DIT Cart day rates, Los Angeles

[Michael Totten]

I'd like to get a ballpark day rate for a magliner/DIT cart with:

MacPro 8 core 2.26, 16GB RAM
ATi 4870
AJA Kona 3
7.5 TB 5 bay raid drive
battery back up
Dual Dell Display
Panasonic 17" HD-SDI monitor

thank you kindly: )

 

[Alex Carr]

What software?

 

[Michael Totten]

What software?

Red Rushes
Red Alert
Red Cine X

Clipfinder

Final Cut Studio 3

Adobe Production CS4

 

[Dane Brehm]

What are you using to download your data with? FW800? Esata? SAS? etc this make a big difference in time.

For Commercials having all that horsepower is ok if your also doing the transcoding but someone with a laptop (or 2) will get the same kit rate to download.

$150-$400/day is normal for short form commercials and music videos. Some get more, others less.

I personally would invest in 3cp or equivilant for any feature or TV work. Color is everything to a DIT/DP and with software like that you will save the Producer tens of thousands of dollars in Post.

$900-2500/week is normal for features and TV work.

I didn't see what your using to Calibrate those monitors with? What kind of Back-devices do you have for your cart? Not storage but what happens with your MacPro dies on-set

goodluck,

-
Dane

 

[Michael Totten]

What are you using to download your data with? FW800? Esata? SAS? etc this make a big difference in time.

For Commercials having all that horsepower is ok if your also doing the transcoding but someone with a laptop (or 2) will get the same kit rate to download.

$150-$400/day is normal for short form commercials and music videos. Some get more, others less.

I personally would invest in 3cp or equivilant for any feature or TV work. Color is everything to a DIT/DP and with software like that you will save the Producer tens of thousands of dollars in Post.

$900-2500/week is normal for features and TV work.

I didn't see what your using to Calibrate those monitors with? What kind of Back-devices do you have for your cart? Not storage but what happens with your MacPro dies on-set

goodluck,

-
Dane

Currently the internal drives (in macpro) are plain jane 7200 RPM. I had considered upgrading to a 3 solid state drive raid (just for overall system performance)... but it seems that the jury is still out on whether or not that's safe and how beneficial it would even be. I've read reports that the speed increase is incredible, but that solid state does indeed crash and the fact that it's a raid of three drives increases that chance even more. Also, I'm currently having a drive that crashed rebuilt and the company that's rebuilding it said that solid state is very difficult to fix/rebuild when they crash.

The external drive is a Kano 5 bay 7.5 TB esata raid which is mirrored for safety. After the footage is ingested into the raid I was going to have the footage backed up to 2 or 3 g-raid drives (depending on what client wants...maybe solid state ?).

If the macpro dies on set then I'll either use a macbook pro until I can get another macpro on set or perhaps I'll just have to purchase another macpro.

I've had the 17" & 26" Panasonic production monitor professionally calibrated and compared against a master series BVM Sony CRT. Pretty darn close... I know the other 5%-10% difference is in the raw file so I see no point in trying to essentially color grade on set... (that's part of what RAW is for right? might as well utilize it).

The two dell monitors were calibrated with an eye/software combo of some kind... but I don't use them for color really. More of just reference & real estate to help with keeping everything organized.

 

[Dane Brehm]

The Panasonic Monitors do the job but alittle green-biased for my tastes though they are the most commonly found monitors. TVLogic and JVC are nice to. I personally use a HP DreamColor for Generating LUTs then use a Panasonic for Reference. I to have a Dell Xsharp like yourself for added real estate and their very cost effective.

I personally wouldn't invest in Solid-State as it cost three times more to recover data from. I like to have a sata recovery option if I need to recover a failed drive for whatever reason. For the Sarah Silverman Program I used 9-RAID5 Sans Digital Enclosures using Seagate 1.5TB/7K drives in a RAID 10 configuration. Worked well for their budget. I use 8 bay XSAS RAIDs for Feature work.

When using 3cp, the DP and I are finessing a particular look for dailies and a matrix'd LUT that often is carried over through Post. I do alot of Feature work outside of LA so I'm often in communication with the AE and Colorist to finesse the DP's desired look.

Things to add your Cart that are must haves
- DSC Chart
- Igloo Tent (white outside,black inside)
- R3D Data Manager v5 or ShotPut Pro
- SMC Fan Control
- Data Color SpyderPro3
- Cart Cover


Goodluck,

 

[Michael Totten]

The Panasonic Monitors do the job but alittle green-biased for my tastes though they are the most commonly found monitors. TVLogic and JVC are nice to. I personally use a HP DreamColor for Generating LUTs then use a Panasonic for Reference. I to have a Dell Xsharp like yourself for added real estate and their very cost effective.

I personally wouldn't invest in Solid-State as it cost three times more to recover data from. I like to have a sata recovery option if I need to recover a failed drive for whatever reason. For the Sarah Silverman Program I used 9-RAID5 Sans Digital Enclosures using Seagate 1.5TB/7K drives in a RAID 10 configuration. Worked well for their budget. I use 8 bay XSAS RAIDs for Feature work.

When using 3cp, the DP and I are finessing a particular look for dailies and a matrix'd LUT that often is carried over through Post. I do alot of Feature work outside of LA so I'm often in communication with the AE and Colorist to finesse the DP's desired look.

Things to add your Cart that are must haves
- DSC Chart
- Igloo Tent (white outside,black inside)
- R3D Data Manager v5 or ShotPut Pro
- SMC Fan Control
- Data Color SpyderPro3
- Cart Cover


Goodluck,

Dane.

thanks so much for all the good info : )

 

[Brook Willard]

Ask for $850/d, expect $650. My cart with 3cp/sl, double the Mac Pro hardware, 5x the storage and plenty of tricks goes for about a grand a day. You'll want to take everybody's advice in here... add a LOT of software. Also have a LOT of backups. Backup boot drives, graphics cards, RAM, RAID drives, additional I/O cards, you name it. Make sure your battery backup has a power conditioner inline. Add some SATA or SAS-based alternatives to ingest media and start to think about LTO. Pay attention to Dane's posts, too...

 

[Michael Totten]

Ask for $850/d, expect $650. My cart with 3cp/sl, double the Mac Pro hardware, 5x the storage and plenty of tricks goes for about a grand a day. You'll want to take everybody's advice in here... add a LOT of software. Also have a LOT of backups. Backup boot drives, graphics cards, RAM, RAID drives, additional I/O cards, you name it. Make sure your battery backup has a power conditioner inline. Add some SATA or SAS-based alternatives to ingest media and start to think about LTO. Pay attention to Dane's posts, too...

Hey Brook. I saw a picture of your cart on your blog and it looked like you had one very large monitor... but it's hard to tell. Do you have two monitors ganged up or is it just the one?

Also, I noticed you had your macpro rack-mounted inside what looks to be a master case / ATA case. Do you mind if I ask where you had that done? Looks nice. Do you ship it that way, or check it on planes/luggage when you travel?

 

[KevinStanley]

I've been averaging about 450 a day for commercials, a little less for TV/pilots and features, it's been more or less depending on the gig too. I carry a matching Mac Pro in a pelican just in case my tower crashes. I also keep two mac book pros and full compliment of software; CF, shotput, R3D DM, FCS, Adobe Production, all the RED apps, builds, Etc. I use an MXO and 23" ACD to grade in RA and playback to a panny if production has the cash for it. 8TB Raid 5 with a spare drive I can pop in, extra esata, plenty of card readers. and extra drives. Igloo tent, baggit. It would be nice if 3CP became standard practice for DITs, that's next on my list.

 

[Michael Totten]

Yeah I'm going to look into 3cp. I guess there's a two day seminar about 3cp in here in LA starting November 4th.

 

[Brook Willard]

Hey Brook. I saw a picture of your cart on your blog and it looked like you had one very large monitor... but it's hard to tell. Do you have two monitors ganged up or is it just the one?

Also, I noticed you had your macpro rack-mounted inside what looks to be a master case / ATA case. Do you mind if I ask where you had that done? Looks nice. Do you ship it that way, or check it on planes/luggage when you travel?

It's two monitors - changes depending on the job. For Southland, our "good" [enough] monitor was a 1760.

I had A.J. Cases build that case for me, it's a slot for a MacPro and a 10U shock-mounted rack. I have a two-tower system that is my new flagship, so I'm likely going to sell the camera cart, lid and case here soon.

If I'm traveling, I put the doors on it, secure everything and strap it into the truck that's driving to the location. If it's a relatively close job [half the country], the truck will just drive there out of LA. If it's further [overseas], the camera department generally loads into a container. I've yet to have to fly with the gear, but I would do so if the situation called for it I suppose...

 

[Michael Totten]

It's two monitors - changes depending on the job. For Southland, our "good" [enough] monitor was a 1760.

I had A.J. Cases build that case for me, it's a slot for a MacPro and a 10U shock-mounted rack. I have a two-tower system that is my new flagship, so I'm likely going to sell the camera cart, lid and case here soon.

If I'm traveling, I put the doors on it, secure everything and strap it into the truck that's driving to the location. If it's a relatively close job [half the country], the truck will just drive there out of LA. If it's further [overseas], the camera department generally loads into a container. I've yet to have to fly with the gear, but I would do so if the situation called for it I suppose...

thanks for the info. Let me know when you're selling. I'm interested.
thanks: )