Reasons for using a DIT

[Corinne Ryan]

I'm an experienced assistant editor with a few RED features under my belt. Next week I'll be speaking at a conference to a producers/directors and I would like to explain the importance of a DIT on set.

Any DIT's out there willing to lend me a few words to explain, in non-technical speak, what you do and why it's so important.

 

[Cam Crowley]

Would you let somebody with no experience be a film loader on a budgeted production?

Same deal with the DIT/Data Wrangler position - once shot, that data is worth a lot to the film makers. It needs to be handled with care and diligence just as film does.

At the lower end of the budget scale producers will often try to get out of paying for a dedicated DIT or using an inexperienced (but keen) crew member who is already filling another position on set. This is flirting with disaster. Sure, they'll get away with it some of the time but I can guarantee that haphazard data wrangling will bite them in the arse one day.

Search REDuser - there's heaps of info about what DITs do on a daily basis and the kind of kits they bring to a set - you'll find that those who treat it seriously also bring some fairly serious kit with them to enable them to do the job effectively and efficiently.

Cam

 

[Simon Baechler]

The DIT is taking the drives from the camera and copies the data onto cheap firewire backup drives on his laptop. He has to sit in front of it all day and watch the progress bar advance.
He does not have to lug camera cases around or help the first AC in any way. Because he is the DIT and not the second camera assistant. The person the DIT is replaced with on Red shoots. ;-)

 

[Cüneyt Kaya]

The DIT is taking the drives from the camera and copies the data onto cheap firewire backup drives on his laptop. He has to sit in front of it all day and watch the progress bar advance.
He does not have to lug camera cases around or help the first AC in any way. Because he is the DIT and not the second camera assistant. The person the DIT is replaced with on Red shoots. ;-)

you`re talking about a copy monkey.
there is much more in that position.

just think of a multicam, multiformat, onset editing shoot

 

[Martin Weiss]

Over at the redcentre podcast they had a very good interview with a DIT a while ago, lots of food for thought - a good DIT spends only 10% of his time making backups. (Just like a good loader only spends 10% of his time loading mags)

Edit: Red Centre #44, http://www.fxguide.com/redcentre with Brook Willard http://www.brookwillard.com/

 

[Jeff Coatney]

The footage data from a production day is worth tens of thousands of dollars. A day could average anywhere from $15,000 dollars to $50,000 and many hundreds of thousands more, depending on a production's budget. I am amazed that there are Producers willing to put that much money at risk by buying sub-standard drives or not providing for someone to protect that valuable, irreplaceable material until it is ingested in the Post process. At no other point in the filmmaking process, is such a lackadaisical attitude tolerated towards the precious footage in the can. Yet there are Producers who are willing to balance the fate of an entire production on the head of a pin by not providing for a DIT or DAM. I insist on triple redundancy, even if the Producer resists it. I even have a bullet-proof argument that shuts mouths and opens checkbooks and here it is for you to memorize:

"Suppose the footage from an entire day is lost, a drive fails or is stolen, damaged or otherwise unrecoverable. When the insurance investigator asks me how many drives we usually use on a production for downloading I will tell them "three". When they ask other professional DIT's to confirm this, they will be told "three". Do you think they will pay your claim when they find out you only used one or two?"

Or this little gem:

"The cost of the Hard Drives used to store an entire production's footage is often way less than the Craft Services budget for the shoot. You're telling me that stale coffee, soggy potato chips, cookies and a pallet of Costco bagels is more important than protecting the footage that cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to shoot?"

Good luck!

 

[Cail Young]

He does not have to lug camera cases around or help the first AC in any way. Because he is the DIT and not the second camera assistant. The person the DIT is replaced with on Red shoots. ;-)

Not in my neck of the woods - I am 2nd AC and DIT most shoots. Budgeted shoots we recommend a dedicated 2nd which frees up the DIT to do real DIT work (settings first-light looks with the DOP, for example).

I'm sick of hearing about how digital cameras are destroying the careers of loaders. Not true at all. Did video cameras? No. Adaptation is all that's required.

I would love to see the day I can call up a freelancer's agent and get a hold of a digi-capable loader and wash my hands of this whole stressful on-set business.

 

[Martin Weiss]

I was always amazed that the Clapper/Loader was one of the lowest paid positions on a film team. In the UK the producers would never pay more than for a boom op, even though they were the ones handling the very result of a full day's worth of production.

"When will they ever learn...?"

Oh, and Corinne: This is a real name forum. Shoot an e-mail to jason at landmine dot tv or read the sticky that is on top of pretty much every forum.

 

[Jeff Brown]

As others have mentioned there's a lot more to it than data wrangling and a definition between a digital loader and is DIT is needed.

On set I set one lights, process hourlies (not dailies) for offline, and help previs tests for FX chaps/editors etc. To me that is a DIT role. The equipment I provide is way beyond a loaders position.

If on a job someone just copies and pastes on a laptop then they are a digital loader (think of a macpro as the new loading tent).

Some jobs require a loader, others a DIT - just make sure you tell them what the differences are and the pros/cons of each setup.

Regards

Jeff Brown
Brownian Motion

 

[Andrew clemson]

I got asked if I could "DIT" a job shot on the 5DmkII today. I politely told them that it was a bit of a waste of money hiring me as a dedicated transfer monkey. They debated it.

Am I wrong or is there really no need for a D.I.T (or whatever abbreviation you prefer) on a job with a HDSLR? I would have thought it was a bit or a lot less necessary than on a camera like the R1.

Oh well, if they really want me on it, money's money.

 

[Disco Legend Zeke]

One of which should be fedexed to another city each evening.

 

[Charles Nader]

I got asked if I could "DIT" a job shot on the 5DmkII today. I politely told them that it was a bit of a waste of money hiring me as a dedicated transfer monkey. They debated it.

Am I wrong or is there really no need for a D.I.T (or whatever abbreviation you prefer) on a job with a HDSLR? I would have thought it was a bit or a lot less necessary than on a camera like the R1.

Oh well, if they really want me on it, money's money.

Yes, take the money...because some producers will not pay for one. Sad but true.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

My work as a DIT is called DMT (Data Management Technician), a DIT has in my work been the "leader" of the data/camera handling, while the DMT handles the data, logs it, backs it up etc. Maybe I've been working as a DIT without knowing it

Anyway, last feature I worked on I was the clapper/loader but because of my background as DIT/DMT I did the double job of doing both and it worked, but it was alot of overtime due to the logging. If you have experience with it then I don't think it's wrong to do both, but I think it's a matter of responsibility from the production that they demand alot more from the person in question if they ask them to do both. Will they get payed by the hour, overtime etc?

 

[David (dudi) Namir]

German Society of Cinematographers DIT job description.

German Society of Cinematographers DIT job description.

A few months ago the German Society of Cinematographers published a draft of a DIT job description.
It can be found under the following link:
http://www.bvkamera.org/en/bvkamera/bb_dit.php
Copyright: bvk – Bundesverband Kamera, German Society of Cinematographers, Brienner Str. 52, 80333 München, Germany, 2009

 

[Casey Green]

Here is a great thread regarding the position of RED Data Capture Tech:

http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=28695&highlight=Data+Capture

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

I hate the term "copy monkey" - your data is the most important asset on the set.

You can have a warm body pull data from recording media straight to a couple of hard drives and call it good, and, if, there is little to no money on the line for your production, then that is fine and dandy. If you have a drop-out, or a technical glitch, it is just how things go on no-budget, two-bit productions - or your own pet projects.

But if the production budget is large, and your DP was flown in from out of town, and they're spent a huge amount of money to pull the production together and the expectations and stakes are high for the outcome, then your DIT does a whole lot more -

on that end, here are some expectations...

1) you are the RED-specific camera expert - the DP may have shot the camera a few times, but he shoots all systems, not just RED, and he'll expect you to know and help navigate the menu structure, configure the menus and the programmable keys in the way that he prefers, understand and be able to explain RED's particular metering options, he may also consult on best practices for exposing RED footage -

he won't spend a lot of time on this with you, just have a confab on the nuts and bolts and away he goes to do his job - but you need to know what you're talking about, be able to meet him at a very high level of knowledge and performance specific to this camera, know its behaviors and parameters - and then let him integrate your technical knowledge into his creative options

2) help the first AC with testing and configuration in advance of the shoot - and be able to speak with him in the same way, listed above - he may be a killer focus puller but not necessarily a frequent user of this system and a similar interchange will occur - and he'll use what you know to do his job at a very high level and to be able to consult with the DP

at this level, you are an integral part of the camera team, nothing remotely resembling a copy monkey, and the technical knowledge you share among the three of you is the landscape for the creative side of each person's job to succeed. and these dudes have amazing chops, they know the questions to ask and you better be able to keep up with the answers.

3) calibrate and set up monitoring in the video village

4) first light color correction in RED's proprietary software systems, which you know inside and out - if the DP has a look that they want to send down the editorial pipeline, you'll do this work and organize accordingly

5) oh, yeah bombproof the data - you not only copy it, but you bomb-proof it, which means not only multiple copies but testing, review, and, after everyone else has gone home after your 12-14 hour day on set, you are pushing the data off to a networked LTO-4 system - at least, that's our end game. YMMV. and last...generate pdf files of each piece of recording media, so that editorial has an inventory of shots.

6) I always hear that the DIT makes rushes or dailies on the set for review, but I've never found that there is any actual time for this - if you're lucky, proxies get reviewed - but you have to be prepared to output these, as well, in whatever format is requested, so we're set up for DVD, Blu-Ray, to be able to hook up our Rocket card to a projector or plasma for playback

Once more, with feeling - your data is THE most important asset on the set, you are the point person between the camera and editorial departments, so you have to know the camera system, the bomb-proofing system, and the post system.

There is a lot between copy monkey and the most fully-articulated expectations for DIT...the position and expectations can vary from job to job.

You may get hired for the low-end jobs, but, to function as a complete DIT, you have to be prepared for the high end, and that requires quite a bit of specialized knowledge and equipment.

 

[Tim Whitcomb]

a DATA WRANGLER (responsible for media) and a DIGITAL IMAGE TECHNICIAN (responsible for the IMAGE, on set CC, making sure the "LOOK" or "IMAGE" is what the director, client, producer etc, is looking for... hence the name)

They are NOT the same thing. Although many people confuse the two and projects often only have budget for one. So people end up doing both... they are completely separate positions and I would argue BOTH are as critical as the DP.

FInd the budget, cut another department... when shooting digitally. A D.I.T. and Data Wrangler are indispensable...

and no, Im not either. I'm a producer who has learned their value.

cheers

 

[Christoffer Glans]

But the definition for the Data Wrangler would be DMT, right? I've heard the term DMT more then Data Wrangler and credited myself as that when I did that kind of job.

 

[Chris Kenny]

5) oh, yeah bombproof the data - you not only copy it, but you bomb-proof it, which means not only multiple copies but testing, review, and, after everyone else has gone home after your 12-14 hour day on set, you are pushing the data off to a networked LTO-4 system - at least, that's our end game. YMMV. and last...generate pdf files of each piece of recording media, so that editorial has an inventory of shots.

Your list is spot on. And don't forget troubleshooting. It's easy to show someone how to copy files to a couple of places and open a few of them in Red Alert... but do they know what to do when drives don't mount, errors occur during file copies, or clips won't properly open?

Managing extremely important data requires a certain combination of common sense, conscientiousness and technical skill that you're unlikely to find among the ranks of your poorly paid production assistants -- especially when it has to be done with a mobile setup perched on the corner of a table in the back of whatever obscure location you're shooting in, you can't take too long at it because (depending on the DP and 1st AC) you have to spend most of your time within earshot of the camera for consultation and settings adjustments, electrics will probably manage to cut the power to your download station at least twice during the course of the day (hope you're using all bus powered drives or have a UPS!), and you can't make mistakes either at six in the morning, when you're still half asleep, or 15 hours later, when you're dead on your feet.

 

[Alex Carr]

A Digi Loader should have at the minimum,

UPS / Laptop / Esata / FW / Tools / Cart / Backup software / Backups of each (except the cart I guess).

And the knowledge to troubleshoot anything that comes your way, I mean anything.

I've tried this recently, Make 1/8th Res .mov's from all the footage just to be sure it will all encode through RedRushes ON THE SET, After each Mag is Downloaded and before the Mag is cleaned and returned to Camera. If a clip wont encode thats a Huge RED Flag for Corruption. When Working with My Desktop system this is mandatory and the results are put within the Log. I can't always do this with my laptop because it would take too long or not possible.

Lets get rid of Data wrangler, please its a little disrespectful. I will not allow a production to call me by this position, on the call sheet, timecard, crew contact list NO WHERE. We dont call a 1st AD a director wrangler, Out of respect and Professionalism lets stop this term.