DIT wrapping early

[Tim Bradley]

Towards the end of the day, I swap out frequently - I don't want to be waiting around to get my card(s) back from the DIT, and I hate the dance that the producer / production manager does as they wait for the last transfer… It can be brutal to watch and puts a lot of pressure on everyone.

100% agree .... no one (producer / production manager) wants to wait for the data transfer at the end of the day. I usually try to surprise them with a fast turnaround by having it done ASAP after wrap by swapping media out as much as possible on the last shots.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Set up your system and do a few tests to figure out how many GB you can download and checksum in 15min.

With your laptop set-up that will be difference than someone else desktop set-up.

Also the destination drives will play a huge role in how much. I had a client provide me with 1Tb Glyph esata drives a couple weeks ago. Problem was they were a few years old and could barely maintain 40MB/s via esata. Yesterday I had a client bring me drives that were able to do 180MB/s. A huge difference in how fast I can download.

I prefer to download a lot, so I like 64GB cards and avoid 256GB unless there is a reason. I am really starting to not like Epic because every idiot wants to shoot 5K FF 5:1 with HDRx even if is a sit down interview with a 5D as second camera and destined for the web. 4KHD 8:1 is overkill for 90% of the projects out there. I digress.

Test your system and get your answer.


Dusty

"The web" is easily 1080p, and many sites offer excellent compression, including Vevo and Vimeo. Your lens looks different when zooming out from it at 5K - it's a larger frame of view using a bigger part of the sensor. Forget resolution - 5K in terms of resolution is in fact overkill for most things but that is only a small part of the story. These comments drive me crazy.

 

[Scott Crawley]

C'mon Rob We want to hit a Petabyte for the EPK... it'll be historic!

 

[Dustin Cross]

These comments drive me crazy.

5K FF is larger than 35mm cine lenses were designed for. You are changing the view of the lens in 5K FF just like you are in 4KHD. We'll just agree to disagree on this.


Dusty

 

[Conrad Hunziker]

Regardless of how full the drive is, I put in a new drive on the abby, and if possible/reasonable on the martini. Then theres only a shot left for the DIT to go through. Makes everyone happy... Of course, that means planning to wrap with media management earlier, so the card before the abby isnt 80% full.

 

[Glen Powell]

Regardless of how full the drive is, I put in a new drive on the abby, and if possible/reasonable on the martini. Then theres only a shot left for the DIT to go through. Makes everyone happy... Of course, that means planning to wrap with media management earlier, so the card before the abby isnt 80% full.

I hear 'Abby' used on set here - but 'Martini' is usually swapped out for 'Window'. Strange how terms come into being and then get regionalized.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Regardless of how full the drive is, I put in a new drive on the abby, and if possible/reasonable on the martini. Then theres only a shot left for the DIT to go through. Makes everyone happy... Of course, that means planning to wrap with media management earlier, so the card before the abby isnt 80% full.

What exactly is Abby and Martini?

 

[Martin Ubilluz]

the second to last set up or shot and the last shot, been using in the film industry since for ever

 

[Andrae Palmer]

the second to last set up or shot and the last shot, been using in the film industry since for ever

Thank you Martin!

 

[Andrew clemson]

The other thing is on certain shoots, where you maybe shoot 10% of a card on each setup. ACs sometimes dont seem to see the logic in swapping the card out anyway. Id rather do a quick backup and have the card back in circulation just in case.
The producer "where are my hard drives?" dance at the end of a shoot is one of my favourite things.

 

[Mark Phelan]

What exactly is Abby and Martini?

Good book for such strangeness as is the film crowd lingo, "Strike The Baby and Kill The Blonde" by Dave Knox. Abby, a.k.a. Abby Singer.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

The other thing is on certain shoots, where you maybe shoot 10% of a card on each setup. ACs sometimes dont seem to see the logic in swapping the card out anyway. Id rather do a quick backup and have the card back in circulation just in case.
The producer "where are my hard drives?" dance at the end of a shoot is one of my favourite things.

Yeah many ACs, EPIC/Scarlet owners are not looking at this from a workflow point of view. There's a reason why the big productions are using 128Gb cards... it's the right range for not too much footage being on one card and enough storage to handle the longer shots... combined with a great price point to support a whole bunch of multiple cards for transfers. Even with a 128GB card the AC should switch it out at 50% during the day and around 12% (15 to 16GB) during the Abby and the Martini. In the indie small productions world where you don't have a DIT on set... I guess it doesn't matter but there's no point in having a DIT on a professional set and hours go by where he's not getting any footage at all.

I myself see the necessity for some 256GB cards for long form recording... but it's kind of weird having one on a movie, music video, commercial set where you are switching it out at 25% throughout the day or 6% towards the end of the day.

 

[Tom.Wong]

Yeah many ACs, EPIC/Scarlet owners are not looking at this from a workflow point of view. There's a reason why the big productions are using 128Gb cards... it's the right range for not too much footage being on one card and enough storage to handle the longer shots. Even with a 128Gb card the AC should switch it out at 50% during the day and around 12% (15 to 16GB) during the Abby and the Martini. In the indie small productions world where you don't have a DIT on set... I guess it doesn't matter but there's no point in having a DIT on a professional set and hours go by where he's not getting any footage at all.

it's all relative. depends on what you are doing, the gear you have, and what you are shooting. I was on set doing continuous rolling on a interview with 256 gb mags. The director wanted to change out mags as little as possible to keep the subject in their element, casual, loose, and honest. changing mags gave her breaks and she would lose that if done too often. but I had my tower with a fast internal raid I could offload a 256 mag in under 20 min, and than sled them off to external drives while doing transcodes as well. never really felt backed up. and was done with backups before g&e even finished packing. probably a half hour or so.

but situations like that a laptop really wouldn't have cut it even without the transcodes. so the wrapping as fast as possible aspect can be done, but it all depends if the clients wants to pay up for the kit. it's either kit or it's time when they wanna shoot a lot. but there are really no set rules that apply to it all, just gotta figure it out as you go most of the time and see how fast everything is going and how fast they are shooting. You can gauge very well by lunch what needs to get done.

 

[Glen Powell]

I've been 'training' my AC's to swap out when the camera moves. New set-up new card.

Of course I shoot mainly advertising - no long interviews or Run 'n' gun doco stuff. So my perspective could be different.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

it's all relative. depends on what you are doing, the gear you have, and what you are shooting.

You are right... that's why I'm planning to to purchase two 256GB cards to cover those long form scenarios. How long was the interview that you were doing? I guess for an interview being shot at 5K FF RC 8:1... 38 minutes would be too short.

I've been 'training' my AC's to swap out when the camera moves. New set-up new card.

Of course I shoot mainly advertising - no long interviews or Run 'n' gun doco stuff. So my perspective could be different.

Seems like a great practice... perhaps many people are not aware of the workflow of a DIT. I think they think that we just copy data from one thing to another. The last aspect of visually Quality Checking the footage does not enter their minds... that part takes much longer than copying and checksum/verifying.

 

[Dustin Cross]

Dustin,

With your desktop/RAID setup how much can you download and checksum in say 15 or 30 minutes?

Andrae,

Just got around to doing a quick test. I didn't have any Red media so I copied footage off an eSata drive that averaged about 100MB/s. The two destination drives were also not overly fast, about 110MB/s average. The raid was around 550MB/s. All speed testing was done with AJA System Test.

I copied 28.83GB of footage to three desitinations (raid and 2 dest drives) and checksumed everything in 12min 37sec using my shell script. So about 38MB/s for three copies and four checksums. That doesn't sound that fast. So I did a quick test coping the same footage to just the two destination drives using ShotPut and that took 14min 30sec with checksums. I would have tested with R3D Data Manager, but it is so limited it wouldn't copy the footage off a drive. So with the setup I have right now 38MB/s. Tomorrow I could have faster or slower media and dest drives.

Hope that is useful. What did your test results show with your laptop setup?


Dusty