Workflow for a 60 minute documentary shot on Epic

[OlaHaldor]

I've been asked to do color correction and online on a documentary shot on Epic. It will be ~60 minutes, and made for theatrical release. Probably a 2K scope version and a 16:9 for TV. Not settled yet, but that's not an issue.


Basically, I'd like to hear your voice and opinion on the workflow. Going R3D will force me to get my hands on a Rcoket. I haven't found any place where they will let me rent a Rocket. I will need to purchase one. The issue for me is that there's just not enough $$$ for post. I will lose money if I go for a Rocket, because I will also need a Cubix PCI expander to install RAID, GPU and Rocket.

The producer insists I use R3D files instead of TIFF/EXR/ProRes 4444, because it will be "a significant better image". I can't prove him wrong - because it will be a bit more flexible for sure. But do we really need to?

If it was a 30 sec commercial or a 3 minute music video, sure, no problem.
So far, my I'm aiming for a solution where I do a first pass in REDCine and have the DIT they used to export whatever file format I want, and grade off of that.


What's your take on this, and why? I'm open for ideas!

 

[Thomas Koba]

You don't have to have a Red Rocket. If you got a fast computer you can playback at 2K.

I´m running pretty smooth playback at 1/4 resolution in Davinci. Not true realtime, but more than enough for grading. I have a 2009 Mac Pro with a GTX285 card, so if you got some kind of screaming brand new PC, then I would guess there would be no problem.

 

[OlaHaldor]

I'm on a Mac Pro 2009 with two 2.26GHz Quad Core CPUs. This is equipped with a GT120 for GUI and GTX570 for processing, and a HD Extreme 3D.

In my experience, to have smooth playback and responsive feedback during grading, I will need to turn the 5K material way down in quality. That's why I'm thinking of solutions like renting a Rocket or getting it as image sequence/ProRes 4444. And then there's the whole thing about rendering...

Wonder what's giving you smooth playback at 2K with 5K material without a Rocket. Stunning!

 

[Marc Wielage]

The producer insists I use R3D files instead of TIFF/EXR/ProRes 4444, because it will be "a significant better image". I can't prove him wrong - because it will be a bit more flexible for sure. But do we really need to?

To me, it's a balance between time and money. If you don't have the money for a Rocket, and don't have the time (or a powerful enough processor) to DeBayer all the files during color correction, then I think realistically, DPX makes more sense.

How many projects has this producer done? Do they have any experience with the workflow they're proposing?

I've done about 30 features with just straight DPX log files that all worked fine. Heck, I've done at least a couple of dozen direct-to-video (or TV) projects done in Rec709, using various cameras, and those generally worked fine (with some exceptions). You might point out Michael Cioni's blog article on the post for Social Network all done with DPX files, simply because it helped them streamline their workflow and meet their schedules. (Note they have since done projects with R3D files.)

There's many ways to hit the finish line, and DPX files still can provide very, very high quality images. I've also done a dozen features with ProRes 444 files, and generally those looked fine, though I wasn't always happy with the client's LUT settings, which required some tweaking (and in some cases, some redos). But those ultimately went all the way through delivery and Blu-ray without any issues.

 

[CK Olsen]

If you are using Adobe Premiere Pro, long form editing(30-120 minutes) is NOT an issue without a rocket card, as you can set playback to 1/2, 1/4, or whatever your computer can handle, and still have real time editorial capability.

BUT... output can be a bear. Without a rocket card, plan for some long nights of rendering.

I can't speak as well to the grading side, but in general, the bottleneck appears to be the final output, not the grading itself.

 

[OlaHaldor]

Thanks guys.

I'm not doing editorial, so my main concern would be render speed for final output indeed. I'm on Resolve, and worship the possibility to work with good performance and real-time playback to check how scenes or clips look in sequence, and adjust as needed.

Rendering at full debayer, 16-bit and so on may take many days for all I know. In my limited experience with RED and 5K material specifically, it's taken ages to render a 60 second commercial to 2K!


I've been looking at Premiere CS6 for a while, and I really want to start using it, but there's a few features I miss from FCP7 which is forcing me to keep going with FCP7. Also heard rumors about bad or tricky workflow between Premiere and Resolve which is also alarming.

 

[John Tissavary]

I've been doing Premiere Pro CS6 to Resolve quite a bit lately, and while there were some problems, the latest PP update seems to have fixed most of them. I now do Premiere > XML > Resolve with complete success. I do think resizing is a bit inconsistent, but I see the same issue with FCP so not sure what's going on there. Could be that my settings are not quite right, some things changed in v9 that I'm still catching up on.

I don't really do full debayer from 5k Epic during sessions in Resolve. We have a really nice setup - full Resolve panels, 2K DCP projector, expansion chassis with 3x GPU, Redrocket, 2x 8GB Fibrechannel to SAN. But unless you're packing 2x Redrocket 5k Epic will not be realtime. The visible difference for a realtime session in 1/2 vs full debayer is insignificant, IMHO. At rendertime we jump to full, but we have yet to do full during a session. The only time we pre-transcode to DPX is if the project has a large number of file formats - which is becoming more common. Two projects in the last months had 3+ different cameras / file formats! Ugh. Personally I much prefer access to RAW while grading, but if things are done correctly overall, great results can be achieved with log DPX, too (even rec709 dpx for that matter).

I also have a decent Resolve setup at home for low budget jobs, no redrocket. I do quite a bit of epic there, too. End up having to live with 1/4 debayer during sessions, but it looks very good on a 46" monitor. At rendertime I go to 1/2 or full premium depending on the deadline, requirements, and other factors. I've rendered 1/2 premium on a number of HD jobs from Epic and it looks fantastic. I think you'd have to put your eye right up to the monitor to see any difference on most shots at HD finishing res. If there's too much noise then I jump to full on specific shots in those cases.

best,

JT