Dailies workflow advice

[Brian Merlen]

Post wants dnxhd36, no sound synced to the dual system sound

DP wants his dailies in prores 422 LT with synced dual system sound...

Audio guy wants to dump card to me at end of day...by then I've graded and encoded all of posts stuff, besides last card...


However I can't seem to figure out how to get autosync to work on already graded timelines...and if i make a new bin, place all the clips and audio in it and autosync it doesn't have my grades (and i nitpicked all the shots, didn't use stills, but did all the shots by hand to alot for the slight luma differences...

So my current workflow is export out all the graded stuff, bring it back in, autosync, export again...but there has to be an easier way then this i hope? its midnight and i got up to shoot at 5am, so doing this for a month is going to blow big time lol...

i can try to make audio dump cards in the day one by one like with the mags, thats the only thing ive thought of so far...

 

[Mike P.]

Can you get a reference audio mix from the sound guy piped directly into cam to avoid having to sync (presuming the DP just wants audio so that he's not listening to blank clips)? Can you talk to the DP about using dnxhd instead of prores (the codec pack is free from Avid)... VLC instead of quicktime?

I know you have to give them what they want, but this kind of stuff is fairly BS...

 

[Marc Wielage]

Audio guy wants to dump card to me at end of day...

I bet if you asked nicely, the sound mixer might be willing to give you two cards -- one for the first half of the day, one for the second half of the day. At the worst, you could figure out what's what by creation date & time.

 

[Brian Merlen]

we have a scratch track already, when i explained to the DP the situation he said i can just give it to him with the scratch track...i was just hoping there would be an easier way to do this and keep him happy with a full mix down.... it seems like once you grade (by making a timeline) the autosync can't just lay it in for you since its already laid in with just the scratch track... had i used stills i am told i can use the gallery to help automate this, but i am nitpicking each shot cuz right now were doing Log C with no light kits and because of location changes/cloud changes/weather changes its hard to make a do it all look if you will...much easier for me to quickly do each shot by hand so far with the wheels... but i am open to whatever may help automate this process as much as possible...

my solution is make the audio guy give me the card every time camera does, but camera dept thinks its a pain in the ass...i was just hoping to find an easy peasy solution for this if possible but so far no luck, other then disappointing someone (rather it not be the DP, much rather bother audio guy given the choice, but with the 1st and 2nd ACs nixxing the idea hell if i know what to do lol)...


its a fun job and i love the crew though, even if they wrap at 7pm and i wrap at midnight...its wonderful to be with a crew that loves what they do and everyone is technically inclined, the level of synergy on this job makes everything run smooth even out on an island with limited phone service/internet/budget issues...camera dept is firing on all cylinders essentially, and despite the logistical hassles of the remote location and the Arri getting system errors (go figure we crashed an Alexa lol, take that Arri!!!) we are doing a good job and things look great to me (but awaiting approval from DP when hes not out shooting)

 

[Keith Putnam]

In my opinion you've got to work something out with your sound mixer so you're getting sound throughout the day. Waiting until the end of the day to do your renders is an absurdly inefficient use of time. If possible, ask the mixer to add an external hard drive, like a LaCie Rugged or similar, to his setup so you can break off sound whenever you need it, or do what I do and just go ask for the CF card during times when there's going to be down time, like turnarounds or relights. Dumping a scene's worth of BWF from a CF card is super fast, so you can get it back to the mixer well before cameras are ready to roll. If the DP want synced dailies, then that's enough justification for the mixer to accommodate you.

Regardless, stop this "I don't wrap until midnight" nonsense immediately, unless the production is happy paying for all that overtime and you'd rather have the money than sleep. You're all on a team, trying to get your work done efficiently. So get the mixer to give you what you need.

 

[M Most]

Use remote grades (instead of the default local grades). That requires right clicking in the color page on any clip in the timeline and selecting "use remote grades." What that does is use the grades from the master timeline on any material you bring in, if those grades already exist. You can then grade the MOS clips, then create new timelines with the same clips attached to sync sound (make a new empty timeline, then select the new synched clips from the media pool and insert them). When you open that timeline in the color page, the clips should automatically be assigned the grade from the master timeline.

 

[joe hedge]

Or better yet, just make sure that at least one camera is recording a mixed scratch track, and that the external audio TC matches the scratch track, and that both cameras are jam-syncced. Meaning production has to tell the audio dept and camera dept that that's part of the job. Meaning the DIT is at least partially responsible for making it happen.

 

[Brian Merlen]

supposedly the audio guy is going to send a mix down as scratch (some shots were boom only today i bitched to him about it) ACs dont wanna deal with more card hassles, same with DP...

I thought the remote/local grade was the solution and remembered back to it in the manual wondering if that could help me, and just been to busy to look into it, M Most saves my ass like usual lol! thanks so much man! no OT its an indy and i am on a flat rate... but the ACs are a true pleasure to work with, as is the director and DP. despite the many issues, im really having a lot of fun here, and enjoying this shoot immensely. never worked with a better crew in my life, wish all jobs were this much fun...ACs and i stayed up til 3am drinking beers watching dailies joking around, a very fun crew and im loving it here to be honest...


i do all my editors encodes throughout the day, dailies is the real issue, but i think the mix down scratch might fix it for me, doubt DP needs all the audio if i get a mix down as scratch all the time... anyway its 4am im going to hit the sack, gnite guys

 

[Michael Romano]

+1 on global grades. Another trick I've gotten in the habit of is making the ProRes LT (usually I get asked for h.264 but this still applies) directly from the DNxHD. the grades are already done and thus the rendering is much faster. This only works if the DNxHD is of a sufficiently high enough quality to degrade reasonably into LT.

 

[Brian Merlen]

good solution...luckily i do have a scratch track, and im making audio guy pipe a mix to it...so im good now... DP is happy with dailies, editors will be happy with proxies, and i can get some sleep here and there...

 

[Marc Wielage]

Sleep is the big problem! Good luck, Brian, and hang in there. BTW, make sure they're using a timecode slate, and be sure to check it at the beginning of the day "just in case."