RED Production Workflow

[pkeenan]

I am a self proclaimed Noobie to the almighty RED. Just finished a 3 day shoot using two RED cameras and would like to share. Trying to figure out why there's no "Production Workflow" on this site. Seems to me that after working backwards (calling the post house to see what they would need for "dailies") I have come upon a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool clusterf*ck. Pardon my Esperanto (I am indeed, "one who hopes") but it seems to me that the production end of this camera still has to be worked out. DIT? Not quite sure if that completely fits the bill. Looks like we could use an Assistant Editor as well to keep track of all the data. At the end of the day when you're staring at a lonely hard drive with your $400,000.00 semolian's worth of production residing on it, you shudder at the thought of a sunspot CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) corrupting all of your hard earned capture. I for one have come to appreciate the redundancy of quadruple hard drives. Wondering where that audio went to? Thank your lucky stars you shot double system and have it on a DVD (Diva). How about that data corruption that SCRATCH just couldn't seem to swallow? No worry's, if you don't like the smell of money burning, it's time to get out of this business. I would like to put forward a production category so us Producers can share our war stories and make sure that when the bids go out, everyone who has a hand in this process is included. I think the ends justify the means. Thanks

 

[pkeenan]

So here I am. Proverbial penis in hand. Not one of you onlookers seem to want to add to this conversation. Maybe you are lookee lewers. So be it. I for one am looking to find all of the folks who are hard up against this new technology and making a go of it. Maybe the Cinematography category is not the place for this missive. My mistake. Only gearheads here. Too bad since it takes us production folk to make this work for you all. We are the ones who convince the naysayers that this technology is worth it's weight in GB. I will find a place elsewhere to pontificate the virtues and troubles involved to take this new means of data capture to the next level. Sorry it took so long to find out that there are so many viewers but not enough sayers. Come find us if you care about going forth and seeing what it takes to ditch the old guard and embrace the young, soft shoulders of those willing to smile upon you at first glance. Peace Love and Grapefruit.
Peter Keenan

 

[SouthHollow]

I'd certainly qualify as a lurker on the boards... but I think that part of the reason no one has responded is because it's hard to see an actual question in your first post. There are tons of discussions about different workflows all over the boards, though most of them are in the "4k Workflow" section. Also, the tone of you're posts comes across like you're trying to pick a fight.

If I read your second post correctly, you did your research ahead of time but still ran into issues... what was the problem you ran into on set? Perhaps that would be a more specific jumping-off point.

-Alex

 

[pkeenan]

You're probably right Alex. Sorry for sounding negative. I was hoping to find a place on this RED User Group that dealt with the production end of the camera. I produce television commercials that are primarily 99% film output. I'm just looking to try to have some dialogue with folks who like myself are attempting to make the switch. Our production dealt with real people, not actors. Therefore it would've been either HDTV tape or RED. We chose RED due to our DP's interest and that of the Director. I don't think I've spent more time on the phone for this shoot than I have in the last 5 years for one production. It was a lot of theory especially because we were offlining to the Avid. What I'm looking for is some back and forth about the production workflow. What kind of crew are you putting together? What's the gear you're using on set to make sure your redundancy is assured? We shot high speed (120fps) and experienced some data corruption. We had to convert our footage for Avid input. Do you used double system for our sound. Maybe this isn't the best place for this dialogue. I'm just trying to share, learn and share again. If you can guide me to a more appropriate place on this site to discuss the in's and out's of producing for RED I am all ears. As a Producer, I'm trying to understand all the variables that come with this camera and in turn production. Thanks for at least coming out of "lurk" mode to say hello. Hello and thanks.

-Peter

 

[jimhare]

Hi Peter,

You've come to the right place, but as Alex says, you didn't actually give anything to respond to. Write about your actual experience and where you are having trouble, and you will find that everyone will jump to your aid.

The main thing is not to put multiple subjects in a single post. Talk about them one by one.

This is an extremely helpful and friendly community and we're glad to have you here.

So let's start over, what can we help you with?

Cheers,

Jim Hare
Sydney

 

[laguun]

Hello and welcome to the board.

The cinematography subforum isnt the best place to start regarding workflow. The focus here is the craft and art of cinematography.

Precise questions in "4K Workflow" might yield more responses.

The RED post workflow isnt easy, logic or self-explaining yet. Qualified people are required, and the red postproduction softwares (redcine and redalert) are still beta.

The cameras images and creative tools are however excellent.

 

[Jason Ing]

Hi Peter,

Welcome to Reduser.

It's almost funny that you posted something with the tone of your first post and didn't get a response. Even without a question. Believe me, you'll get an earful here at Reduser and then some.

If you have specific technical questions about Red, try and post it on the Red One thread. It'll probably get moved, but you might catch a few more eyes there and get some responses and then where ever the moderators move your thread to will help you get some orientation.
If you have a complaint about something that went wrong, be specific about it and post it on the complaints thread. Try to refrain from negativity and be objective; it'll help you get better constructive help from a lot of professional and knowledgeable "people on the production end of the camera". Yes, there are fan boys that can get sensitive if they sense you bashing Red for no "apparent" reason, especially for someone with only a few posts. But there are many others who will give you all the help you need.

Since you're a producer and see the entire line of production, try to take a look at the various threads and spread your specific questions in each category. 4k workflow deals with post.

Read a lot, it'll help. Sorry it sounds like it didn't work out for you so far, but I'm sure next time you'll end up holding a great commercial in your hand instead of your best buddy.

At least you're taking the right step and educating yourself on Red. Although maybe it would have been been more helpful before the last shoot? :whistling: heh-heh

 

[pkeenan]

Mr. Hare, laguun and Mr. Ing, Thanks, I appreciate the guidance.
I have indeed gone through a great deal of the posts here and have yet to stumble upon an area that deals specifically with commercial production. My interest is trying to figure out the best template in terms of crew, gear and making sure that the end product is as simple to conform as possible. I realize that the latter is still being realized. From my discussions with other Commercial Producers, I am finding out that the RED production boilerplate is evolving. Of all the places to park comments on this User Group site where in your opinion would be the best? 4K Workflow? Red One thread? I have only one project under my belt. It was a multiple camera, Avid posted production that will be turned into Webisodes, TV commercials and radio spots. Supposedly it was one of the bigger jobs that moved through Plaster City. Again, thanks for the reassuring words. I look forward to hearing from you all.
-Peter

 

[Jason Ing]

This is the kind of topic that a lot of people would be interested in. You should create a thread and see where it takes you. If you have the time, share your experiences with plaster city (they're one of the leaders out there... david's "manure" film is with them as well, i believe).
Seems like I'm speaking to one of the trail blazers himself.

I think the Red One thread would be a good place to start. 4k Workflow can be a little too specific sub-group (but great technical post info). The most traffic is Red One and, of course, Recon.

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Hi Peter,

I've successfully done around 10 commercials with my RED. All of them on European middle/ higher budget range in € that should have been shot on 35mm instead.

As for workflow most of the time I ended up solving most issues with my laptop hahahaha. So I'm quite familiar with it. Feel free to PM to pick my brain. Or ask your questions openly and we'll see what we can do.

Regards,


Fredrik Callinggard

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

As for workflow most of the time I ended up solving most issues with my laptop hahahaha.


Fredrik Callinggard

great fredric...
its true...if you know how to this is really the answer...

----back to topic...

here are some very talented workflow gurus....avid nerds and fcp nerds..
try to hire some dit/workflow manager...

but i guess plastercity will be really helpful too

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

I might ad that my laptop solved it on all instances, both offline and online. We're talking 2K broadcast and laser print to film as end results (and I'm only a DP/Director hahaha).

The future has arrived and the workflow is a piece of cake (I'm living proof) unfortunately not everyone knows this.

Fredrik

 

[Florian Stadler]

Hi Peter, I see you have jumped into the cold water....

I think what you need is a "Workflow Designer/On-Set data wrangler" to solve some of your well justified fears/problems. I like to call the position "Pixel Sheppard". If the entire pipeline is "virgin" it is advisable to grant the "Pixel Sheppard" 1 day of prep and 1-2 days of post to probe up and down the pipeline.

As I have experienced on my first commercial project on the Red the fact that the agency chooses post and that most established commercial chop shops are Avid based doesn't help the situation. There are numerous easy and well established workflows for Final Cut Pro where on the Avid it gets a whole lot more complicated. There are several workarounds but they are complicated and can instill the fear of god in anyone that is not a post-production supervisor. In my case, we chose the easy way out which unfortunately also compromises the possible quality one could get out of Red footage. We transcoded everything to HDCam and posted from there, never going back to the original 4K files... A compromise, but workable. If you can afford it you could even integrate a rough grade into the transcode session with your director and DP sending some of their color thoughts to whatever city your agency is posting in.

Here's a proposed "Commercial Producer's Red Workflow".

1. Project wants to be shot on Red for aesthetic or budgetary reasons
2. Have someone find out from the Agency which post house is used. Is the post house a.) FCP based? b.) Avid based?

if the answer is b.)
3. Hire "Pixel Sheppard" for the shoot days.
4. Instruct the PS to do the following during the shoot day:
-create 3 copies of all footage shot : 1 mule drive that goes to the edit house, 1 redundant backup hard drive of the original media for the Agency, 1 redundant backup hard drive of the original media for the Production Company
- prepare a 2K Prores FCP transcode via the Log and Transfer function as the shoot is going on onto the mule drive.
- Load all Red related software onto the mule drive (Plug ins, Redcine, etc.)
5. Have the production's hard drive backed to LTO3 data tape and sent to the agency.
6. Advise Agency that a Scratch Online is the easiest way to go (but not only way) at this time (but they already knew that since they chose a FCP based edit house....)
7. Wipe Production Hard Drive clean after LTO3 tapes have been received by agency.
8. Sleep well.
9. Back to 1


if the answer is b.)
3. Look at your budget and decide the following:
1-can I afford a "Pixel Sheppard" for a prep and post day and a facility to do transcode files and prepare it for the Avid editor?
2-can I afford a supervised rough color correction with D.P./Director for a transcode to HDCam SR
3-I'm shooting on the Red and need to come at HD prices and can only do a flat pass transcode to HDCam (400$ per hour of footage shot plus tape stock)

4-1. Hire "Pixel Sheppard" immediately. 1 Prep day and 1 Post day highly recommended. Provide post house contact info to the Sheppard and have the Sheppard design a suitable Avid workflow. This will be a
5-1. Longwinded file based process: get files Transcoded to Avid Quicktimes, create ALE with metacheater, hand off to edit house - Advise Agency that only a Red experienced Scratch online house will be able to deal with the online.
6-1 Wonder why this was so complicated and when its going to get as easy as when 2. was answered as a.)

OR

4-2. Hire a "Pixel Sheppard" for your shoot days. Have him make 1 mule drive with all original camera data to go to the transcode facility, 1 drive with the original camera data as backup to go with the Agency and 1 drive with the original camera data to stay with the Production Company until LTO3 tape has arrived at the Agency's vault.
5-2. Have the footage transcoded in a nice Scratch online suite with the director and/or the DP supervising a "CONSERVATIVE" (some room to push needs to be left for the Agency at online) color correction and lay it off to HDCam SR (you could also lay off a simultaneous flat pass if your director and/or dp's idea of a conservative cc is not understood). If you're lucky the agency stops by, everybody pats themselves on the back as capuccinos are served as the footage looks great in its full glory on a 17' newly calibrated 2K screen.
6-2. Have the transcoding facility make an LTO3 backup of the drive and send off drive and LTO3 tape to the Agency vault
7-2. send HD Cam SR tape to post house of the agency's choice.
8-2. Sleep pretty damn well, you have made the creative team, the agency, and the post house happy, all in a days work, feels just like film...


OR

4-3. Hire a "Pixel Sheppard" for your shoot days. Have him make 1 mule drive with all original camera data to go to the transcode facility, 1 drive with the original camera data as backup to go with the Agency and 1 drive with the original camera data to stay with the Production Company until LTO3 tape has arrived at the Agency's vault.
5-3. Have the footage "flat-pass" transcoded to HD-Cam
6-3. Have the transcoding facility make an LTO3 backup of the drive and send off drive and LTO3 tape to the Agency vault
7-3. send HD Cam tape to post house of the agency's choice.
8-3. Sleep reasonably well, wonder if you squeezed the most production value out of your dollars.

Is this the type of conversation you are looking to strike up? I have an even easier workflow to propose to you:
1. Call me up and hire me as a DP it's too long that I've worked with Backyard... www.florianstadler.com

 

[Häakon]

Hi Peter,

It has taken a little while, but I have now found a workflow which, for me, has proven to be quick, easy, and relatively bulletproof for shooting.

I shoot 4K 2:1 with the camera exclusively, unless higher speed shooting is required. In this case I shoot 3K 2:1 if I need up to 60p or 2K 2:1 (very rare - there is a noticeable resolution hit) if I need up to 120p. That's it. I've shot with CF, the RED-DRIVE, and a solid state drive. Any or all work just fine.

I copy all of my footage to hard drives (your level of redundancy/paranoia will be a personal taste), and drag all of the "_M" proxies into FCP for cutting. I don't waste time with the "log and transfer" function; I have used it on sets where it was requested and have seen no benefit from this.

Get a locked picture cut and send it to REDCine via Crimson. Here is where I will do a one-light color correct and export to the finishing codec of my choice. Most of the time it is 1080 Prores HQ, but you may have stricter needs if you are doing a 4K finish/filmout. TIFF sequences work just fine.

Roundtrip to FCP, send to Color or AE for finalizing color grade, and render out a 1080p project in the client format of choice.

Your clients and needs will likely vary (don't use Avid, so I'm admittedly ignorant in that area - though a TIFF sequence should work just fine in that situation as well), but I've found a pretty streamlined way of getting my data ingested, backed up, and outputted to taste. All of this is done on a single 8-core Mac Pro; the only additional crew member I have mandated to shoots is a delegated data tech for offloading/backing up footage as we shoot. Everything else has stayed very much the same.

Many people are still "afraid" of working with RED - and rightfully so, it's the new kid on the block. But if you work with someone who knows the camera and how to work the post side effectively, I think it's about the most efficient camera out there. Quality in spades. Couldn't be more pleased, and at this point I don't shoot anything else unless I'm paid to do so (but I will make a strong case for RED if the opportunity arises).

Best,

Häakon

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

Roundtrip to FCP, send to Color or AE for finalizing color grade, and render out a 1080p project in the client format of choice.

Your clients and needs will likely vary (don't use Avid, so I'm admittedly ignorant in that area - though a TIFF sequence should work just fine in that situation as well), but I've found a pretty streamlined way of getting my data ingested, backed up, and outputted to taste. All of this is done on a single 8-core Mac Pro; the only additional crew member I have mandated to shoots is a delegated data tech for offloading/backing up footage as we shoot. Everything else has stayed very much the same.

Many people are still "afraid" of working with RED - and rightfully so, it's the new kid on the block. But if you work with someone who knows the camera and how to work the post side effectively, I think it's about the most efficient camera out there. Quality in spades. Couldn't be more pleased, and at this point I don't shoot anything else unless I'm paid to do so (but I will make a strong case for RED if the opportunity arises).

Best,

Häakon

Häokon is right but you might want to consider to go 2K DPX files instead. They're slightly smaller then TIFF and most post houses prefers them. With DPX it doesn't matter were you take them for grading and/ or on line. So if you prefer to grade in a Lustre, Resolve, Baselight or Scratch then do so (although your better off with REDcode in Scratch). Only thing is that the grading has to be for digital grading. If you need to go into for example Spirit you have to lay it onto tape first but that would be a shame, since it would be tape to tape grading and you've lost valuable information.

regards,


Fredrik

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Haakon, same workflow for me generally as well. I'm just trying to troubleshoot some issues going back and forth between FCP and AE. Gamma issues mainly.

To the original poster, you will find that there's quite a bit of information on here that covers production and post production. It can be time consuming sifting through it all, but there's a lot of knowledge kicking around. There are also blogs that track reduser's experiences with Red camera, and there are both free and paid training online.

 

[paul engstrom]

question for Haakon and Steve (anybody else is welcome too).

I just tried that workflow on a recent project and ran into some snags:

how well does this work with footage that is slowed down in fcp? My project, a test for a 30 second commercial, had just 5 clips, each slowed to different rates (from 50% to 85% speed). Redcine and/or Crimson seemed to have some issues with this... have you experienced problems?

do you shoot 29.97? what are you doing for commercials going to broadcast?

thanks,
p

 

[pkeenan]

Florian,
Many thanks for the reply.
Yes the water is a bit nippy and I have had to coax my gonads out my stomach with a $50 dollar bill.
Your rundown is great and hopefully it lays it out for someone like myself who had to go blindly into this production. My dilemma was having to post to the Avid. No real choice and the post house had not done any RED editorial. We ended up sending all our footage over to Plaster City to have it converted using SCRATCH. That got a bit expensive. We had some sound issues which was on the camera side as well as some data corruption that occurred when we shot 120fps.
My goal here is to try and secure a place on this site that gathers up all the great technical and crew data that everyone is laying out in one place so that people like myself can draw from it. Steve Sherrick is correct, there is a plethora of info in these forums. I guess I'm just trying to apply it all to TV commercial production.
I have to answer to the ad agencies and in turn their clients. When we offer up a way to film/tape/data capture a particular project, we have to be cock-sure it's going to work and that we know the process thoroughly.
Jason Ing was kind enough to consider and suggest putting together a Sub Forum for Production. I think that's a great idea. It will help Producer's like myself gather information that ultimately will make the RED another trusted tool in our arsenal.
-Peter

 

[Häakon]

how well does this work with footage that is slowed down in fcp? My project, a test for a 30 second commercial, had just 5 clips, each slowed to different rates (from 50% to 85% speed). Redcine and/or Crimson seemed to have some issues with this... have you experienced problems?

Yes, offspeed (FCP-remapped, not in-camera) clips have presented me with lots of problems in this area. If your project is short (30 sec.) and you only have 5 clips, I would recommend just rendering out the clips fully in REDCINE and cropping to taste/speed in FCP. You may have used proxies to find the shots you wanted, but since your project is so short and you have so few clips, it just makes the most sense to me to render out those individual clips and be done with it. Shouldn't be too difficult to manually re-sync them in FCP.

I have let Ian know of some problems I have experienced in the roundtrip, but most of it is quirky stuff like time remapping or reversing clips in FCP. The more you can just limit yourself to cutting and then making those "artistic" decisions after you've reconformed the REDCINE renders, the better off you'll be. But yes, there are still a few bugs to figure out. Build 16 may or may not complicate that issue further.

do you shoot 29.97? what are you doing for commercials going to broadcast?

I have only ever shot 23.976 with my RED; most of what I shoot is narrative, industrial, or for multiple avenues of distribution like music video. I work less on spots, so broadcast hasn't been a big concern for my particular workflow (and in general, all of this can be converted without too much hassle). Since Blu-ray has native 23.976 support and DVD has the pulldown option, I haven't run into any snags. But for those going back to tape or something, you may need an additional step in your workflow.

 

[Fredrik Callinggard]

The more you can just limit yourself to cutting and then making those "artistic" decisions after you've reconformed the REDCINE renders, the better off you'll be. But yes, there are still a few bugs to figure out. Build 16 may or may not complicate that issue further.

REDCINE is a primary grading program it's not supposed to be able to take in any effects at all unless they're color correction (in this case REDCINE can't read FCP CC like Color can, I think but I don't know) or if they're already rendered. (Now what they might be able to do is to make it disregard this effects, let's hope that REDCINE following build 16 is not in Beta anymore).

So if you do things like time remapping you need to either render the effect or output it normally (make a copy, do XML with it without those effects), convert it in REDCINE, bring it back and then change it again.

Sorry Edit: I mean render the effect out (as in making footage of it), not just render it.

My 2 cents


Fredrik Callinggard