Feature Workflows

[nomadix rob]

We are in the initial stages of pre-production for our latest feature. Our first film was a 95 minute action, shot on SD and edited in final cut. We have secured funding for the next project and we are going to be shooting on the RED. As you can imagine I'm still trying to figure out which workflow would be best suited to our project, either editing the Proxies or transcoding everything to ProRes. From what i gather there is not alot of rescources on the Red here in Australia!

Bascially we are going to be editing on a new Mac Pro, Quad 3.2 GHZ with 8 GB of Ram. We have been told that the film is intended to go onto the market on DVD, but they want the ability to release on film if it gets a cinema release. The film is in the action genre, 90 mins long and has a number of VFX shots throughout. So i guess i'm just wondering what people think is the best way to go. I am also curious to know A - how working with the proxies is when considering VFX shots and B - if we went down prores road, how long do the files take to transcode?

 

[John Tissavary]

In my experience the easiest, fastest, and arguably best results can be had by editing proxies in FCP, exporting a CMX 3600 EDL, conforming and grading in Scratch. Because it's easy and fast it's also very cost effective, and the results will be top notch as long as you work with an experienced person on the conform/grading end of things.

You can also render selects to ProRes, but it's extra work for people & machines, and generally requires decisions to be made on which takes to render prior to edit (not a good time to be making these decisions if you don't have to).

If you're going with a CMX3600 based workflow you won't be doing composites or other multiple stream edits in the NLE that could bog down with proxies. I also recommend working with the the smallest proxy versions you can stand to, as image size and quality in editorial will not have any effect on the quality of the online.

Scratch can act as your post production backbone, feeding plates and grading vfx shots. Since you will be going to DVD, but want the option to go to film (or DCP?) at a later date, working from R3D in Scratch is ideal, as every step is 'non-destructive', i.e. you are not debayering or applying any color or image transforms until the final render for filmout or DVD, and you can apply special grades or LUTs for any particular destination.

I've done several features using this workflow, and I wouldn't do it any other way.

If you have any more specific questions on this workflow, please feel free to PM me.

regards

John T.

 

[Rob Gardner]

We have two long-form projects in editing now, one being done with proxies, the other with prores and both seem to be working out fine. Overnight renders to prores have been witout issues. The major difference I am noticing is the major increase in the need for storage capacity with prores. The prores files are bigger than the R3D files and with everything backed up in duplicate, it really makes for a dramatic pile of hard drives. We are rendering everything, not just the selects.

Neither project has gone through to completion, but our tests on both show no problems so far. Prores out to HDcam time works fine and the Crimson conform from the proxies works fine.

 

[Chris Hocking]

I have to disagree with one thing - there are heaps of really great facilities and people supporting RED in Australia! Where in Australia are you based? John at Lemac, Mike Seymour at fxphd, Cail & Pete at Inspiration Studios, the list goes on... Australia's got some of the best in the business!

What kind of budget do you have for post? Obviously that will determine the best workflow for you. John's suggestion of using Scratch as the backbone is ideal, but I'm presuming you're going to want to do as much as you can in-house to save money. That's fine - and you can certainly make it work. But, the bad news is you're going to have to read up and test, test, test! This forum has a lot of the answers, but until you get your hands dirty and start pushing around some data, you'll never suss out all the unexpected workarounds and bugs.

My suggestion - have a big discussion with the people you're hiring the camera from (presuming your not using your own camera). They'll already have a solid workflow in place, and be able to answer most of your questions.

Good luck and happy movie making!

 

[nomadix rob]

Thanks for the heads up on the folks in Australia who may be able to help. We are looking at bringing on a red consultant to advice about workflow processes for the duration of production and post production. I will contact those businesses and hopefully they can help. We are based on the Gold Coast in Queensland, so there should be some knowledgable people are these parts!

In regards to our budget for post, we are basically going to purchase a top of the line mac pro and we will want to do as much as we can in that machine. As we are looking at doing a number of films over the next 2 years we are probably going to be purchasing a Red. So naturally, as soon as we get our hands on it, we will be testing like crazy! I had been thinking for a while that the Pro Res/ Crimson workflow was the way to go, but the amount of time needed to transcode the footage has kinda put me off. So i am now looking more into the proxies/scratch workflow

 

[Chris Hocking]

If you have a search around the forums, I think you'll find that the general consensus is that using proxies is a NIGHTMARE for long-form productions. If you encode all the footage at the end of each shooting day (i.e. an overnight encode), I think you'll find it's manageable and your editors can start playing around the very next day. Consider it the same as if you were shooting on film.

Also, be REALLY careful if you're planning to buy just one RED and start putting together your own kit. It's always a good idea to have a backup (especially as the RED is still in it's early stages and there's still a few bugs that pop up occasionally). There's enough posts around here with these kinds of warnings, so not point pushing the point too much, and I'm sure you're aware of all the pitfalls!

Have fun! Working with RED certainly is never boring!

 

[ThomtheEditor]

You can also render selects to ProRes, but it's extra work for people & machines...

It thought that Scratch couldn't transcode to ProResHQ, we turned down buying a RedBoxx with ScratchCine b/c the boxx rep told us that the Redboxx couldn't handle ProRes; or am i getting confused b/c the boxx's are pc's and don't like apple codecs?

 

[Cail Young]

or am i getting confused b/c the boxx's are pc's and don't like apple codecs?

The Windows Prores "codec" released by apple is really just a "dec" - i.e. decode only. That's probably the issue.

Thanks for the plug, Chris

 

[Cail Young]

Bascially we are going to be editing on a new Mac Pro, Quad 3.2 GHZ with 8 GB of Ram.

Good machine for editing but you'll want a seperate 8-core (RAM not so important) purely for dailies if you decide to not go with proxy-based editing. This is the setup we used during production for a recent feature, Hell's Gates.

For VFX shot pulls you're better off editing without proxies; transcoding to any codec (prores isn't mandatory, but it is nice) and burning in TC and file info - this makes life much, much easier for VFX artists to pull the requisite plates after the fact.

As regards time to transcode, our quadcore was doing 3:1 (i.e. 3x runtime of footage) for 1/4 debayer to 720p; 1/2 debayer to 1080p was somewhere around 7:1 - 8:1. An 8-core machine will roughly halve those times; bearing storage bandwidth in mind - you'll want fast storage.

On reflection, I think what I'm really saying is don't use proxies

Make sure you document your intended data management plan and STICK TO IT. Get stakeholders involved in its production - VFX artists, the editor, and perhaps even talk to some post houses you might be looking at for grading (Cutting Edge, for example, up in Brisbane).

Of course, you're more than welcome to give me a call to discuss anything, PM me for the number.