Starting out as a RED DIT

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Pedro, are you using a different (faster?) method to make the offline files? Are you making the offline files? Dailies?

Thanks,
AP

yes, usually transcoding is done by post or sometimes on weekends with a 8core mac they provide in the hotel room or whatever. If they expect you to transcode they better pay rental on additional cpu's/gear and your time! If they don't, tell them you can't do it on a laptop!

If you let them dump work on you they will. Let them know from the start, be clear and up front. Nothing worse than to still be up working 4 hours after they call wrap.....

In other productions I worked on they never transcode at all. They just edit with the proxies off a g-raid drive. Then when the edit is done they just take the AAF from final cut to the finishing facility and conform to the r3d's. Simple. How I work with my footage I shoot. Just make sure your backups are solid.

Ultimately a setup with RedRocket is the ticket. That's not a cheap solution!

So yes, usually my MBP is sufficient for verifying the downloads, organizing the data, backing things up....etc....

 

[Doug Horton]

I stumbled upon this thread at the perfect time. A lot of great reading in here!

 

[joe hedge]

I think we on this forum take a certain amount of post-workflow/tech savvy for granted. On many of the low budget indie prods I've worked on, the prods had no idea anything needed to be backed up (yes, you read that right) let alone transcoded. They barely understand Macs, let alone digital video, FCP, and Red stuff. I always have to send out an email spelling out the issues involved (RC36 24fps 4k 2:1 = 100 gigs per hour of footage, which backed up = 200 gigs over 2 different drives, ProRes HQ 2k/1080 transcodes are half the size of the R3D's so 250 gigs of storage per hour of footage shot, no cheap drives, etc).

I transcode everything to whatever res their post workflow warrants, usually ProRes HQ 2k or 1080 that they can actually finish with if necessary, because I have free access to as many 3ghz 8-core MacPros as I want for overnight renders. My last gig, they shot 4k 16:9, which I'd never worked with, and the transcode to 1080 seemed to go faster than usual, I was getting 4 frames/sec in ProRes HQ 1080 half-res high, RedRushes set to 2 clips/8 cores, which over 2 machines translates to 3:1 transcode ratio (3 hour transcode per hour of footage shot).

I also sync and do scene bins in FCP, and usually everything is ready for the editor a couple days after wrap. So the prods get good bang-for-their-buck, which at the indie level is more important than having a RedRocket, on-set transcodes, calibrated monitoring etc, none of which they understand and therefore won't pay extra for anyway, even though it would save them money in post.

 

[Doug Horton]

it seems as I am looking to become a DIT, that my biggest weakness at this point is working with the post work flow. Is there any way to become familiar with the workflow without having .r3d files at my disposal?

 

[Steve Sherrick]

it seems as I am looking to become a DIT, that my biggest weakness at this point is working with the post work flow. Is there any way to become familiar with the workflow without having .r3d files at my disposal?

If you are looking to know RED workflow, you will need R3D files. I would recommend spending a considerable amount of time working with these files and getting up to speed on what options are available, workarounds, what tools are best suited for a given job, etc. Workflow has improved a lot over the past year. There is still a learning curve. There are R3Ds floating around. Try to grab some that use build 20 or later.

 

[Doug Horton]

If you are looking to know RED workflow, you will need R3D files. I would recommend spending a considerable amount of time working with these files and getting up to speed on what options are available, workarounds, what tools are best suited for a given job, etc. Workflow has improved a lot over the past year. There is still a learning curve. There are R3Ds floating around. Try to grab some that use build 20 or later.

will do, thanks!

 

[Ryan Samul]

$$ for DIT workstation and Hourly rate for dailies?

$$ for DIT workstation and Hourly rate for dailies?

Wondering if anyone has a handle on what the going rate is for a Mac Pro tower with red rocket DIT station per day?

also wondering what would be a fair hourly rate for transcoding footage into dailies?

thanks!