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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 :)

CLient having problems with FCPX and my R3Ds

Ben Scott

Ben Scott

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I'm a Premiere guy but a shoot I did last week was being edited by someone else in FCPX and I just got off the phone with the client and he was rather unhappy about all the hassle he'd had with his editor in FCPX getting the material into the system to the degree they could start editing. Apparently it took a day and a half to be up and running. Was a one day shoot. About an hour of interview at 4khd and then GV and cutaways.

He now wants to shoots on DSLRs instead. :(

As a quick test I just installed the FCPX trial and the Red FCP installer and then opened it and imported a clip. After a couple of minutes of it doing its thing it all seemed to play back fine
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Anyone got any ideas why a seasoned FCPX editor might be having such problems with the footage? I was always led to believe this is the single best thing about it?

Would be great to be able to offer a cast-iron solution for future jobs. I wonder has anyone made an idiot-proof bullet point list of the best practice procedures and settings to get best/fastest results?

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions...
 
He is apparently exclusively an FCPX editor and from what I know they were cutting on a recent Macbook Pro. Sadly that's all the information I have and while I want to be helpful, I am wary of trying to pass the buck to this guy purely because it sounds like they are friends and have a good existing working relationship, but pretty sure he's not worked with Red before, and I HAD said 'if you have any problems give me a shout and I'll sort you out' but they didn't.

The fact is, I can play the footage back in the FCPX trial on my 2010 Macbook Pro with 4Gb RAM.

Also Bob, you have the best named Scarlet out there :)
 
Well, I don't think we would know what's the problem until we know what specs he use and how he imports or edit with it. It's definitely posible that you edit the R3D file on FCPX. I have a director who's been pushing people to use FCPX and he is an EPIC fan. So he uses FCPX on every project and has been great. I grab his XML and conform in my Resolve, no problem.
 
I completely understand. Sadly that's all the information I have. I just wondered if there was a 'best practice' post or thread somewhere I could pass onto them.

I did an import with no transcode and it played back okay but not perfect due to my ancient mac and lack of ram, and then did it again with a proxy and it was super fast. I have no idea what their issues are. Ah well...

Thanks guys, even if it's just for reinforcing my initial thoughts on the subject.
 
My best guess is they are transcoding on ingest and waiting for the transcodes to be done. That's the only explanation I can think of that would lead to that kind of wait. Depending on the complexity of the project it may well be best to tell them to cut the proxy or optimized transcodes and work with the raw.

Specs of the machine and their workflow, if there is no pre-FCPX transcode, what each of the settings in the import are set to. Certainly the workflow I'd use for DSLR footage isn't that I'd use for RED.
 
Is it possible he is on an a version earlier than 10.0.6 when native R3D capability was introduced? Or, that he didn't install the RED plug-in?

No matter what, this is definitely user error and any blame they place on the software or the footage is a cop out.
 
My guess is that the machine is transcoding in the background. Personally, I would just work with the native r3d files as the new MacBook can handle the files fine. There are enough r3d in fcpx tutorials online now that you may want forward them to the editor to make him feel confident it works. Also, it's also important to have a decent storage solution to avoid inadequate performance.
 
Terry VerHaar said:
Is it possible he is on an a version earlier than 10.0.6 when native R3D capability was introduced? Or, that he didn't install the RED plug-in?

No matter what, this is definitely user error and any blame they place on the software or the footage is a cop out.
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I agree Terry that it's most likely user error, but this is also a sign of the times as well. I think a lot of people/facilities are flying by the seat of their pants. Rather than establish workflows, they get stuff in and try to force the format into one of their own workflows or they just wing it. That usually leads to lost time.

In this example by Ben, it's tough to know exactly where the ball was dropped without more details but it does bring to light a challenge that certainly exists out in the real world. The solution is to get post involved as soon as possible, and unfortunately it's not always possible. I've been on jobs where editorial was not selected until after the shoot. If that's the case and post gets the files and then throws their hands up because they can't handle the files, who rectifies the situation? Is it on the producers? The DIT? The DP? The director? Or is it on the post house that took the job?

Hopefully this works out for Ben, as regardless of who is at fault, ultimately everyone has the same goal and that's to finish the project the best you can. So, while I think the industry has gone a bit wild, wild west I'm also one that leans towards finding solutions rather than dwelling on problems.
 
Thanks guys.

Steve I agree completely and I've made it a point on all my jobs to either offer transcoding or to cut stuff or to even sit in with their editor at the ingest stage to show them what to do so as the make the R3D workflow attractive and as painless as possible. In this instance I was completely out of the loop so it's a shame they now have a sour experience of working with Red which could almost certainly have been avoided. Ah well... Onwards and upwards...
 
Personally, I would always just give the client graded quicktime Transcodes, never the R3D's. That way it's bullet proof. Everyone can ingest or work from Quicktimes.

What we do now is transcode our quicktimes with DNX codec, as that is becoming the most cross platform (Avid and FCP friendly).
 
Yep that's what I always try to do but in this instance he was taking the stuff away at the end of the day to get on with the edit ASAP, and I was already the one-man-band camera/sound/DIT so couldn't do it on-set.

I think there's a case for having to manage expectations, especially if producers are coming from a DSLR/XDCAM/HDV workflow.

EDIT: All shot on Contax, obviously ;)
 
Ben Scott said:
Yep that's what I always try to do but in this instance he was taking the stuff away at the end of the day to get on with the edit ASAP, and I was already the one-man-band camera/sound/DIT so couldn't do it on-set.

I think there's a case for having to manage expectations, especially if producers are coming from a DSLR/XDCAM/HDV workflow.

EDIT: All shot on Contax, obviously ;)
Click to expand...

Haha, gotcha. I guess the proxy module will be ideal for situations like this.
 
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