Intermediate edit res to allow for shot stabilization

[Martin Beek]

I've read that David Fincher - on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - frames around 3k from the original Epic 4k footage, to allow for shot stabilization and then does rhe edit in this "intermediate" resolution. Eventually, the resulting edit is scaled down for 2k and scaled up for 4k cinema packages.
Can anyone tell me, if I want to replicate this workflow for Scarlet footage, what the ideal intermediate resolution would be; allowing for shot stabilization and best downscaling to 2k? I don't have the need for a 4k master.
Thanks!

Edit: the original article: http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo/

 

[Sebastian Cepeda]

Hi Martin,

He actually shot on 5K and framed for 4K ( like this he can still reframe, stabilize if needed). Here you can see a video from Michael Cironi from Light Iron talking about these and other workflows and stuff.

very interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qztrb9arZl4

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Capturing more real estate than required for post is rapidly becoming a popular approach for 3-D realignment, motion stabilization, locked off crash cams, etc. Depending on what hardware and software you will be using in post there may be some limitations in choosing aspect ratios and pixel counts, but in theory you can crop and scale all you want - just be careful you don't slaughter the IQ. I deliberately shot 5KFF (2700 by 5120) on my recent feature even though it showed some vignetting with some lenses/filters because I knew it could be cropped in post.

IIRC the big Spiderman reboot that Brook was on simply created frame guides for shooting that showed the planned frame, but left them some extra pixels all the way around for post flexibility. Smart.

Suggest you sketch out your pipeline and think about when and how you will crop, repo and scale with an eye on the hero deliverable. Done correctly the image should not suffer, but it does inject some complexity, which opens up the window a bit for mucking things up. If you aren't 100% sure about any step in the process my advice is to shoot one minute of footage and take it all the way down the post path prior to finalizing your plan. I'm not trying to scare anyone, its not an inherently difficult process, but a bad assumption or a bad scaling filter choice could bite you.

Cheers - #19

 

[Marc Wielage]

Very wise words from Blair. I would also shoot a framing chart at the beginning of every day, just to verify that the framing is correct for the D.I.T. or whoever is handling Redcine-X Pro for debayering. Be wary of high-speed shooting and mixing resolutions.

I have worked on several feature projects where the DP made the decision to go to a "custom" framing, just to allow for repos later on. I've also worked on regular films where the DP wished he had framed wider for framing problems. I can think of a recent Blu-ray release where we had at least 250 repositions out of maybe 2500 shots, roughly 10 percent, some with dynamic moves (very tiny zooms or tilts).

Michael Cioni makes a good case where rescaling can actually be used as a positive benefit, but the key is where and how the reframing is done in the workflow.