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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

7:1 Shooting Ratio

T

Tommy

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I'm working on a feature length film (100 page script) and if we have a 2TB hard drive and are shooting 4K 2:1 (Redcode 36) at a 7:1 ratio (720 minutes - 12 hours of footage) it will take up approximately 1524GB. (Note: we'll have additional 2TB drives for backing up the footage.) I've been told by Red Camera renters that usually not less than 100GB of footage is shot each day. Our shoot is 17 days which would mean 1700GB (I don't want to use up this much drive space). Since it's such a run and gun shoot the director isn't planning on shooting more than 3 takes of each shot (because of time constraints) and everything has been thoroughly story-boarded. I know that some shots are going to overlap etc. but I still think this will work. Am I crazy? Thanks, Tommy
 
I agree with the 100GB per day as an average. Beware that a 2TB drive doesn't actually hold 2000GB - maybe like 1800 or so if I'm not mistaken, so you have a real risk of running out of space. Besides that you need backup disks - preferably held in different locations so I would say 2 times 3TB is a minimum.
 
Seems to me that limiting or risking the project for the sake of buying another hard drive is getting the cart before the horse.
 
bettsy said:
Seems to me that limiting or risking the project for the sake of buying another hard drive is getting the cart before the horse.
Click to expand...

Exactly, 1tb of disk = £85!? Shoot what you need to shoot.. remember to make two copies of everything..
 
Also, loading drives up to bursting point is not a good idea. As the others have said, get yourself plenty storage; at current cost a few TB isn't going to amount to much more than a few lunches.

Angus
 
I suspect you will shoot at least twice as much footage as you plan. Trust me, everybody does, especially in run & gun. You want lots of coverage, lots of extras, lots of possible inserts....

We just finished a feature film and shot between 20 - 25:1 At first, I thought it was high, but going through selects, I'm glad I did. Yes, we have lots of pre-slate stuff and next take roll-throughs, but I think we were able to cover more opportunities that way. As soon as you cut, the process can often grind to a halt. Next thing you know, someone now wants to make an adjustment to something, that you could easily live without, but you let them have a minute which turns into 5. We often just rolled-through to keep it going.

I think this is even more important in lower-budget stuff. You work your ass off to get cast, crew, location, etc.. no reason to worry about the price of a hard drive. They are so bloody cheap these days.

It's the up & down side of digital; you can shoot the shit out of it. But there has to be some silver lining for getting this level of production down to this price point. On some of our scenes, besides our normal coverage, we have bits of coverage from several other angles. It allows us to cut to that angle for a little moment, or look, or what not. Nothing looks like big budget, more then a small piece of matching action from a completely new angle.

Chris
 
You MUST plan to make at least two copies of everything, ON TWO SEPARATE DRIVES. If one drive is broken or, worse, is stolen, you'll then have your backup copy. Fortunately, hard drive space is so cheap these days, it's almost insignificant.

Stephen
 
I would expand as needed but, Basic rule have your main system be setup for Raid 5 and backup hard drive copy and backup to LTO. No reason not to be completely safe. I mean you don't change film in a film camera in broad daylight so having the right tools to keep you Digital negative safe is the same concept. Best wishes and Good Luck with your project!
 
7:1 is very optimistic, I would say. 10:1 would be a minimum.

I'm with everyone else - get hard drives as you need them. Don't fill them up. REDUNDANT BACKUPS ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!!!

Sorry to shout, but if you drop that one drive with the footage on it, you just wasted a lot of time and money.
 
ZIP or RAR?

ZIP or RAR?

If you get many files on the disk you can use ZIP or RAR to make them into one big file, that can recover disk space even if there is 0% compression. RAR is said to compress better. Anyone know the average ZIP ratio on R3D files?

If it was me I would make two backup copies as well as the original transfer of the R3D files. I woud try to have 20TB on hand, you can get harddisks in lots by the case on ebay etc. If you don't use them all during shooting you will probably need them for post if you are going to your own DI etc.

Also it can be faster to copy the whole harddisk with harddsik copy software rather than copy file by file, so you might look into harddrive copy programs to make making backup copies faster.

You might also grade the takes by quality (into folders etc.), and so be able to delete the ones that are unusable if needed to recover disk space.
 
Sorry to be unclear but my plan is to have 3x Caldigit VR 2TB drives (RAID 0, can't afford to buy the three drive RAID 5's). Two for onset backup and one for the editor. In the case that we need more drive space can anyone recommend a solid 1TB drive that I could buy three of (for redundancy)? Basically, we'll have everything backed up on three separate drives plus one drive for transcoding footage and at the end of the shoot we'll also back up everything to LT0-3 tape. On a side note, do you guys put labels on your drives? I was thinking of numbering each drive as well as including the production contact info (phone & email). Thanks for all your help! Tommy
 
Dan Hudgins said:
If you get many files on the disk you can use ZIP or RAR to make them into one big file, that can recover disk space even if there is 0% compression.
Click to expand...

Why would you do that? Let's say you have done that with a backup and you suddenly need to check if a critical file is on there. First you need the same amount of disk space to unpack everything and then hours of time - ever copied a 2TB file? Seems like a very bad idea.
 
hey Tommy, check out newegg.com and look at the ratings people give on the hard drives. Usually it's customers that are technically inclined writing the reviews. You'll probably get the best deal on harddrives there anyways.
 
Your estimate is far too low. We've just finished shooting two features and each was in the 3TB range. And that doesn't include the potential for transcoded files - at ProRes1080P HQ, we're talking another 3TB. If you come close to your original estimate, get everything you need and the footage looks good, pay your team double. In the end, do not even consider cutting back on takes because of drive space - your regret in post will lead you to tears.

Best of luck.

Nick.
 
Usually a director sheds a few tears when they first go into post. I'm not talking tears of joy either. At least I found this to be true on my first three films. After that, I learned about cutaways, inserts, and ecu's. :)

Rock on filmmaker!
 
Unzip time?

Unzip time?

sander kamp said:
Why would you do that? Let's say you have done that with a backup and you suddenly need to check if a critical file is on there. First you need the same amount of disk space to unpack everything and then hours of time - ever copied a 2TB file?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, when you unzip one shot's file in an archive you do not need to unzip the whole archive file, just extract that file? I seem to unzip one file in an archive all the time, it takes at most a few seconds and only the space required for that file? What archive program are you using?

If you have 20,000 files on the disk and you make an archive you should be able to free quite a bit of disk space, like if you are using FAT32 so both MAC and PC can read the disk. When doing a DI of a feature you might have 500,000 to 1,000,000 files if you count all the used and unused frames, and their backups, sound tracks, and various stages of composite, so archiving the discard frames can save disk space.

At any rate, you would not need to open the backup disk of your backup disk unless everything else went bad, so you would want to make a whole disk copy of your last good backup before you extract files from the archive, so opening the backup of a backup is not something you will probably ever do anyway, it just there as a last measure, so you want to have it fit on as few disks as you can to save later recopy time and space. Disks and tapes go bad over time, so you will need to make copies every few years, the fewer disks that takes the lower the "Maintenance Cost".

"Maintenance Cost" to archive Digital Cinema is a major "hidden" cost over shooting film. In cold dry storage color seperations can last maybe 400 years or more, but harddrives, DVD, and tapes can go bad faster, and being digital they don't just fade, they go 100% bad.
 
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