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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 :)

A working post workflow follow up

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Bal Deo

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Just a note from the prvious tread "A working post workflow"
I don't know if the thread was going off track by not really understanding what is required as a workflow. Agreed that shake is a industry standard for compositing, vfx, but did not uderstand the reasoning to use it in the pipeline for editorial.
From my understanding this is fairy simple, even with apple color in the pipeline, since color can handle upto 2k. In terms of creating dpx files REDCINE IS FREE with the camera and is capable of outputing most formats (dpx, tiff, QT etc...)
Again correct me if I'm wrong. Here is how i understand the workflow.

Apple FCS 2 Finish
1) Shoot REDCODE
2) use fcp for editorial
3) Grade using color upto 2K
4) Output


Alternative you could

1) Shoot REDCODE
2) use fcp for editorial
3) Pull list and Use REDCINE to convert 4K to dpx, tiff, QT or what ever format required
4) conform (lustre, IQ pablo etc)
5) Grade
6) Output

IF YOU REQUIRE A COMPLETE (REDCODE) NATIVE WORKFLOW

1) Shoot REDCODE
2) use fcp for editorial
3) Grade NATIVE REDCODE using "Scratch", assimilate scratch suports REDCODE
4) Output

So i didn't thing shake is a real viable option for converting or editorial. REDCINE will do most of the work in creating the format you require for finishing. Hopefully (few releases down the road) Apple may have "color" support REDCODE native for grading???
 
I think the big issue for the current version of Color is the way it round trips from FCP to Color and back to FCP.

This is fine if you are picture locked. What happens when you're not. From the little I have played with Color, there doesn't seem to be any streamlined way of dealing with editoral changes.

I suspect this will be addressed in the future, especially when Final Cut Server, but who knows.



The original post mentioned using Shake for assembly in a low budget workflow.

Sure Shake's strong points are compositing, but it can be used for other things.

That's not to say it's the best or fastest tool.

I think Shake's hidden strong point is that it's command line. Take a shake script and open it into a text editor and you can see what it's doing.

That means the programming savvy user can build on Shake's tools for things other than compositing.

For those who are heavily into customizing Shake, they can buy the $50k source code and just make their own versions.

Sure if you have $50k to burn, might as well just buy Scratch and be done with it.

We're talking about a $500 EOF product, that can be used for a lot more than is advertised. The user just has to be willing to deal with the headaches that come with it.
 
The round trip on color is pretty much broken at the moment. Again hopefully this will be addressed.
I did have a "simple" issue, or may be not an issue (I must be doing something wrong).
Here goes

1: edited the project in fcp 6
2: do a send to color
3: color grade
4: add all clips to render queue - all is good
5: render all - completed without any issue
6… send to fcp6 - all is good
7: review the new sequence in fcp6, oh we decided to change the colour on 3 shots
8: go back to color and make the changes in color

issues observed!
a) a green bar on top is shown for the render status of clip from previous render but this does not change with new changes made to that shot
b) also i was hoping (again just hoping) that the shot i made chages to will reflect not rendered in the render queue, but this did not.

it was a simple issue, i just cleared the queue and pulled the changed clips, but again i was "hoping" the clips will show up as not rendered!!!

the cool thing was the new 3 graded clips showed up in fcp6.
 
Can you run through exactly what you did from after changing the edit please.. ie

did you send to color again?

clear render list?

just ad selected changed shots to color render? :-/

I think you are suposed to delete the ones you change in finder :-/ not ideal...
s
 
Thomas Mathai said:
We're talking about a $500 EOF product, that can be used for a lot more than is advertised. The user just has to be willing to deal with the headaches that come with it.
Click to expand...


Thomas, I'm just curious how many films you've DI'd with Shake? And what kind of films were they, shorts, features, documentaries?

What was your experience like? What was your workflow? How did you get around not being able to preview clips in realtime?

As I said before, I'm a huge fan of Shake, and if I could understand a manageable workflow it would be worth considering.

I'm not trying to argue, just hoping to learn something new. :)
 
I agree with the above however, I still prefer RAW acquisition since I personally prefer the flexibility that this form of data capture provides one with. Having done 2 full feature films (one of which was Australia's first 4K DI and collecting 7 AFI awards), I am still concerned with the chalenges of data farming and the limits of compression.

The use of Shake which I have been roundly condemned for was not used for assembly but simply for the creation of the image sequence. The latest feature which was a black and white silent comedy shot on colour stock and also printed in colour was treated across the entire film with shake to create an orthochromatic look.

Please don't make remarks such as why dont you use B&W stock since in this country, we make feature films for less than the DOP is paid in the US.

We may have little money but we do produce some of the best technicians in the world. Rising Sun is only 3 miles away from me

Jon Armstrong
Adelaide Australia
jon@nildesperandum.tv
 
flameop said:
Can you run through exactly what you did from after changing the edit please.. ie

did you send to color again?

clear render list?

just ad selected changed shots to color render? :-/

I think you are suposed to delete the ones you change in finder :-/ not ideal...
s
Click to expand...

Once the graded project was sent to fcp from color. we reviewed the final edit and found 3 clips not (color) matching well.
Re-opened the color project (HENCE WE DID NOT RESEND FROM FINAL CUT) made changes to 3 clips, the changes did not reflect in the render queue. nor did they have "not rendered" (RED BAR) on top of the clip after chages were made. however once i reselected the clips and added them to render queue, upon render completetion resend the project to fcp. the three clips did show up with the chages.
 
If Scratch supports REDCODE does that mean it doesn't transcode it to huge 4:4:4 uncompressed files in order to work on the clips? Or does it start with REDCODE and render out to huge files? Also does Scratch support REDCODE RAW? Meaning: nothing is burnt in and Scratch can treat the REDCODE RAW files as one would treat a RAW still image in Aperture or Photoshop?

Sorry, I'm sure Luki has answered this before but I couldn't find it in a search.
(This is where Gibby will step in with an example of how to use the search engine correctly:biggrin: )
 
Streetlife said:
Just a note from the prvious tread "A working post workflow"
Lets add Adobe:

Adobe CS3 Finish
1) Shoot REDCODE, quickwrap or recdine to aspect ratio HD.
2) use Premiere for editorial, in 4k with aspect ratio HD or downconverted.
3) Stay with Aspect Ratio HD or Pull list and Use REDCINE to convert 4K to dpx, tiff, QT or what ever format required
4) conform in Premiere 4k
3) Grade 4k, in CS3 or via Colorcorrtion software or external system.
4) Output 4k
Click to expand...
 
laguun said:
Streetlife said:
Just a note from the prvious tread "A working post workflow"
Lets add Adobe:

Adobe CS3 Finish
1) Shoot REDCODE, quickwrap or recdine to aspect ratio HD.
2) use Premiere for editorial, in 4k with aspect ratio HD or downconverted.
3) Stay with Aspect Ratio HD or Pull list and Use REDCINE to convert 4K to dpx, tiff, QT or what ever format required
4) conform in Premiere 4k
3) Grade 4k, in CS3 or via Colorcorrtion software or external system.
4) Output 4k
Click to expand...


Sorry, I must have missed something...
What is "Aspect Ratio HD" ?
Click to expand...
 
Hi Jon,
Just a little correction here mate for the sake of our international
posters on Reduser. Most Australian films do have budgets
in excess of $A1 million. In fact the new 40% tax rebate scheme
in Australia requires budgets of $A1 million plus.
I would say aussie films with budgets of $A200-300,000 dollars are
directors showreels, cast and crew working for next to nothing
with cheap deals on gear and post. I have no problem with this.
The average Australian FUNDED Film Finance flic budget would be
A$2-5 million. Bigger projects with US backing come in at $10-50 million.
With the new 40% tax rebate in Australia expect to see bigger budgets
in future and with it bigger expectations in post production workflow and
speed as most producers will want to complete a project from start to
finish in one tax year. Sorry, back to the topic at hand.
I'm not trying to knock your existing workflow and your obviously happy with it but I think the industry is about to change a little downunder.

In your original post on the other thread you talked about film out and
quoted a DI for about $A90 K. This is a pretty good price and what should remembered is that well over half of this is film burn and lab costs.
Preparing a digital master for film burn would only be about 30-40K.
That's cheap, I'd go with these guys, or maybe it's you?
I've only been able to get close to this figure with a company in New Zealand, they use an IQ, Weta for the burn and PJ's lab for filmout.
More details on your setup and services would be great,if possible.
Cheers Mezmo.
 
fergus said:
If Scratch supports REDCODE does that mean it doesn't transcode it to huge 4:4:4 uncompressed files in order to work on the clips? Or does it start with REDCODE and render out to huge files? Also does Scratch support REDCODE RAW? Meaning: nothing is burnt in and Scratch can treat the REDCODE RAW files as one would treat a RAW still image in Aperture or Photoshop?
Click to expand...

SCRATCH supports REDCODE RAW, which means that you plug in the CF card, or disk - load up your Redcode footage, and away you go. Of course, within the GPU, things have to be converted to RGB - but there is no transcode to any huge files necessary. That is the point of "native support." :shifty:

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
luki said:
SCRATCH supports REDCODE RAW, which means that you plug in the CF card, or disk - load up your Redcode footage, and away you go. Of course, within the GPU, things have to be converted to RGB - but there is no transcode to any huge files necessary. That is the point of "native support." :shifty:

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
Click to expand...

wow:w00t:
So when Scratch renders the colour grading does it then create huge files? I'm just thinking that cost is clearly an issue for many RED users who are buying a pretty cheap camera and editing on FCP or Premiere, and 4K REDCODE RAW doesn't need vast RAID arrays and mega data throughput. So maybe finishing in Scratch needn't cost the earth..?
I'd certainly rather spend a few grand to finish properly in Scratch (with a talented operator) that doing myself in FCP..:pinch:
 
fergus said:
wow:w00t:
So when Scratch renders the colour grading does it then create huge files? ...
Click to expand...

Well, it depends on what you render to! :) If you're rendering to 4K DPX, then yes - those are pretty big files. If you're rendering to DNxHD Quicktimes at HD resolution, not so much...

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
luki said:
Well, it depends on what you render to! :) If you're rendering to DNxHD Quicktimes at HD resolution, not so much...

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
Click to expand...

So, Luki -

Cat's outta the bag there!! - you can render to DNxHD directly from Scratch from REDCODE RAW!

I wonder if you can render DNxHD out of REDCINE?

And the $64,000 question is - will you be able to render PRORES 422 QTs - outta Scratch?
 
offhollywood said:
Cat's outta the bag there!! - you can render to DNxHD directly from Scratch from REDCODE RAW!

I wonder if you can render DNxHD out of REDCINE?
Click to expand...

Isn't he just referring to DNxHD Quicktimes, which any Quicktime aware app (including REDCINE) can do using the free codec from Avid. Still needs to be imported (albeit at simple file copying speed) into an Avid.

I haven't yet found a way to get time-code from Quicktime movies into Avid from QT time-code tracks generated by eg FCP. Anybody? This could be a problem for a REDCINE-Avid offline/online workflow.
 
offhollywood said:
And the $64,000 question is - will you be able to render PRORES 422 QTs - outta Scratch?
Click to expand...

That is indeed a good question. If Apple wants ProRes to become a widely accepted codec they should release a version for Windows. Seems unlikely though, as they haven't even released the Apple uncompressed 4:2:2 codecs for Windows.

The easiest software approach I can think of is to render DPX files out of Scratch, then use the AJA or Blackmagic DPX utilities to make QTs for FCP.

Otherwise, hook an Io HD up to the HD-SDI output of the Scratch system.
 
offhollywood said:
So, Luki -

Cat's outta the bag there!! - you can render to DNxHD directly from Scratch from REDCODE RAW!

I wonder if you can render DNxHD out of REDCINE?

And the $64,000 question is - will you be able to render PRORES 422 QTs - outta Scratch?
Click to expand...

Hey Mark,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Nick is right - I am just talking about DNxHD Quicktimes. I should have been more careful in how I phrased it.

Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
LA, CA, USA
 
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