Baby's first RED

[JasonHowell]

Long time listener first time caller.

I am being given the chance of grading and exporting a low-budget short shot on RED and I have very little experience. The reasons I'm being given the job is; I'm free, they like my photography, and because of the ingenuity of people on this board I know more about it than they do.

I'm going to be using their new eight-core MacPro with 16 gigs of ram.

The film was edited with Final Cut. Final length is 23 minutes. Outputting to DVD for festival submissions.

If I understand everything correctly, this is the simplest work-flow available to me resulting in the best quality final images. I'm considering adding Cineform NeoHD and conforming the XML to Cineform files and Magic Bullet Colorista for simplicity in After effects color grading, but this is how the workflow stands now.


1. Export Final cut XML.

2. Conform XML to the original .R3D files in Clipfinder

3. Import XML into Premiere CS4 4K 16:9 Sequence

4. Send to After Effects

5. Grade in either 16 bit or 32 bit

6. Render and Export 1080p for DVD encoding

Any help would be great

 

[BigLu]

Curious,
You chose AE because you know it and feel good with it?

Have you considered Color pulling from the native R3D and exporting out what ever you desire.

Render and export 2k at 16x9 sequence why not export out 1080p fitting your 2k into that. or did you want the black bars on top and on bottom, 1080 would allow you to use full viewing of your DVD 16x9 encode for 16x9 television monitors

good luck.

 

[JasonHowell]

The first project I ever worked on was in Apple Color. It turned out looking great and I liked the interface, but there were problems with transitions and such that I didn't know to take off before sending to color. I feel like if I had a tutor that really knew Color it would be the best and fastest choice, but I think I can navigate After Effects better if any problems kick up. I'm looking into ways to avoid a 500 layer project. I read one post that suggested breaking it down in premiere before bridging, but I don't know the ins and outs of that yet.

 

[BigLu]

I love how CS4 can work with the R3D
and I love how Color can work with the R3D
both seem to have their upside and problems.
I wish you good luck

 

[Chris Vrakotas]

Color cannot handle any transitions or fx you apply in Final Cut. If you "Send to Color" from FCP you can color grade your material, return to FCP via Color and you'll have the grades and the transitions. Then you can do the final render. Try this for some shots and see if this workflow fits your needs.

Another workflow would be:
1. Edit in FCP
2. Export XML
3. Load XML in Crimson, make XML for Redcine
4. Load the new XML in Redcine, color grade
5. Make roundtrip back to FCP

By the way, how you'll color grade in AE? With Color Finesse or something else?

Chris

 

[JasonHowell]

I'll try a sample sequence tomorrow with that. Seems like it would make things a bit easier as long as I can achieve the same effects. My question about exporting in FCP is how does the program render it's transitions and time effects? Is it rendering them in 8 bit or can it render those affects in 16 or 32bit like AE?

For color grading and AE I was thinking of using AEs native tools along with either Magic Bullet's Colorista/looks or Color finesse. I am completely open to suggestion on that front too.

 

[Uli Plank]

FCP can render in 32 bit float, but check CoreMelt's whitepaper on some issues with specific filters and transitions.

MBL is still very buggy in CS4, haven't even tried Colorista. Both work very well in FCP, calculating float precision (in case you don't like Color).

 

[D Fuller]

Jayson,

I just want to say that I love the way you approach this problem. You concern with color depth and openness to suggestion is exactly what I look for in a collaborator. You'll do well. Were I in a position to do so, I'd offer you a job.

David

 

[Rudi Herbert]

For color grading and AE I was thinking of using AEs native tools along with either Magic Bullet's Colorista/looks or Color finesse. I am completely open to suggestion on that front too.

Magic Bullet is, unfortunately, a mixed bag on CS4/Vista 64. Looks works relatively well, and you can, of course, do your own grade past whatever comes standard with the suite. Colorista doesn't work well, sometimes not at all, so I wouldn't go there for now. Color Finesse does work, and it is a great product that rivals anything out there in quality if you know how to use it. For now, I'm doing all my grading on 1)Looks (building my own presets), 2)Color Finesse, 3)AE (which still can, with a little tweaking and patience, do ANYTHING any other program can do out there. But since most looks can be achieved with the use of so little tools, any of these will do fine if you know what you're doing...