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RED ONE Cheat Sheet - Calling all Experts!

Russell Fogle

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OK I've been good boy doing my homework, making notes and studying the REDUSER forum for several months now. As you know though it's not always easy getting consice answers to all the various issues, out of hundreds and hundreds of posts from people of varying experience.

My camera is showing up in 7-10 days and I would like to ask our Experts out there (people who have real time under their belt successfully using this camera system & workflow) for very short replies of their particular workflow and the best do's and don'ts to get up and running super fast without encountering the hidden pitfalls.

I'm not interested in starting a discussion on possible future fixes / products coming out or why you do it a certain way, just flat out what is working for you in the field, right now... today.

We'll print it out and call it our RED ONE Cheat Sheet. This forum is blessed to have some really great experts and your time & input is greatly appreciated!

Each knowledgeable participant please simply post your settings & workflow that you use followed by any other quirks that you incountered and fixes that you came up with if any. If you have the time briefly post the type of work you do and your basic Package setup. Lenses, Matte Box, Follow Focus, & Filters, because this info will probably be very relevant to your particular workflow. If your finals go to TV markets tell us NTSC or PAL.

Here's a rough outline to work from.

Camera Settings:
(In the Camera system Menu)

Sound: Do you typically work with sound or shoot MOS? If you work with sound are you using a Clapper slate to record to the QT proxies then strip the audio off the proxies and sync it to your high quality Video in post?

Camera Settings & Configuration:
Menu Configure: 4K 2:1?
Frame Rate: 24?, 23.98?
Monitor Outputs:
What are you using to focus? RED LCD at 2X? RED EVF for the current few?
Other Monitor configurations coming out of the camera for shooting & proofing with clients? What works best for you here.

AV Menu: Video:
Color, Saturation Exposure, Contrast, Gain, Etc. I believe this has no actual baring on the image recorded... Just a proof of sorts.. True? Do you guys tweak any of these settings or leave them alone? I hear of people making their output images pretty on set so that the clients will be happy. Do these settings effect the QT proxies that some may be editing from? What works for you.

Menu: Viewfinder, Audio & Headphone Settings that you use & find most appropriate?

Media: Typically shoot on CFs or RED Raid Drive or a combination for some particular workflow reason? Do you do onset checks via Final Cut Pro or something else? Do you Backup on set or feel comfortable enough that the footage will make it to the post suite in one piece without backups?

Filters... Are many people using Hot Mirrors to deal with IR issues? Are the IR issues really a big issue for many? The size & strengths of the NDs that you are using. I read a lot that it's very difficult to find things such as 6x6 Filters in heavy ND strengths. Other filter problems that you've come across & work arounds that you use in particular? Perhaps where you purchased your filter set thus being the case...

Post:
Pre-Process: Any quick tricks or settings to make the most of the image and move your footage as quickly as possible through RedCine? What's your typical output settings. Moving your footage to where Final Cut?

Post: Any editing glitches that we need to know about importing into Final Cut? Anyone cutting from Proxies for one reason or another? Sound Syncing High Res footage from Proxies audio?

I'm trying to make this as consise and straight forward as possible but there are a lot of variables to deal with and I'm sure that I leaving something out...

Knowledgeable Contributers I thank you greatly for your time on this!
 
Hi Russell,

I don't have my cam yet but I've been playing with post quite a bit. The main things I've learned are:

1. You can successfully use proxies in FCP, so you can go straight from the camera to editing if you like. The main key here is to make sure you are in UNLIMITED REALTIME or you will always get the red render bar. Took me a while to figure this out. Then, you can either master from that (probably fine for SD and some non-critical HD) or use Crimson to bring your clips back to Redcine for color and export.

2. Redcine may render out a QT that freezes. This happened to me. The fix seems to be removing the RED files from the Library and reinstalling. Worked for me!

3. Working with the resolution is INCREDIBLE! Seeing a 4k image is mind blowing. I have two x 1920x1200 monitors and the image spread between the two is still only half height.

4. Redcine is really quite powerful, but as I'm not a colorist, I tend to overdo it and make a mess of things, trying to pop the saturation on every shot. I'm probably going to keep everything conservative to maximize DR and take the result to a REAL colorist.

Anyway, this is all I've played with and hope there are one or two bits in there that can save you some time.

And congratulations! I still have to wait a month or two!

Cheers,

Jim
 
Thanks Jim,

Those are the kind of little hiccups that can really drive you nuts if you are unaware... Especially in a pinch. Thanks for the heads up and finding some workarounds.

What happened to everyone else?... Everybody go to NAB a week early?

Just jot down the facts that currently work for you people. I'm not asking to write a book...(although it reads like that) ;)
 
Alright I asked nicely now it's time for some name calling... (joke)

Not to be pushy but...

LART Members, 4K London, David Mullen, 4K Ninjas, Jarred Land, Finner, Evin Grant, Anders Holck, Graeme Nattress, Michael Morlan... (sorry for the 20 other most knowing individuals that I didn't mention)

You gentlemen have poised yourselves as the early explorers of this system with the most hands on experience and knowledge.

Please take 5 minutes and post the little quirks that you ran into on this system, and the workarounds that you came up with. I'll clean it up and post a concise little cheat sheet for all of us with little to no time on this system. It will save us all a lot of time & trouble onset and in post. Silly quirks on set (Such as the guy above who can't simply check playback on location) only gives the naysayers fuel for the fire saying the system is too buggy and doesn't work right, thereby hurting all of us on gigs & rentals.

Your real world experiences are very valuable to us and many of your notes are mostly long buried within hundreds of pages of various posts...

We ask of you graciously to please step up and contribute.

Anyway... I've done my part now somebody please PM these people and let them know that I'm calling them out... I have to get some work done today... ;)

Cheers!
 
1.Always boot up with the evf and viewfinder already attached.
2.Never pull out a CF card while recording or with in ten seconds of finishing recording.
3. Always check and review footage using red alert, Check for frame drops and other problems that might occur. In 12 TB of footage that I have reviewed with the red i have seen 2 clips that dropped frames.
4. Always wait after you press buttons for them to execute. Do not press the buttons over and over again if they dont do what you want.
5. Put something over the buttons of the EVF so you dont accidently press one of them while shooting.

These are the most simple things I could think of. Hope they help.
 
Thanks Kinobairn! I'm sure that little ditty isn't published in the documentation that comes with the camera! :0

Funny how many things can be fixed via turning off the power but I would have never thought to push the power button while there's no power source attached... Valuable info on while onset when everyone's standing around waiting for the camera to come online!

Keep them coming people and I'll shut up for a change... ;)
 
I've found that when delivery is anywhere in the HD realm down to internet video resolutions that transcoding media first a great option. My current workflow is as follows:

1. Shoot 4K 2:1 RAW

2. Bit-check and copy media on-set to FW800 Drives

3. Transfer Dailies to RAID in editorial
-8.2TB XServe on 4X2 Fibre
-8-Core Mac Pro w/ 16Gigs of Ram, Kona3 Card

4. Shot For Shot Code Generation in REDALERT!
-Leave images flat
-Found ASA320 retains the most information across the spectrum while reducing noise, of
course there are shot-exceptions to this, but in general 320 is the best pull
-CAMRGB to REC709
-1.0 Saturation, 1.0 Contrast
-Full Debayer, 1920X1080 Pro Res HQ, Fit Width
-Copy Lines of code to Text File.

5. Transcode Using RedLine (Terminal)
-about 4-6fps transcode

6. Import And Cut Flat Media into FCP 6.0.2
-apply a temp "One Light" (using 3-way color correction) Grading to all media for people concerned with the Flat Imagery
(I do not do this but then again, I usually don't have clients hanging over my shoulder in editorial)

7. Lock Picture, "Send To> Apple Color"
-With ProRes HQ files retain an incredible amount of data from the 4K trancode.
-Simply Grade to delivery specs (broadcast parameters available in Color) in a calibrated environment

8. Migrate Back to Final Cut
-Check transitions and other VFX for inconsistencies due to migration. (I've found that some times "Flopped" media or directional transitions will "Unflop" or change direction)

9. Last Looks, Send to Compressor or Print to Tape

10. Deliver
-In our latest Case: H.264 for Apple TV (SD) > Upload to Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC46LSgU4y4

4K to 480p..... Man I love this camera.



Tim Fassnacht
Los Angeles, CA
 
One Page Cheat Sheet!

One Page Cheat Sheet!

We'll print it out and call it our RED ONE Cheat Sheet. This forum is blessed to have some really great experts and your time & input is greatly appreciated! Each knowledgeable participant please simply post your settings & workflow that you use followed by any other quirks that you incountered and fixes that you came up with if any. If you have the time briefly post the type of work you do and your basic Package setup. Lenses, Matte Box, Follow Focus, & Filters, because this info will probably be very relevant to your particular workflow. If your finals go to TV markets tell us NTSC or PAL.


Knowledgeable Contributers I thank you greatly for your time on this!

Russel, I liked the track you were on in your first post about a one page cheat sheet. I am currently "studying" to be our companies RED guru, and have been working on making a one page "cheat sheet" to go out with out RED package. Here's what I have sofar (again, it's VERY basic), it'd be great to get everyones thoughts on where to go / what I am missng / what to add that would be helpful to crew ranging from never hearing of RED to using it a couple of times:

Resolutions:
- 4k - 4096x2304
- 3k - 3072x1728
- 2k - 2048x1152

Media:
- Compact Flash (8GB)
- 4k - 5 mins
- 2k - 20 mins
- RED Raid (320 GB)
- 4k - 150 mins
- 2k - 480 mins

Battery:
- Life
- +/- 90 mins / brick
- Charge Time
- Full Charge = 200 mins
- 80% Charge = 120 mins

Screw Sizes
- Small mounting bolts (better / technical name for these?)
- 3/16th hex
- Body Thumb Screws (better / technical name for these?)
- 7/32nd hex
- Cheese Plate top mount screws (better / technical name for these?)
- 1/8th hex
- PL Mount Body Screws (better / technical name for these?)
- 5/64th hex

All of this will end up in a tightly packed PDF that I'd be more than happy to put up on the forum for everyone to use (given that it will be a group effort:biggrin: ). Any and all inputs greatly appriciated!
 
One small correction on your formats, you list the 16:9 maximum resolutions for 4K and 3K but not for 2K: 2048 x 1152

Also your media times are wrong:

8GB CF:
4K - 5min
2K - 20min

RedDrive 320GB:
4K: 2.5hrs
2K: 8.0hrs

HTH

Paul
 
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