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10 Things RED Camera Users Need To Know

C

Carlos Corral

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I just got off my 3rd RED Production & Post Production project that I thought I'd take the time to write about it. Here are 10 Things new RED Users need to know about!

10 Things RED Camera Users Need To Know

1. REDCODE vs 35mm Film (do some research).
2. Shoot 4K and finish in 2k?
3. Some Assembly Required with RED Configurations.
4. Check, Check, & Double Check the Back Focus!
5. Use a GOOD Tripod.
6. Use Ice Packs with your RED Camera.
7. Shoot Sync Sound.
8. REDCODE 28 vs. REDCODE 36? Which one is right for you?
9. Choose your RED Workflow wisely when editing on a mac.
10. Sweet Color Correction with Apple COLOR.

Any feedback is always appreciated :emote_happyhappy:
 
Hey Carlos,

Good list and nothing inflammatory. I like it!

What are your thoughts about point 7, sync sound. Is this more about not challenging the camera dept, cable mess, or technical issues with the camera sound?

I completely understand that camera sound has been a no-no since the beginning of time, but does it continue out of habit or does it still make sense in this day and age to manually sync EVERY clip you ever take?

It seems like with the right sound person they could finally work out how to predict and control the sound that goes to camera and save countless hours in post.

Thoughts?
 
NIce List...

11- And spend some time with the people who keep the REDuser community moving.
 
jimhare said:
Hey Carlos,
Good list and nothing inflammatory. I like it!

What are your thoughts about point 7, sync sound. Is this more about not challenging the camera dept, cable mess, or technical issues with the camera sound?

I completely understand that camera sound has been a no-no since the beginning of time, but does it continue out of habit or does it still make sense in this day and age to manually sync EVERY clip you ever take?

It seems like with the right sound person they could finally work out how to predict and control the sound that goes to camera and save countless hours in post.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I just mentioned sync sound because when we used to work with other HD cameras such as the HPX170 or any JVC camera, we could just use their on board mics for reference sound and let the sound guy do his thing with the digital recorder and sync up in editing later.

If we couldn't plug into the the HD camera to feed the audio, we could at least use the on-board camera mics to shoot reference audio and then match up the 4-channel audio files that our sound guy recorded to his digital recorder.

Since the RED doesn't have an on-board mic, it really makes things easier shooting sync sound into the camera because at least then, you can hear audio while you are editing and dont have to sync up sound files with every single take. You just sync up the files that you ended up using.

Does that make sense?

It can be a little messing with XLRs what but hey, I'm all about making things easier in post production.

And yes, I agree with #11. Maybe these speakers should go 11. :smilewinkgrin:
 
12. Learn how to read a histogram, and use it.

13. Always shoot a few frames of DSC Color Chart.

14. Make sure color chart is in KEY light, if lighting changes, shot chart again.

15. Use your gray in chart as reference, this will reduce time taken for scene to scene to scene color correction.

16. Hire a knowledgeable RED Tech
 
jimhare said:
I completely understand that camera sound has been a no-no since the beginning of time, but does it continue out of habit or does it still make sense in this day and age to manually sync EVERY clip you ever take?
Click to expand...

For us, at least on TVCs, the Build 17 meters are still a bit wrong; so we shoot double system until we get a stable build with accurate metering.
 
Also determine a solid power system as different rental houses use different batteries besides the RedBatteries.

I use a Ambient Lock-it box for sound sync in addition most sound folks plugging into camera like to have a 10db pad in the cables.

I would also recommend the largest monitors you can get but most productions use the venerable 17' Panasonic 1710 or above as having the ability to see timecode and sound levels via HDSDI is rather helpful especially for the Script Supervisor.

Get the Best damn Red Tech you can get who understands the politics and set etiquette of the production world. Never tell the DP no or they can't do something its a career killer.

Goodluck,
 
In his very interesting article, Carlos wrote:

1min of REDCODE 28 @ 4K = 4.4GB
Click to expand...

Isn't that figure completly wrong?

Assuming REDCODE 28 is... well... 28MB/s, a minute would be 60x28 = 1680MB which roughly equates 1.6 GB! How comes Carlos' figure is almost 3 times higher than what it really should?
 
Redcode is variable bitrate, so there's no precise MB/s rating, however, yes - that figure is wrong (or not fully specified at least).

You need to know the project time base to get a complete picture of datatrates, but from experience 4K RC28 @ 25fps gives you about 5mins on an 8GB card, which backs up your 1.6B figure pretty well...

Slip of the typing-tongue, Carlos?!
Dom.
 
Dominic Jones said:
Redcode is variable bitrate, so there's no precise MB/s rating
Click to expand...


I agree: there is no precise MB/s rating, but I remember the number "28" indicates the maximum MB/s... I could be wrong though...

Anyway, from my own experience, you tend to get 10 minutes of RC28@4K 2:1 on a 16GB Compact Flash memory card... That's why I really was surprised by Carlos' figures.

In fact, I'm also surprised by RED's own figures when they mention the 128GB RED-RAM only is "capable of recording roughly thirty to forty minutes of 4K REDCODE™ RAW footage". Even RC36 @4K should give you about one hour of recording time, which is pretty far from the 40 minutes' figure...

I guess I must have gotten it all wrong somehow, but I'd like to know why my own experience with the RED-ONE doesn't match these figures: from my own experience, 4K recording with RC36 uses about 2GB/min and 1.6GB/min with RC28!
 
RED-RAM

RED-RAM

The original RED-RAM was 64GB capacity; if the average data rate was 1.6GB/min that would equate to about 40 minutes.

I'll have to go and check what the current Ops Guide and web sites say about that ...
 
shooting RC 36 16:9 with 25fps on a 16 GB CF Card gives us ´bout 9min of recording time, so 1,6 to 1,8 GB / min sounds fine.
 
Carlos Corral said:
I just mentioned sync sound because when we used to work with other HD cameras such as the HPX170 or any JVC camera, we could just use their on board mics for reference sound and let the sound guy do his thing with the digital recorder and sync up in editing later.

If we couldn't plug into the the HD camera to feed the audio, we could at least use the on-board camera mics to shoot reference audio and then match up the 4-channel audio files that our sound guy recorded to his digital recorder.

Since the RED doesn't have an on-board mic, it really makes things easier shooting sync sound into the camera because at least then, you can hear audio while you are editing and dont have to sync up sound files with every single take. You just sync up the files that you ended up using.

Does that make sense?

It can be a little messing with XLRs what but hey, I'm all about making things easier in post production.

And yes, I agree with #11. Maybe these speakers should go 11. :smilewinkgrin:
Click to expand...

I actually would suggest that you should outfit your rig with a small shotgun mic because reference sound is good to have. I remember working on a scene with music and dancing - the sound crew understood the scene to be MOS - which was true in the sense that we intended on laying a clean song track - however we still needed the reference sound for tracking the dancing to the song beat. It wasn't fatal but it slowed our progress in post. Had we outfitted out RED with a shotgun - we would have had all the reference sound we needed...
 
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