This "I'm a DIT"-nonsense has to stop

[Ivan Kovax]

We tell producers every chance we get that they will save money if they get us involved early. Instead more often than not they procrastinate often right up until delivery instead of involving VFX or post early. Often they still have VFX companies bidding during production. So by the time a VFX supe is involved it's too late to save them any money. I imagine it's similar with DIT and the post house. There is no question that good rich meta data acquisition and workflow on set will translate in to huge savings in post. But that means that producers have to get ahead of the ball and involve post during preproduction more regularly.

Nonono... you have it wrong. This rivalry actually exists, and it is really for quite silly reasons. It is not all houses, but I have seen with my own eyes this bizarre rivalry. I know several post houses who have become quite annoyed that I have done the dailies as a FULL colour correction on location, and basically cut them out of that source of income. Yeh I get it, but my clients didn't have the budget to hire them anyway... but the feelings of mistrust remained.

It an amusing little rivalry, but I think these days everybody has settled on a happy middle ground.

 

[PatrickFaith]

...

The future of our industry is WORKFLOW. I know it seems obvious, but it's actually hard to detect unless you're keenly looking for....

Michael

Michael nailed it, in that the past mentality was "positional" while the new reality is "flow". Arguing positional definitions just will not be relevant in a future that is workflow based.

 

[Marc Wielage]

I am certain that by following the trends of microprocessing capabilities and the interests which will be governed by AdTech demand in 2020, today's DIT will be replaced by the camera. The camera will be the capture for picture and sound (sound wirelessly transmitted as data packs, not RF, similar to iTunes iCloud), wireless color (before, during, and even AFTER capture), and integration of XML databases from just about every department.

Michael, I think you're in the right direction, but I foresee a couple of problems:

1) without a DIT consciously reviewng the footage outside the camera, there's no safety net. The DP and camera operator could shoot all day, there could be a major technical issue, and they wouldn't know about it unless and until the dailies were made. At least with a DIT separately reviewing and checking the footage and the integrity of the data, the problems can be caught before major issues happen. And I don't think these cameras are reliable enough yet. If anything, the cameras are in a constant state of flux from software updates and hardware revisions, making it even harder to QC problems.

2) the lack of standards in metadata make it hard to get everything in sync across all platforms. If there was a single unified system for the camera, the slate, the script supervisor, for the sound department, and for editorial, everything could work. But when you have Red, Arri, Sony, Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Ambient, Denecke, and everybody else going in nine different directions, if anything, I think things are getting worse and not better in that regard.

Given the inability of several departments to even nail down something as simple as timecode on the set, I'm skeptical that a unified system could be made to work unless and until some independent group like SMPTE comes in and nails down the standards for file-naming, metadata, and all that other stuff. I think this could happen, but convincing even Red, Sony, and Arri to unite on a single system would be very acrimonious unless users demanded it. I hope I live to see the day it could happen.

BTW: even without DITs, there's a tendency for studios and editorial to all want different kinds of dailies (as you know), so I don't think a one-button solution is necessarily going to deliver that right out of a camera. I think it's always going to take a human body to gather up and prep a bunch of files to shoot them to a server somewhere. No question, it could be streamlined and automated much more than it is now.

 

[Stuart McQuade]

I admit, I'm guilty of writing 'DIT' on my CV when I was really a Data Wrangler. I don't like to write 'DIT', but I do it because producers in my country just don't understand what a Data Wrangler is (it could well be a language barrier, however). They've only heard of the 'DIT' phrase, and that's what goes around - regardless of what it is you actually do...

Sad but true.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

(SNIP) The challenge has been to convince producers to pay for it but they don't because of the distorted budgeting process. Producers have generally crafted a system in which they are guaranteed to produce an inefficient and competitive system. Instead of tackling the budget as a holistic collaboration--every group is split out into competing budgets trying to extract as much of the budget as possible. Take the VFX Supervisor. Let's say you hire a VFX Supervisor at $1,200 a day. Now let's say that the VFX supe being on set saves you $5,000 a day in post expenses. That's a slam dunk for budget savings. You would be a fool to not hire a VFX supervisor. Instead what happens over and over again is that when you try to include someone on-set it's the first item to get killed in the budget because the production company is the only group involved in preproduction. Same with post house DITs. The producers pit everyone against each other so that a DIT would have to come out of the Production Company's budget. Saving hundreds of hours in post doesn't save the Production Company any money so the Production Company has no incentive to save post hours.

All too true Gavin. I believe this "siloing" of budgets persists, despite its inefficiencies, for two primary reasons:
1) the existing infrastructure is a proven methodology that is reasonably well understood by the workforce
2) business models that are successful enough to regularly make payroll create a constituency of folks protecting their livelihood who will often fight any changes

I'd like to think that the marketplace will eventually reward those who take a more holistic approach that leads to lower costs. So far, as Gavin notes, that's the exception rather than the rule.

FWIW, I have managed to get a couple of production companies I work with to at least take what they had put in the production budget for a DIT and just move that one line item into the post producer's budget. I find the best person to approach is usually the post supe as they have more "skin in the game" in terms of benefitting from what a good DIT (term used generically) brings to the party. Proper Pre-Post work on set can save dozens of staff hours later, not to mention fewer errors.

Cheers - #19

 

[Marc Wielage]

I admit, I'm guilty of writing 'DIT' on my CV when I was really a Data Wrangler. I don't like to write 'DIT', but I do it because producers in my country just don't understand what a Data Wrangler is (it could well be a language barrier, however). They've only heard of the 'DIT' phrase, and that's what goes around - regardless of what it is you actually do...

Stuart, I'd much rather work with somebody like yourself than an arrogant turd who pretends he or she knows far more than they do. And trust me, even a Data Wranger earns their keep -- I think this is an extremely necessary part of the process. As I said in my previous message, you're our last line of defense against catastrophe.