Scarlet Newbie questions

[Raymond Shepard]

Please excuse my greeness. I have a few questions.

1. Which Scarlet camera would be best to shoot a low budget feature? (E.g. Drama, romantic comedy)

2. What is the cheapest computer I can get that will handle Scarlet's footage/raw format effectively (without crashing)

3. What software do I need for editing? (Is it specific to final cut only? Can I use magic bullet with it?

Thanks in advance for your assistance

Raymond
BeFreeInChrist

 

[GPSchnyder]

Well, how low is low budget? Normally a 100.000$ Flick is low-Budget.

But I think you mean no Budget (below 100.000$), and there I would choose 2 of the 2/3" Fixed. You can do over shoulder records that record both charakters, are flexible in the Zoom without buying a f'n lot of Lenses and you can create a decent dof with them already. If you push that a little bit more with Looks it can work.
If you want to have a 35mm Look well, than its the S35. But than 1 would be expensive enough, starting at 7k$ Body only. No need for the FF35, if you dont want to make Photos with it for a living...

Which Computer? Don't know, have no red till now.

And If you can Use MBLooks? Why not? The Question is if they can make a version that uses the Raw file. This way Exposure changes wouldn't turn shadows to grey, but to details. But that is not known till now.

Hope I could help, If I'm talking bullshit please everybody feel free to interrupt

 

[Ryan Valle]

1. Which Scarlet camera would be best to shoot a low budget feature? (E.g. Drama, romantic comedy)

2. What is the cheapest computer I can get that will handle Scarlet's footage/raw format effectively (without crashing)

3. What software do I need for editing? (Is it specific to final cut only? Can I use magic bullet with it?

1. Depends on your budget. The fixed scarlet is great for no budgets, but I would go for atleast the interchangable lens for any kind of feature work that will be done. You get more lens flexibility which will help you achieve the different looks you may want in your feature.

2. To me, all computers will crash at some point and the less you spend, the more frequent crashes you may get while the more you spend, the less crashes. If you know computers, I'd just build one yourself. but if I were in your position, I would go for a mac pro. It is pricey, but seems to be powerful enough to handle red files. I dont own RED, but i do know mac pros are really flexible and offer great performance that one may want and need.

3. Once again, I dont own a RED, but there are many answers to this question. I would go to the workflow section of this to see what software may work best for you. I know that final cut pro works with it, but that would be mac only, so you'd be forced to get a mac computer. If you're not happy with this, you should look at other edition solutions. As far as magic bullet, I do know that they do have plugins/filters for final cut. However, I dont know if you need to re-purchase any already-owned products so they will work with FCP.

I hope this helps and just remember, the Scarlet is not yet released so don't make your choice now. What i said is all theory based and not until the camera is released, the exact answers will not be given to you.

 

[Raymond Shepard]

Thanks for your answers. Are macs the only computers that can handle red files?

 

[Ryan Valle]

As far as I know, red files work both on macs and PCs. Its a question of your editing software. For example, Final Cut Pro only works with macs.

 

[J Davis]

best to shoot a low budget feature?

A feature means a whole truckload of media and days and days of render time.
So you will need the fastest machine u can afford.

Since computers depreciate rapidly, why don't you wait until the last minute
before buying a machine?

By the time scarlets are available to non R1 owners, the workflow for R3D should be pretty smooth
for CS4 and FCS and also Apple would/should also have a new line of macs running snow leopard by then.
Same goes for PC's but I don't know too much about them.

 

[Raymond Shepard]

Thanks guys. Great ideas. I'll keep that in mind. What PC software is the best for handling red files?

 

[David Rasberry]

Thanks guys. Great ideas. I'll keep that in mind. What PC software is the best for handling red files?

Adobe CS4 Premiere Pro and After Effects for low budget work. The CS4 producton suite package also includes Photoshop, audio software, and encoding and disc burning software, including HD blu-ray encoding.
One of the new quad core I7 Nehalem workstations and Vista 64bit OS.
This will also work with a Mac Pro and they are not a bad buy these days.
If you plan to go to film out as opposed to digital release, apparently Mac with Final Cut Pro is the preferred choice though.

 

[Raymond Shepard]

A million thanks David.