RED shoot - BIG discrepancy between on board monitor and downloaded footge

[Bobby Shore]

hey,

 

I just finished a music video on the RED, and there was an issue with the footage that I didn't catch till the end of the shoot. Basically, I think the on-board monitor (which I was using as a reference for color, contrast, etc.) was out of whack, cause after looking at the downloaded footage on the DIT's computer, instead of having the cold cyan cast that i dialed in in-camera, it was actually really warm and contrastier than what appeared on the monitor. More than that, this issue wasn't fully consistent: sometimes shot to shot within the same scene, the cyan look would be there, and the following shot would be crunchy and warm. I metered for exposure rating the camera at 320, and shot in the rec 709 color space. it was all overcast day ext. work.

 

In the end, it's no problem, cause I was able to turn off the grade in RED alert and see that all the info is in the footage. But I want to make sure the director is able to edit with the metadata off so he's not influenced by footage that doesn't look the way it's supposed to. Is there a way he can do that before down-rezzing to a editable format? I know it's more of a post question, but any advice you have would be great. Thanks!

 

Bobby Shore

www.bobbyshore.com

[Phil Rhodes]

The monitoring output on a red is really no more than a framing reference.

 

It attempts to record the full range of the sensor without making any adjustments whatsoever for colour or contrast, notionally exactly so you can make these decisions in post (but also since it allows them to make the camera far cheaper by omitting the required processing electronics). This is the way it is designed to work and you can't force someone, by changing camera settings, to grade it a certain way in post.

 

This is a problem for many electronic camera systems and directors of photography have been known to take quite extreme measures (heavy optical filtration, deliberate screwing around with the downrez'd "cutting copies", &c) to impose their will on the production. At the end of the day there is probably not much you can technically do about it, at least without being pretty irresponsible with respect to how you record the stuff in the first place.

 

Most people's efforts in this regard tend toward ensuring that both the on-set monitoring and any offline stuff that's produced for the edit is as intended and matched.

 

P

[Thomas Dobbie]

I normally open the file in Red Alert and make the basic first light adjustments to get the clip looking the way I want it.This process saves an RSX file to the clip folder.

So long as you don't alter the folder structure you send for post,when the clip is opened again in Red Alert the director will see it with the RSX file applied.

If not,it's a simple process of linking the RSX again to the clip,and at least the director is seeing it the way you intended.

I usually generate proxies for editing with the RSX applied,but of course the editor or colourist can completely change this if they go back to the R3D's.

 

Tom.