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  • 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 :)

THE WORKFLOW OF ENDER'S GAME

Mark L. Pederson said:
I understand the point that Mr. Most is trying to make ... but I just personally find that point to be counter to the underlying concept of this entire forum and certainly a thread where someone posts a detailed case study about a specific workflow. Should someone like Michael Cioni, or myself for that matter, not share workflows, case studies and techniques because "unqualified people with little or no experience might think they can just adopt them and have zero issues"?

That's just crazy to me. I guess I have an entirely different attitude about sharing information and learning. People want a "quick fix, the magic button" by human nature - that's not specific to this industry or post production. That's human nature. And it's certainly not going to change.

What often frustrates me on this forum specifically, is that many threads start out with a real exchange of technical information - good questions, good answers - and somehow it ends up ... here.

I re-read all the posts here - just to make sure I wasn't going crazy. It's pretty bizarre to me that we start with someone sharing a technical case study of a large project - something that a lot of readers on this forum would never even get close to - and it becomes a debate about the "danger" of sharing such information because a neophyte might think it's easy. Really?

The fact that Michael Cioni posted that case study publicly speaks volumes. Many well known, famous chefs publish their recipes in cook books - doesn't mean everyone that tries to follow the directions will make the dish that tastes the same and can be a "famous chef". But many can achieve the same result (the dish) - and many learn more just by trying. And I can assure you that many famous chefs read cook books written by other chefs.

There is no substitute for experience for pretty much everything in life. But free exchange of knowledge and global, real-time Q&A with experts can help lots of people learn and refine their experiences. And yeah ... maybe a few neophytes will blindly reach beyond their means with confidence to try to achieve success and fail ... but they will learn too. And some will try again - apply what they learned - and continue to learn. That's certainly what I did.

Maybe every cookbook should have a disclaimer that says "Following the recipes in this book might result in food that does not taste as good as when the author cooks it".

I'm more than happy to discuss and/or debate anything related to our industry with Mr. Most - or anyone for that matter - just start a ask me anything thread or something - but it would really be great IMO if this thread could get back to discussing ...

THE WORKFLOW OF ENDER'S GAME case study.
Click to expand...

Have to agree with Mr. Pederson. Michael's sharing only helps. Caveat emptor.
 
Mark L. Pederson said:
What often frustrates me on this forum specifically, is that many threads start out with a real exchange of technical information - good questions, good answers - and somehow it ends up ...
Click to expand...

+10,000

we've been having the tools/talent discussion on repeat for like... as long as i can remember. one would think we'd realize, even from the fact that there is debate, that they're helplessly interrelated and both important for different reasons. what else can we really say? let's learn... simple stuff.
 
I create many workflow PDF's and design solutions for on-set through finishing pipelines. The fact that this particular film spanned an entire year in editorial is not much different than an independent film which has the luxury of time, not money. The complexity of this workflow is in the large amount of visual effects shots which can be complex due to varying factors. It appears LI and DD figured out a simple solution to keep everyone happy with deliverables and efficiency in delivering VFX pulls. LI used an end to end workflow on their services on this film for which they should celebrate their accomplishment. But let's make no mistake about it, this film is marketing material. It's great for some redusers to see how things work on the large scale, sure I get that. But not necessarily as unique or proprietary to LI. This is not a negative agAinst Mike or LI, it's just a simple case of marketing the company by being more open in their approach to a full scale solution. And that marketing approach is effective. That said, these concepts are not necessarily new or revolutionary. They are pretty much the standard and have been long before this video or even Enders Game began production.
 
mikeburton said:
But not necessarily as unique or proprietary to LI.
Click to expand...
There is not very much in post production today that is "unique or proprietary" as the tools have gotten so much better, more powerful and cheaper. Most post companies will create some custom (and typically very basic) utility applications - typically to streamline data between a specific combination of off-the-shelf software and hardware. (It's worth noting that LI does have a very unique, proprietary tool in their iPad solutions that have very little competition in the marketplace.)

Some of the biggest companies in the business use off-the-shelf asset management tools like 5th Kind and Shotgun - and these tools are available to anyone. There's even low cost solutions for authoring encrypted DCPs.

LI's marketing has always been based on an open / education based approach - and it's one that has served them well. As far as your comment "pretty much the standard" - well ... yeah, the basic components of this workflow are and have been "pretty much the standard" - but the details of how and when things happen in a given workflow and what specific tools are used are what makes a post production case study interesting IMO - and there are many, many variations and options as you know.
 
marketing is a good thing ...

marketing is a good thing ...

Michael's ability to combine great content with effective marketing should be seen as a real benefit to all of us ... he educates and inspires at the same time ... motivates us to do things better and more efficiently ... to the point that I now have a Pablo RIO in our lab evaluating it against DaVinci Resolve 10.

There's another thread ongoing on Resolve 10 where I draw the analogy of the longbow versus the crossbow ... seems to me that the more variety of bows and arrows (tools) we have at our disposal for editing, VFX and color correction workflows the better off we'll all be.

Here's to education, marketing and inspiration!

Cheers,
Neil
 
everything anyone puts online is 'marketing' - including this post. hey! buy some S### from meee!

oh, wait, they didn't do that... they taught us some stuff about what they're doing. hopefully their demonstrated commitment to quality and artistic innovation will get them business. same for red.

i get the frustration with online ads/marketing because we're overwhelmed by it on the internet, but i really think this forum and this forum post is a case study itself in doing it the right way for the better of everybody, not just yourself. i'd love to hear ideas of how we can magically bring information about the market to the market without... well, marketing it?

p.s. neil - when you market a thread, at least put a link...
you have to make it as easy as possible for the customers buying your free stuff, lol
here's what he's talking about, very related to this thread.
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...rists-Training-Day-Sat-Nov-9th-West-Hollywood
 
I was fortunate enough to work with Don McAlpine on his first film with the RED Epic. Even back then, he always envisioned post being done on-site, in a truck, and near the set. His forward thinking has always been a great inspiration to me, and has been one of the driving forces behind furthering myself in this work.

Congratulations to job-well-done to everyone at Light Iron!
 
A few questions for Michael after reviewing this:

- Do Lilypads backup data or simply push it to a Shoebox?
- If no backup, is all coloring on Lilypad done straight off the mag or is media hosted by the Shoebox for RCX/ColorFront after dumping?
- Do you guys employ your own asset management software in the field when not using a larger software suite that has it implemented (checksums and what not)
- Why are Sound Files backed up onto a separate drive vs the Shoebox? Or did I misunderstand the diagram?
- Can you further elaborate on how you setup the Cube (or whatever LivePlay transport/wifi setup you used) for multi cam as well as implementing color into that signal flow
- On that note, can you speak a little more on how signal flow (and color consistency) is spread throughout village and to ipads?

Thanks so much for the hard work and sharing. As Mr Most and Mark have said, there's no clear path to post for everyone. For every show that wants iPads at lunch for dailies, there's equally as many that refuse even playback and simply want to sit down at the end of the day in a suite. But at least we can discuss, assess and then make a decision.
 
Great questions, Jason!

- Do Lilypads backup data or simply push it to a Shoebox?
Yes, they handled 2-3 initial checksummed backups which includes one copy to a Shoebox which is a raid-protected copy that moves at high speeds.


- If no backup, is all coloring on Lilypad done straight off the mag or is media hosted by the Shoebox for RCX/ColorFront after dumping?
Backups are a must on a Lily Pad, but color is typically done after media is checksummed so as to ensure we're working with reliable media in all cases going forward.

- Do you guys employ your own asset management software in the field when not using a larger software suite that has it implemented (checksums and what not)
We have built a checksum tool called "Sentinel." By going back to the drawing board, we came up with some very cleaver and new ways in which to perform checksums without many of the typical time penalties. In fact, Sentinel is the fastest checksum tool on the market, clocking in with speeds up to 60% faster than some leading checksum tools.


- Why are Sound Files backed up onto a separate drive vs the Shoebox? Or did I misunderstand the diagram?
It depends on the job. On Ender's, sound was separate, but most of the time, sound is included in the same deliveries as picture.


- Can you further elaborate on how you setup the Cube (or whatever LivePlay transport/wifi setup you used) for multi cam as well as implementing color into that signal flow
2 cameras = 2 CUBEs. For as many cameras as you want, we just use an ethernet HUB to route them to a single CPU and let the automated triggering send images to the iPads. With proper setup, CUBEs will automatically create folder names based on SDI-fed camera IDs. Then, Live Play interprets those camera IDs and separates clips into folders for each camera respectively. So A and B and C clips are always kept separated in Live Play which makes it easy to sort and find.

- On that note, can you speak a little more on how signal flow (and color consistency) is spread throughout village and to iPads?
Color consistency is one of the trickiest things about modern, file-based production. The best way we've been able to try to tame this beast is to first understand that whatever calibration is thought to have been made on set it is not nearly as accurate as what will happen down the line in post. There are just too many variables to consider making total control of color next to impossible. The best way is then to change the threshold of color and instead of worrying about what it will look like at the END of production, only consider what it will look like at the NEXT STAGE. In other words, our strategy is to create consistency from link-to-link as you go through the process. Camera to village. Village to DIT system. DIT system to dailies. Dailies to iPad. Dailies to AVID. Dailies to PIX. Then Dailies to VFX. VFX to DI. DI and to post house projection. Post house projection to commercial theater projection. Post house production to BluRay, and so on.
By looking at it like this, imagine a DP on set looking at an image, turning to you and saying, "I want to know exactly how this is going to look at a theatrical projection." -How do you answer? And worse: how do you EXECUTE this? Either you A) try to demonstrate how a series of transforms can perfectly balance everything and it's going to match perfectly in the end or B) you say, "You don't need to worry about that. Just worry about this monitor and since my monitor is good, it's all you need to trust."
They are both lies. The truth is in the the "consistency linking" method I'm talking about. By linking each step in the chain and only worrying about what each previous stage yields to the next, you automatically break down the process into compartments that are predictable and calibratable. Nothing works for every project, but Light Iron has found reliable techniques that have virtually made calibration concerns for our projects extinct, thus enabling the technology to get out of the way so the creative process can do what it's designed to.

m
 
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