Monkey Extract - new version, new Final Cut workflow

[Nigel Stanford]

Hi guys,

We've just released a new version of Monkey Extract for Final Cut / Color users.
It's version 1.206 and available for download here.

Lots of now goodies, but the main one is that you can now easily render high quality Quicktimes from your EDL, then reconnect them to Final Cut, and then send to Color if you wish.
There's a renaming function so the filename of the footage you render will match the proxy file you edited with (_M for instance). for easy reconnection.

You can either render full length clips (the safe option) or only from the minimum in point to the maximum out point (faster). I've even tested it using an EDL to load footage back into FCP, but reconnecting is easier

For the hard core (those with a raid) the DPX / EDL to Color workflow has been improved also.

Best of all, we've written some comprehensive step-by-step instructions into the application, so that it's easy to understand! This stuff can kind of be like rocket science sometimes :usd:

Feel free to try it out and let me know you do. I'll post a screenshot soon.

 

[Nigel Stanford]

Settings for Final Cut Quicktime reconnect workflow:

Settings for Final Cut Quicktime reconnect workflow:

Settings for Final Cut Quicktime reconnect workflow:

 

[Nigel Stanford]

 

[Yean Loon]

Sounds sweet!! Just the thing i need to convince production houses here to use the Red ONe!!. I've lost a lot of jobs cuz they are not confident of the workflow being fast enough.
thanks!!

 

[ThomtheEditor]

just one question, how is this better/different than Crimson?

 

[Nigel Stanford]

just one question, how is this better/different than Crimson?

I'm not too familiar with Crimson...
The main difference, in my understanding is that Monkey Extract is EDL based, which makes it compatible with pretty much any editing or grading software.

For Final Cut users, the main feature that is cool, is that it will render each Quicktime used in your cut, but it won't render frames that are not used from the start and end of each source clip.

If you have a cut that its 10 seconds long from clip that was 3 minutes long, it will render a 10 second Quicktime.

If you have three 10 second cuts taken from the same clip at 1:00, 1:20 and 2:00, it will render the footage from 1:00 to 2:10 into a single shorter Quicktime.

I'm not sure if I explained that well, but it makes rendering faster and still allows a simple reconnect back to your Final Cut timeline.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

In other words, it does the same thing as Crimson for FCP users (as I expect you can set handles in Monkey Extract too...)

With crimson you can also send the sequence to RedCine, if you need to see what you're doing.

Not to hit on your product, just to clearify.

 

[ThomtheEditor]

so it kinda batch conforms w/o the first light option, just what came off the camera? Sounds pretty useful (except i already paid for crimson lol) if you don't want to change anything your dp has done.

Again, not to beat a dead horse, but something like this should have been provided by RED, I know i'm gonna get all kind of hate on that...oh they're a camera company not a software company, but shit panasonic gave us L&T functionality when they introduced P2; if you're going to shoot to a new codec that no-one can extract it should be a given that you provide people i way to use it at the same time they get their camera, not months-years afterwards.

A little off topic sorry, good luck with your software Nigel, sounds like you def. have a market for it!
~T

 

[Raphael Varandas]

Nice Nigel...I'll try it...

 

[Raphael Varandas]

Good Luck... keep this job up

 

[Uli Plank]

Would be great, though, if one could use RSX first-lights or even choose one for a whole group of clips (like in RR). If you are going from RAW to ProRes to end up in Color (until Apple gives us native support eventually) you'll often want a first-light not to loose quality.

 

[Greg Huson]

Would be great, though, if one could use RSX first-lights or even choose one for a whole group of clips (like in RR). If you are going from RAW to ProRes to end up in Color (until Apple gives us native support eventually) you'll often want a first-light not to loose quality.

If I'm not mistaken, you can definately do that- download the demo version and try it out.

 

[Nigel Stanford]

That's correct, you can apply the RSX from each clip, just the color info from the RSX, or a single RSX to all clips.

 

[Uli Plank]

Thanks, looks good. Can I have a single RSX for a group of clips (same lighting situation) or would I need to split my project for that?

 

[Rainer Fritz]

Nigel, it would be great to have a list of the used clips, so that I know which should get a first light correction. The greatest would be double clicking on the clip in the list will open it in redalert, like the clipfinder it does......

thx
rainer

p.s.: a timeline with preview would be also great....

 

[Nigel Stanford]

Thanks, looks good. Can I have a single RSX for a group of clips (same lighting situation) or would I need to split my project for that?

The way to manage that would be to copy the group of shots (say the night shots) to a new timeline, export a new EDL and apply the specific RSX to those.

At the moment every render overwrites the destination if you redo it, so you could either do a first pass of the entire project and then a 2nd pass of the special shots in the same place, or a different place and manage them manually.

We're in the process of building in overwriting options, should be available this week.

 

[Jim Chu]

Wow - Fresh off the presses and not a moment too soon. I am meeting with the colorist later today for our feature and we will see how FCP->DPX->Lustre works probably with a test later this week. Can't wait to take the monkey out for a test drive! one question - is the DPX output 10-bit or 16?

 

[Rainer Fritz]

10bit

 

[Nigel Stanford]

Nigel, it would be great to have a list of the used clips, so that I know which should get a first light correction. The greatest would be double clicking on the clip in the list will open it in redalert, like the clipfinder it does......

thx
rainer

p.s.: a timeline with preview would be also great....

Sounds like a good idea, I'll see what we can do.

 

[Rainer Fritz]

Nigel, thanks a lot for for listening.....

as our projects here will be mostly graded on baselight and autoconformed on it, it is a perfect to have all the dpxs in the folders per roll. one more thing....
it seems that the baselight has problems to catch up the roll id in the dpx header. I am using Imagemagick and wanted to ask you if it will be possible to build a function in monkey which changes the roll id in the dpx header to match the edl? so after exporting the dpxs a script is changing all the headers of the files for example with imagemagick ????

thx
rainer