Archival Work

[Tom Chase]

Hello - this is my first post.

I am currently looking to purchase my first Scarlet for a project that mainly involves gathering 1000's of talking head interviews and would like to get some advice on a basic setup. Right now I am looking at the following:
1 Scarlet (with side handle)
1 50mm Zeiss CP2 Lens
1 4PK of 64GB SSD cards
1 4PK of Batteries
1 5" Touchscreen

Now I know everyones inital though maybe OVERKILL to shoot talking heads on. But these are one-time interviews and I need to keep these at the highest possible quaility looking out for 15-20 years, and with the slow but steady intrusion of 4K monitors I fear normal 1080p in 10 years will look like 240p on youtube. So I am doing everything I can to future proof this project. Plus there is some Docu-Drama working that will accompany this project in the near future. The interviews should be less than 20-30 minutes each (why I choose the 64GB card).

On a side note - I'm having a discussion with a Producer friend who is convinced you can NOT do run-and-gun type of shooting on the RED, any thoughts?

Thank you
Tom Chase
Founder - The Death Cheaters Project
www.deathcheaters.org
tom.chase@deathcheaters.org

 

[Adrian Jebef]

You'll need a Follow Focus, Matte Box, and a couple of filters.

You can do a run-and-gun shoot with RED but probably not a run-and-gun Post. So you'll need to add:

Mac Pro
RedRocket Card
24" Grading Monitor
SDI Output Card
Chinese Takeout

 

[Tom Chase]

Adrian,

Thanks, I have been a DSLR Shoot for a couple years - I'm believe my 15mm rich with Matte Box & Follow focus should work. I guess I wan't too clear, I was speaking of what I should purchase from RED - I have been considering the RED Rocket card... how much of an improvement does it provide if I have a Mac Tower with 32GB of RAM, 2 Quad Core 2.4GHz processor and a interal SDD and a G-Safe Raid 6TB.

Thanks for the input.

Tom

 

[Björn Benckert]

red rocket turns minutes into seconds...


I think you need bigger cards if you would like to make such long takes.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Hello Tom,

I would recomend to help your Scarlet keep it cool during long takes. : the FanPlate

http://www.mecasax.ch/products/fanplate

See you! ;-)

Patrick

 

[Tom Chase]

@Patrick Thanks for the info on the FanPlate.
@Bjorn not sure what you mean by bigger cards?

Tom

 

[Adrian Jebef]

@Patrick Thanks for the info on the FanPlate.
@Bjorn not sure what you mean by bigger cards?

Tom

Plan on getting 128GB REDMAGS or even 256GB.

You could opt out of the RedRocket card in favor of a Quadro 4000 (or similar) for DaVinci Resolve. The new Resolve 9 will give you 1/2 time performance at 1/2 Rez Debayer (approx.) which is pretty sweet considering the Quadro is 5-times less expensive than the RedRocket. You could make up for that by buying another Mac Pro and still have a few bucks left over for lunch...

 

[Björn Benckert]

@Patrick Thanks for the info on the FanPlate.
@Bjorn not sure what you mean by bigger cards?

Tom

sorry, I mean mags.

 

[Marc Wielage]

And don't forget, if you don't have good sound for your project, your "talking heads" documentary becomes just "heads."

 

[Sam Taylor]

That sounds like a very interesting product Patrick! Well done on making it!

 

[CK Olsen]

#1 - Regarding SSDs: Please remember that a single 64MB ssd will only record 30-ish minutes of 4K... so I agree you might want to upscale to the 128's or higher for interviews... you never want to stop and switch media in the middle of the best story you ever heard.

#2 - If you really want to run and gun, you may want to consider still lenses instead of the CP.2. If you don't already own them, you could pick up a whole set of kickass fast canon/nikon lenses, in a mix of primes and zooms, for less than the cost of the one Zeiss 50MM.

#3 - If you really plan on capturing "thousands" of interviews with a goal of long term archiving, you're going to want a boatload more storage space for your edit system... Ideally you want a complete 2nd set of media saved somewhere at all times, and if possible, a DLT BACKUP system as well. Your present 6TB RAID, set at a fast, but highly unsafe, raid 0 will fit less than a 100 card dumps ... and that's not leaving ANY space for proxies, output, or media cache.

#4 - For your producer friend, I shoot extensive run and gun with my EPIC, and my stripped down setup is crazy light... My goto handheld setup is usually a nikon mount w/2.8 NIKON zooms (RPP lenses are great too, but heavy), two active mics on camera, the 5" touchscreen, the side handle with redvolt, side SSD, and a top handle.

Hope this helps!
-CK

 

[Marc Wielage]

I would strongly avoid placing microphones on the camera, and instead invest in a good boom microphone -- held in a C-stand, if these are sit-down interviews -- and possibly also a good wireless lavalier system. The microphone should be placed very close (if not on) your interview subject, not the camera. Be careful if you only record sound on the camera; having a higher-quality external sound recorder is recommended.

 

[CK Olsen]

Marc-
Yes, using wired/wireless lavs, and/or mic-on-boom to an external audio recorder is ideal... But when this isn't possible, proper mic placement on camera, fed direct into body, can produce great results, so I wanted to share. Run and Gun ENG/EFP can be a lot like surfing... You swim light, keep your eyes wide open, and maintain your balance for a reason, cuz you never really know how big that wave is going to be until after the ride is over.
-CK