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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 :)

I Am Insane.

T

Tim Senzee

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Okay, so this Friday (about one day away) I'll be shooting a short film with the Red One Camera (rental is bought and paid for, and in transit).

I don't have much experience with it, at all. It's a "mockumentary" style film, so if it appears a little rough around the edges, that's ok, but I want to get the best quality possible.

I rented the Red One, a follow focus, motor, and some more accessories. I would be very grateful if someone with more Red experience than I were to post something of a "pre-shot checklist" for the Red. Everything I need to make sure is in order before hitting record; just the basics. I know how to set the frame-rate and format, but I don't want to miss anything important. What's the best ISO setting? What's the simplest and quickest way to transfer to the external firewire drive?

I'll give you guys a credit in the "special thanks" section of the movie, any and all help is truly appreciated.


Thanks in advance,

Tim
 
Thanks guys.

Two things. One, would you recommend getting the Ebook of the Ultimate Red Guide for the shoot? Could put it on my laptop, which brings me too...

Two: Is a laptop needed on-set to offload the files to the external HDD, or can that be done through the camera somehow? If a laptop is needed, does it have to be a powerhouse for simply transferring the files? Or will my "everyday use" laptop work?

And for audio, I'm using a shotgun mic on a boom-pole. Plug into the XLR adapter cable and go?
 
mockumentary? are you going hand held? did you rent a mantis rig or something specific to hand hold the Red One? It can be a beast.
 
Yes, do get the Ultimate Red Guide- I didn't know there was an ebook (makes sense) but that book is great. My copy is rather dog-eared.

You will need a laptop or similar solution to off-load the files, that much is certain. However, I used to do it with a cheap USB2 CF reader on a 2007 macbook. You can do it.

If you ARE going handheld, rent a decent handheld rig, like the Element Technica Mantis or similar. Even a slimmed down Red One is a heavy, awkward beast with a weird center of gravity.

Shooting with an R1 can be a bit daunting if you've never used a camera on this level, but reading the manual and asking questions are good places to start. If you have a brain and can use it, you'll figure out the camera.

What lenses are you going to use? Are you shooting 4/4.5K? What about finishing?
 
Thanks Ryan, VERY helpful!

Good to know about the laptop. So for transferring files, I hook the external drive to the laptop, as well as the Red Drive, and just drag and drop? Will I be able to instantly watch the 1k proxy files (laptop probably can't handle the full 4k)?

We're using the Red 18-50 mm lens, and shooting 4k, finishing 4k or (possibly) 2k, editing on a Mac. I was planning on buying a Lacie Rugged 320 gb HDD for the shoot. It's only for three days, so do you think that'd be enough space?
 
This is just a personal preference based on my experience, but I have no love for LaCie. I bought some Seagate 1TB external drives for my projects, which work very nicely. I've filled a few of those. It's hard to say if 320 gigs will be enough for all of your footage. I'd go for something a little larger, if you can afford it.

To answer your question, yes, you just connect, drag and drop. Try to connect your media/drives to Firewire800 ports if you have them, as USB is a bit sluggish for dumping gigs of footage.

As long as your laptop has quicktime, and the Red quicktime plugin (red.com/support) you will be able to view the proxies.

You might want to reconsider finishing to 4K, depending on what you're doing. If you're hoping to show this in a theater or festival, 4K projectors still aren't that prominent. A lot of Red work gets finished to 2K, benefitting from super-sampling.

At one point, I was planning to shoot an entire feature with a Red 18-50, but I found that too limiting. You may want to look at renting the 50-150 as well.

Hope some of that was helpful. There's many people here much more experienced than I, so there may be some better suggestions yet to come. Good luck, good shooting!
 
Whatever you do, do NOT run the Red drive off bus power when you connect it to your laptop. Use the AC adapter for power. There are two drives RAIDed in the Red Drive, and the laptop bus doesn't really have enough power.
 
Thanks guys, keep it coming! Tons of good info.

Ryan, I'll take a look at the Seagate. The on-set laptop I'll be using is a windows, not a Mac (my desktop though, is Mac). Is there a way to still view the proxies? The QT plug-in looks to be Mac-only. I could always take my desktop on the shoot, which would be a bit of a hassle, but worth it to see the progress as we go.

Thanks for the tip, Matthew, mental note, taken :)
 
Why not just download and install Redcine-X, the windows version to your on-set laptop to play the dailies?

It is far more than just a player, so you may want to be careful not to play too much on the day, but you can even try that today on your laptop with all the sample footage posted on reduser.net. That way you'll know before hand if it makes the grade.

I've never shot on Red, heck I've never done professional motion, but basic grading with Redcine-X on windows and Mac is just cool :)

Oh. And bring two of everything critical if you possibly can.
 
Matthew Verkler said:
Whatever you do, do NOT run the Red drive off bus power when you connect it to your laptop. Use the AC adapter for power. There are two drives RAIDed in the Red Drive, and the laptop bus doesn't really have enough power.
Click to expand...

Whilst probably not the best practice, I agree with you Matthew, I have done this quite a few times and have never been bitten. Recently finished a 9 day shoot for a short film without any problems at all. If your on-location and have no power source, then it can be done.
 
Thanks for all the tips, it's been very helpful.

Got an external HDD yesterday, and I'm gonna install Redcine-X on my laptop. We start shooting in the afternoon, then continue on until wrapping Sunday. I'll post here with updates on how it's going.
 
Jamie Havill said:
Whilst probably not the best practice, I agree with you Matthew, I have done this quite a few times and have never been bitten. Recently finished a 9 day shoot for a short film without any problems at all. If your on-location and have no power source, then it can be done.
Click to expand...

Hi Jamie,

Yeah, I've done it before too, but I know too many people who blew their Firewire800 ports on either the Red Drive or even their computer by doing this, especially in the early days (2008). Perhaps more recent computers have more robust busses (say that five times quickly!). Certainly I would never daisy chain a Red Drive through another Firewire 800 drive without using AC on the Red Drive, even if the other drive was using AC, as drives have even less power going out the Firewire 800 port than computers do. The nice thing about Red Drives is if you happen to blow the Firewire 800 ports, you still have the other ports.

Jamie's characterization is correct: using the AC adapter is a best practice.
 
First day of shooting went great, thanks for all the tips.

I have an important question though; tonight, we're gonna be doing night shots, and I was wondering what the best settings for low light situations is?
 
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