Workflow Advice- Short Film R3D + ProRes

[Guy Baker]

I just wrapped principal photography on my first short and am about to begin the post process. About %30 (dialog driven shots) were shot on my DP's Alexa and the other %70 (BRoll, BCam VFX heros) were shot on my Scarlet and rented Epics... So, I've got about a 30/70 split between ProRes and R3D. Wanting to do some pre-grading and audio sync of all log ProRes and R3D media before cutting begins in Premiere Pro CS6. I've built a robust online editing system (Mac Pro w/RedRocket & Kona3, lots of RAM and Internal Storage) for the project so am wanting to keep my media full res and uncompressed through the entire edit. Want my R3D to remain R3D and ProRes to remain ProRes all the way to final color timing

My question is if anyone has had a similar workflow on a project and we're you able to do audio sync, pre-grade of the ProRes media in REDCINE-x? If so, was that a good idea, how did that work for you, what are the pitfalls to avoid? If not, what program did you use for a quick pregrade and audio sync for ProRes?

Trying to get off on the right foot with as little amount of tail-chasing as possible combining these two formats in my film.

Many thanks for any and all input RED peoples!

 

[Kirk.Attard]

Try plural eyes. Might work for the prores. Not very expensive.

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Try plural eyes. Might work for the prores. Not very expensive.

+1

 

[Doug Beatty]

I'm going through this now, and there's a missing feature for synching audio in Redcine-X sequences. Sure, you can auto-match or match your WAV files by slating them manually, but then what? You are forced to output your R3Ds into offline ProRes formats which could take a while and a good chunk of data depending on how much footage you are dealing with.

What would be best is if you could auto-match the audio to R3D files-> Export your sequence to FCP XML-> Import your sequence into Premiere and have your R3D video line up with your WAV files in the premiere timeline. Either that, or if there was a way to merge the clips in RC-X before you get them to Premiere, it would save a lot of time!

The only other options are to either load in each R3D and corresponding WAV file-> select/right click-> merge-> tick time code-> repeat for every clip. It's downright silly that Premiere doesn't have a batch merge feature yet.

Also, pluraleyes doesn't work with R3D (yet) and won't work with files if you didn't feed a scratch track to camera.

So, your options at this point are:

1) Save time synching by hand in Premiere by auto-matching time code stamped files in RC-X. Then lose that time, along with data by having to render out ProRes Proxies.

2) Spend a bunch of time clicking away in Premiere to get merged clips with sunk audio. I haven't done this yet, but I imagine the OMF export to your DAW would be a nightmare since I don't think merging clips works with that format.

3) Final Cut X?

Come on, RED- please give us a more robust FCP XML exports. It would save editorial much time and space!

 

[joe hedge]

Sure, you can auto-match or match your WAV files by slating them manually, but then what? You are forced to output your R3Ds into offline ProRes formats which could take a while and a good chunk of data depending on how much footage you are dealing with.

Also the synced transcodes won't have the audio time code, or the clip names, from the WAV's, so you can't conform back to them

Really there's no substitute for just syncing everything in the NLE you're editing with, that's the foundation you're building all your editing on. When I DIT a low budget shoot I transcode, sync and bin everything in FCP or Avid, while we're shooting, and the day after wrap, they're ready to start editing.

 

[MichaelP]

While I prefer syncing in the NLE, for the Avid workflows, the ALE export that is part of the AAF and DNxHD media contains all the BWF name and metadata that will be passed along to sound editorial.

Michael

 

[joe hedge]

While I prefer syncing in the NLE, for the Avid workflows, the ALE export that is part of the AAF and DNxHD media contains all the BWF name and metadata that will be passed along to sound editorial.

Michael

Does Resolve do that as well, so you can sync in Resolve, create .mxf transcodes, and the audio metadata is in the ALE?

 

[MichaelP]

I haven't check in a while but I believe it is. I just can't recall what column the file name is in - you may need to do a column copy to one that appears as s source in EDL Manager such as SoundRoll, Labroll, Camroll. I know, legacy terms - the've been there since 1992...

Michael