RED filmout questions.

[Eric Ulbrich]

So Im currently building a workflow for a feature film here in India. Our main origination formats are RED and 5D MK II. I have a few questions:

I know we dont use the (5D word here, but we are shooting RED too!)

1. I need to transcode 1920x1080 offlines for dailies and editorial each day. How can I unify both the r3d media from the RED and the 5d h.264 media under one codec?

2. I need to burn timecode into both sets of dailies as well. We will be doing a 2K conform to film output in a DI suite to be determined (were leaning towards Pablo, but it might be luster or even Davinci) Im not worried about the RED because it generates its own timecode, but what about the 5D, and how do I make sure that if I can generate timecode for the 5D so it doesnt mess with the RED timecode when we output our EDL for our conform? I assume I need to generate timecode into the native h.264 5D files as well.

Basically I need a solution to unify these two formats and mediums under one set of both dailies and make sure that the offline is sufficiently prepped and ready for a conform to 2K film output.

 

[Mark Toia]

Convert all your 5d footage to pro res and generate a new timecode for it.
That will be your master material. There's no going back to Raw files becuase there isn't any. The original H264s are hopless to edit with. So pro ress is your best. Smoothest cleanest option. Not sure why you have to time code burn? But people still do. That means you'll have to do two of the same. Time code burnt version. And a master clean. With the same time code.

Red - Convert to pro-res the lot via red rushes or red rocket burn in your time code.
when you have finished your edit export the time code to your grading and conform bench and grade off your R3ds direct. If you insert all your pro res 5d files with there new timecodes the conform or grading bench will sorce and you can grade the pro res file. 5d is the only problem with your shoot. Also unfortunatley you may have to soften and degenerate your red footage to try match the canon footage.
We Fell in the same trap and tried to mix the two togeather. The hi contrast and softness from the 5d dictated the look. We then had to mimic the canon look by softning all our red footage and upping the contrast. We were highly disapointed. At the start we thought the 5d rocked! We relised quite quickly it was just an 8bit video camera with a big chip.
Lesson learnt.
Next time we will shoot only one camera for the whole project.

Hope this helps. A little.
Good luck with the film.

 

[MichaelP]

Well in all cases for editorial, you will unify under ProRes or DNxHD, or whatever format is most appreciated by the NLE being used. For the Canon files, since there is no timecode on the original sources, you need to come up with a way to do so. For the feature I am producing now and has some 5D material in it, I am using Cineform as my master. It creates a timecode based on the creation date of the 5D files. Now my new master files used for post and mastering have a consistent and persistent timecode.

R3D can go through it's normal trancode process used for NLE's like Media Composer and FCP with lists/EDL for final conform at 2K+.

Michael

 

[Luis Otero]

I agree on rendering the sub-R3D quality material to ProRes 4444, but you ca use the "H" proxies to do your editorial. Transcoding, in my opinion, add extra unnecessary steps (front and back end) that I do not even know it is still used. Let alone that you are loosing the RAW flexibility to manipulate the image by transcoding.

 

[Luis Otero]

I agree on rendering the sub-R3D quality material to ProRes 4444, but you ca use the "H" proxies to do your editorial. Transcoding, in my opinion, add extra unnecessary steps (front and back end) that I do not even know it is still used. Let alone that you are loosing the RAW flexibility to manipulate the image by transcoding.

Why do you think the trend to use the R3D natively is the plath for the future (Mercury Engine on CS5, RC-X, etc)?

 

[Mark Toia]

Heres another crazy option. And fast and seamless as well.

We have done several film out tests using 4444 Pro-res 2k files direct from the FCP edit time line, most of it was graded in final cut and or color.
We delivered the final files on a hard drive to the film lazer people, They created a lut to suit there print. The results were perfect!, the final print on the huge screen was pin sharp, colorful with amazing contrast and it looked as perfect as what we had on our LCD screens. We also played it side by side with a footage shot on 35mm no body could tell the difference, So... in short, do you really need to conform and Di the traditional way... food for thought.
Just do some tests with your film print company and all will become clear. It was alot easier than I thought it would be.

good luck.