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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RED IS KILLING OUR CREATIVITY - Need Help With Workflow!

1. Go RAID everywhere - on a desktop, or a notebook - doesn't matter.
2. Get use of Thunderbolt 3, if you're tied to MAC and want to move from a desktop to a notebook on a single project (i.e. external RAID).
3. Try to go with a minimum of 4 drives for a spinnig solution, or 2 for SSD. All for 8k. And for 4k you will be OK even with 2 spinning hard drives in RAID 1.
4. Move to iMac Pro. More cores = faster debayer.
5. Move to Final Cut X & Resolve. Final Cut has become dramatically better in terms of performance than Premiere on a Mac. Resolve for color.
6. Try shooting REDRAW + PROXY. Edit PROXY, color correct in Resolve the native RAW.

That's pretty much it. The thing with RED or ARRI or any other big camera is that you have to invest in computing power also. You get some, you loose some.
 
basically everything this dude said. ^^

I came from DSLR world/C100-300 to a epic-w and for quick turn around projects. FCPX is my go to then xml to resolve for coloring. Just have to know how to switch between proxy and source footy. FCPX screams on macs. Premiere is clunky and annoying.

looking at your initial workflow. doesn't work, i would have never run that way. You need to switch things up. If you are not shooting slow motion footage. Just shoot straight pro res 4k in camera. What's the need for raw? Do you really need that much room for adjustment. You should have your WB down pat coming from the DSLR world. 8k down scaled to pro res 4K in camera is good enough. 99% sure your clientele will not recognize the difference.
 
These suggestions are all good but I doubt any of them will help a lot with After Effects. That program just seems dead slow with higher resolution stuff, especially R3D. I've had multi-hour renders for less than a minute of footage, even when everything was on my internal SSD. This is one of many reasons I look forward to when Motion can compete with AE.
 
Sam Mantini said:
I think the biggest reason it adds time is because of the rendering needed to watch 8K RAW in full quality to ensure it cuts well with the music.
Click to expand...

Why do you need to watch in 8K to ensure it cuts well with the music? IMO you should be able to watch in SD and tell if it stills cuts with the music.

It might be worth exploring what your software workflow looks like in addition to evaluating your hardware as seeing this comment threw up a red flag for me.

Typically it's only on final export that I'm needing to do a full resolution render. Before that point, there's not much use in watching everything back at full res for editorial purposes which is why proxy workflows can be hugely beneficial on lower end hardware.
 
Sam here's my 2c.

Been using similar hardware as yours since 2014 (late 2014 retina iMac with a couple 4TB G-RAIDS) and I can whip out RED Projects fast and comfortably just like a DSLR. For your project lengths is def not a day - only a couple hours and that's with Pro Tools sound mix and adding film grain and stuff.

In my opinion one of the main issue I see in your workflow is rendering your projects in Premiere, I found out very early on that rendering / exporting from Premiere or After Effects was really slow and painful when using R3Ds source files.

My solution to this has been to edit in Premiere (at 1/4th or 1/8th) and then exporting an XML to Resolve. From Resolve I color and render from there. For me this as been really good and the render speed is so much faster.

Here's my workflow using your hardware:

1. Shoot RED RAW
2. Transfer footage to G-RAID HD
3 Edit in Premiere and export XML when done
5. Import XML in Resolve and do color work
6. Do sound mix and import in Resolve
7. Render ProREs from Resolve (to keep a good high res copy)
8. Transcode to H264 using Apple Compressor

If you're going to After Effects for special effects, for sure that can add more time but that's expected.. I would prob render a ProRes4444XQ of the shots that need effects from Resolve and import that in AE but that's just me - I've been burned too many times trying to render R3Ds using Adobe software.
 
Anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the ProRes and other non-R3D options are the full 8k resolution pressed into 4k or 2k, whichever way you're going, so you essentially get the beautiful 8k image contained in a smaller file, and benefit by skipping a couple of steps that way (not needing to render out proxies, not needing to export at 4k or 2k later on).

You mentioned you're doing the full 8k, but is your client asking for that for the product launch as a final file export, or do you have to give them 4k/2k versions anyways?
 
BrendanLeahy said:
Anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the ProRes and other non-R3D options are the full 8k resolution pressed into 4k or 2k, whichever way you're going, so you essentially get the beautiful 8k image contained in a smaller file, and benefit by skipping a couple of steps that way (not needing to render out proxies, not needing to export at 4k or 2k later on).
Click to expand...

Correct!

Re boldened & underlined:

You don't have to deal with debayering in post as this is done prior to recording to ProRes (in camera!), plus R3D encoding/decoding is completely skipped. Also, ProRes is somewhat cleaner (less noise in shadows!) when recorded in camera as opposed to R3D => ProRes transcode done in, say, RCXP, plus You lose time transcoding it.
ISO, Gamma, WB, etc. gets baked in though...
 
I am not an IT expert, but I would like to see a snapshot of your Activity Monitor while you have your apps open, both CPU and Memory. Quick tip: look for 'systemstats' process that eats up memory and CPU).
 
Šabović Adis;1782055 said:
Correct!

Re boldened & underlined:

You don't have to deal with debayering in post as this is done prior to recording to ProRes (in camera!), plus R3D encoding/decoding is completely skipped. Also, ProRes is somewhat cleaner (less noise in shadows!) when recorded in camera as opposed to R3D => ProRes transcode done in, say, RCXP, plus You lose time transcoding it.
ISO, Gamma, WB, etc. gets baked in though...
Click to expand...

Re: bold + underlined as well - he and his team are coming from a DSLR shooting background, so it shouldn't be too bad for them to still have to used baked-in settings :D I agree with everyone here saying shoot with the RedWideGamut + Log310 for the most latitude.
 
As others have mentioned, 2k (or 4k) ProRes might be the way to go unless the project has extra demands/budget. Maybe shoot RAW for vfx plates only. 99% of tv is ProRes or DNXHD for a reason.

I'm of the opinion that proxy workflows are unnecessary if you shoot ProRes, but most people still use them. If you have a slow drive, they're not a bad idea at all.

Super intrigued by claims here that FCPX is blazing fast. Fast for ProRes, too? I'm trying to decide between it and Premiere.
 
Sam Mantini said:
With regards to sending a EDL to RedCine or Resolve, what happens to all the effects I did in After Effects? Do people typically do the grade before the effects? I would assume not because you would want the grade to be on the effects as well...

Also, if I proxy, do I need to convert it back to the R3D files before adding effects?
Click to expand...

It depends on your workflow and what's best for you. I prefer to grade after the effects. So my effects would have similar contrast/saturation as RWG/Log3g10

Yes proxies for effects are like before the final export: you reconnect back to the r3ds before AE-unless your under a tight deadline then I'd use proxies that the camera generates (4k Pro Res HQ).

I think for you and your workload a straight Pro Res workflow would be best until you'd get the iMac Pro. You get a 4k supersampled from 8k image (before the r3d compression), it would be IPP2, and it's a less drag on your system and AE.
If I know I'm going to be using AE in a project, I shoot r3d + Pro Res 4k. And only use the Pro Res the camera creates soely for After Effects to save the hassle of debayering just for an effects shot.
It's not like you always need to composite using the 8k r3ds, sure the extra resolution helps a ton with motion tracking and keying, but if your finishing in 4k it's less of a hassle overall.
 
A LOT OF GREAT ADVICE HERE... Few more notes/Updates

1. We got the iMac Pro (should be here soon)

2. We will be getting a few G-Drives to work off and we will keep the Seagate drives for backup only.

3. The reason we want to edit in 8K RAW is because we film a fair bit of online courses (sometimes outside), so having the flexibility to shoot a wide and a medium close up at the same time allows us to punch in to cover up mistakes and since it is in RAW and we are very run and gun, we typically don't have lights and sometimes deal with a ton of contract from Sun and shadows.

4. One thing I am still a bit confused with is, if I do an edit in premier pro, with proxies or RAW, then nest/warp stabilize some shots and then throw 5% of the clips in After Effects to do titles that are 3D tracked to objects on screen as well as transitions like the Baker effect. How do I do all of that and then send it to Resolve when resolve doesn't recognize the nested clips or the after effects compositions.

I guess I am just confused on when I should start to add effects and when I should be colouring.

Our goal is to create films with effects and transitions similar to this video (feel free to watch the whole thing but the link will take you to a transition heavy sequence): https://youtu.be/z7yqtW4Isec?t=1m34s


The music is integral to the cuts and I can't imagine trying to edit something like this with RED Raw footage.


Lastly, can someone please share a video or explain how you can shoot in 8K but it compresses it to 4K in camera? When we change the settings to shot in 4K, it has a huge crop. I assume we need to change something other then the frame size.

Thank you all for your help.
 
Sam Mantini said:
A LOT OF GREAT ADVICE HERE... Few more notes/Updates

1. We got the iMac Pro (should be here soon)

2. We will be getting a few G-Drives to work off and we will keep the Seagate drives for backup only.

3. The reason we want to edit in 8K RAW is because we film a fair bit of online courses (sometimes outside), so having the flexibility to shoot a wide and a medium close up at the same time allows us to punch in to cover up mistakes and since it is in RAW and we are very run and gun, we typically don't have lights and sometimes deal with a ton of contract from Sun and shadows.

4. One thing I am still a bit confused with is, if I do an edit in premier pro, with proxies or RAW, then nest/warp stabilize some shots and then throw 5% of the clips in After Effects to do titles that are 3D tracked to objects on screen as well as transitions like the Baker effect. How do I do all of that and then send it to Resolve when resolve doesn't recognize the nested clips or the after effects compositions.

I guess I am just confused on when I should start to add effects and when I should be colouring.

Our goal is to create films with effects and transitions similar to this video (feel free to watch the whole thing but the link will take you to a transition heavy sequence): https://youtu.be/z7yqtW4Isec?t=1m34s


The music is integral to the cuts and I can't imagine trying to edit something like this with RED Raw footage.


Lastly, can someone please share a video or explain how you can shoot in 8K but it compresses it to 4K in camera? When we change the settings to shot in 4K, it has a huge crop. I assume we need to change something other then the frame size.

Thank you all for your help.
Click to expand...


2. Be sure they are the RAID ones and not the typical G-Drives

4. You'd have to export your AE comps and/or stabilized shots and put it back into your Premiere timeline before sending it out to Resolve. I don't add any grades/correction to them although as I'm applying the effects I might add a LUT to help with the process (which I remove later) and be sure the effects match the contrast/saturation of the RWG/Log3g10 original r3ds before exporting/placing in the timeline in Premiere.

Setting/cropping your RED to shoot 4k is different with the proxies. They are generated from whatever resolution you set your RED to capture-not the resolution of the proxy you choose to record. If I set my Weapon to record 8k with a 4k proxy, for the proxy the FOV would be identical to 8k than if I set the RED to crop to 4k and make a proxy out of that. And your framerates are limited for your proxys: 30fps in 4k and 120fps in 2k (so your RED would have to be in at least 4k for that).
I'm not sure about a video explaining it, best to try it out for yourself-like finding what workflow works best for you.

Hope that helps, good luck!
 
Mike P. said:
I really don't understand this; 4k 6:1 is ~55mb/s data throughput, so how does having 800mb/s make a difference? Even Epic-W (in camera writing 8k files continuously in real-time at higher than 24fps) maxes out at 275mb/s, so how come you'd need 800mb/s just to play back (and usually a 1/4 res, which would be even easier)?
Click to expand...


Another thing to consider is playing back multiple video streams in the timeline. If one track is 275MB/s, then two tracks would need 550MB/s, etc.
 
@Med D - I've noticed this as well - working/animating RAW footage in AE, so I'll do a pre-lut/color to the footage - export the Raw as ProRes 4k. then bring that into AE and start working with it.. Not the most ideal work around..
 
Agree that it's your workflow.

What's your GPU?

I edit on the road with a Dell laptop with Nvidia gpu, using a USB 3.0 and it works great for me. Key is using a proxy workflow (shoot in camera to save yourself encoding time).

I also suspect OSX might be an issue here.

I will note that importing files into Premiere has become painfully slow once a project file is reasonably large. That's definitely a premiere issue and effects footage from many sources.
 
I second Kacey's post up here.
After years of using premiere on mac, it just doesn't work well on it. It kills the memory and CPU usage. Adobe CC takes a bunch of CPU even when not in use.
I tried this on 7/8 different macs and configurations over the years, SSD, raid and so on.
My experience is that premiere gets progressively worst as the editing time goes by, to a point of being almost unusable. It is a degenerative process that does not end if you restart the project and/or copy it. Something in the resource/memory allocation is not working with macs. If you look at your activity monitor you will see some processes eating more and more memory as time goes by, when using Adobe CC.

Resolve 15 works much better on a mac than premiere.
Premiere works much better on windows than mac. Phil is the premiere expert, and probably will defend it, but I think he uses PCs as well.

I personally switched to Resolve, and I am liking much better after a little adjustment time.
I was having a hell of time using Premiere wi tthe Epic-W on a macbook pro. I do hear the killing the creativity part....
 
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