RED Workflow State of the Union 2016

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Nick's world may be different than mine, but around here "best light" means more care than a "one light", but rarely secondaries.

Cheers - #19

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Nick's world may be different than mine, but around here "best light" means more care than a "one light", but rarely secondaries.

Cheers - #19

Ok cool, good to know. Thanks Blair!

 

[Jack Stenner]

Sooooo cool!

My workflow is for performance capture for multiple distribution channels:
1) VR Story development (alpha version of Quastum) VR based at 240 fps (two skeletol systems & 3d simulator )
2) Production Shot: A&B camera red dragon 6k @ 24 fps @ 3:1 redcode; a & b xsen suites @ 240 fps; lidar per shot (covers scene and camera placements)
5.1 sound (4 ccm41, center ku4 and u67 for the .1) -> 6 channel nagra
3) nuke r3d -> prores 444 & openexr clean plate ; maya & vuexstream -> openexr ; nuke (read prores 444 & exr) -> vfx final 444 at 4k
4) davinci reads 4k prores -> writes 4k dnxhr (I'm on windows for davinci and it can't write 4k prores - is a pain btw)
5) protools 5.1 (works off of davinci proxy)
6) transmedia r3d reconform (using alpha version of quaxl, can go to 12k geometrically merging 4k prores with original r3d, geometry and graded 4k) -> dci 4k, 2k, 1080p & alembic, multiple 1080p video's with projection mapping script)

Mix of macpros with windows boxes (dual cpu 10 core windows, macpros 12 core), they read from NAS, also each computer has a 24terrabyte local raid cash using thunderbolt 2. Everything is on a 10g network.

 

[Hans von Sonntag]

My workflow since 3 months now:

1. Shoot Dragon R3D

2. Import everything into Flame

3. Export edited and finished film from Flame.


Sometimes we use Protools for sound-design but for many jobs Flame's sound tools are sufficient.


Hans

 

[PatrickFaith]

Steve, our workflow is pretty basic. Our deliverables are much like yours: my clients are all broadcast, and want/demand DNX 115 Quicktimes (my clients all work off the same "spec" sheet, more or less). They also want the camera RAW footage as well, as the GFX/DESIGN departments often work from the 6K/5K masters.

WORKFLOW:
...
2) That same night (or next morning), Jake Blackstone typically logs into my computer, and we grade dailies together (remotely). We do "Best Lights"; meaning we go through every take and make sure it's optimal, matches, and has our "look". We use RESOLVE, and also sync the audio as well (we shoot with jammed/matching timecode on all cameras...with Sound guy being the master).
...

I need to play and work better with other people, right now I'm finding it tough to work remotely with others. When you say login ... exactly how is this happening and is Jake still able to grade in 10 bit on a calibrated monitor, or is it 8 bit on a calibrated monitor? I'm trying to get a way to work remotely with others on dailies. Also for 1080p delivery is 10bit grading a bit of a overkill?

 

[Mark Toia]

Steve,

Here is what I have done for my last four independent films.

Capture 6K FF anywhere from 5:1 - 8:1 compression
Back up footage via Double Data, (which I will probably now dump since testing GAMP)
LTO 6 backup of footage
One-light footage in RCX (though I might move to resolve for this)
Import into FCP X
Render proxy media
Edit
Lock
Export FCPXxml for resolve
Export FCPXxml for X2Pro
Audio mix and track layout in Logic (or prep for Protools)
FCPXxml to RESOLVE, trim media to an external drive and ship to Color Grade
Color grade (1 film in Pablo, 2 in Resolve)
Create deliverables

1X 4K/2K DCP
1X 4K 4444 Prores master
1X 2K 4444 Prores master
1x HD 4444 Prores master

Then everything gets anther LTO 6 backup and I start the next film.

Depending on a few variables and the project much of this can be altered on a project by project basis. One thing I would like to add is that I use Shotlister and Light Iron on some projects, but it all depends on the production.

Pretty close to what we do as well David.

I call it the KISS method. | Keep - it - simple - stupid

I read this and I think wow, I'm not very ambitious.

Seriously, I'd love to see your results. You're always doing something cool.

Me to... I like to keep things as simple and as fast as possible, so long as I can grade my R3D's directly through Resolve or Baslight.

Nick's world may be different than mine, but around here "best light" means more care than a "one light", but rarely secondaries.

Cheers - #19

Ditto

 

[jake blackstone]

I need to play and work better with other people, right now I'm finding it tough to work remotely with others. When you say login ... exactly how is this happening and is Jake still able to grade in 10 bit on a calibrated monitor, or is it 8 bit on a calibrated monitor? I'm trying to get a way to work remotely with others on dailies. Also for 1080p delivery is 10bit grading a bit of a overkill?

This is an old video, but it explains the Remote grading main principals.

 

[jake blackstone]

Nick's world may be different than mine, but around here "best light" means more care than a "one light", but rarely secondaries.

Cheers - #19

Nick know very well the difference between Best and One light, as we do either, depending on client's requirements. So, when he says Best light, that is exactly what we do.
And, no, secondaries are not used for dailies, but curves are.

 

[PatrickFaith]

How often do you guys do a delivery in DCP ? I've only been asked twice, but now that I'm moving up a bit in quality I've been pondering getting finaldcp. Also I've been driven crazy on how people do the compression before, and I really have no context on what is and isn't doable(i.e. the mastering guys could be doing a miracle, but I have no context on what is and isn't doable for 4k dcp). Since I haven't done any 4k dcp(and btw I don't think a lot of experienced mastering people have either), I am worried about compression problems which I could "fix" in nuke if I was more in the delivery chain. [i.e. if I new they were going to have compression issues in 4kdcp, there's stuff I can do in nuke to reduce spatial information where it doesn't count, yet maintain the spatial frequency where it is important to the story ... but I don't know if that type of masking is able to be given to mastering]

 

[Björn Benckert]

How often do you guys do a delivery in DCP ? I've only been asked twice, but now that I'm moving up a bit in quality I've been pondering getting finaldcp. Also I've been driven crazy on how people do the compression before, and I really have no context on what is and isn't doable(i.e. the mastering guys could be doing a miracle, but I have no context on what is and isn't doable for 4k dcp). Since I haven't done any 4k dcp(and btw I don't think a lot of experienced mastering people have either), I am worried about compression problems which I could "fix" in nuke if I was more in the delivery chain. [i.e. if I new they were going to have compression issues in 4kdcp, there's stuff I can do in nuke to reduce spatial information where it doesn't count, yet maintain the spatial frequency where it is important to the story ... but I don't know if that type of masking is able to be given to mastering]

Possibly there is some super creative ways to create DCP´s. But I think if you have the mindset to learn nuke then making DCP´s is about as difficult as putting some file sequences in a folder and add a sound file next to it. Viola done. Open DCP or any such program works fine. The little stuggle we had in the beginning was that there is/where no free players around so we made them blind. Which was a bit nerve wrecking because a lot of times we had no time to run to the theatre and see it before we see it with the client... and just as when making quicklimes there is that slight chance of human error, like putting on the wrong sound file, forget to export the picture with the slate etc. But we only had some minor embarrassment so far

But you should have no problem if you have a couple of hours to read up on it and do short tests to see you get it right. Then if it´s a feature the process is a bit time consuming so better dial in your strategy before hand on shorter tests.

When doing so it´s Good to shoot out some some test patterns. I usually make a half black half white slate with some drawings with almost black and almost white on it. Like paint with RGB 555 on the black. And put up some gray stepper etc. Just to to see how the gamma is not sliding anywhere during the process.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Possibly there is some super creative ways to create DCP´s. But I think if you have the mindset to learn nuke then making DCP´s is about as difficult as putting some file sequences in a folder and add a sound file next to it. Viola done. Open DCP or any such program works fine. The little stuggle we had in the beginning was that there is/where no free players around so we made them blind. Which was a bit nerve wrecking because a lot of times we had no time to run to the theatre and see it before we see it with the client... and just as when making quicklimes there is that slight chance of human error, like putting on the wrong sound file, forget to export the picture with the slate etc. But we only had some minor embarrassment so far

But you should have no problem if you have a couple of hours to read up on it and do short tests to see you get it right. Then if it´s a feature the process is a bit time consuming so better dial in your strategy before hand on shorter tests.

When doing so it´s Good to shoot out some some test patterns. I usually make a half black half white slate with some drawings with almost black and almost white on it. Like paint with RGB 555 on the black. And put up some gray stepper etc. Just to to see how the gamma is not sliding anywhere during the process.

Great idea, I'll go openDCP. I also noticed none of the masking options are available on the "cheap" dcp program that cost around 2k ... and I don't want to do the super expensive dcp packages. Really I wouldn't do the final dcp anyway because of the key management process, so I just need something for reel reviews.
I will make sure I do those test patterns in the front (it also is a way for it to be obvious that the reel isn't final).

 

[Dermot Shane]

i'm a colorist / finishing artist... i went through my year end, the projects that mainly shot on RED were six Indie Theatrical features, two TV movies, two TV pilots and some TVC's.

The rest of the shows i graded were shot on Alexa or F55, one note on the global view is the rise of ArriRAW in indie features, i've only seen it in TVC's before last year, now have three films shot on it, and one shot on Sony RAW.. so the RAW message has gotten out there... Alexa is still king of TV series, 100% of the series i worked on last year were shot Alexa to ProRez

i've dodged the 7D-Fs700-C100 bullet all year.. yea!

My state of the art RED workflow uses ACEScc, so most if not all the on-set metadata is in the garbage at the start of gradeing, so safest bet is to nuke all of it and make the show look good in the schduale & budget provided by production...

one other thing i've noticed is the rise of ungraded refrnce Qt's - it seems to becomeing a theme.

RAW anyting + ACEScc v1 = instant awesome

 

[PatrickFaith]

I have hardly noticed anyone talking about deep exr workflows. I've moved at least 50% of my workflow to this, anyone doing major relighting in my opinion should do it this way. Also anyone doing 8k workflows I think should be in exr 2.x so they can use DWA, also the extra resolution really helps in relighting maps (for depth and UV angle, even for objects moving). I think what we need is just not "one" workflow, but some workflow categories - with one that specially interests me(and I think anyone using 6k-8k widths in their post workflow) are 8k deep workflows.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

Very late to the party, I know. It hasn't really changed in the last few years.

I'm skipping acquisition for now.
First step after acquisition hands over rushes is to organise them into folder structures and have a log of all information in Excel sheets. Backups as appropriate.
Once backed up, there's a master copy usually on a RAID-1 (or 5) array, although of late this is an SSD.
Import straight into Premiere Pro. For some projects, a first light pass is done in RedCine-X, look saved in RMD, and reflects in Premiere Pro.
If it's a short project, edit natively. For features, Render and Replace to DNxHR.
Edit, lock.
If using Render and Replace, Restore Unrendered.
XML/AAF to grading. (Or Direct Link to SpeedGrade)
DPX/EXR to VFX/Online.
OMF to sound.
Consolidate Project in Project Manager.

Finishing depends on how the VFX / Online / Grade is done.

The main master is always EXR at full resolution to a SSD. 16-bit, PIZ lossless compression.
From this EXR, with mixed sound synced in Premiere Pro, DCP using CuteDCP. Bargain price, couldn't be easier to use, top notch encoding and colour transform. The built-in Wraptor plugin is a pretty decent option too, though I feel the bitrate is sometimes too aggressively low.
From the EXR, H.264, H.265, ProRes, DPX whatever deliverable is required. If open captioning / hardcoded subtitles are required, EZTitles. Watermarks, credit/title changes, etc, whatever post-finishing changes are done in Premiere Pro.

Once finished, the masters, the consolidate project folder, and any working and project files from VFX / Online all go LTO and two RAID-1 arrays in different physical locations. Of course, that is not always possible for lower budget projects.

Finally, SSDs are now cheap enough to be a real option throughout, and prices will continue to drive down. For hard drives, I highly recommend HGST. Much more reliable than WD or Seagate.

 

[jake blackstone]

How often do you guys do a delivery in DCP ? I've only been asked twice, but now that I'm moving up a bit in quality I've been pondering getting finaldcp. Also I've been driven crazy on how people do the compression before, and I really have no context on what is and isn't doable(i.e. the mastering guys could be doing a miracle, but I have no context on what is and isn't doable for 4k dcp). Since I haven't done any 4k dcp(and btw I don't think a lot of experienced mastering people have either), I am worried about compression problems which I could "fix" in nuke if I was more in the delivery chain. [i.e. if I new they were going to have compression issues in 4kdcp, there's stuff I can do in nuke to reduce spatial information where it doesn't count, yet maintain the spatial frequency where it is important to the story ... but I don't know if that type of masking is able to be given to mastering]

EasyDCP plugin for Resolve. You just render DCP from Resolve just like any other deliverable. And at the end, for a review Resolve will play it back as well. Super simple...