proxies, slow motion and transitions

[gary chan]

We have 35 hours of footage to edit. I'm guessing editing with proxies in FCP is the way to go vs. converting to ProRes? Are there still limitations to working with proxies?

[the workflow seems to change so fast]

also, if we want to slow down footage say to 50%, how does that work? (they weren't shot slow mo). and how do we reconnect or recreate for the output?

also, with transitions, if there are fade in/outs and cross dissolves, does the crimson workflow reconnect these?

lastly, we plan on going to a DI eventually. Is the Crimson workflow necessary?

thanks and please forgive any noob questions..

 

[Dominic Jones]

Hi Gary,

OK, I can answer some, but not all, of these (completely at least!).

1) Depends on how much craziness you want to do with your edit. Using the reference proxies will get you editing straight away, but trying to do anything other than a single video track will require a render. On the other hand, converting to ProRes proxies may take a considerable amount of time (depending on how much computing power you've got to throw at it), but once you've created them you can edit away as if you're cutting DV - so you save time in the actual edit. Depending on the complexity of what you want to do when editing, you may decide to go either way. A heads-up on finishing, though: For a Crimson-based workflow, either way is fine, but if you want to go to Color and finish there, you will need to edit the reference proxies (or get them re-wrapped via Log & Transfer, although I fail to see the advantage in this, to be honest). People are currently working on a fix to allow re-linking back to reference files from a ProRes proxy edit, but afaik this is yet to be possible.

Yes, keeping up with the workflow is pretty much a full-time job at the moment, but thank god it's evolving so fast! We posted our first Red job back in March (and that's pretty late compared to some folks round here), and that was absolutely zero fun whatsoever!

2) Hmmm... That I don't know, its a good question - I think you may need to create a new version of the timeline without said fx in (it will be a different length, of course) and re-create the effects in the DI. Someone else may be able to help here, or if not I'll try to find time to do some tests, but I don't think you're going to get the effect recreated through Crimson/RedCine/Et al, but maybe you'll get lucky. Another option, assuming that route doesn't work, may be to recreate the slo-mo fx yourself from the DPXs you create for the DI, before going to DI - this way (a) it costs you less in the DI suite (even assuming that the suite in question has that functionality) and (b) you can check to make sure you are re-creating them properly and your edit is coming out the correct length, you haven't got sync issues after the fx, etc...

Bear in mind that Crimson will regenerate a timeline via roundtrip for FCP, but if you're going to DI you'll want a DPX stack, possibly with handles, and an EDL, and that will not keep complex effects such as timewarps. You may well, if you want to do both (see below) need to handle this differently for each output.

3) Yes! (Transitions will be preserved through Crimson roundtrips).

4) Yes, I would say so. I'm a little confused here, as you're talking about round-tripping through Crimson and then follow on to talk about going to a DI - really it's one or the other, rather than both, unless you're wanting an interim version to "plug the gaps" and raise finance for a DI, or some similar purpose? You'll need to do two separate passes if you want to do both, as you'll be wanting redlog DPX stacks for the DI (most likely - talk to your post house about the colour space they prefer, but I would suspect redlog will be their choice), whereas FCP sadly does not understand DPX, so you'll need something like a higher quality ProRes422 render for FCP.

 

[Loren White]

I've got a somewhat similar situation...

I'll be grading a short red project in apple color, which was edited in fcp.
I'm not sure if he edited via proxies or did ProRes... what are the work flows for bringing this fcp project into color with a max output of 1440x1080? (it's for web) (yet it was shot on red, yeah, I dunno)

Any information on this?