Simple Post Production Options for RED ONE

[M Most]

Theses days, IMHO, most of the arrows are shot by post houses trying to protect their turf and ROI.

I suppose that's one way to look at it. Another way is that many, if not most, producers of higher end material (network television series, for instance) have worked with the established post houses for years, don't want to be in the post business themselves (and yes, that includes daily creation, duplication, and distribution), and value the professionalism, understanding of the entire process, and efficiency that the post houses bring to the table, regardless of what they're shooting on. They feel that the post facilities have proven time and time again that they can be trusted to deliver the best product, and deliver it on budget and on a tight turnaround (and yes, that includes dailies), and that the relatively small amount of money that might or might not be saved by doing it themselves is just not worth it when there is already an established network of facilities and an established infrastructure - not to mention newer players as well - that removes all the questions from the table.

Like I said, another way to look at it.

 

[M Most]

I would like to try and find a way to edit with the M Proxy file the camera generates but I can't figure out how to Batch Reconnect the files with the original R3D files so that I can do my Color on the raw files. So here is the question: Can this only be done with a 3rd party software like Crimson or does FCP provide a way with EDL function?

There is no reconnection. Send the sequence to Color via "Send to Color," and Color will use the R3d files directly. You'll likely have to resize the images (easy to do in the Geometry room), but Color does not go through the Quicktime proxies, it uses them as a pointer to the R3d files themselves.

 

[Frank Cueto]

the arrows are shot by post houses trying to protect their turf and ROI.

This has always been an issue. Post houses have always been charged with trying to propagate FUD to keep people using their services. Truth be told, this argument has been going on for years, before R3D's it was some other format (p2,xdcam come to mind) before that it was miniDV (think xl1's and such) and although not quite the same, the same stuff happened when sony introduced the 3/4" format, a lot of people declared the same kind of independence, but that time from the film lab.

Anyways, data IS data, and a huge post house with the latest toys has access to the same data as everyone else does.

What has always been the key driving factor has been the talent, and really good post talent usually work at post houses (not always). Any post house that gets in the attitude of "defending their turf" by spreading FUD will eventually be recognized as such, and after that you can guess where it goes.

-Frank

 

[spily]

hey everyone, great discussion,

BUT can anyone help me to find the best workflow?

my R3D rushes are loaded into scratch, that can read native 4K in realtime. And in another hand, an Avid Symphony is waiting for the edit.

all the reviews and the threads are talking about Metafuze Redrushes, redcine etc, for transcoding and wainting a hell of time to begin the session...

is there any turnaround to have direct HD output 1080 or 720 into symphony with time/edge code, that we can return back to scratch for grading and conforming.

 

[Kwan Khan]

Nice Post... Ted

 

[Chris Woods]

- Apple FCP & Color Workflow simple overview: Edit natively with QT pointers to the R3D files or with rendered ProRes media in FCP 6.0.5 / Finishing & Final Color Grading Natively with REDCODE RAW files or with Rendered ProRes media in Apple Color

Post Production Pathway #1:
All Desktop, All Apple hardware and FCP Studio 2 workflow:

Start with Apple FCP 6.0.5 with the RED FCP Studio 2 Installer package loaded from the red.com/support website

Drag and Drop the _M proxies (1k resolution) for a no render, instant offline editing workflow

or

Render in RedRushes or the Log and Transfer interface directly in FCP 6 to ProRes 422 media in either 2k or 1080p from the 4k REDCODE media - and edit offline or online/color correct in Apple Color for Broadcast quality finishing directly from those files.

or

Use the Native R3D QuickTime wrapped RED workflow, by ingesting using the Log and Transfer interface directly in FCP 6 using the native setting preference. Then offline with these QT wrapped REDCODE files in 2k and do final Color Correction by sending the FCP project over to Apple Color, accessing the full bit depth and dynamic range of the original R3D files. Send the color corrected project back to FCP for final output.

I'll be working very soon with RED footage in FCP6. I had some questions. First one, do you have to have a Kona 3 video card to work with the RED footage or can you work without it. If you do need it, where is the best place I can purchase it for a good price.

Also when you edit with the proxie files, how do you contact these files to the Prores ones? Thanks.

 

[Chris Parker]

You don't need kona 3 to work with red. You need something like it if you want to look at your images on an external reference monitor.

 

[Conrad Hunziker]

Start with R3D's - backed up so there are at least 2 copies of the RAW REDCODE Media

I would like to add that the backups need to be on separate file systems and in geographically dispersed locations.

People tend to think that a 2-disk mirrored RAID 1 set is 2 copies, but it is just one. One accidental delete click or one controller failure will erase both copies.

Also, its important to not have all the copies in the same place, as soon as possible. One producer made 2 copies on 2 different drives, but packed them in the same suitcase, which the airline promptly lost.

These points may seem like they are outside the scope of the original post, but for those who are new to the process these are important points.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

hey everyone, great discussion,

BUT can anyone help me to find the best workflow?

my R3D rushes are loaded into scratch, that can read native 4K in realtime. And in another hand, an Avid Symphony is waiting for the edit.

all the reviews and the threads are talking about Metafuze Redrushes, redcine etc, for transcoding and wainting a hell of time to begin the session...

is there any turnaround to have direct HD output 1080 or 720 into symphony with time/edge code, that we can return back to scratch for grading and conforming.

This is a good question for Lucas or Tony at Assimilate. What I can tell you is that if your Scratch hardware is fast enough and has an nVidia card with the SDI daughtercard you can push out 1080 at 23.98fps, full debayer, half res. into any I/O rig that can write out DNxHD on the fly (I believe the Nitris harware can do this but check with an Avid person) but unfortunately the TC will not come with it.

There is a workaround that involves creating an ALE file in Scratch that shouldn't be difficult, check Assimilate support for the step by step. Once you have re-connected the TC you should be able to create an EDL at the conclusion of creative editorial that will allow you to conform the original footy. Keep in mind that AFAIK the EDL support is limited to single layer, straight cut, no speed changes (simple cross dissolves usually work OK).

Hopefully Lucas will catch this thread and provide a clearer and more complete explanation.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

One Minor correction to that list of r3d supporting software.

Nuke currently only supports r3d in a beta build that's not to my knowledge publicly available. The latest build is 5.1v4b6 or 7 but r3d support won't be out until 5.2 I know The Foundry likes to leapfrog releases with existing stable releases vs point releases but I don't know that 5.2 is going to immediately available until later this spring.

---

Re: Post Houses doing dailies. The other thing to keep in mind is honestly how little most agencies/producers actually understand the process of creating a daily. They understand their aspects of production very well but a lot of us who work with more cutting edge software day in and day out take largely for granted the amount of knowledge we bring to the table which makes creating dailies in a reasonable time frame possible.

Usually a smooth and reliable operation is the product of a lot of hard work. It's one of the pet peeves I always had with VFX courses. One of the best tests you could give your students is to render out ANYTHING 30 seconds long and deliver it. What was easy with 1 frame or 60 frames suddenly becomes a logistics nightmare by making it 20 times longer. I imagine dailies processing is the same problem. Multiply anything by several hundred thousand frames and it's going to become a challenge.

 

[Kyle Mallory]

IFX Piranha has a full end-to-end solution for working natively on R3D, including dynamic proxies down to 1/16thres, for real-time multiple content streams.

It is a little confusing, and I think most people understand this, but the notion of offline and online blurs with RED's dynamic proxies. At least in Piranha, you can cut, rough composite, and color at 1/16, 1/8 or 1/4 resolution, with multiple streams in realtime, and render the same project as an "online master" simply by changing the global proxy level to Full Res and rendering the project.

Piranha scales all proxy (less than full-res) R3D content to the full-res size (ie, 1/8th is scaled up by 8x) so all of your work is done at "full resolution scale", but without the overhead of decoding/debayering the full res image. This allows all of your compositing, painting, rotoscoping, etc to be done at the project resolution, despite the use of lower-res proxies.

Also, for what it is worth, IFX Piranha has a complete stereo solution that also is R3D compatible. They are currently working on a real-time on-set preview and capture solution that will take in two SDI feeds from two R1s on a stereo rig, and composite them in realtime for on-set 3D preview using an appropriate monitor and glasses, etc.

 

[AntonyCASAFilms]

- Adobe CS4 Workflow simple overview: Edit natively with R3D files in Premiere Pro 4.0.1 / Finish Natively or with rendered online media in After Effects 9.0.1


Post Production Pathway #2:
Adobe CS4 (Premiere Pro 4.0.1) All Desktop PC or Mac hardware workflow:

Start with Premiere Pro 4.0.1 with the RED Adobe CS4 Installer package loaded from the red.com/support website

Natively Import (Drag and Drop) R3D files into Premiere Pro, set up the project resolution based on the power of your computing hardware and edit offline in either 1/2k, 1k or 2k resolution from the 4k native R3D files

then

Send Premiere Pro Project to After Effects 9.0.1, reset project parameters to 2k or 4k for grading and finishing, and create final deliverables for TV or Theatrical Finish

That's pretty much the way I am trying to do it.

The limitation at the moment (unless I am missing something) is that this imports the footage with the metadata settings fixed.

Can anyone at Red say if or when we will be able to change settings in Adobe CS4 (e.g. ISO) during import in order to get the most out of the RAW footage?

Apologies if I have missed the obvious, but I am very new to editting Red footage.

Note: My editting system is PC-based.

 

[Eric Maran]

Has anybody worked with all methods and can recommend what they found to work the smoothest?

Also, has anybody cut a full feature length project using Native or Proxy? Did you experience any stability issues with project files or media, etc?

And (apparently I'm FULL of questions today!) have you found that working Natively on a 8-core Mac to be able to handle simple FX (dissolves, etc) smoothly without render?

Thanks everyone!
Eric

 

[jerryflf]

Ever since the 16x9 formats were enabled I have had a bad time trying to play _.m proxies back in FCP 6.0.5 I had been using that workflow from the beginning, but then one day it jsut stopped working. I have gone to Red rushing but I was wondering if anybody else has had this problem. I get the 8 core tower today, so hopefully that will open up the proxy workflow again. I like the Proxy especially for the ease of use to end up in Color.

Thanks in advance
J

 

[Tyler Black]

Ted,

Thanks you for the time it took to put this together. For me personally, I had to just pick a method and go with it so I could start turning out work. I'm aware of all of the ways to approach the workflow, but I haven't necessarily had time to experiment with them. Like I don't use DPX or TIF files or RedCine or some of the other variables. It would be helpful to me if you could give a short PRO / CON section at the end of each of your workflow scenarios. For example "This method is higher quality, but takes longer to process." Or "This is a great way to go if you're eventually going to film, but if you're staying in video you don't need it."

Thanks again...