Russell Lasson
Forum Replies Created
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[Will Keir] “You sounds like your know your stuff, been editing with RED footage much? “
Our partner production company has a couple of RED cameras that they’ve been using over the past year and a half. We’ve also done post on a bunch of independent projects, some of which we did the digital cinema mastering so they could play in theaters. So about 95% of the projects I’ve worked over the past year have been shot on RED. I’ve been so spoiled that it’s kind of a let down not to have RED RAW files to color with now.
One of the first thing you need to address is the festival requirements for deliver. Do you need to deliver a DCP, HDCAM SR, HDCAM, Blu-ray, or DVD? This will largely dictate the type of workflow that you need.
You’re right about reconnecting to the R3D files for color grading. It amazing how much flexibility you have. I’ve also graded directly from R3D files encoded to ProResHQ. While it’s not a great as the native R3D files, it’s still has less compression and greater color depth than the majority of HD cameras on the market.
Finishing a film in Color with the new FCS3 and ProRes4444 is a great tool set. There are two key points that you need to focus on. First, you need to have a color accurate set up. The display needs to be calibrated or it can mess everything up. Second, you need to have a talented operator. This will make the biggest difference. This doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to send the project to a full time colorist, but it does mean that you should at least be comfortable with whoever does the work that you’re getting the look that you want.
There are several different options for workflows. If you’re considering a Final Cut Studio workflow, I’d strongly suggest reading the RED FCS3 White Paper located on RED’s support website.
At our facility, we finish everything through Scratch. So we process all the RED footage through Clipfinder and edit. When we’re done, we export an EDL for Scratch. It’s a very slick workflow and we really like how well Scratch handles the native R3D files.
[Will Keir] ” I’d love to see samples of your work and the power of the tools I now have. “
I’ll work on getting a reel posted to the cow:)
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
Will,
There are several different ways of working with RED footage. Do you plan to edit using ProResHQ from log and transfer or do you plan do use the native or proxy files? Will you color from the ProRes files or the R3D files?
Generally for video, SAS drives haven’t been a great investment because of the cost. SATA offer good speed and allow for much larger sizes at prices that are much more affordable. It’s always nice to have a RAID to work off of, but when dealing with R3D files, most often times the processing power is the bottleneck.
If the RAID card doesn’t work for you because of Boot Camp, you’re on the right track to look for something else that will do the job.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
[Michael Neuman] “Sure it’s a game changer if you care.. “
It’s apparent that you’re not thrilled about the upgrade.
[Michael Neuman] “I’ve been eyeing Adobe’s offerings for a while because it actually seems like they give a crap about what they are offering to their customers. However I don’t wish to change my whole workflow that I have dedicated myself to (or spend the extra cash) to switch. “
Who said anything about needing to switch? All you need is a program to author Blu-ray. FCS3 will easily fit into any other program that you want to use for it.
DoStudio sounds like a great option. Just run it in Bootcamp on your current mac.
Also, how have you satisfied your clients’ Blu-ray needs in the past? Also, are you delivering Blu-ray for mass duplication or just so your clients can watch it on a Blu-ray player for a presentation or something?
I’ll agree with you that it would have been really cool if we would have seen Blu-ray Studio Pro in this last update. But my guess is that the way that Apple has implemented Blu-ray and DVD burning from Compressor and FCP will satisfy more than 90% of the discs FCP owners need to burn.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
Render manager shows the render files related to each sequence in your project. So if it’s not part of the current sequence, you can dump it.
Also, FCP does a better job at having rendered effects act like clips. So you can duplicate it and move it around, trim it, add a transition without having to re-render the clip.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
[Erik Lindahl] “Very nice! If only we used AVCHD… 😉 “
The only AVCHD camera I use if for home movies! I’ll actually start editing some of those now!
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
Online manual:
https://documentation.apple.com/
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
I love helping people with homework! :
Batch Capture – capture clips as a batch
Scratch Disc – location of the capture scratch folder
Splice Tool – splices an edit
Insert Edit – inserts an edit
Overwrite Edit – overwrites an edit
Selection Tool – selects stuff
Edit Selection Tool – selects your edits
Transitions – transition between clips
Razor Blade Tool – cuts stuff with razor blade icon
Roll Tool – rolls edits longer
Pen Tool – draws stuff
Audio Scrubbing – cleans audio
Match Frame – matches the current frame you’re on
Snapping – makes play head snappy
Render. – a pain in the $#*(Hope that helps!
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
A batch conversion to DV through compressor would work fine. Or use OfflineHD for it. There are several options and running Compressor on an 8-core Mac with multi-core rendering would compress this stuff quite quickly.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
Maybe I can bring some focus on why I even thought to compare the two.
1. HDCAM SR is considered a standard for archiving high-end projects. But the availability of decks in smaller markets is very low. So for independents who still want to master at a high quality, they’ve had to back up DPX files. Now I would consider backing up ProRes 4444 files just as good of a backup. It’s also easier to restore and make dubs of if you don’t have a HDCAM SR. It’s really just a great option for mastering on a budget. For around $3k, someone can buy an LTO-4 drive and backup whatever they want. They can also restore it when ever they want too instead of having to send an HDCAM SR tape out to another facility to get a dub on a $100K+ deck.
2. HDCAM SR has been used in the “poor man’s digital intermediate” in the industry and has proven to be an acceptable workflow. A properly configured ProRes 4444 workflow could create a digital intermediate option that would literally allow the files to be mastered on a single desktop systems using Final Cut Studio. They could do all the editing, effects, titles, and color correction on a single computer without sacrificing any technical quality. This could easily save some money.
NOTE: They still might end up with a crappy looking film depending on who is doing the editing, effects, titles, and color correction! It might be a crappy film regardless depending on the writing, directing and acting! But FCS doesn’t help with that much!
Someone mentioned this conversation being a moot point because studios and networks determine delivery requirements. Of course. Don’t expect them to come out and say that they’re really happy about Apple’s new Final Cut Studio and will now accept non-quality controlled ProRes 4444 files for broadcast. That’s just silly.
But the other two workflows that I’ve mentioned I believe are viable for some independents that have a good technical head on their shoulders.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net -
You might try some of the advanced settings in Compressor.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Colorist/Digital Cinema Specialist
Color Mill
Salt Lake City, UT
http://www.colormill.net