Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • 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, please silence editing rumors

Michael Moreno

Michael Moreno

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 9, 2007
Messages
503
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
44
Location
Los Angeles, California
red please silence editing nay sayers.
short and sweet and to the point
i read the last post and all others on the rumors and drama of editing red
and please make it all go away, as i know you can even though your busy with much

MAKE ONE EASY VIDEO WALKTHROUGH TUTORIAL OF THE RED EDITING PROCESS!!

two easy reasons for this
1 for all the false rumors and last painful minority of red future users in denial. lol
2 for all us red believers to go back to loving red one, and also something to watch besides reduser ; )
be that one for final cut and then others
and no the mythbusters with ted was not enough

this is too easy, id do it if i was meant for the job
please no excuses, help me and all the other red heads on this site finish
the last couple yards, since your camera clearly works and kicks ass!!
and if red and company cant, someone do it for red, after all they only made your dream camera a reality.

all due respect to red and all hard working minds and bodies
 
hey dorkman, lol jk
your preaching to the choir
i know this man
thats why i wrote it with regards to all of the gossip and rumors
but i still dont think mythbusters showed a walkthrough of all options
and choices, red has a good chart on the site though. their workflow chart.
but it would be nice to have the grammer school learn along video.
 
Is editing with RED footage fairly easy or not? I was really up to date with RED news and features last summer, when I had mine on order, and I kept up until maybe October, but when they started shipping I soon after canceled my order because I realized that my clients wouldn't at this point be willing to pay enough for me to shoot with the RED and I wasn't professional enough to deserve such a professional camera. In other words, it was a bad financial decision.

But now, I want to have a RED no later than this time next year, and I still as before have the cash set aside. That being said, I'm most worried about the workflow because I'm just a producer / director, I'm not an editor. I can do basic editing no problem, and my computer is absolutely top-of-the-line right now, so I should be equipped to handle RED footage, but I don't know what kind of a nightmare that is. I have an 8-core Mac Pro, 3.2 Ghz, 10 gigs RAM, AJA Kona 3 card, 2 TB CalDigit HDOne RAID unit, Panasonic pro monitor, 28" monitor, 20" monitor, all connected, a couple of G-Drives (500 gigs), 6 or so Western Digital drives, Final Cut Studio 2 and CS3 (I prefer that my projects be edited on Final Cut, but CS3 is mainly for After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator, etc.). Because we use HVX200s now, that workflow is ridiculously easy and refined, I think it's one of the strengths of the camera in fact. There really isn't any other workflow I think is quite as easy as the P2 workflow, so what I'm wanting to know is if I go the RED route, figuring that camera will not only last me a long time but acquire stunning images, am I going to have to hire really top-of-the-line editors to figure out how to edit the footage? Because while I may be able to afford the RED, a great tripod, plenty of accessories, etc., what I can't really afford is having to hire editors at $500/day because none of the $250/day editors will know what the heck to do with RED footage, lol.
 
File based acquisition - Order of the day

File based acquisition - Order of the day

JonathanLB said:
Is editing with RED footage fairly easy or not? I was really up to date with RED news and features last summer, when I had mine on order, and I kept up until maybe October, but when they started shipping I soon after canceled my order because I realized that my clients wouldn't at this point be willing to pay enough for me to shoot with the RED and I wasn't professional enough to deserve such a professional camera. In other words, it was a bad financial decision.

But now, I want to have a RED no later than this time next year, and I still as before have the cash set aside. That being said, I'm most worried about the workflow because I'm just a producer / director, I'm not an editor. I can do basic editing no problem, and my computer is absolutely top-of-the-line right now, so I should be equipped to handle RED footage, but I don't know what kind of a nightmare that is. I have an 8-core Mac Pro, 3.2 Ghz, 10 gigs RAM, AJA Kona 3 card, 2 TB CalDigit HDOne RAID unit, Panasonic pro monitor, 28" monitor, 20" monitor, all connected, a couple of G-Drives (500 gigs), 6 or so Western Digital drives, Final Cut Studio 2 and CS3 (I prefer that my projects be edited on Final Cut, but CS3 is mainly for After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator, etc.). Because we use HVX200s now, that workflow is ridiculously easy and refined, I think it's one of the strengths of the camera in fact. There really isn't any other workflow I think is quite as easy as the P2 workflow, so what I'm wanting to know is if I go the RED route, figuring that camera will not only last me a long time but acquire stunning images, am I going to have to hire really top-of-the-line editors to figure out how to edit the footage? Because while I may be able to afford the RED, a great tripod, plenty of accessories, etc., what I can't really afford is having to hire editors at $500/day because none of the $250/day editors will know what the heck to do with RED footage, lol.
Click to expand...

Jonathan and rest of the people who start this post,

There is nothing wrong with RED or any Digital Cinema Camera based acquisition. Instead of all the hardware gear you mentioned above, you need a better young dynamic team of editors / compositors to do file based workflows. People complained NLE in the beginning and now if any editor doesn't work on NLE software are out of business and that will apply for all the technological advancement including file based acquisition.

The mindset of the people needs to change for file based acquisition rather than complaining RED or any other digital cinema camera company.

Change is in the order of people'ss mindset and will have its own time. Till that time you need find a young dynamic team which is your real tough job and not the workflow.
 
Hi JonathanLB - if you can plough your way through P2 then you can easily make RED work for you.....they are both file based cameras.

as for for the cost of editors (in fact any crew)....why is that people will always have enough money to do something 3 or 4 times wrong, but never enough money to do it once and right?

sorry.......... but complaining about rates and quailty gets my goat........
 
I must reply to threads that have been a concern to me, too. And the more I learn, simply stated for the hundredth time, the better I feel.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of RED ONE-shot projects out there and in post, with more everyday, and I've got to say my jaw hurts from hitting the table everytime I see a great piece of work that HAS BEEN COMPLETED on and in this RED workflow. The problem, I think, ironically enough, is in the options. JLB's not sure his computer-Farrari can complete the circuit, yet folks are completing the basics on an iMac!

The "rumours" alluded to at the head of this thread are "Choices", and although there are several stability issues and incessant improvements ;>),
(don't tell me you've never received a software update on your Mac OR PC!), the underlying 'thread' here is, sorry to say, ignorance. Okay, sprinkle on a bit of in-experience, with a side plate of non-confidence. If you want it, you can have it; and I'm waiting in line with less firepower than you, my friends....

This post won't stop! paintthetownred still has a good point, though: In the future RED could add a basic DVD tutorial on post workflow and throw it into the box with your purchase. They could also provide one for this 'cage' idea they have, and camera stability, and lowlight tricks. Who knows what, and where do you find it? This isn't a point-and-shoot; though Scarlet's coming.

Get the picture: what you need is on the net!

I bought Final Cut Pro V1.5.3 eight years ago, I believe. It's still the same, but not even close!
 
overkill - Red's strength is in its software updates...

overkill - Red's strength is in its software updates...

JonathanLB said:
Is editing with RED footage fairly easy or not? I was really up to date with RED news and features last summer, when I had mine on order, and I kept up until maybe October, but when they started shipping I soon after canceled my order because I realized that my clients wouldn't at this point be willing to pay enough for me to shoot with the RED and I wasn't professional enough to deserve such a professional camera. In other words, it was a bad financial decision.

But now, I want to have a RED no later than this time next year, and I still as before have the cash set aside. That being said, I'm most worried about the workflow because I'm just a producer / director, I'm not an editor. I can do basic editing no problem, and my computer is absolutely top-of-the-line right now, so I should be equipped to handle RED footage, but I don't know what kind of a nightmare that is. I have an 8-core Mac Pro, 3.2 Ghz, 10 gigs RAM, AJA Kona 3 card, 2 TB CalDigit HDOne RAID unit, Panasonic pro monitor, 28" monitor, 20" monitor, all connected, a couple of G-Drives (500 gigs), 6 or so Western Digital drives, Final Cut Studio 2 and CS3 (I prefer that my projects be edited on Final Cut, but CS3 is mainly for After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator, etc.). Because we use HVX200s now, that workflow is ridiculously easy and refined, I think it's one of the strengths of the camera in fact. There really isn't any other workflow I think is quite as easy as the P2 workflow, so what I'm wanting to know is if I go the RED route, figuring that camera will not only last me a long time but acquire stunning images, am I going to have to hire really top-of-the-line editors to figure out how to edit the footage? Because while I may be able to afford the RED, a great tripod, plenty of accessories, etc., what I can't really afford is having to hire editors at $500/day because none of the $250/day editors will know what the heck to do with RED footage, lol.
Click to expand...

The p2 workflow requires translation and file replication (turning the .mxf file into a Quicktime file, stripping out some of the "useless" meta data), the XDCAM (PMW EX1, PDW 350, etc) workflows require transcoding to Prores (not fast, 2.5:1 decompression, nice image), and then the AVCHD cams also require transcoding (10:1 decompression in some cases, slow) ... then there is the RED - no transcoding - working with lower res proxies (which is funny because their lower res proxy is still higher res and has more color bit depth than the full res of ANY of these other cameras).

You literally just have to learn how to manage data. That's it. No voodoo, no transcoding, no trickery, no hacks. Just put the good stuff (your red files) in well managed folders on fast drives (eSATA is goooood) and install the RED Quicktime component plugin, run RED Cine or Red Alert - don't even bother with the transcoding of RED footage - you lose bit depth, meta data manipulation, and all the really useful features of FCS post + RED.

You can even title your RED footage in After Effects or Motion, bounce the audio to Logic Pro and Soundtrack. IT WORKS. You will need to read the notes on http://www.red.com/support for each of those products and I highly recommend the good folks over at FXPHD http://www.fxphd.com for some skillz that your editors may not have down yet (buy the courses, download, and sit your $250 / hr editor down to watch them). The RED workflow (RED101) course is particularly relevant to your needs. While you are at it, grab the On Set Day and Night with RED One course (DOP301) as well. You'll thank yourself.

Also, consider spending a $1000 and having a DIT/workflow specialist consult with you and your cheapo editor - do it once and you and your editor can get cracking. Or partner with an ubergeek. There are a few around - and they are worth their weight in palladium (see Jim's RED wingman Graham Natress for example on this...)

I work with flame artists that charge $900~$1200/hr - so my sympathies just aren't with you when it comes to this. Good post people are aggressive about knowledge acquisition, smart, logical thinking artists, and have taken the time to cut their teeth on some pretty demanding shots. Above all they are RELIABLE. The good news is, if you can get to work with them, your billable goes up to a respectable point as well. The point I am trying to get at is: quit lowballing your post - hire the best - by any means necessary - and your projects will look, feel, and be professional. Same goes for sound by the way - if not more so.

Good luck! :)
~Drew
 
i agree with paintthetownred there does need to be a better video or even a precise step by step set of instructions that could be sent out to worried producers or editors. i am a camera assistant and am going out with my red but before every job i have to talk to editors about post work flow i am not an editor. i have even lent post houses a hard drive of red footage to test with only to find they have then dumped it all down to HDCAM SR. a manual for red alert and red cine would be nice as well.
 
paintthetownred, this company wasn't started to do your job for you.

If you can't get (or keep) clients or projects then that is YOUR PROBLEM. Not Red's.

If you want a tutorial so bad, make it yourself.

These people don't live to coddle you.

Be a professional. Stop demanding things and start relying on your own abilities.
 
It will help to silence the editing rumours, when the SDK comes out and there are more editing *options*.

When an editor says "the Red has horrible workflow", he probably means "it doesn't have the workflow 'I' want".

I own a Red, and I'm faced with this challenge every day.

I'm not a fan of Apple. I'm not a fan of FCP.

I can fight through an FCP workflow (no thanks), or fight through uncompressed output via Windows Redcine (no thanks), or I can rent a different camera (yeah, right), or I can set my projects to the side until there's a Red workflow I'm happy with.

So, I'm setting my projects to the side. It's not worth the hassle. (At least I have good clients to keep me busy in the meantime.)

But an editor who doesn't shoot, will simply request a different camera. It's way to easy to persuade the client. It's sad, but it is what it is.

-Thor
 
The problem is that the process still isn't easy.

It's far from impossible as some people seem to believe, but it does require some level of pre-planning, education, experimentation and testing. It isn't as simple and straightforward as many of the tape-based systems we editors are used to.

At the moment a walkthrough saying "this is how you edit with RED" showing the FCP process might not be that beneficial, it simply serves to reinforce the idea that RED is Apple/FCP only, which for many productions is not a positive thing.

Instead I really think RED owners should make it their mission to find and work with local post-production professionals who don't mind sharing their experience and knowledge with others when the time comes. Find someone who is interested in RED, has a technical bent and ideally has access to a few different post options, and help them play. You can both learn. And you can refer to them for your mythbusting needs. Frankly the people I've worked with are much more comfortable hearing from me a frank evaluation of the post options available than they would be seeing some 'look how easy it is' video on the RED site.

I've spent a while on the phone talking to people about this stuff, I'm often advising people who are in many ways my competition, but I'm happy with that because in the end it results in a generally better informed post community and a production environment where RED is more accepted.

We're still a little way off anything like an easy workflow for many people - I'm sure it will come, but in the meantime the people doing this stuff need to be fairly well informed of what's current in the RED world.
 
THIS ISN'T AIMED AT ANYONE IN THIS THREAD MORE JUST A POINT OF REFERENCE:

Last time I checked processing film wasn't that easy either. Anyone who is complaining about the Red workflow needs to either A) hire professionals, or B) Remember that they are now acting as the LAB as well as the post house and accept there will be some added complexity.
 
Mike Prevette said:
Last time I checked processing film wasn't that easy either.
Click to expand...

No, but it's established, common and post houses have the equipment to work with the one light they get from the lab.

Red post is extremely time intensive, difficult and requires new and expensive equipment all of which scares away many producers.

This thread along with the "lost 2 red jobs" thread all stem from 1 thing "Lack of decent post options". Apple has pretty much come out with squat diddly for red support and although scratch works $50K+ is not something producers want to sign on for to have the privilage to shoot their first :30 commercial on red. These 2 companies have the monopoly on red post and until the doors are opened I see them having little incentive to be better.

"Nice images, good camera, crap post. Sorry no thanks." This sums up 85% of producers comments. Red Team, post is killing your camera. It is actually a testament on how good the camera actually is that people are using it despite the post mess. It's a sad state and has been my biggest complaint for months.
 
I don't know what to think from the comments here, some people have no problems and say it's easy, others are bitching about how hard it is.

Then again, no offense intended, any time someone says they don't like Apple and don't care for Final Cut Pro, which is the best editing system by far, then I can't really take anything else they say seriously either. Don't use PCs for editing, use a real computer. Honestly. This isn't high school anymore, it's the pro world, time to step up and get a computer that was made for pro work not Excel and Word and Half-Life 2.

I know everyone on RED User apparently makes boatloads of cash, good for everyone here, it's always inspiring, if you can afford to pay an editor like $1,000/day, $4,000/day, or some other ludicrous sum of money that really nobody is worth in a labor position, that's awesome, and great for them too! But there are those of us who have enough trouble trying to find a client where we can make any money, let alone have a bunch of money to pay an editor, especially for simple tasks. My work is pro work, I don't need an editor with 15-years of experience to get it that way either. Sure, my editor in the past may have taken longer to solve problems than a real pro, but that was his problem not really mine. He was paid a project fee, as any editor is, and the work in the end was always exactly as I wanted it, and as the client wanted it. If I paid an editor five times as much I wouldn't get five times better work, or even twice as good of work, or even 25% better. I worked with the editor to get exactly what I wanted, nothing more, nothing less. I don't just turn over a project to an editor and let them do their thing, anyway. I think a film is made in the editing room, so I'm a lot more hands-on than that.

All pay issues aside, since everyone on the RED forum evidently makes $500,000 a year and can afford to massively overpay everyone (not to mention make fun of those of us who pay a paltry $25/hr to our employees, who are in their 20s, god forbid, what horrible pay -- join reality people, it's nice here), good for you guys, it sounds like perhaps the RED post issues will be more fully figured out when I was to get my camera anyway.

I'm not especially worried by whether my computer can handle the RED workflow, but at the same time, if working with RED requires not only that I always have a 1st A.C., let's say, but that I also always have to hire a very experienced editor, sadly that becomes a camera I won't be using much. I've worked with very experienced DPs who can still pull focus themselves when necessary, even when I've had a 1st A.C. on set, but this is exactly why I canceled my RED, because too many people seem to indicate that it's not the type of camera we can use on lower budget projects. When I say lower budget, I'm not talking about me and a few friends, I'm talking about a crew of professionals, but most of us, the vast majority of filmmakers, do not have the funds to pay a DP, camera op, 1st A.C., 2nd A.C., blah blah etc. Most of us make do with maybe a DP and a 1st A.C., that's it, or a camera op and a good gaffer, a few grips, etc. The project budget determines what we are allowed to have.

So while I would absolutely love to work with the editor of Transformers on every one of my projects, again there is a little thing called reality that a lot of people here seem to miss out on where producers like myself try to find the best projects we can, negotiate the money, etc., but ultimately there's only so much you can get for many projects. Since I don't have the credentials yet to be working with Nike or Toyota, I can't just "hold out" for the clients who "are willing to pay the big bucks." I'm kind of shocked sometimes that people here lack the creativity anymore to figure out ways to make pro work and not have it cost a fortune, because if you can't find a great editor for $250/day I am sorry for you. You failed at this industry. You've somehow gotten to a point where you think money = talent, and that's very sad.
 
I know I'm not the first one to re-focus the discussions back into context but we're talking digital cinema - not digital video.

And It's not lost on anybody that one of the ground-breaking ideas behind the RED Revolution is the "democratization" of lower-cost, high-quality tools and methodologies for film makers.

But for now, and for the interim future, here's the only sane path forward:


If the project at hand can be sufficiently shot and finished using a video-centric pipeline, then shoot HD. This is a clean, elegant and well-defined pipeline. It's easy if you have the right tools and expectations are properly defined.

OR

If your project requires the fidelity and/or look that the Director or DP feels can only be acquired by shooting on film, then you have two choices. Shoot on film or shoot RAW on a digital film camera.

These two options both share a very similar pipeline that is also clean, elegant and well-defined.

Here's a possible workflow for each:

shoot film --> telecine/best light CC --> dailes --> editorial-VFX-audio --> assemble/conform --> print

or

shoot RAW --> transcode/best light CC --> dailes --> editorial-VFX-audio --> assemble/conform --> print

Also easy if you have the right tools and expectations are properly defined.


If you go RED (or Dalsa or Genesis or Arri D20), just make sure you invest in (or build in the budget for access to) all the tools you will need to finish the project(s).

Regardless of how you feel that the universe SHOULD be, trying to pretend (wish, pray, etc) that posting/finishing digital film today is the same as posting/finishing video does not promote health and well-being.
 
JonathanLB

Welcome back buddy!

So, to summarize your post, you think:

a) FCP is the "best editing system by far"
b) PCs are not real computers
c) editors shouldn't be paid over $25 per hour (in Los Angeles)
d) people in their 20s should be happy with this

I think Avid should send you a gift every time you post.

BTW, have you ever tried hiring a $500 / day editor? You might just find that *SHOCKER* they get an awesome cut done in fewer days than the $250 / day one could. So it actually costs you the same.

But then you're probably the kind of producer who likes to stand over the editor's shoulder while munching fries and micromanaging every cut. You'd need to learn to stop that.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
JonathanLB said:
I don't know what to think from the comments here, some people have no problems and say it's easy, others are bitching about how hard it is.

Then again, no offense intended, any time someone says they don't like Apple and don't care for Final Cut Pro, which is the best editing system by far, then I can't really take anything else they say seriously either. Don't use PCs for editing, use a real computer. Honestly. This isn't high school anymore, it's the pro world, time to step up and get a computer that was made for pro work not Excel and Word and Half-Life 2.
Click to expand...

Anytime someone says something like that then I can only assume they are inexperienced and don't understand the realities of large-scale post production. FCP is a powerful and impressive application, but it has very significant workflow and usability issues that mean it is often not the best choice for many applications. Issues such as media management become a very serious issue on large productions, especially features and episodic television, and for these reasons Avid is still the dominant platform in those environments.

The guts of your Mac and my PC are pretty much the same, the only thing that differs is the operating system. Indeed in the pro-world of NLE editing the vast vast majority of my work has been on Windows systems. A Mac is not inherently any better than a Windows PC for these types of roles.

It is this sort of attitude that is turning of many people. They have systems, and hardware - stuff that works for everything else, they aren't about to be told that they need to get rid of it and buy Macs and FCP just to support this camera. If that is in fact a requirement (which it's not) then RED's adoption will be seriously hampered.

I have heard producers say "no, we don't want to use RED, we don't want to have to cut with FCP."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top