Looks...

[Erwin Vanderhoydonks]

Here is Jims look file. http://red.cachefly.net/RCX10.zip

I'll try this one on every R3D file I have for the moment. There are not so many, just a few. I'm still waiting for my first RED Camera :blush:

Thanks for sharing this one...

 

[Lorenzo Straight]

Great feature. Looks save a lot of grading time.

 

[David Rasberry]

I don't see loading an RCX look into the camera for general reference being any different or harder than the myriad settings one dials through on a video camera to do essentially the same thing: white balance, color biases, gamma curves, brightness, contrast, coring, detail, noise reduction, etc. The beauty is you are not stuck with it afterwards if you want to change it.
As a mostly solo shooter, I know I will set generic looks that I can shoot to for judging scene exposure, lighting and contrast, and set white balance as needed, shooting a Red just as I would any video camera.
RCX to me seems very intuitive, refined, and easy. Video cameras can be a real pain sometimes. It is like the difference between a full set of Sennelier pastels and a box of kids crayolas.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

looks are great, we usually create 4 basic looks per project which come as close as possible to the final grade.
int/ext day and int/ext night.
all based on redlogfilm
looks are used for offline data and dailies.
great way to save time on set.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i forgot to add,
we also match as close as possible all the involved monitors.
doing a one light with looks saves so much time and pushes the creative process on set and post.
editing with graded pictures is a joy and has a positive influence.
not using this FREE tool and not learning HOW to use this free tool is a waste of capabilities of the red system (camera + post tools)

 

[christopher witzke]

Here is Jims look file. http://red.cachefly.net/RCX10.zip

Download it, unzip it, then in REDCINE-X right click in the " Look Presets " box. Click load and goto the above file.

Press " apply " to enable the effect.

hehe... 1.7kb......

Thanks for this!

 

[Elsie N]

I'm surprised that some think that setting looks in camera and using them on set are only for the big productions. My intention is to apply an in-camera look for each setup which will give me a feed to my directors monitors that should help me achieve uniformity throughout all the scenes in that setup. I hope to have a catalog of looks that I am familiar with that I can choose from depending on time of day (or at night) to load into the cameras as desired. Just a quick check of each monitor when picture is up will tell me if I've got the setup I want. Having the same look to apply when footage is transferred and edited will be very small-production friendly.

To me, this is just another way RED has demonstrated that it supports the high end productions and the low budget types pretty much equally when it comes to hardware and software availability.

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

totally agree elsie,
just imagine there would be no redcine x and looks.
would work of course, but not as easy as it is now

 

[Jannard]

The good news about shooting RED is that there are lots of tools to use and not many are destructive or baked in. You get to choose your own workflow and toolset from many possibilities. Looks on RAW are terrific tools to use (or not) as you please...

Jim

 

[Eric Haase]

Can anyone confirm that the monitor output on Epic matches in color and contrast to the monitor output on the Rocket with the same look settings? And also, will the camera be able to utilize the Lift Gamma Gain settings that are part of the look?

 

[Jonathan Stevenson]

These looks can be turned on and off by switching to views in the monitor too. So, you can always be "sampling" your look, but not necessarily monitoring it on the set all the time.

Jim, is it possible to have the Look only displaying through the HD-SDI, just in the same way that you'd only send a clean feed through HDSDI for the producer/client monitor?

 

[Jannard]

Yes... on EPIC, each monitoring output can have a different Look. Not completely enabled yet but working on it.

Jim

These looks can be turned on and off by switching to views in the monitor too. So, you can always be "sampling" your look, but not necessarily monitoring it on the set all the time.

Jim, is it possible to have the Look only displaying through the HD-SDI, just in the same way that you'd only send a clean feed through HDSDI for the producer/client monitor?

 

[Rob Lohman]

That being the case, a REDCINE-X training DVD in the RED store sometime would be a certain purchase for non-REDONE owners like myself to jump in the deep end when Scarlet arrives

Since we provide REDCINE-X for free you could download it now, grab some RED ONE / EPIC / SCARLET footage from reduser and start playing & testing today :smile5:

 

[Michael J. Underwood]

Looks Like Lightroom

Looks Like Lightroom

Love this - can't wait to work with RAW video the same way I create looks in Lightroom. All I need now is a camera to shoot RAW

 

[Jason Diamond]

You've just echoed our workflow here as well.

I know what the camera can do and what it will do in a given scenario,, if a client wants to see something or has a concern then we have RC-X to change them from concerned to happy.

easy as pie....

Jason

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

since the beauty of raw is that all looks are metadata, you can regrade your shot in the future...for example
when a new color science is released. and these updates did come without an additional yearly support contract.
and you are not forced to use a given look or worklfow.
small budget shows have the best time in their live right now with these tools.

 

[Tony Lorentzen]

RCX is a great, great tool, but it needs a bit of work in the workflow department. I've suggested a lot of little things ever since it's inception but so far none of the features have been implemented. Please, please, please build in a feature-suggestion and bug reporting tool into the application. It would make SO much sense and be a lot easier for us to report problems and a lot easier for you guys to troubleshoot and collect useful bug information (like system details, app settings and such).

One feature I've suggested many times is a way to dynamically set-up the naming scheme for exported files using metadata for example. As a DIT that would rock my world!

 

[Matthew Yaeger]

RCX is a great, great tool, but it needs a bit of work in the workflow department. I've suggested a lot of little things ever since it's inception but so far none of the features have been implemented. Please, please, please build in a feature-suggestion and bug reporting tool into the application. It would make SO much sense and be a lot easier for us to report problems and a lot easier for you guys to troubleshoot and collect useful bug information (like system details, app settings and such).

One feature I've suggested many times is a way to dynamically set-up the naming scheme for exported files using metadata for example. As a DIT that would rock my world!

Being able to name files on export using metadata is a great feature that has been on our list for awhile. It is a very powerful feature that is needed in many places inside of RCX requiring quite a bit of testing.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Lots of disagreement from me on this one. RCX is a primary tool on set of almost every project I can think of, big and small. Everyone wants to see what the footage can/will look like as soon as possible. You think everyone is flying blind? Not sure what you guys are smoking.

Jim

You are not disagreeing at all.

You merely seem to think I am disagreeing about the technology - I am NOT. I'm writing about a human and budget problem.

Right now, Epic is being used almost solely on productions that will be able to afford to have someone doing all this work ... you know like Brook. Like I said this is the best practice- and its what I want implemented on every shoot if possible.

On most of my Red shoots, if I want to make use of this sort of feature, then I as DP have to leave the set, sit at the DIT station and do it myself - because no one else can! Of course if I am doing that, then I'm not doing the DP job.

That only gets worse when I'm directing and photographing the picture.

This is not at all a reflection on Red, RC-X, looks, Epic or the R1. Its a statement about the reality of low/no budget productions.

Think about it Jim ... when has one of my projects come to your attention? My most notable Red project was an episode of Star Trek Phase 2 called Kitumba back in build 17 days, which by the way turned out to be an almost perfect example of how NOT to do a Red shoot.

The camera was great ... but my "DIT" didn't know that backups are supposed to be on separate drives from the first copy- even though it was explained to him and even though I had written a workflow document. Instead of a several SATA drives with complete copies, we had individual SATA drives which contained the master copy, the RAW backup AND the ProRes transcodes. (which were all done with the wrong settings)

It didn't help that the guy was picking up drives and shaking them to see if they were working.

Once I understood the extent of the disaster, I shut down B camera and assigned that camera crew to take over ingest and salvage what they could, which was almost nothing. The experience was a great shame to me as DP.

The entire episode, except for the final 3 days of shooting on a 14 day schedule, ended up at Drivesavers. Fortunately they kick ass and we got every frame back.

You think that guy was going to be able to turn in competent looks?

On low budgets we are always perilously close to that level of disaster. It doesn't matter if we are shooting Red, EX1 or 7D just getting A SINGLE BACKUP on set is often a battle. I feel like Hercules in the Augean Stables.

Having a competent DIT doing looks for me ... that's like an unimaginable nirvana.

A lot of the value of RC-X and looks comes from having a trained and talented person there to drive the software - like Brook and his brethren. It isn't magic and it isn't automatic. A real DIT provides lots of value to a production, value that doesn't come for free.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that REDCINE-X is probably the single most important RED tool next to the camera. For big jobs and little jobs. It was instrumental on every project I can think of. Knowing how to work with this tool, including Looks, is as important as learning how to work the camera. They go hand in hand. My original post isn't intended to teach anybody anything about RCX other than to inform the new RED user what a terrific and powerful tool RCX is... and what I do with Looks. Others will have a different view of how to use this tool, but useful it is... times a million.

Jim

Out on a limb?

No frakking way.

This is dead on advice and in my opinion absolutely true!

That in no way contradicts what I've said elsewhere!