[Angelo Lorenzo]

Currently, the DIT is still a very informal position. For all intent and purpose it replaces the film loading aspect of the second AC, but becomes this amalgam of a camera assistant, colorist, and assistant editor.

I primarily work in all positions of the camera department, but specialize in DIT with RED camera systems. Job duties may include profiling and matching camera color, calibrating monitors on set, backing up footage, processing dailies, initial sync of sound, troubleshooting technical camera issues, and so on.

A DIT bridges the gap between principal photography and editorial.

A DIT on photoshoots may do all of the above plus light retouching or host client reviews.

Smaller shoots may have a DUT, or digital utility tech, whose almost singular purpose is to back up footage and, possibly, take on some asst. editor functions like add metadata or sync sound.

I should say that the IATSE Local 600 has a more narrow definition of a DIT, the position being a part of the camera crew usually relegated to the backup/manipulation/management of visual footage as well as some engineering tasks.

No one is really teaching it and I’ve found that most people slip into it already coming from the camera or editorial department.

https://icolorist.com/library/a-dit-tells-all/ is a nice peek into the work of a high end DIT.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

To expand on Kevin’s answer. Unlike FCP, Premiere is pretty forgiving about format in terms of mixing footage in the same sequence.

Because of this “editing modes” like DSLR are just presets, just a bit deeper than sequence presets themselves.

The preview rendering format doesn’t mean as much because Premiere doesn’t smart render like FCP does. Rendering in the timeline, normally, won’t increase the speed of your final render. The only exception to this is the “use previews” during exporting but these aren’t smart rendered either so you’ll get a generation loss from another cycle of compression. It does save a bit of time when rendering client drafts.

I recall there may be an exception to that, like if you keep your P2 footage all P2 through the course of the project/preview/export but I could be mistaken. I rarely work with AVCHD/P2/XDCAM

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

As an interjection, you can export from Prelude straight to FTP and skip Premiere/Media Encoder entirely.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

So the hierarchy is:


Head (rigged for mouth)_______
|| || ||
Rig_base Rig_Base_src2 Rig_base_src3
|| || ||
Comp 1 Comp 2 Comp 3


You can see that even though you’re copying the rig base, that every copy is still referencing one copy of the “Head” comp. Duplicating the “Rig_Base” comp does not create duplicates of the comps it’s dependent on.

With that logic in mind, the “rig_base” is not the true base. Perhaps “head” needs to be expanded back into “rig_base” for proper usage and full duplication.

It’s a bit hard to find these issues using AE’s flowchart (I don’t know if there is a trick to see more than one comp at a time) but it’s just something you have to be aware of. You can test for dependencies by sticking suspected comps into a single comp to inspect it with the flowchart.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

My recommendation is the traditional 750gig HD as your primary drive because, although the trade off is boot speed, you do want some general storage space once you have apps installed.

I’d then suggest the 128 or 256 SSD dedicated for CS applications temp/scratch folders, especially AE’s global cache.

USB3 isn’t my favorite interface. Make sure you fiddle around in the BIOS settings as there are a few transfer modes for USB3. If this is set incorrectly for your use, you’ll find any external USB3 drive very sluggish for video.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I think you’ll find this link helpful

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/132/861632

This bit especially: “In capture setup [The Matrox driver/hardware settings], you will see an option of “Broadcast” or “Consumer” capture quality. If captures are aborting/dropping frames using Broadcast, try Consumer, which is more forgiving for capturing older analog sources with sync issues and glitches like VHS, 8mm.

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/21/861326
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/150/859185

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Mark it as a 3d layer, create a 3d camera and then move/zoom the 3d camera. This should allow you to keep the image layer’s scale a constant value.

You could, alternately, precomp the image and scale the precomp.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

All a preamp does is raise mic or instrument level to line level. The zoom has an integrated preamp but it should also take a line level from the 1/4″. I don’t particularly like using the phantom power off the Zoom so that’s a situation where I’d use a preamp.

Regardless, a preamp fixes the signal too low problem when you have a signal too high problem.

Here is what I would do: Play some static into your microphone. From the radio or whatever as long as it’s a solid constant volume. Look at the H4N and adjust the input until it hits -12db (arbitrary, you’ll see why in a second). In your sound recording program on Windows, watch your input levels and adjust Windows recording level until it matches what the zoom says. At this point Windows and the H4N are at unity, Windows isn’t adding any gain to the signal.

From there, just concentrate on adjusting the input level on the H4N as you need for each particular person’s voice level.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

Are you using adjustment layers? I’ve had encoding crashes when using transitions like cross fades on them. It’s a place to start.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks

[Angelo Lorenzo]

I didn’t touch on time. I would say benchmark with whatever system you’re going to use as the time could be highly variable. A ballpark figure for an h.264 proxy (we’re going for small size and CS5.5 can handle it) earmark anywhere from a 1:1 to 1:4 ratio: for every hour shot expect 1-4 hours for processing. Super broad, your field unit may have a top of the line new MacBook pro or maybe they have an older MBP or an MacBook air… regardless I would say “overnight” is a good way of planning for it. If you shoot in the morning then expect mid or late evening same day.

——————–
Angelo Lorenzo

Need to encode ProRes on your Windows PC?
Introducing ProRes Helper, an awesome little app that makes it possible
Fallen Empire Digital Production Services – Los Angeles
RED transcoding, on-set DIT, and RED Epic rental services
Fallen Empire – The Blog
A blog dedicated to filmmaking, the RED workflow, and DIT tips and tricks