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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 :)

Bringing that REC709 look from the shoot monitor to the drab, RAW 422 files

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Brendan Hughes

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Being totally new to the red, and shooting in general, I rented a red to shoot 10 interviews at the end of last summer and have been wandering in the wilderness of all this stuff ever since.

When shooting, I made a rookie mistake. When i set the monitor to RAW, I found it drab and uninviting, but when i set it to REC709, it looked fantastic: bright, colorful, saturated. I then, and i now realize this was boneheaded, left it set to REC709 and lit for that.

I finally just transcoded all of it into FCP7, creating Apple ProRess 422 (HQ) files for each clip. I tried to use Red Alert to create a "REC709" customized RED FCP Log and Transfer Plugin setting, but no matter how much i fiddled with that pop down menu (the one that included "as shot" "tungsten" etc), and no mater how many customized versions I added to the list (such as "CameraRGB_to_RedSpace", "CameraRGB_to_REC709", pretty much every combo i could think of) the footage always looked like drab, underexposed-looking RAW.

So I just said to hell with it and transcoded everything in the drab RAW look.

I should say here quickly that I shot with build 20 and its unfortunate bug that set R, G, and B to -100 and thus made everything black (causing an initial heart attack), so "as shot" wasn't an option.

Anyway, long story longer (A) I fear I won't be able to achieve that bright REC709 look with these drab new 422's, although I figure i must be able to, given the source material is ultimately the same, and (B) is there a way to simulate whatever the on set monitor did when set to REC709 in Apple Color?

I shot with a MacBeth chart, but when i set the blacks and whites correctly using that it looks weird and noisy.

Is there an official thing the monitor does to make the RAW footage look like it does when set to REC709? I like that look and want it back.

Am i stuck with the drab RAW look and have to start over color correcting?

Thanks for your time and attention. I feel like i ran out on a tight rope before I had ever mastered balancing.

Brendan
 
When the camera is set to monitor Rec709, that is equivalent to setting both colour space and gamma to Rec709 in post software (although the results are not absolutely identical). Using CameraRGB as the colour space will give desaturated looking images.
 
Hi Brendan,

Not to worry, your footage is absolutely fine and will look as beautiful as you remember. The great thing about Red is almost everything is metadata so almost nothing is "baked" into your clips. You can make them look great by doing the following:

For best results, download Red Cine X at www.red.com/support
Navigate to your R3D folder and do the same process with all of your clips.

1. Set Color Space to REDcolor and Gamma Space to REDgamma
2. Set your white balance as needed
3. Set ISO to 320 and use FLUT Control to set your final exposure
4. Use curves, saturation, contrast etc. to make your image look amazing
5. Set up a new EXPORT configuration by clicking the + at the bottom of EXPORT window and put in your size, CODEC info etc. Probably ProRes at 1920x1080.
6. Still in the EXPORT window, select BIN (ALL CLIPS or SELECTED CLIPS) in the drop down window.
7. Export all of your clips from Red Cine X and import them into FCP

You can still relink to the original R3Ds using Clipfinder.

Again, don't worry, this is all very easy and your footage will look better than you ever imagined.
 
Thanks everyone. And thanks JimHare for your instructions. I had the old RedCine this one is quite new! And the difference is pretty amazing. What a relief.

let me ask you this: Having spent 2 weeks transcoding all of this stuff into the current 422 HQ files, going this route would mean losing the all that work and time. Do you think Apple Color would be as good at adjusting the new QT files as Redcine is at adjusting the R3Ds?
 
Brendan Hughes said:
Do you think Apple Color would be as good at adjusting the new QT files as Redcine is at adjusting the R3Ds?
Click to expand...

If you have created flat looking ProRes files you will not get results anywhere near as good by grading from them as you would by going back to the R3Ds. Using Clipfinder you can take an edit done in ProRes and create a Color project linked to the R3Ds. If you then use the 4.0 beta 2 Color plugin you will get the same FLUT colour science in Color that you get in REDcine-X.
 
dang. luckily i haven't edited anything yet. It's ab unch of long interviews where the lights didn't change onece they were set. the problem is we're looking at 20 hours to export from Redcine which is going to take like a month I'm guessing.

Also, I just did a test. I aborted halfway through and the resulting file has no sound. I figure that's because I aborted it, but should i be prepared to get the sound separately?
 
The sound happens at the end of the transcode, so if you crash or abort, you won't get it.

If you have all of your files transcoded, maybe do an offline edit, so you only have to online the portions you actually use. Again, you can use clipfinder for this.

Alternatively, find someone with a Red Rocket card, which can transcode in realtime. Save you about 29 days!
 
In grading you can fix this.. even just changing the colorspace and gamma in post will give you back what you saw.

Color/RedCine X will take care of it!
 
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