Workflow for editing a 1 take music video

[Stuart Hall]

Hi everybody

I am a very, very new RED user and realise now that I should have done a heck of a lot more research before diving in head first into this beautiful, but intricate world of RED.

Here's my dilema and what I have tried to done:

We shot a 1 take music video in Trafalgar Square on a RED One at 4K using the Optimo 24 - 290mm lens.
What we now want to do is zoom into the picture even more in order to reframe for a head and shoulders close up. Our delivery is going to be 1920 x 1080 at 25fps.

I have read the Final Cut Pro white pages, but only some of it seems to apply to us because we don't really need to do any editing, it is just these extra zooms we want to make and then send it to Color to grade.

Is it better to work in Final Cut, transcode my R3D to Apple ProRes in either Redrushes or LandT, do all my zooming in FCP and then send it to Color? Or can I use the geometry tab in Color to do Pan Scan to create the same effect?

I have tried having a fiddle in FCP, but when I scale up the image in the motion tab to get the new frame I want, it looks very, very pixelated and the focus is way out. I scaled it up by 400%, so as we are working 4K, this should still look fine, am I right? Is the focus issue something to do with the footage or just that we had a rubbish focus puller on the day?

I have access to a variety of Macs with After Effects and FCP. We do have a Smoke in the building as well, but I can't find a workflow for Smoke on the web anywhere.

My question is this, if I am not really doing any editing to the piece, is there a quick way / easier way to ingest the media, reconnect to the full resolution 4K files so that we can see exactly how much space we have to play with when we do our extra zooms.

Thank you all and hopefully I can get this done and I'll post a link to it as it has the potential to be great!

Cheers.

 

[jimhare]

Hi Stuart,

Welcome to Red User!

If it were me I would probably go into After Effects. The reason you are seeing poor results in FCP is you aren't actually accessing the native R3D but rather a proxy that grabs a particular resolution from it. Too much to explain here but basically you aren't looking at the full quality.

When you go into Color you do get access, but in some cases only to 2k.

In After Effects you can see exactly what you are working with. Since it's one take, you can just change scale and position settings as keyframes. Could do some cool zooms rather than cuts which may be very interesting.

You shouldn't really go further than 200% and that may even be pushing it. Resolution isn't the only thing at play here. Focus issues are amplified in a big way when you zoom in.

In addition, oversampling is very important for a good image and you really don't want to be 1:1 in the image at 1080.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll make the best out of the situation. There is a lot to learn and I've only scratched the surface here.

Best of luck!

Jim Hare
Sydney Australia

 

[Mark Phelan]

You shouldn't really go further than 200% and that may even be pushing it. Resolution isn't the only thing at play here. Focus issues are amplified in a big way when you zoom in.

In addition, oversampling is very important for a good image and you really don't want to be 1:1 in the image at 1080.

Jim makes a very good point about the focus. Absolutely LOVE this ability with the RED, but it does mean you must have critical focus because it will expose any shortcomings. I'm thinking of a shot I did this to at full frame, everything is tack sharp, but when cropped in 200%, you can tell the focus isn't on the person's eyes, but rather their tie. It was still acceptable, but did point out the difference one would obtain with a still lens versus a cine lens. Not so much because of the lens' resolving power, although that can be an issue, but the greater focusing range of the cine lens for minute changes, say between an eye and a nose.

Not too sure I agree with the comment about 1:1 image quality at 1080, however. I've never seen that to be an issue.

 

[Scott Simmons]

I was working on just such a idea recently and found After Effects to be the way to go. I wrote up a quick post over at PVC about reframing in both AE and Redcine-X. Maybe it will help a bit.

You're most definitely going to have to move beyond FCP to achieve this.

 

[Ben Holmes]

+1 for After Effects.

I'd add however, as others have, that this whole 'zoom into a 4K image' thing is a classic RED myth. Sure, you can zoom in a bit if the shot is sharp enough, maybe 150%, but anything beyond that will never match the look of the downsampled 4K master. Think of it as giving you a little headroom in post, not some magical 'enhance' zooming capability. It for this reason most people shoot 120fps 2K then wonder why it looks a little soft...

Also - keyframed zooms in AE on moving (handheld?) shots will probably look horrid (IMHO). You might want to consider doing a tight pass of the footage in REDCine first, and trying to cut between the wide and tight, rather than zooming in and out - see how that suits you, although it may lose the 'one take' appeal of your piece.

If you want more professional advice or post/editing services in the London area (I'm based just North of London) PM me.

 

[D Fuller]

I'm a little more optimistic on the cropping possibilities...

I'm a little more optimistic on the cropping possibilities...

+1 for After Effects.

I'd add however, as others have, that this whole 'zoom into a 4K image' thing is a classic RED myth. Sure, you can zoom in a bit if the shot is sharp enough, maybe 150%, but anything beyond that will never match the look of the downsampled 4K master. Think of it as giving you a little headroom in post, not some magical 'enhance' zooming capability. It for this reason most people shoot 120fps 2K then wonder why it looks a little soft...

Also - keyframed zooms in AE on moving (handheld?) shots will probably look horrid (IMHO). You might want to consider doing a tight pass of the footage in REDCine first, and trying to cut between the wide and tight, rather than zooming in and out - see how that suits you, although it may lose the 'one take' appeal of your piece.

If you want more professional advice or post/editing services in the London area (I'm based just North of London) PM me.

The ability to usefully crop Red footage is not a myth at all. But it does require real care in shooting. And like all effects, testing is advised.

Take a look at this: http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=529348&postcount=15

This spot was for SD finish, so we had more range to work with than 1080 would give you, but the important point here is that cropping into an R3D is a useful technique. And with AE, you can see on the screen how the image is holding up. So try by all means, crop in as far as you like and stop when you think the image doesn't hold up any more.

 

[Ben Holmes]

The ability to usefully crop Red footage is not a myth at all. But it does require real care in shooting. And like all effects, testing is advised.

Take a look at this: http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=529348&postcount=15

This spot was for SD finish, so we had more range to work with than 1080 would give you, but the important point here is that cropping into an R3D is a useful technique. And with AE, you can see on the screen how the image is holding up. So try by all means, crop in as far as you like and stop when you think the image doesn't hold up any more.

Sorry, but you finished in SD. That's entirely different to HD when shooting 4k. Of course that gives you more zooming ability, by a very wide margin.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

- First light in RCX, export 4K
- Re-frame in AE, export 1080p
- Secondary CC in Color

 

[jimhare]

Agreed. I once did an SD project where I brought Red footage to about 300%. It was noticeable but acceptable, and saved the project.

The zoom thing is all about comfort level. I think 1:1 looks quite harsh on Red footage and much prefer to massively oversample.

I still shoot 4K for SD release. Sometimes 3K when needed but never 2K, which I try avoid at all costs.

Sorry, but you finished in SD. That's entirely different to HD when shooting 4k. Of course that gives you more zooming ability, by a very wide margin.

 

[D Fuller]

Sorry, but you finished in SD. That's entirely different to HD when shooting 4k. Of course that gives you more zooming ability, by a very wide margin.

Sure it does, but that's not really my point.

My point is that cropping is a useful tool, and you should test and make your decisions based on what you find from the testing. In the end, the spot we did was all done from a 2K output of the R3D in Flame. So we did all that scaling with half of the native resolution. But that was because our tests showed it to be an effective workflow.

Another really important point is that matters a great deal what tool you use for scaling. FCP is really not a good tool for that. AE is at least an order of magnitude better. Flame is also very good. I'm sure there are other good choices, but FCP is not one of them.