Keith Mottram

you could use 1.33x hawks on a super 16mm as well i assume?

Budget Mac based solution is as follows: Use Macpro with internally raided hard drives plus kona 3 card. take dpx files and wrap them with ajaDPX tool. use compressor to make hd pro res files. edit in fcp. reconform from wrapped dpx files. send to color. grade. send to fcp. export different formats for viewing/ put onto film.

I think all you yanks should learn how to apologise, not apologize, then we'll get round to the fact that the subprime mortgage crisis which started this mess originated in the states and does indeed **(obscenity removed)** europe in the ass- which is indisputable, but the blame falls to the corrupt banking system rather than american individuals...

was there any noticable difference between 2 perf 2.35 and 3 perf 2.35? thanks, Keith

I do not know why you would want to work linear, get your tests into a decent grading suite and you'll quickly see the benefits to shooting log...

As I said that I've worked on, so I cannot compare with the f35 or the genesis. though i have had a play with the f23. The D21's motion does feel more natural to me, less clinical. The venom/arri flashmag is very expensive and in on our shoot not particularly reliable- we had a number of problems with it. In many ways it is too simple to use. We lost a number of shots without warning and with no way of finding out why due to the simplicity of the mag. It feels a little bit homemade to be honest. We dumped the flashmag onto SR, which is really the only practical way to use it. I suppose if you were shooting to S2 or something like that you could dump it to another hard disk. The mags running time is less than ten minutes I think, would have to ask the DIT for more info.

I'm just stunned that you need two and a half weeks to edit a video! By the end of the last season I was editing an entire episode of Live From Abbey Road in under two weeks. Is your editor Steven Hawking?

Hi Max, Is that the case on hawk zooms aswell? Keith

D21 is the only digital camera that has filmic motion that I've worked with. The lattitude is also the best of the digital footage that I've cut and when it does clip it has a nice fall off. but for me it is the way it renders motion that makes it special. that and the fact that it uses flashmags which are special in the retarded sense of the word.

I no have ideas your what posts bout. one any else?

that was about the only way i could be forced through the door- i had to imagine it was a tech recky. unfortunately it didn't inspire confidence (i am working on a d21 feature at moment). i have seen d21 filmout tests that we've done that looked great, but we are shooting 1.185 (matted 1080p) and boy does that extra resolution help. The heavy grade they used made it harder to judge but the wide shots looked terrible. loosing 20% of your vertical res and then mashing that image across a big screen (i watched it in a vue in cardiff where we are based at mo) left me and my friend, who watched it with me (and now owes me big time), with eye strain- at least i think that was what caused it as there were a number of other posibilities.... the picture was often noisy as well and reminded me of a s16 2.35 blow up. but as i said earlier there are a number of factors that made the image what it is, and the d21 filmouts i have seen for the film i'm working on are pretty much indestinguishable from a high quality 2k scan to filmout. keith

2tb of storage is not enough if you want to work uncompressed. I am recieving about 40- 50gb a day of 1080p pro res on a feature that i'm working on. roughly an hour of footage a day. Facotr in an uncompressed conform and you can see how you will need more. why dont you put 4tb in your mac?

you cant. there is no unsqueeze on the red monitor. you will need to use a transvideo monitor or similar.

Or rocknrolla or whatever the hell it is named... Okay to save you the hassle of going and seeing this I did it for you. Now I don't want everyone to pat me on the back or anything but this is the most charitable thing I have done in years. I would also like to point out that the only reason I went was because my house mate had two friends appearing in the film and felt that she needed to see it incase they asked her (she'd already failed to go to two screenings). Anyway it was possibly the worst film I have ever seen. I have tried to think of a worse one and admitedly I have a fondness for Plan 9 From Outer Space, but this was worse. Way worse. It was poorly written, terribly directed, woefully edited, hell even the sound was poop- they couldn't be arsed to loop some obvious lines. I have to ask A: what was the point and B: should we be worried that this was number one in the UK box office- I mean should social services be involved or something? It played like a load of shitly sketched ideas (written drunk/ and or stoned) that were then bashed against each other, threaded with an excruciatingly poor voice over and mixed up with a mcguffin that george lucas would be ashamed of. I should also admit that I walked out after just over an hour. Please do not go. I have warned you all.

Hi you are going about this the wrong way round, offline then color correct not color correct then offline. you need to use gluetools or aja dpx or bm dpx converter to wrap the dpx into qts then you will probably want to chuck those qts into compressor for offline editing proxies. once you have done your cut you will then relink to your original dpx files and color correct. keith

your being sarcastic right?

WHY ARE YOU WRITING THIS POST IN CAPS. IT DOES NOT MAKE YOUR POINT ANY CLEARER. actually what the hell are you talking about. cineform is a codec. crimson is an xml conversion programme.

the d21 is the most film like camera i have seen, filmout tests to me do not look different to a high quality 2k scan of 100 asa footage. the cliping is better when it clips. and the lattitude means that a good dp should be able to sort that out. if you haven't worked with the d21 then you shouldn't right it off.

If you are going down this route then the monitor to get is the HP dreamworks monitor, the colour accuracy is stunning and not to far from the likes of a cinetal (I actually prefer it as am not fond of the noise cinetal generates in the blacks). it is cheap as chips for such a good monitor. if you are going diy the trick is to hold as much info as possible in your final grade as you will need to tweak for film output and this cannot be done in your bedroom. Keith

David, thank you so much for this detailed explanation and being so generous with your time. It makes interesting reading and the ALE section is of course very relevent and answers why log and transfer makes sense as far as meta data is concerned with FCP. Of course ALE's are simple files and if we're honest a bit crap as far as there limitations compared to say XML, but simplicity is so often the best way (especially in light of the complications of using a red in the first place). I am also a little confused as to what they mean by Avid EDL. The problem with reconforming with SR and FCP is interesting, as the TC would be on the SR tape after popping out of the scratch, as would the audio with whatever route that is used. So if everything is logged correctly then I am unsure why FCP would be a problem with this route. A guess is that there is problem reconforming if the TC is not unique on the clips, but this can happen with traditional film transfers as well. Finally it is simple to use DPX files in FCP it is just uses up a lot of storage. Either way I am sure glad that I'm not involved with any red post at the moment. Thanks again and when I get a chance I'm going to investigate this further. take care, Keith

i think there are a lot of old gits who still cannot get there heads round computers. I'm being facetious, but i'm sure there were people who moaned that word processors would kill the art of writing. computers seem scary to some people and when they have to rely on someone half their age to manipulate 'their' work the get scared and mourn the loss of the dudes that were older than them in the white coats. i've got nothing against john bailey, but lets be honest he started shooting thirty odd years ago when few people had a computer and if they did it was less powerful than a modern cell phone. people relax. do you really think deakins should be denied tools because they have a computer chip in them? besides like i always say if you really want 'reality' avoid the cinema and sit in woolworths for two hours.

Not saying they're lying about the time it takes to do the log and transfer in FCP, just saying that with regards to SR workflow it is irrelevant whether the NLE is Avid or FCP. Whatever process they use to create SR versions for editorial would be the same whether the edit is done on Avid, FCP or any other SDI capable NLE. With regards to working in ProRes from SR you can digitise straight to this codec (this is what will be happening with D21 footage or Genesis footage into FCP), with Avid it is the same- you would digitise straight to Avid DNX or whatever. To get the rushes in, the choice currently is log and transfer to FCP or use Scratch to play the files out onto tape (and then digitise into whatever NLE editorial want to use)- so why Avid is brought up is either ignorance or nonsense. That is the point. Its not like post houses don't fib on a day by day basis, whether they are fibbing for ease of explanation (a white lie) or intentionally changes from fib to fib/ lie to lie. I've never worked with (or for) a post house that doesn't work on a need to know basis and with that in mind it is possible that they saw the Avid alternative as the way to give you the simplest explanation. best, Keith

Hi David, I cannot fathom this explanation. Both Avid and FCP are NLE's which can ingest HD from SR, neither of which can digitise from SR faster than realtime. So why on earth would they tell you that it would be faster to use Avid. I can only think because they can find a way of charging you more and by saying "Avid" they think that a producer would accept a premium. The SR workflow I would assume would be to play out the Red files with Scratch onto SR (or any other TC encodable tape) for editorial/ rushes. I would seriously worry about a post house that is happy to talk such trousers. best, Keith

Hi Phil, Urm, am I one of the " people who are currently trying to do it."? do you think I am habituated to a film/tape workflow? Because I am quite capable of handling an all data work flow if I wanted to. I just don't. It's not necessary and although I was simplistic in my workflow explanation, my workflow knowledge itself is not simplistic. On this production we have one of the best DITs about and a DOP who is very enthusiastic about digital production. We also have a supportive producer and director. So it is my choice. And it is a legitimate choice. I have weighed up the pros and cons and guess what SR was the best way for this production to go. We are not shooting film and we are shooting data. We are just archiving it to tape. Which we would have if we were shooting to codex or s2. The difference being that we are archiving to SR on set in realtime, rather than running tape backups after the shoot every night. As I also said we are shooting direct to ProRes HD at the same time. I really don't understand why you feel this is a bad decision. Yes there is compression when going to SR but nothing that is unnaceptable in my opinion and nothing that I feel is detremental. best Keith

Hi I'm prepping post for a D21 feature currently. The shoot is going to be 4:4:4 LOG 1920x1080 to SR1, with single link 4:2:2 1920x1080 from the SR1 to macbooks via AJA IO HD for editorial in ProRes- these editing rushes will have baked in filmout Truelight LUTs. The film will then be conformed at 10bit uncompressed and graded on a Baselight. Steadicam will be shot to Flashmags and then dumped to SR1. I am hoping to do a data test, but am not sure whether this is going to be possible. Very early on it was decided that any benefits of shooting data would be negated by extra back up hassle, untested workflow etc- especially as the film is in 1.85 aspect. I am going to be looking at filmouts next week, so will let you know what my opinion is and what differences I can notice between images from the D20 and D21. Keith