Favourite "El cheapo" but actually working workflows du jour

[Gunleik Groven]

Working a bit on my own projects in January, without the support of a large organisation, so I have had some time exploring the cheaper sides of RED again - and it has improved tremendously over the last year!

Everything done on a 2008 8-core 2,8 wirh 10GB of RAM, with and without rocket, with internal RAID-0.

These are rated in terms of price, not preference:

The cheapest, but with good results (Not for the experienced editor, though... )

Without Rocket/anything - just straight cuts, primary only grade:



RC-X is your friend
It's actually unbeatable in a price performance equation - as it is free for the user.

Anyone said RED comes without a workflow as of 2011, hasn't opened RCX.
When it first arrived, it was a pretty annoying and unusable app, and that impression unfortunately is stuck in certain quarters. Too bad.
Today is an excellent app with and without the Rocket.
It still lacks some nice features from the ultrastable Rocketcine-X, when used with a Rocket, but lets not dig too deep into that!

Let's just rejoice, as by today it is into:
"It just works" teritories of pro gear.

IMPRESSIVE.
And in just about a year!

Am I suggesting this as a recomended workflow?

Not at all!

Would I feel left alone if that was all I had?

Nope.
I actually think I could easilly deliver a cinema commercial (sans audio) with a RED M, RCX and just about any Mac (and probably most "off the shelf PC's...)...

More to follow....

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Final Cut pro has gotten a lot of bad press lately, due to Quicktime and CS5.

Quicktime is an issue...

The (probable fact) that CS5 works better in some situations is not.
Pricing out a workable RED system for PPRO/AVID vs a FCS - and see what you get...

Sorry guys.
FCP it is!

Remember this is a thread about RED on the cheap. Smoke for Mac and Resolve is nice, as is MC5 and Adobe.
The point is:
How cheap can we deliver cinema-worthy content.
Not at all what is adviceable if you have the option to get a Baselight... )w

And the choice of pricepoints (as to work amount and number of workflows) within the FCS system, is still quite mindboggling.
It's arguably the most scaleable system available, not neccesarry the best for all tasks, though. THAT is not the argument.
But I'd say that on the extremes (super cheap and full fledged online/offline) it does a hell of a job.

In the stage between these two, PPRO possibly has an edge.

And did I mention that I cannot remember last time FCP crashed on me?

Personally, though, I wouldn't touch it without Clipfinder, but it is fully possible...

(Breakdown of different FCP workflows to follow...)

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Let's go ultra low budget for small form first.

That means: No transcoding and everything done in FCP.
No Rocket involved.

This can probably be done on any iMac and upwards these days.

Edit on M or H proxies (M will probably be smoother...)
Grade with the FCP tools.

Render.

Even for this workflow, I would have spent 100$ extra on the clipfinder to do the relink-and resize of sequence options, and maybe done a firstlight RSX grade of the files. But it is definitively NOT a neccisity for excellent results.

A similarily cheap and maybe more fluent option, would be to L&T to prores before you edit. This would "cost" you a bit more on diskspace.

A third - equally cheap way to go, would be to use Clipfinder to conform your edit for RCX, and do a primary - only grade in RCX, re-conform that back to FCP, add titles and whatever and export your finnished movie.

This involves no known added knowledge beyond basic editing and color-tasks.

Price:
Any current iMac, Macpro or MacBookpro.
FCP : 999

Optional:
Clipfinder: 100$

It doesn't get much cheaper than this.
You will want to relink to H proxies before you render your work if you're finnishing in any HD resolution....

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Let's step up.

Online/offline for medium to longform projects.

I don't contest that premiere can stay RAW all the way.
BUT

• I cannot take my edit "on the road"
• Security is not very good (and it becomes rather clumsy with all those TB of data
• I doubt that I could do RAW online-all-the-time on the cheap hardware I am currently setting as a baseline (3 YO macPro and even older MacBooks and Macbookpros)
• And the big boon for the FCP solution is Color

Ok. Color has its issues. Quite a few of them, but compared to anything else in the range it is actually the only option, come to think of it.

(To be continued...)

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Placeholder 4

(BTW, Just chime in with your cheapo solutions here.
I haven't gotten into the Adobe thingy, for example, but would love to hear more exactly how that works... on the cheap: What's the smallest computer/RAM/GFX card you can get away with for example...)

 

[Elsie N]

Can't wait to see your take on all these apps.

 

[Uli Plank]

Hi Gunleik,

great thread you started, and I second just about all of what you said.

The cheapest solution is still RC-X, FCS plus Clipfinder.

Adobe CS5 is getting clumsy for larger projects, but it's doing very well for short ones. If one can still grab a GTX 285 card on the bay, you can set up a machine for a pretty good price. It's biggest disadvantage: no serious grading app included (no, I don't think Color Finesse can rival Apple's Color).

I'd count in Storm too, now that it's maturing every other week. It can help you with a tighter integration into FCP (including markers and comments), and as soon as multi-track works, it will be very interesting with it's grading capabilities.

In the end, you can either go ProRes HQ or 4by4 with RC-X, Clipfinder, FCP and Color. We have done such projects with a serious film-out and seen them on the big screen!

Or, if you desperately want DPX in the end, you can go Storm, offline editing in FCP and onlining in Storm, including grading, with output in DPX. Problem is monitoring here, since Storm can't output via a video I/O card (Yet?). We got to bug them about this.

My two cents (Euro).

 

[David Battistella]

Uli and Guneliek,

I'm happy about this thread but I do take a but of exception to the word cheap. Cheap can also imply the cheapness of the image and I believe there is no barrier to producing stunning images with a workflow that is LEAST EXPENSIVE and MOST time consuming.

The fact is that a properly calibrated FCS system with an Color and the correct luts can easily rival the filmouts produced on other systems. I am talking pixel quality here and there is nothing cheap about that.

RCX represents a maturing and evolution (and departure from ASSIMILATE) of the RED post workflow. A ground up app that decodes raw, interfaces with Rocket and us a still photographers dream.

I'll say it again. The next FCS will make CS5 look clunky. And CS5 can not claim AE and a plugin as a true grading solution.

Great thread and that you both for your excellent and consistent contribution to the post side.



FCS is the best price performance workflow available for red m or MX footage.