Red DIT shopping list..?

[Karel Bata]

So I'm pencilled on a short in a few weeks and have the opportunity to see if this works out for me. My current plan (always changing :laugh: ) is to get an old 15" MBP and kit it out. If it all works out fine, I'll get myself a new 18" and use the 15" as a backup (or for other on set needs).

What else do I need to buy..?

I'm based in the UK, so if anyone knows a good store I'd be grateful.

Cheers! :thumbup1:

 

[Tom Mitchell]

I don't want to sound harsh, but if your going out calling your self a DIT, then you should know!

Perhaps a DIT course is what you need!

(turning up with a laptop (or proper KIT) to download rushes, is not what a DIT dose....only a very small part)

I mean it in the kindest way possible, before you go out and get in to a situation and damage any future reputation you might have!

 

[Karel Bata]

Perhaps a DIT course is what you need!

Thanks for your concern Tom, but actually I did one at Decode a couple of weeks ago. In addition I would (as I have always done with any equipment I felt less than 100% familiar with) go in on the prep day, plug it all together, and ask questions until I was satisfied I was ready.

I could also add that I've been working in the film biz on the technical side for a long time, but maybe that's overdoing it... :wink:

The reason I started this thread is that, as I'm sure you know, there's a difference betwen the advice a rental company gives you, and that you get from professionals working on set. So I'd be grateful for any tips, advice, or indeed a shopping list!

Cheers!

 

[Jay Gannon]

My current kit for paid jobs:

1. Two Mac Pro Towers - 1 for ingest and backup, one for dailies and one lights. Small custom built PC for a magic thing .
2. Custom built RAID5 with 12tb linked to both towers.
3. 2x NEC 24" Displays, 1x 24" JVC 720p display (I know I know I'm looking to replace it)
4. Magliner cart modified to my needs.
5. HP LTO3 Backup System.
6. APC UPS system.
7. Custom Shockmount racks, Military spec.
8. Custom ingest system for CF cards.
9. Pelican Cases for everything thats not in the Racks.
10. Spare 8gb RED CF Cards just in case.
11. Spare drive cables, readers etc etc
12. 2 Spare Apple laptops in the truck in case both towers die. Both with Card readers and G-Tech FW800 RAID Drives.

I have another MacPro system with a Rocket if the client requests. But that usually stays at home at the moment. I also DIT non RED jobs and have an XDCAM deck, a HDV deck and an old Digibeta deck that dies on me often , I rent any other decks I need.

All in about 30k and about 300 hours build time. So there's a rough shopping list for you. =) I'm currently looking to replace a lot of it as some of the gear is getting dated.

 

[Steve MacMillan]

My current kit for paid jobs:

1. Two Mac Pro Towers - 1 for ingest and backup, one for dailies and one lights. Small custom built PC for a magic thing .
2. Custom built RAID5 with 12tb linked to both towers.
3. 2x NEC 24" Displays, 1x 24" JVC 720p display (I know I know I'm looking to replace it)
4. Magliner cart modified to my needs.
5. HP LTO3 Backup System.
6. APC UPS system.
7. Custom Shockmount racks, Military spec.
8. Custom ingest system for CF cards.
9. Pelican Cases for everything thats not in the Racks.
10. Spare 8gb RED CF Cards just in case.
11. Spare drive cables, readers etc etc
12. 2 Spare Apple laptops in the truck in case both towers die. Both with Card readers and G-Tech FW800 RAID Drives.

I have another MacPro system with a Rocket if the client requests. But that usually stays at home at the moment. I also DIT non RED jobs and have an XDCAM deck, a HDV deck and an old Digibeta deck that dies on me often , I rent any other decks I need.

All in about 30k and about 300 hours build time. So there's a rough shopping list for you. =) I'm currently looking to replace a lot of it as some of the gear is getting dated.

Nice rig. How do you link the drives? Do you use a SCSI card for the LTO drive?

STeve

 

[Dane Brehm]

My recommended Cart as it stands for all things Digital Image Technician. As a ICG DIT this is what I need to be ready for every system that I may be asked to operate. No Bullshit. I also have to take 3D into consideration in addition to my DIT duties.

-Foundation-
Custom Innerspace Case for BackStage TR04 w/racks, dustcovers, and shock absorbers. Location is not good on computers

2xMacPro Towers ( Dual-boot Win7 & OSX)
- Red Rocket
- AJA Kona3x
- Sonnet 4x Esata Card
- ATTO 680 SAS
- Nvidia 4800

1x17' MacBookPro or PC Laptop (When all else fails or for Phantom jobs)

-Monitoring-
1x24'' Dell Xsharp ( for real estate use but calibrated)
1x17' Flanders Scientific LED HD 1770 Monitor
1x 24' Cinetal 2000 series LCD Monitor (F35, F23, & Genesis)
1xLeader 5750

-Software- (recommended)
Red Software
Final Cut Pro 6.5 or 7
Compressor
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Adobe After Effects CS4
Iridas Speedgrade on-set
R3D Data Manager 6
Shotput Pro
Clipfinder
Windows Office 10
Gamma Density 3CP SL
MacDrive 8
SMC Fan Control
MPEG StreamClip
NTFS Exporter

-Data-
1x12TB Sans Digital 2U RAID5 Server (24x2.5' 500GB Hitachi 7200rpm Drives)
1x Vantec 3.5'/2.5' Hotshoe
1x 3G Wireless Repeater
4xCF Readers ( FW800 & esata)
3x16GB usb2 thumb drives
3x500GB External Drives

-Archive-
HP LTO4 Drive w/Tapes ( Only for the Low-Budget stuff as this is a Post thing)

-Battery & Back Up-
2x850w APC UPS Battery Back-up
2x12v/24v Battery Block in Pelican case for Monitors
3xAC Adapters for various 5V or 12v drives or electronics

-Stands-
Double Riser Baby Stand w/ wheels
C Stand ( i like black)
Primi Baby Stand
3x15lb Sandbags

-Cable-
600ft of BNC (Canare)
20ft of esata cables
16ft of FW800&FW400 Cables (non-powered)
15ft of SAS cable
20ft of DVI-D cable
20ft of USB 2.0 cable
2xIphone/ipod cables (for the boss's iphone)
20ft of CAT5 cable (networking computers)

-Tools-
Color Calibration Probe
Leatherman
Multi-Meter
Soldiering Gun
Razorblade
Surviellance Kit

This is my short list as there are a few things I didn't mention as they are specific to my Clients.

I think I got about $75k into my Kit as I've been building it since 2005. I've DIT'd twelve Red Features, two TV Shows, and about 175 Red Commercials/Music Videos/Online Spots since 2008.

Goodluck,

 

[Jay Gannon]

Nice rig. How do you link the drives? Do you use a SCSI card for the LTO drive?

STeve

The stoarge system is a well kept secret I'm afraid but suffice it to say I can push full bandwidth over 800mbps.


Yup the LTO is a SCSI drive on the PC shared over a network to anything else I need to backup from.

 

[Jay Gannon]

Dane whats your opinion on the Speedgrade On Set. Been meaning to try it out for a while, would love to get some feedback on it.

 

[Tony Lorentzen]

Wow - you guys must be pulling quite the salary to afford those kits. Maybe it's just the size of productions here in Scandinavia that can't afford it

To me it seems kinda overkill to use a tower for backup purposes - unless of course you need to offload multiple CF cards to multiple SATA arrays at full speed - in which case a Macbook Pro would run out of busses quickly.

Would be interesting to hear what you guys transport this stuff in. I'm currently building my DIT van ;-)

 

[PatC]

Dane what are you using for your esata CF reader... if you don't mind sharing!

Pat C.

 

[Jay Gannon]

Well if your backing up to 3 drives at once a laptop slows you down to the point your slowing the production. And I wouldn't back up to anything less than that as drives can di and you can lose a days footage very easily at massive cost to the production. I do however have a stripped down version for indy's at a lower cost.
As for salary, nope I'm not raking it in by any stretch of the imagination, I make enough to live off but not much more.
And if your backing to tape a tower is required.
Also a DIT doesn't just do backups, thats a Digi Loader, a DIT will do a one light, will be involved in camera department work, will be involved in on set IT work etc etc, its quite a broad role with a lot of responsibilities. And in order to maintain those responsibilities its important to have the right equipment to do the job IMO.

I'm in the process of building a DIT/Video Village/IT Support van for large productions.

 

[Karel Bata]

Well you guys are clearly in a different league! :laugh: You know, posting here is a bit like asking in the Top Gear forum for advice on buying your first car. (Hope no-one's offended by the analogy! :gun: oops, wrong again)

No seriously, you guys rock, and I've learnt a lot from reading the posts here and asking a few questions. But I'm not planning on going to your level. I'm thinking of doing the smaller indie shoots. If extra equipment is needed, like monitors, I can ask production to hire those in. It's a way of working I'm used to here. When I've production managed I've always been more concerned with how well someone can do the job and fit into the crew rather than if they have all the gear - beyond the basics of course. A deal can always be had with the rental house. For instance we don't expect focus pullers to carry their own collimation testers - but someone told me in France they're standard!

Anyhows,

- What's a good make for the card reader?
- I bet there's plenty of threads here on this already, but what's a good external hard drive(s) these days that doesn't break the bank? Should I go for removable drives? Or for stand alones with their own enclosures?
- What Have I missed (it is Sunday!)?

For software I'm thinking of
- the regular RED downloads- RedAlert, RedCine, and RedRushes;
- R3D Data Manager
- CS5 Premiere and AE
- FCP
- is it worth getting Crimson Workflow, Monkey Extract,or Clipfinder?
Anything else I've missed?

 

[Karel Bata]

Jay, 3 of everything? Sounds like NASA. How often have you had a drive die on you? Any tips on avoiding that..?

 

[Jay Gannon]

If your budget is really really tight then go for :

1x 15" Macbook Pro
1x ExpressCard eSATA adaptor
3x G-Tech RAID Drives @ 1tb each

R3D Data Manager.
RedCine for One Light.
CS5/FCP for on set throwing into a timeline.

anything more than that and the laptop won't be up to it so no need for clipfinder etc as the laptop won't be up to rendering dailies etc

 

[Jay Gannon]

Jay, 3 of everything? Sounds like NASA. How often have you had a drive die on you? Any tips on avoiding that..?

3 copies of every file on 3 separate drives. I've done productions with 6 copies. If I can give you one piece of advice please please take it on board, make as many copies as you can afford, skimp on everything else, buy everything else cheap, but make as many copies as you can.

I've had raid 0's fail, I've had multiple raid 5's fail, I've had one raid 6 fail. It happens and you have to be prepared for it if your taking responsibility for the data.
I know if feels and sounds like overkill, but for the sake of a 200 dollar hard drive you can save 2000 dollars of a days shooting on an indy. Scale that up and you end up where I am with copies everywhere, if I could I would FedEx copies of the shoot to all 5 continents. I'm paranoid about data integrity and security after years of working in Enterprise storage management and seeing multimillion dollar storage systems fail.

 

[Tom Mitchell]

Thanks for your concern Tom, but actually I did one at Decode a couple of weeks ago. In addition I would (as I have always done with any equipment I felt less than 100% familiar with) go in on the prep day, plug it all together, and ask questions until I was satisfied I was ready.

I could also add that I've been working in the film biz on the technical side for a long time, but maybe that's overdoing it... :wink:

The reason I started this thread is that, as I'm sure you know, there's a difference betwen the advice a rental company gives you, and that you get from professionals working on set. So I'd be grateful for any tips, advice, or indeed a shopping list!

Cheers!

I sent you a PM

 

[Adrian Hernandez]

If your budget is really really tight then go for :

1x 15" Macbook Pro
1x ExpressCard eSATA adaptor
3x G-Tech RAID Drives @ 1tb each

R3D Data Manager.
RedCine for One Light.
CS5/FCP for on set throwing into a timeline.

anything more than that and the laptop won't be up to it so no need for clipfinder etc as the laptop won't be up to rendering dailies etc

this is closer to what is usually around here ...

By the way, how long did it take you to build all that?

 

[Jay Gannon]

Well I built it up over about 2 years but about 300 hours of build and research time for the final cart. I already had a lot of the gear, towers and RAID from a previous occupation (I worked/qualified in IT) that I repurposed to suit what I needed. I am still learning the craft itself though, I am much more of a hardware guy and am fine building complex systems and designing things, but the software end of things is where I lack experience, I'm still learning about cinema specific workflows and traditions, I often come from a data centric tangent and people will tell me that that doesn't really work in the traditional post workflows that Colorists and Editors and VFX are used to. So I'm still learning, always will be learning I hope =)

 

[Adrian Hernandez]

Well I built it up over about 2 years but about 300 hours of build and research time for the final cart. I already had a lot of the gear, towers and RAID from a previous occupation (I worked/qualified in IT) that I repurposed to suit what I needed. I am still learning the craft itself though, I am much more of a hardware guy and am fine building complex systems and designing things, but the software end of things is where I lack experience, I'm still learning about cinema specific workflows and traditions, I often come from a data centric tangent and people will tell me that that doesn't really work in the traditional post workflows that Colorists and Editors and VFX are used to. So I'm still learning, always will be learning I hope =)

That's it.
Keep goin' and thanks for sharing

 

[Karel Bata]

Any chance of a pic?

And thanks for the feedback. Still learning myself (clearly!)