Question for post production color grading professionals.

[Björn Benckert]

I do it in reels if I have the choice. Zooming out and see a full feature timeline does not do much good to me. Having the film devided up in acts makes me somewhat able to memorise the edit better and I'm quicker to locate any wanted clip. And jumping from one 20 minute act to another is just a click away. And also far more easy to get approved by client.

Usually clients can focus for about 3-5 minutes at the time... if their mobile does not ring or they get a Facebook message or any thing else more important than overviewing their own work... So forcing them to concentrate on a full act is quite a trick, having them approving one act is yet another trick... Trying to get them to watch their whole movie in one go... I actually think I never manage to do that, not while in grading, in the movie theatre no problem but as long as they know things can be changed there is no way that they can stay tuned for 120 minutes and not say... can you stop on that clip, or is that not to dark, etc, etc. So for those reasons and whats been mentioned above, like if you get one act out then you can send that along for sound, subtitling, further approving etc. while working on the rest. Having to render out the whole film every time somebody wants to see a change remotely is quite frustrating as well much better then to stay with shorter segments.

Thats how it was done for film and working with files does not change much in that regard.

Personally I do not think grading a full feature within less than 7 days is recommended. I can sit for 3 weeks without feeling that any time was wasted. I mean why go shoot all that and put in all the effort and money and then just stress trough a final step which grading is, that also aplies to every shot in your film. off course you can just slap on some good looks and roll with it and be done within a days time. But then again why do you not go and shoot your film within a few hours... it's only hundred and some minutes long, right? So it should not take more than a few days to shoot?

Today there is so much you can go in regards of colours, with raw and all the tools available so much better then to book enough time and use whats available... at least that my though on it.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Personally I do not think grading a full feature within less than 7 days is recommended. I can sit for 3 weeks without feeling that any time was wasted. I mean why go shoot all that and put in all the effort and money and then just stress trough a final step which grading is, that also aplies to every shot in your film.

It all boils down to time and money. I can think of some $50 million+ films I've done in a week, and all were well-received and made money. And I can think of some other films where we did take four or five weeks where it didn't matter. Too often, the producers and director are aware on some level that the movie has problems, and they think that going to extravagant lengths in color will solve the story and acting issues. [Also, bear in mind in the old film lab days that they almost never took more than a day to do one answer print.]

Two days per 20-minute reel would work out to 12 days for a 2-hour feature, and that's a fairly leisurly pace unless you get four or five creative people in the room at the same time. What's frustrating to me is when I can get the DP and director happy, and then an editor and a post producer come in and start wanting more changes. Often, what happens with a film is that "the last man standing" is the person who has final approval of color. The exception would be a blockbuster like Harry Potter or The Hobbit, where there's a team of two or three colorists working in tandem for 6 months, essentially color timing while each reel is being edited. Movies like this could literally take 2000 hours+ to color-correct, particularly when they're dropping in 15 nodes or layers on every shot.

At the other end of the spectrum, note that many American network dramas typically do 43 minutes of color correction in 2 days, and that includes viewing and final output. And many shows today are every bit as visually intense and challenging as feature films. Taking a week would be even more comfortable, but if you're staring at an immovable deadline, you have to do the best you can and get the project delivered on time.

 

[Jaakko Rinne]

What are common issues you have come across while dealing with your clients? Whats the average time for you to color correct/grade a 90 minutes movie.... 4 weeks? How much can you color correct/grade in an 8 hour working day?

My schedule for TV work is basically a single 23 minute episode in one 8 hour working day. Two days for a 43 minute episode. But I rarely do "just" the color correction - I usually do online and mastering as well.

Everything also really depends on 1) how much time is allowed by the budget and 2) how much work the footage needs; I've done some 23 minute episodes in less than two hours and some 43 minute ones in under six. I might also easily spend a whole day doing a 30 second spot - especially if the client can't decide what they want.

What I really like is doing a first pass on the colours and then coming back a week later with fresh eyes to do the final pass. For me this really only works with documentaries, since everything else I get tends to be on too tight a schedule.

I also work in a world of much smaller budgets than some of the guys here, but I would guess the deadlines for all of us tend to sometimes be just as crazy.

 

[Dermot Shane]

What are common issues you have come across while dealing with your clients? Whats the average time for you to color correct/grade a 90 minutes movie.... 4 weeks? How much can you color correct/grade in an 8 hour working day?

Common issues? not much really, most of the stuff i work on is shot very well, and has pro edit assists to keep the post workflow on track, the producer's are all pro's as well, and have realstic timeframes in mind

Timeframes? depending upon the show complexity - for a tv movie usualy 10 -12 days over a 4-5 week timeframe, plus some assist time depending upon the camera used, the feature i'm starting has a 7 week sched, so averages to a bit less than a reel/week

Workday? usualy look at 5 days to grade a TV movie inside the 10 days total turnaround time, base grade is usualy a day and a half - but that after i have my assist go through the debayer settings shot by shot, so i have a reduced need to revisit those, then the third day with the DP (or addressing DP's notes after reviewing a screener), then a fourth day to tweak and polish, and hold the last day untill after the mix, and go through the show with the producer and do a final look at everything,

features get alot more time, but the same basic workflow

The fastest i have done is a base pass on a 90 min tv movie in a 14 hour day, but that show was all one location and shot on F55/Slog, and everyone but me was OK to signoff on the basepass- akkk!! it ended up at only three and a half days

I usualy work alone other then screening with the DP i am left to do the work, once in a while the post sup stops by, but never offers input on the grade, they are looking at VFX and titles and logo removals / blurs


Bjorn; i ihave timeline zoom in/zoom out and focus mapped to the buttons right above the jog/shuttle knob on my surface, that makes a huge diffrence when navagating a 90 min timeline without haveing to grab a pen or a mouse

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[Björn Benckert]

Bjorn; i ihave timeline zoom in/zoom out and focus mapped to the buttons right above the jog/shuttle knob on my surface, that makes a huge diffrence when navagating a 90 min timeline without haveing to grab a pen or a mouse

d

Hmm, If I put a few weeks of work into a single timeline I would for sure run into trouble, ram swapping and a overall sluggishness would hit me hard. So that's not really an option for me. Maybe it works lika a charm Mystica, but then again, I do not think thats the most commonly used grading tool among Redusers so my advice would still be to work with films hacked up in it's 5 acts and that goes for everything from offline editing, grading and VFX work... or if possible then for VFX working scene by scene is even better.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

It is advisable for less experienced that mentioned time figures are taken with caution and within context.
Long hours in coloring are generally not recommended.

 

[Dave_S]

What is the minimum $$$ you charge for color grading a 10 minutes short film with average location/cuts? Total cost to your client including ingesting, exporting ....whatever. And I believe it can be done in a day????

 

[Björn Benckert]

What is the minimum $$$ you charge for color grading a 10 minutes short film with average location/cuts? Total cost to your client including ingesting, exporting ....whatever. And I believe it can be done in a day????

For me that would range for zero up to a for a full day rate no discount... But then normally 10 minute short films are usually student films = no pay, or commercial directors that wants to move towards longer formats = no pay, as those usually want that done as a favour for jobs the jobs they brought in before they decided to make their short film....

I think normally there is no real market for 10 minutes shorts. Usually their main purpose is to promote the people that worked on the film... same goes for the guy color grading it normally.

I find that a bit odd that tv stations does not put more money into shorts as for them 10 minute film and then a commercial break and then another 10minute film would be a good way to fill the schedule but at least around here it does not really happen.

 

[Will Keir]

R3D trims are lossless correct? I can cut down all the "good" footage and toss away the lose ends to save space?

You deliver a XML and r3d trimmed files. Today that should work for any "professional" post house.

 

[Matthew Scott]

R3D trims are lossless correct? I can cut down all the "good" footage and toss away the lose ends to save space?

Correct.

 

[Will Keir]

R3Ds delivered through a hard drive by mail, correct? uploading and downloading on the internet requires bandwidth beyond our current options?

I believe Enders game did this. They send proxies to editorial to start cutting and the R3Ds were sent in the mail and most likely reconformed.

What Björn said, XML and R3D trim are a good option.

With docs and shorts I usually get the offline project, all the offline and native media and do the online myself to make sure everything goes smoothly. With the TV shows I'm working on right now all the footage has been transcoded to ProRes for editing and an assistant Mediamanages the project for me from those ProRes files (with handles in case of any surprises) for online and grading.

 

[Will Keir]

Thanks Matthew.

I check the box for "RMD Side Car Follows" anything else to add to the R3D trim? Is common practice to 1st light and trim your clips in the timeline? Can't seem to export without them in there.

Correct.

 

[ericyoung]

R3D trims are lossless correct? I can cut down all the "good" footage and toss away the lose ends to save space?

Don't forget to keep some handles if you're really intending to throw away original footage!

 

[Marc Wielage]

R3Ds delivered through a hard drive by mail, correct? uploading and downloading on the internet requires bandwidth beyond our current options?

There are ways to send large files through Aspera and similar services. But when you're talking several terabytes a day, it'd probably be cheaper and faster to put a courier and a drive on a plane and buy them a roundtrip ticket to wherever it needs to go. That clearly worked for Ender's Game, shooting in Louisiana and doing post in LA.

 

[Nick Morrison]

There are ways to send large files through Aspera and similar services. But when you're talking several terabytes a day, it'd probably be cheaper and faster to put a courier and a drive on a plane and buy them a roundtrip ticket to wherever it needs to go. That clearly worked for Ender's Game, shooting in Louisiana and doing post in LA.

On Ender's Game were they physically shipping drives to LA? Or was data being pipped over to LA? I know on some big TV productions they are now pipping over footage fiber optically to LA....American Cinematographer had an article on it...I believe it's Under the Dome that is shooting digitally on the East Coast...but then fiber optically sending all the sorted materials to LA...sounds a little mind blowing but I wonder if in 5 or 10 years that may become the norm...bandwidth permitting...

 

[M Most]

On Ender's Game were they physically shipping drives to LA? Or was data being pipped over to LA? I know on some big TV productions they are now pipping over footage fiber optically to LA....American Cinematographer had an article on it...I believe it's Under the Dome that is shooting digitally on the East Coast...but then fiber optically sending all the sorted materials to LA...sounds a little mind blowing but I wonder if in 5 or 10 years that may become the norm...bandwidth permitting...

There's a significant difference in data payload between Alexa's Prores recordings and almost any flavor of Redcode being used today. Prores 444 at HD resolution is about 120GB per hour. That's less than a third of typical Epic files. But even in the case of Alexa, most shows that are sending files electronically are not sending original files that way. They are sending editorial media, usually Avid DNxHD36, which is a fraction of the size. That was the case with "Under the Dome," whose dailies were processed on a near set system in Wilmington, NC. It is the way that many shows are handled, because although dramas are shot just about anywhere these days, they are almost all finished in Los Angeles, including basic editorial. Original files are usually delivered on hard drives, LTO tape, or both. There are some productions that will upload original files ("Nashville" comes to mind), but unless you have access to high bandwidth - usually no less than about 300 Mb per second, which in this country is still quite costly and often available only in data colocation facilities - it just takes too long to send those kind of payloads. It's often more economical and actually faster to use FedEx or counter to counter it.

 

[Björn Benckert]

One thing to send the trimmed r3ds from editorial to online finninshing, not the same as sending all the footage from shoot to editorial.

As the editing guys just needs a decent file to edit from things can be sent very compressed. Then for online and VFX work you want the native file but then again that is not so much data if it's only the trimmed edit.

For commercials you might shoot 5tb or so but then in the end it's just 30sec + some layers that comes to use.

 

[Dave Blackham]

Id be interested to know how Colourists consider, Base Light, Resolve and Film master perform for grading both HD source Prores, DNXHD etc and a second question when handling Raw rushes.

Im taking about all systems being configured and set up for Real time operation with their respective manufacturers Control Surfaces not cut down systems.

Ill post our view when others have had the chance to offer comment.

Im interested in the sorts of operational and technical stuff, i.e. speed of operation, architecture for import export and plug in support. Any limits on resolution, bit depth, rendering issues and format handling.

 

[M Most]

Id be interested to know how Colourists consider, Base Light, Resolve and Film master perform for grading both HD source Prores, DNXHD etc and a second question when handling Raw rushes.

Im taking about all systems being configured and set up for Real time operation with their respective manufacturers Control Surfaces not cut down systems.

Ill post our view when others have had the chance to offer comment.

Im interested in the sorts of operational and technical stuff, i.e. speed of operation, architecture for import export and plug in support. Any limits on resolution, bit depth, rendering issues and format handling.

It sounds like what you're looking for is going to be a lot longer than a RedUser post. And solely based on individuals' personal habits and experience. Is that what you want? Because there are already a number of threads here where people have already commented on that sort of thing....

 

[Marc Wielage]

Id be interested to know how Colourists consider, Base Light, Resolve and Film master perform for grading both HD source Prores, DNXHD etc and a second question when handling Raw rushes.

For dailies? I'd go with Resolve. But as Mr. Most says above, you could write a book as an answer, and get many varied responses.

If I was starting a brand-new facility from the ground floor in 2013, I wouldn't hesitate to invest in Resolve, simply because it makes the most economic sense. But I'd cheat and have two or three additional systems operating as a hub around the colorist, doing ingest, conforming, and outputting, leaving the colorist to only work with clients and color-correct. That would work just great for finals as well.

In truth, the peripherals -- monitoring, room, servers, network, etc. -- far dwarf the cost of the color-correction system per se, so it's not a straightforward choice.