Finally convinced work to dive into RED... dude...

[william howell]

It's hard to put the whole experience into words... but... from camera assembly, customization, operation, filming methodology, the insanely amazing iso based shooting, REDMAGs, processing in REDCINE-X Pro > NLE (FCPX or Premiere) > Davinci, to delivery...

It's insane how amazingly satisfying it is from start to finish...

The only thing that I wish is that we never had to leave REDCODE for delivery...

I may be wrong, but it seems like a .r3d file is more like working with a magical video "vector" like file than a pixel based image sequence...

While I have never had the pleasure of working in "film", I've been working professionally with cameras since vhs/beta days... every brand, every media format (tapes, dv, hdv, digital etc), every imaging process imaginable... working with a RED camera from start to finish is mind blowingly amazing.

It literally is an entirely different world, and within minutes of working witn .r3d files... it's readliy apparent (for our particular workflow) that all other video files/workflows/formats are vastly inferior (in the aspects that matter to our particular needs).

I knew working with RED cameras would be a different experience.. To be honest... I wasn't aware of how life changing acquiring a red camera would be... literally.

 

[Marc Wielage]

It literally is an entirely different world, and within minutes of working witn .r3d files... it's readliy apparent that all other video files/workflows/formats are vastly inferior.

I'm glad you have a camera you like and a workflow you like, but there's a lot of ways to get productions done and a lot of workflows. The key is to find the one that gets the job done with the fewest possible compromises. Trust me, there's thousands of features and TV series that work with mildly-compressed (like ProRes 444) or uncompressed (like DPX/EXR) workflows, and those work just fine. Bear in mind that the moment you introduce serious VFX and so on, you have to go to a mezzanine format like this. Raw is not always necessary, but a lot depends on how well you do the transcodes. My feeling is there is no visual difference (and no limitation on correction range) if you stay on top of the process.

 

[william howell]

When you do everything in house, like we do, having total control over every aspect from start to finish is paramount. We also archive everything, since we are filming reality... redcode files are much smaller file size wise than their prores counterparts.

Our media server isn't anything (size wise) compared to many of the systems employed by many of the people on this forum, but it is over 100tb of data containing over 20 years of research footage in every conceivable file format... so file sizes are important to us.

We know that, given the settings, we can bloat the heck out of these things (red file sizes), but we're pretty happy with the results we're getting at 12:1 all the way to 18:1 compression so far. I am aware that there is no perfect camera (although, the reds are pretty amazing) but for our needs.. not having to stop and shoot still photos for print while documenting a one time event... worth it's weight in gold.

Heck... we shot 4k raw on our Sony fs700 for years that we'd transcode to prores444... which was an insane waste of space for our needs... but... we don't normally live immersed in the vfx world (although do on occasion), so for our purposes the red workflow is truly innovative.

I should have clarified that.

 

[Marc Wielage]

When you do everything in house, like we do, having total control over every aspect from start to finish is paramount. We also archive everything, since we are filming reality... redcode files are much smaller file size wise than their prores counterparts. Our media server isn't anything (size wise) compared to many of the systems employed by many of the people on this forum, but it is over 100tb of data containing over 20 years of research footage in every conceivable file format... so file sizes are important to us.

The key to me is media management: saving just the important materials needed to get the job done. It's a good question whether you need to save every frame of every project for X number of years. If a show is wrapped and has aired (or has been delivered to the client and/or downloaded by viewers), then the question comes up as to whether you need to save (say) all 400-500 hours of material shot for one feature film, or all 1000 hours of material shot for a TV series. Will the show need to be re-edited or re-purposed 5, 10, 20 years from now? These are tough questions, and I'd ask whether it'll be possible to decode those files (in any format) decades from now, and if the drives will still spin and if the backup tapes can retrieve frames.

There's also a point where you're crowded out of house and home in terms of space. I'd say a normal 1-hour TV series could easily shoot 20 hours a week per camera, so assuming 2 cameras, it could be 40 hours times 22 episodes, plus more for VFX and titles and so on. And don't forget audio, multiple languages, textless, promos, trailers... it's a lotta stuff.

An old pal of mine once did some restoration work on Gone with the Wind, and he said MGM had saved something like 3000 cans of film on that project -- but that included several different versions of the movie, lots of different formats (prints, IPs, internegs, and some Technicolor separation negatives), foreign versions, domestic versions, reissues from different years, 50 different kinds of soundtracks... it was a lot of boxes. And that was just one film. I'm not sure if I could fit 3000 boxes of film in my garage.

I've been dealing with about 100TB of material a year for the last few years, and I'm not keeping all of it... but I do keep the sessions and some backups, and in some cases reference frames. But it's up to my clients to keep their original camera material. Could we rebuild the session 2, 4, 10, 20 years from now? Maybe. But I think this would be a challenge for any editing program, any sound mixing program, any VFX software, and any color-correction software. After a certain amount of time, it all becomes very fragile and temporary.

 

[Les Hillis]

Good to hear the RED image quality and workflow is working for you William.

Yours and Marc's comments remind me how nice it is to have available such a flexible and manageable image capture and processing system.

Am glad RED have and continue to pay so much attention to making it work so well from end to end.

 

[Sabyasachi Patra]

The key to me is media management: saving just the important materials needed to get the job done. It's a good question whether you need to save every frame of every project for X number of years. If a show is wrapped and has aired (or has been delivered to the client and/or downloaded by viewers), then the question comes up as to whether you need to save (say) all 400-500 hours of material shot for one feature film, or all 1000 hours of material shot for a TV series. Will the show need to be re-edited or re-purposed 5, 10, 20 years from now? These are tough questions, and I'd ask whether it'll be possible to decode those files (in any format) decades from now, and if the drives will still spin and if the backup tapes can retrieve frames.

There's also a point where you're crowded out of house and home in terms of space. I'd say a normal 1-hour TV series could easily shoot 20 hours a week per camera, so assuming 2 cameras, it could be 40 hours times 22 episodes, plus more for VFX and titles and so on. And don't forget audio, multiple languages, textless, promos, trailers... it's a lotta stuff.

An old pal of mine once did some restoration work on Gone with the Wind, and he said MGM had saved something like 3000 cans of film on that project -- but that included several different versions of the movie, lots of different formats (prints, IPs, internegs, and some Technicolor separation negatives), foreign versions, domestic versions, reissues from different years, 50 different kinds of soundtracks... it was a lot of boxes. And that was just one film. I'm not sure if I could fit 3000 boxes of film in my garage.

I've been dealing with about 100TB of material a year for the last few years, and I'm not keeping all of it... but I do keep the sessions and some backups, and in some cases reference frames. But it's up to my clients to keep their original camera material. Could we rebuild the session 2, 4, 10, 20 years from now? Maybe. But I think this would be a challenge for any editing program, any sound mixing program, any VFX software, and any color-correction software. After a certain amount of time, it all becomes very fragile and temporary.

Great post.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

That's one heck of a testimonial. From what I know about cameras and workflows, I believe every word.

Marc is right in that at the end of the day, you should never hope to keep everything. The American national archives started having that problem years ago, because it was asked to keep too much data. It's untenable.