Red Workflow - Ted's thoughts Du Jour

[Jeff Brue]

Had the pleasure of meeting the guys from Plaster City today at a 4k film out test. It was interesting hearing from the different facilities about conform and output and then to see how 3 different facilities showed. Considering that we got the footage that morning and had 4k neg out that night for a sequence well, It helps that I have a great staff, but this isn't hard it just takes intelligence.

For the test we used both our Scratch systems and IO films Nucoda, and I'm still in awe of what seeing that in our big room looked like.

Jeff Brue
Post Sup/ TD
Digital Film Company
A Division of The Camera House

 

[Evin Grant]

I'd love to come by and see that Jeff.

My experiences have been mostly positive, but I'll reiterate the need to have the R3ds work right out of the FCP timeline, preferably with a Plug-in for RAW control. I was able to cut and conform a project through Redtrip successfully and I'm going to be trying crimson as soon as this next one finishes.

I will say that render times in Redcine seem very inconsistent. I can get some things like H264 QTs out of Red Alert! much faster. Since I'm more of a shooter than a post guy it's hard for me to be more specific.

 

[Marc Vanocur]

Perfection

Perfection

I suppose it's time to chime in. I'll admit to being one of the selfish ones enjoying more of the posts than doing any actual posting!

I have been in the film services business for almost 20 years now, and with all of the technology that has come and gone, I have definitely learned there is no such thing as perfection.

In 1999 I switched to FCP (v.98), somewhat still in beta, and wow, that was buggy. However, I never lost sight of the fact that eventually this would do things down the road that many other systems could not deliver at the price point Apple knew would be the future of what is now, our current industry economy. I can't tell you how thrilled I have been with Apple's response to all of the industry's changing formats, codecs, plug-ins, etc.... Do I want to scream every time they put a lousy update that destroys some other functionality they just finished fixing? YES, of course. This has happened more lately with Quicktime than ever before, but I think it's important to realize that every update is a product of expensive R&D in any company, and sadly most of the time it won't suit everyone, and in many cases will feel that it wasn't planned well. Many of you who follow the FCP discussion boards will recognize me as the guy who gets shot down when yelling about an update crashing some aspect of my system. The thing to remember is that updates signal improvement over time, not immediately, but over time. This is a thing of beauty. The idea of buying something that is good, having it grow to be great, and retiring it at the end of its lifecycle as excellent, is something we are all fortunate enough to enjoy thanks to these types of companies. So how does this figure into the workflow with RED discussion?

I await my camera with the same impatience as a child awaiting their first bicycle! In the meantime, I eagerly download files from all of you amazing posters on REDRELAY, shoot with a friends camera, and run all what I can find (.R3D files) through my systems in my facilities. I have to say I find the workflow to be as easy, if not easier than my current Panasonic P2 workflow for the DVD and video release spectrum, except that I love the image from the RED for obvious reasons considerably more than almost anything I have ever seen at price points 10 times that of RED. Although I have not been fortunate enough to do a film out, or traditional DI through the current Scratch methods, I have no doubt from what I am reading people are happy there as well. When it can all be done for some of the more budgetary challenged clients from an FCP timeline, I will be even happier; no doubt that is coming. This company is really just getting started and I cannot tell you how excited I am with what's coming. The first few things have already worked well, and here comes more!

What has been even more revolutionary and worth stating, than all of this image, workflow and solutions provisions, is our unprecedented access to the professionals at this company. Never have I had this experience before. I met Ted at an industry gathering at FOX Studios a few weeks ago for a RED and Apple workflow solutions evening, and he was great enough to put the camera up on some sticks and just answer as many questions as possible. Panasonic, Sony, Arri, Panavision....? Sure there is NAB, and yes I am there every year, but it's not personal. What about these boards? While some of this breaks out into a soap opera here and there (yes, I am guilty of enjoying some of the crazy posts), where else can you get this level of communication with the heads of a company? This, in itself, is revolutionary, not just the technology behind the company!

I am surrounded by people in my business who hang on to tradition like a child their baby blankets fearing any change in the realm of technology. So, to the guys at RED, especially Jim for 'just doing it' because of his expectations of 'there's got to be a better way', my salute, my money, and more importantly my commitment, along with the 4,000 other amazing folks.

Thanks and thanks again!

-Marc

 

[Jeff Brue]

Sadly evin the neg was turned over to production. It just aggravates me though when people start thinking that it can be all easy out of final cut. Hate to say it final cut isn't a finishing platform (yet) for RGB based material it still has too many issues. You're talking to one of the biggest FCP advocates as well, but ultimately it (and avid) change the image in weird math ways that make things look like video and make it hard to take Red up against film. We'll see at NAB this year but Apple and avid need to step up, and this is what I hope they're doing by pulling out of NAB, and instead putting that funding into development.

 

[laguun]

Sadly evin the neg was turned over to production. It just aggravates me though when people start thinking that it can be all easy out of final cut. Hate to say it final cut isn't a finishing platform (yet) for RGB based material it still has too many issues. You're talking to one of the biggest FCP advocates as well, but ultimately it (and avid) change the image in weird math ways that make things look like video and make it hard to take Red up against film. We'll see at NAB this year but Apple and avid need to step up, and this is what I hope they're doing by pulling out of NAB, and instead putting that funding into development.

I also would prefer to have avid & apple good rgb finishing quality, however adobe cs / ppro offers exactly that, including 16bit color and 4K - and with cineform even on a usual workstation.

 

[Ido Karilla]

Even The Novice Can Succeed

Even The Novice Can Succeed

I am very new to the post world. frankly, it was some 10 month ago I have heard of the RED ONE - in those days I was a full time focus puller working on feature films and commercials in Israel. Since then I have opened a studio dedicated to working with RED files. I am situated in TEL AVIV and my guess was that most Israeli films will end up shooting with the RED ONE, because of the budgets used down here.
My guess is probably right, with no background I maid some intensive reading, I spent hours at REDUSER - mostly reading, and by know I seem to catch up with the REDCINE - AVID - FCP - CRIMSON - REDCINE - FCP - COLOR - DPX workflow.

We are already giving back up on LTO tapes to one feature _ transcoding material for offline on avid and reconnecting in fcp to a 2k scaled aja uncompressed QT material correcting in COLOR and exporting DPX files using the aja qt to dpx utility.

Two other features are about to start shooting mid April.
I would love to here any comment/ suggestions on how to improve our workflow.

Thanks.