Avid offline to FCP/Color online

[Agustin Goya]

Hi everyone, I'm shure this has been discussed before, but i haven't found any thread with the information I need.
I'm starting a project that is going to be off-lined in Avid (via RedRushes and ALE) and will be Color corrected on Apple Color, I know the options and workaround on the Avid side, but I don't know how to go from the Avid offline to FCP/Aplpe Color.
Is this possible?
Thanks in advance for any input.
Agustin

 

[M Most]

Hi everyone, I'm shure this has been discussed before, but i haven't found any thread with the information I need.
I'm starting a project that is going to be off-lined in Avid (via RedRushes and ALE) and will be Color corrected on Apple Color, I know the options and workaround on the Avid side, but I don't know how to go from the Avid offline to FCP/Aplpe Color.
Is this possible?

www.automaticduck.com

 

[MichaelP]

Depeding on complexity of seqeunce and all, Automatic Duck is one way to go, or create DPX files and an EDL...

Michael

 

[Agustin Goya]

Thanks for the reply!.
Will Automatic Duck let me link to original r3d files or I'll need to link to qt refs?
Thanks again for your input.

 

[MichaelP]

The relinking will be part of FCP/COlor's capabilities, not so much Automatic Duck.

Michael

 

[Peter Moretti]

Michael,

How about having Avid improve MC's color correction capabilities so threads like this become unecessary?

I have been confronted with the reality of having to "finish" in Color. And everytime I think, "How could Avid just sit back and let this happen?" Color is killing you guys.

 

[jake blackstone]

Michael,

How about having Avid improve MC's color correction capabilities so threads like this become unecessary?

I have been confronted with the reality of having to "finish" in Color. And everytime I think, "How could Avid just sit back and let this happen?" Color is killing you guys.

Because Avid provides editing and online finishing solutions. It's like trying to do compositing in Baselight? It's kind of possible, but why would you want to? Not every editor can be a colorist or a compositor. You're asking for something akin to Pablo, that's kind of, in my personal opinion, a marginal color grading and compositing device, that is overpriced, underpowered and can be used by only one operator at the time. I personally prefer more specialized solutions, something like Lustre and Flame, that are best of breed. For the price of one Pablo, Lustre and Flame could be used by two well trained operators and do twice as much work and at higher quality.
Avid builds awesome editing and finishing devices. Avid will never be DaVinci and they shouldn't waste any time trying...

 

[Peter Moretti]

Jake,

I'm not asking for an Avid to be a da Vinci, what I'm asking for is to have the same level of color correction tools that comes with FCPS. I can do just about everything in MC that can be done in Color, but it's a RPITA.

The fact that people are cutting on Avid but are using Color to finish/grade makes me ill. No Color isn't on par with da Vinci, but it is a legit DI tool.

If Avid users have no use for a tool like Color, then how come threads like this one even exist?

 

[MichaelP]

It certainly is somethng we look at - but specifically what are you doing in Color that you cannot do in Avid Symphony? There are different design goals in each - but it would help the prioritization process. I am also referring to the tool set, and not the resolotion - so assuming HD finishing and mastering:

1. Hardware control interface
2. Vignette and matte control
3. LUT management and viewing
4. Standalone? In this case it is more about the integration since ay standalone can be purchased, just as you are with Color.

Thanks -

Michael

 

[M Most]

If Avid users have no use for a tool like Color, then how come threads like this one even exist?

Because so many people here feel they should be given free stuff. Apple threw Color - formerly a $25,000 program - in for free with a cheap editing suite. So people here figure, gee, everyone else should throw in a $25,000 program for free as well. Frankly, I'm surprised more people here haven't complained that Red doesn't include the prime lenses with the basic camera package, or at the very least doesn't sell them for $100 each, because that seems to be the mentality that all of this has created.

Professionals require professional level tools and professional level talent to make those tools sing. If you're doing a small personal project, even Avid Xpress Pro had enough color controls that you could do what you needed, and Symphony certainly does. Avid also makes DS, which is much more like the Quantel iQ that's been mentioned at about 1/4 the price. If Apple has a business model that allows them to essentially give away certain software packages for free - and they do, since they make the hardware you need to run it - and you happen to like that software, and feel it suits your needs, creative as well as financial, then you should use it. But every business model is different, and different market segments have different demands. Companies act accordingly.

 

[jake blackstone]

Jake,

I'm not asking for an Avid to be a da Vinci, what I'm asking for is to have the same level of color correction tools that comes with FCPS. I can do just about everything in MC that can be done in Color, but it's a RPITA.

The fact that people are cutting on Avid but are using Color to finish/grade makes me ill. No Color isn't on par with da Vinci, but it is a legit DI tool.

If Avid users have no use for a tool like Color, then how come threads like this one even exist?

What makes ME ill, is when people who have no business color grading, do it anyway, without any training or even basic understanding of it's principals. If you think, that an editor can do a full DI even on the Color with a crappy Plasma or LCD screen, then you're mistaken. The result will be a crappy editorial with crappy, crashed, cut off highlights, illegal or out of gamut and, most important, inconsistent colors throughout. I have nothing against a quick color nudge, when needed and MC is perfectly capable of doing that, but a DI...?
Just my 2 cents...

 

[Agustin Goya]

I´ve generated an EDL using cameraroll as source, imported directly in Color, selected source folder and the first 2 clips linked fine but not the rest.
Have anybody tested this?
What kind of metadata is color looking for conform?
Shoud I ask on the apple workflow forum?
Thanks again for your time.

 

[M Forrest]

Professionals require professional level tools and professional level talent to make those tools sing. If you're doing a small personal project, even Avid Xpress Pro had enough color controls that you could do what you needed, and Symphony certainly does. Avid also makes DS, which is much more like the Quantel iQ that's been mentioned at about 1/4 the price. If Apple has a business model that allows them to essentially give away certain software packages for free - and they do, since they make the hardware you need to run it - and you happen to like that software, and feel it suits your needs, creative as well as financial, then you should use it. But every business model is different, and different market segments have different demands. Companies act accordingly.[/QUOTE]

I couldn't have said it better Mike.

 

[Peter Moretti]

It certainly is somethng we look at - but specifically what are you doing in Color that you cannot do in Avid Symphony? There are different design goals in each - but it would help the prioritization process. I am also referring to the tool set, and not the resolotion - so assuming HD finishing and mastering:

1. Hardware control interface
2. Vignette and matte control
3. LUT management and viewing
4. Standalone? In this case it is more about the integration since ay standalone can be purchased, just as you are with Color.

Thanks -

Michael

Michael,

Thank you very much for your concern with this issue. As for Symphony, you are right on the mark. Symphony users want 2K as well, but perhaps Avid sees Symphony for HD/broadcast and DS for 2K/4K. If you are serious about learning what Symphony users want, I’d recommend contacting Terrance Curren of AlphaDogs in Burbank (818) 729-9262. I don’t know Terry personally but I am familiar with his reputation when it comes to Symphony. He has been an advocate for color correcting inside Symphony for years.

I use MC, so realistically, better secondaries is what I’d like to have. Vignetting inside the CC Toolset would be nice, but color vector based secondaries is the glaring omission. A control interface would of course be nice, but limiting it to Symphony seems understandable.

As it is, a lot of MC users are grading their projects in Color. Of course this is not the same as using a da Vinci, but it is appreciably better than what MC offers. But there is a pitfall to this approach for Avid, the MC user asks him/herself “Why not just edit in FCP?” There is whole industry here in LA of teaching FCP to MC users, so making the transition is clearly surmountable.

While cutting close-up footage of a girl playing the guitar I was asked, “Can you change her shirt from green to slate blue, add some pop to her lips and bring down the red in her fingernails?” These types of requests are becoming more common. Doing this in MC was a RPITA.

I tried various plugins from 3Prong and ColorFinesse, but wound up using a combination of MC’s built-in CC capabilities and Boris’s Correct Selected filter. But this would have much easier in Color, or if MC had Symphony’s color based secondaries. This isn’t a feature film, it’s a Rec 709 promo that’s going to DVD, and it required useful tools that MC doesn’t have. This is when someone starts to question what platform they are using, esp when it’s 3am and you believe you’d be done if you had a better tool.

If I were an anomaly, then the “Fine, switch over to FCP” sentiment would apply. But I’m not an anomaly, there are a lot of Avid users in my boat. And there are a lot of people buying platforms for the first time who choose FCPS because of its finishing tools.

 

[M Most]

While cutting close-up footage of a girl playing the guitar I was asked, “Can you change her shirt from green to slate blue, add some pop to her lips and bring down the red in her fingernails?” These types of requests are becoming more common. Doing this in MC was a RPITA.

I tried various plugins from 3Prong and ColorFinesse, but wound up using a combination of MC’s built-in CC capabilities and Boris’s Correct Selected filter. But this would have much easier in Color, or if MC had Symphony’s color based secondaries. This isn’t a feature film, it’s a Rec 709 promo that’s going to DVD, and it required useful tools that MC doesn’t have.

It also required a skill set and a tool set that has nothing to do with editing.

If you need a tool to do stuff like this, then use Color if you want. But I would think that another answer to a situation like this would be to point out that while you can come up with something, it's not what you do and that if they want things like this done properly and cleanly, they should take it to color correction and work with a colorist whose job it is to do these things. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should (have I said that before?). If someone is asking for a multilayer composite that requires 3D tracking, color correction, keying, and garbage matting to be done correctly, and all I have is Final Cut, I'm doing both myself and the client a disservice if I don't move that shot to something that can actually do that kind of thing correctly. And I'm doing them even more of a disservice if I'm an editor and have limited experience in compositing.

 

[MichaelP]

The industry has moved more to a discipline model where the responsibility is on the editor/craft artist to know their own limitations. As NLE's add more and more of these features into the product(s), it is up to the user to define that.

What a product should/can do at any given price point is up to the manufacturers as mentioned.

So everyone is correct one way or another. I know that when I am wearing my producer's hat, I know what I can do, when I am editing, I know what I can do. The producer in me wins out as the goal is to make the best movie I can. And in doing that, I will always take the talent over the tool.

So on my last feature I could have very well corrected it myself in Symphony, but chose to it at a facility where I know the colorist can take the images to places I never could in an environment that I knew would create the proper master.

Michael

 

[Peter Moretti]

I find it hard to believe that it's good MC doesn't have better secondaries because it protects users from tools they are not capable of handling or would delude them into thinking of themselves as professional colorists.

It seems pretty clear that MC doesn't have better secondaries b/c it's one of the few features that differentiates Symphony from MC. The stilting of Symphony's finishing toolset (Symphony is a finishing tool) has prevented MC from staying on par with FCPS in the area of color correction.

The added tools that Color contains in many cases make color correction more precise, not more difficult. You can royally screw-up your footage with the CC tools MC already has. No additional features are needed for that.

In the example I gave, the girl's shirt was a fairly bright green, so keying it out was relatively easy. It was her lips and fingernail polish that were challenging, because their lighting changed with their movement. And while I had to add pop to one and bring down the other, her hands never got near her face because she was playing the guitar, so garbage matting was very easy.

But selecting the proper reddish color range to change was a RPITA. And this is where better vector based secondaries would have been helpful.

So I don't think the request to essentially add some pop to her lips and tone down her nail polish was all that unreasonable. As for me saying go somewhere else. It's delusional to think that somewhere else would have been a DS, Quantel or da Vinci suite. It would have been someone using FCPS or possibly CS4.

I truly sympathize with the battle Avid finds itself in right now. But it has to realize that relinquishing so much ground to FCPS is hurting its broadcast and professional post market. A professional editor friend was forced to learn FCPS in order to cut for tv. Her bread and butter jobs are in cable and that has mostly moved over to FCP. Of her last six jobs, five were Final Cut.

As for, if it's appropriate to provide professional grade tools to individuals and independents, well I find it ironic to read such a sentiment on Reduser.net. The entire Red ethos seems to be about providing professional-grade tools for less, in some cases 90% less (comparing the Red One to the F35). Those who can't handle the tool will have some nice gear in their closets and those who can will be thankful customers.

And MC is already littered with tools that most editors don't use. ScriptSync, Stereoscopic editing, AvidFX, the majority of effects (there is a Fire filter, do I really think b/c it exists I can create a believable house fire in MC?). I think better secondaries will get a lot more use than the BCC Comet filter.

 

[MichaelP]

I amno debating the issue of MC color correction needing secondary color control... but I will say that many many editors use ScriptSync - anyone who has ever had a transcript for a doc or a script for drama will not go back once they edit with easy direct access to the coverage they have. A doc I was supervising would have taken an additional year in post to make it through all the interviews and edited with the style in which it was done without it.

Stereo 3D is growing - it is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't features. Our relationship with the studios has indicated that this is a real need. Whether stereo 3D makes it to the masses is the real question. That remains to be seen. China just announced a 45 part web series that will be in stereo 3D.

But I do understand your POV on tools used more often than others. That is a discussion that happens all the time within the walls of Avid. As far as third party filters, there is a need for all of them somewhere at some point in time. And I believe Avid shouldn't spend its time trying to make every little VFX filter than one can dream up. Building an architecture for it to allow third parties to integrate is more important. If you need to make a believable house on fire - then you can - buy it when you need it. Stereo 3D is not possible to do that way due to the integrated metadata handing that is needed to part of the production pipeline. AMA is another example of an architecture that is needed to allow third parties (camera manufactures) to integrate easily.

Again, my original comment is not what the NLE should be limited to or not - the trend is clearly a tool that tries to be everything to everybody (which means ScriptSync and Stereo 3D... ) but as a producer, it is a question of discipline. And although I had every color correction tool at my disposal for me to do as the offline editor, the online editor, the VFX coordinator (as well as VFX artists on half the shots) I still went to a colorist because it was right for the picture and something I wanted to ensure had a shot at international sales.

Michael

 

[JBinstead]

Hello I understand the need of a professional color grader on nearly all jobs so I dont want to continue the debate which has taken this thread off topic.
But we are doing a project at a Film School I attend that is shot RED/transcoded DNX 36 for offline then recomformed in nFCP for a Finish by a Professional Colorist in Color, we are going this way for budget reasons.
so my question is when we sync up the rushes and re-name the subclips from the Sync roll giving them the Slate and take number name, will this create problems when re conforming via EDL later or are we better off using Auto duck ( will this retain cam- roll number and can we can relink with it regardless of the clip name.
I quess I am asking of a tried workflow or any advice doing this
Cheers john

 

[Chris Parker]

back to the thread's main topic....i have successfully output an EDL from AVID EDL Manager as CMX3600 format. I then load this in Color and go to RED 2K. I am not sure what file this is accessing, but I am hoping it is a half debayer from the .r3d in Color.

The conform worked fine from my offline edit in AVID MC, and the shots appeared in the Color timeline as they should. There were only four cuts in my little test though, and no f/x or layers or anything weird.....