ahold of me, they can find me.

I check with the Sound Mixer to make sure that we're using the same frame rate and whether or not sound is providing timecode sync boxes, and ensure that they have the right cables. I also work with sound and the Post Supervisor to see if sound is sending their own media to post or if I am downloading and sending sound files and/or discs with the camera neg.

If I can talk to the Colorist (more for TV since they will be hired on for sure at that point), I make sure to find out how many of the RAW image controls they use in their color timing, and if they base that off of camera metadata or wipe all the settings and start from scratch. This has usually already been decided upon with the DP, or is finalized during a camera test. I also talk to the the Telecine operator, if there is one for dailies, and ask the same questions.

Sometimes a few of these people may not be available or as knowledgeable on RED workflows, but the conversation gets started so that we're all on the same page.

Hope that helps.
Tim

[Jay A. Kelley]

Tim this is FANTASTIC... Excellent info.. Please visit this thread again as I will have another two questions.. First I want to sit on this a few hours more and see if anyone else chimes in.

One thing Tim.. Tell me about the conversation with the post supervisor.. What does that usually entail?

Jay

[Tony Lorentzen]

What Tim said... because he said it well ;-)

I'm not sure I can add more of interest and value to you Jay; we do things differently here and budgets are usually much much smaller than in the US. The DIT role is still somewhat of an unwritten chapter here in Denmark and I find myself spending a lot of time trying to justify why I should be on a production at all. Some get it - but others definitely don't...

I've worked on a couple of features, a few shorts and a lot of commercials - aside from shooting my own stuff - and one thing I've learned is that every job is different.

I've had to turn down really high-profile jobs because they just weren't taking the DIT role seriously; they basically wanted a low-rate copy-monkey that didn't interfere with the rest of their workflow and do the work on their crappy gear. I told them I wasn't that guy, although the gig would have looked great on my resumé. I don't think that particular Line Producer will be calling me again; she was dumbfounded that I turned down the offer. I told her that I couldn't do a good job under the terms they were willing to offer me and that one job gone bad would be the end of my career.

One thing that comes to mind that hasn't been mentioned above is that I always run full diagnostics on all recording media and that I do sensor-checks before starting the production (if I can). I make a range of clips with varying light intensity to see if there are any problems with the sensor and I always keep these recordings as proof. I'd like to be able to this on a daily basis when working on features, but it's just not possible because the gear usually stays with the AC or DP. Depends on the job.

I also usually do back-focus checks and an occasional black shading with the AC or 2nd AC.

Aside from all the on-location stuff I basically handle all the media, check footage, make dailies, deliver to edit and so on.

But again - no two jobs are alike.

[Jay A. Kelley]

Tony,

I think it was a mistake for me to limit this conversation to larger productions.. Your post opened my eyes to some things I never thought about.. So let's drop the budget limitations.. I'd like to hear from DITs who work regardless of experience level.

Jay