Twenty398

NAB is right around the corner, here’s a nice map that shows you all the booths with potential RED interest. My book is in there as well. Grab it here: http://www.perfectpictures.ca/NABMap/NAB2010FKB-MAPmedium.pdf

Jay A. Kelley produced (and stars in *the red 101 dvd – it’s quite comprehensive and a good starting point if you like an audio / visual way of learning. *Jay is a super early red one adopter that works with his camera professionally on a regular basis, He really knows the gear and how to use it.

It’s not meant to be a learning tool for those already well versed in the camera (although it’s a good refresher for those like me that work with the camera in some fashion almost every day) It’s well designed and executed to give you the run down of the camera, its functionality, the menu structure etc. * It covers how to set up projects and use the internal tools of the red one to expose the camera, set up the camera for various styles of shooting for different types of projects and deliverables and a number of other needed areas of learning to be ready to get great results from your red one shooting.

The dvd covers quite a lot of info, and Jay is on camera talking to you for a lot of the video – His homespun style is fun and enjoyable, it’s not a a flat, boring instructional dvd – he’s got lots of his personality weaved in there. *I would recommend taking watching it in small to medium sized chunks, and not watching it all in one sitting, while having the red one operations manual as a reference point to review each section that’s covered (a free download here: *http://www.red.com/support)

Jay covers the red pretty much from all angles to get you primed and ready to shoot, and a bunch of 3rd party gear as well. *Note that red did not have a hand in producing this, so there are some things in his video we may not totally agree with (different opinions on certain things is what makes life interesting), but overall I wouldn’t recommend it if if didn’t do a good job handling the material and covering what is needed to make the right choices when jumping into red, which it does very well.

For more info, please visit:

http://www.red101dvd.com/order/

Noah Kadner helps us unravel the mysteries of the Red camera. What is Red? What makes it so great? And will it work in your workflow? Find out with Noah Kadner. Dan talks about Noah’s book “RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera” written for Peachpit Press.

http://www.workflowjunkies.com/2009/09/24/episode-18-red-rules-with-noah-kadner/

I’ve just launched a new blog focusing on DSLR-Cinematography:

DSLR Cinematography is the blog for news, reviews and tutorials about digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras. These are the latest and greatest cameras capable of shooting high definition video using high-quality still camera lenses at frame rates like 30p and 24p. We’ll look at digital cameras from Nikon, Canon, Panasonic and more.

Digital SLR cameras are an intriguing hybrid between digital still cameras and high definition video cameras. They allow you to achieve cinematic shallow depth of field and expressive cinematography at relatively low prices. These cameras include the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 7D, the Nikon D90 and D300S and the Panasonic GH1 and DMC-GF1.

In addition to news and reviews you’ll also read exclusive interviews with professional cinematographers and photographers shooting digital stills and video at the same time with their DSLRs. So grab your camera and let’s get shooting.

So head on over to http://www.dslr-cinematography.com/ for a sneak peek.

As readers of RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera know, we have a printed version of the RED ONE’s menu map in an appendix. As time marches on, Scott Jones of XL Films has updated his map for Build 20. (And we just got 21 a couple of days ago!) We’re always playing catchup! To download it head over to this link:

http://www.xlfilms.tv/2008/shared_images/XL_Red_Menus_Build20.pdf

RED released Build 21 of the RED ONE firmware today. This is a big one, enabling 4.5K resolution and REDCODE 42! Of course I recommend carefully testing this release before using it on a full production. You get the following:

* Addition of 4.5K WS (Widescreen 4480 × 1920 pixel) RESOLUTION recording setting.

* Addition of REDCODE 42 QUALITY setting for 4.5K WS, 4K 2:1, 4K ANA, 4K HD record resolutions.

* Addition of VIEW mode indicator, vmRAW / vm709 / vmRSP, in upper GUI status row.

* Addition of Video Genlock for HD-SDI PVW output(s) when GENLOCK selected in SENSOR menu.

* Enhancement of USER PROFILE function.

So head on over and look for the Beta build release here:

http://www.red.com/support

da Vinci should be on your radar for two reasons- they support RED and they are makers if incredibly expensive, high-end color grading suites most of us will never be able to afford to sit in. And yet they just got bought up by bargain video card maker, Blackmagic Design. My question is- will this mean greatly reduced prices on Davinci software in the future? Or is this just good news for the high end post houses that can already afford them? A few words from BMD head, Grant Petty on the purchase:

In reality, I cannot believe we have purchased such as legendary brand, and one of the things that totally blew my mind when I first started in post production as an engineer way back in 1988 was the color grading room with a DaVinci. The image on the monitor was such incredible quality, I just stood there staring speechless. It was amazing. Now we have our opportunity to care for the DaVinci name, and it’s exciting but a little terrifying too! We have some big standards to live up to, but we want to exceed what people expect.

Read more at fxguide:

http://www.fxguide.com/qt/1448/blackmagic-buys-davinci-confirmed

RED has released an ‘Alpha’ preview of their REDCINE-X grading application and it’s a winner. Designed as a replacement for both RED Alert! and REDCINE, REDCINE-X combines the functionality of both applications while taking huge strides forward in usability and speed.

What I Like:

User Interface: the big boys of editing could learn a thing or two from this. I was able to load, grade and export a clip a minute after firing it up for the first time. With no instructions at all. It’s just that intuitive.

Play bin in media by hovering mouse- again another one of those things you see in the high-end software that is just something you want in all of your editing apps.

Auto-Scan for R3D- this is what computers are meant to do, find your footage wherever it is on the hard drive so you don’t have to.

Performance: On my 2 X 3 Ghz Quad Mac Pro with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 I could play and grade with decent performance up to 1/2 resolution. This rocks and saves you a lot of time. Expect to see much higher performance if you have a REDRocket card installed.

What I Don’t Like:
Runs only as a full screen application. This means you can’t have it in a floating window with other applications at the same time. I realize this is for performance sake, but it’s less practical when you want to have several other apps going as you grade. At least the dock stays visible and Apple-H hides REDCINE-X as it should.

Still an Alpha, this app is useful and much-needed, so here’s to RED’s engineering team getting it up to full production speed and stability asap.

To check out REDCINE-X on your own system, try out this link:

http://redgrabs.com/REDCINE-X_ALPHA1.zip

(It’s Mac-only for now but a Windows version is promised at some point.)

Noah’s RED book has received its first review and it’s a nice one from Steve Sherrick, a longtime REDuser and fellow blogger. Here’s an excerpt:

If you have never heard of the RED One, also known as R1, well you will definitely want to pick up Noah’s book and read it from cover to cover at least 2 or 3 times. It will get you up to speed in a hurry. If you have heard of it but never actually used the camera, the book will answer many of the questions you may have and provide you with enough information to feel comfortable to take the camera out and shoot with it. If you are an experienced Red user, well, there’s still a lot you can pick up on in this book as not only does it cover the basics of operating, but gets into the details of data management, postproduction, and how to integrate audio.

For the rest of the review, follow this link:

http://www.redfilmmaker.com/2009/08/red-ultimate-guide-to-using.html

This blog has been a little quiet for 2009, due to my hard work writing the first and only book on the RED camera. RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera is finally done and available now! From the official press release:

“With the release of the RED ONE™ digital cinema camera, the possibility of recording stunning, cinematic-quality images with an affordable camera became a reality. Now that the industry has embraced the nascent technology and added new tools and workflows, filmmakers—from independents on up—are leading the charge on establishing new rules.

Here to guide newcomers and RED veterans alike, popular trainer and filmmaker Noah Kadner picks up where the manual leaves off. You’ve got the basic operations down and now you’ll learn how to use the camera in a production environment and discover the various options in post. Using a clear, objective approach, he offers best-practice advice on utilizing RED’s proprietary tools, explains the workflows for Final Cut Studio, Avid, and Premiere Pro, and gives workaround solutions where needed. Well-known filmmakers and industry leaders share their own bleeding-edge production methodologies throughout, offering a rare view into this exciting new world of filmmaking.

Here are just a few things you’ll learn to do:
•Build a RED package that fits your budget
•Set up for sound recording and learn which audio tools to use
•Achieve the optimal exposure using RED’s onboard tools and external gear
•Edit your footage with step-by-step instructions for Avid, Final Cut Pro, and Premiere Pro
•Work color correction into your HD, film, or Web projects
•Prep your project for output and archive your footage
•Learn from pros such as Rodney Charters, ASC (DP, 24), Simon Duggan, ACS (DP,Knowing), Albert Hughes (Director, The Book of Eli), and many others using RED”

For more info, visit the book’s homepage here:
http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321617681

To order direct from Amazon, visit this link:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321617681?ie=UTF8&tag=callboxlive-20

Here’s a little piece from DVICE.com:

The SCI FI Channel’s Sanctuary is the first television series in North America to be shot entirely on the revolutionary RED One camera. The crew up in Vancouver, BC, were kind enough to show DVICE how the camera’s insane resolution and tapeless recording system let them keep all their work in the digital domain — and at four times the resolution of HD.

Video and more after the jump:

http://dvice.com/archives/2009/01/how_the_red_one.php

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Here’s a nice little piece from Digital Facility on PlasterCITY Digital Post’s RED Workflow, which they’ve been perfecting ever since the camera first came out. Here’s a quote from owner, Michael Cioni:

“We’re seeing a lot of production companies and DPs make use of the RED camera because of image quality, compact design, cinema lenses and overall lower costs. RED footage makes up a significant portion of our work,” says Cioni. “As early adopters, we’ve worked closely with the RED team to design and deliver powerful end-to-end tapeless and tape-based workflows. SCRATCH is the ideal post tool for RED footage because it’s the only software that can deliver real time results of color grading, down-converting and window-burn dailies from a soft-mounted firewire drive.”

For the rest of the story click HERE.

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Preparing the timeline, but first…

As this will be a shorter post, I’ll start with a small digression:
Since my last post, the Adobe workflow is out, and I am hangin’ in here with Color and FCP for this project…. What old news one can feel like

After reading up a bit on the Adobe thingy, I think I may as well just stay here a wee bit longer than I thought, though. Seems you cannot get access to the metadata with the Adobe plugin yet. If that’s a fact, then the gain is that you by now can do about the same thing with Adobe as you have been able to since the release of R1 in FCP… But in ”real” 4k. + hangs and crashes.

Seems to me Apple and Adobe have received separate pieces of the RED cake. Apple got metadata control. Adobe got full debayer and resolution. If this is true, you are stuck with the metadata from the cam on the shoot. In that case I’ll still be doin’ my FCP thingy for quite a while.

I do miss full debayer and 4k. Badly (More on that in part 3 of this small series). But not having control over exposure and kelvin is even more scary.

Enough! To the subject @ hand

My project was 9 videotracks high with all kind of speedchanges and a couple of simple comps. I had 4k 16:9 (stock), 4k 2:1 and 3k 2:1.

I sent all cuts down to one videotrack – except for 3k, composites and extreme lowlight shots.
Then made a copy of my timeline to prepare for Color, selected all, rightclicked and chose ”remove attributes.
… and simply ”Send to Color” to see which shots got the repeat frame bug

I spent some time to L&T multiclip shots. To make a long story short:
That’s rather quick compared to developing DPXs, but it feels very unnecessary…

When I had that done, I read that one could edl the timeline out of FCP to Color to avoid the repeat frame bug. Someone needs credit for experimental fantasy!

I’ll just mention one thing, if you choose to follow my work-intensive route: If there’s a spanned shot in there, you can randomly get he bug in both the shot immediately before and the one immediately after.

So here’s a solution for the more effective person… ☺

Thanks to Luca Immesi
1 Shoot 4k/2k 16:9
2 Make your edit in fcp with P or M proxies
3 export the EDL
4 make a new color project
5 import the edl
6 put the right frame rate, resolution (what ever you want), files path
7 resize the clips in the geometry room
8 enjoy

Update2! So I tried with b17 4k spanned files, it works smooth! Also I experimented exporting an xml from fcp and importing into color, it works fine but I noticed a better playback in color with edl method than xml.
But for people can’t load the edl they can try exporting the xml and importing in color.

I haven’t yet tested this myself, but it sorta makes sense (going into conspiracy mode here on how Apple prefers their buggy XMLs over good ole’ EDLs. Self-censorship won! ☺ )

Next:
Preparing the shots that needed reframing, compositing and scaling…
I’ll write a separate post on my thoughts on developing low noise images from RED RAW for grading. BUT that’s not for now.

The important thing is that I had to run 34 out of 142 cuts this way.
Short story is: Despite hassles by having to do this @ all, I saved a lot of time ☺.

The remaining 108 cuts could have been transferred in one batch through an edl. This starts to sound like RED bliss. (Cliffhanger sound…)

As part of this project is to find out whether the new Color workflow holds up against developing DPXs, I have duplicates of some of the ”problem” or suspected problematic shots. Mostly low-light
I feel very comfortable with developing the RAW files and grading AJA wrapped DPXs in Color by now. But will the new workflow hold up? (drum-roll and answer on thursday ☺)

Cheers!
Gunleik

This is part 2 of 3 in a first series of posts.The first is here.

More random observations working with RED and Premiere CS4. Some of these might be obvious issues for folks who work with Premiere all day long, for me it’s been a while. Now on the Quad Core with 4GB of RAM(still below the reported min requirements but this is more machine than most folks have already).

1- Performance needs to be tuned carefully. Got a nice little G-RAID feeding footage and still seeing a lot of dropped frames with all quality settings set to defaults. With resolution set to Quarter, Quality to Medium, Chroma DeNoise Off, Debayer set to Leading Lady(might want to change that to something a bit more understandable in terms of quality) and OLPF Compensation off- I get nice smooth frame rates and the footage looks pretty solid.

2- 16:9 Performance suffers a bit more. 16:9 has always been a problem for REDCode playback because it doesn’t scale nicely down from 4K the way 2:1 does.

3- Load times for complex projects can be long. I’ve got one project with about 2 hours worth of .R3D files that takes forever to load if it loads at all. It’s a little scary to see the progress bar sit there at almost loaded, forever.

4-The unsupported format warning is a little bit annoying. Essentially you drag your entire RED folder into CS4’s project window for a quick import. It sorts through, pulls out the .R3D and ignores the other files in the folders, such as the digital magazine profiles. However it then complains about these being unsupported formats. The option to never warn me about this again would be greatly appreciated.

5-Spanned clips are not marked. For example, if I have one long take that the camera split into several .R3D files, each shows up in the project as a separate clip. It’s smart enough to join them back into a single take but it would be more useful to automatically either- only import the first .R3D of a spanned take or make an obvious note in the project window that a clip is spanned.

6- It seems reasonably easy to crash CS 4.0.1. For example if I have one clip open and I bring up another and scrub through it that will give me a SPOD and then hang. Brings back those somewhat scary memories of the old Premiere which I spent years on and battled crashes and hangs every step of the way… but this is different. Right? More later….

Technorati Tags:
24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

Been working a little more with RED in CS4. I had a little bit of trouble exporting a finished RED edit. I’m now updating the Adobe Media Encoder CS4 now, which should hopefully do the trick.

Scott Simmons is on the case as well with some more in-depth tests and performance analysis with Adobe CS4’s new native RED .R3D plugin which you can check out here.

http://www.scottsimmons.tv/blog/2008/12/11/kicking-the-tires-on-r3d-editing-in-premiere-pro/

Scott also provided a nice link to Adobe’s Dave Helmly who has a 30-minute video and text description of the best workflow practices. It looks like Adobe has its eye on being out front with the RED post workflow and it’s a very welcome development. Grab a coffee and then check it all out here.

http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/2008/12/native_red_camera_files_cs4.html

And to back up a bit, here’s an older post from Studio Daily looking at a beta version of the plugin and its potential implications last summer.

http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=622

along with their current update:

http://www.studiodaily.com/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=756

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24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

So I’ve spent the last evening and morning playing with the new RED native .R3D plugin for Adobe Premiere CS4. Some initial observations:

1- It actually works as advertised, drag drop and edit .R3D. I’m sure some serious magic is happening behind the scenes but it is one of those holy grail moments.

2- Performance is slow. Here’s the min requirements:

Minimum System Requirements
3.0 GHz Quad core system with 8GB RAM
Hard drive with 40MB/sec sustained throughput is required; RAID striped array recommended
Windows Vista 64 Service Pack 1 or Mac OS 10.5
Premiere Pro 4.0.1 update
After Effects 9.0.1 update

Now I’m running this on a 2.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM and I can load .R3Ds, hit play and see stuff. Playback loses frames and ultimately freezes(though not crashing). It’s about the same as you get in FCP working from the M proxies on this sort of machine.

3- The Global RED decoding settings are a little clunky to call up- requiring a right-click on a .R3D clip where a System Preferences pane would be more apropos. But that’s a minor nitpick.

Next up I’m working on the 3Ghz Quad Core Mac Pro we have sitting here. I’ll expect to see performance take a big leap with any luck….

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24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

An exciting moment for the RED workflow world- native support for .R3D files has arrived. So don’t just stand there. If you’ve got Premiere CS4 for Mac or PC, go get it.

http://www.red.com/support/index

Provides native REDCODE media (R3D) support for Premiere Pro CS4 (4.0.1 and later) and After Effects CS4 (9.0.1 and later). Includes: REDCODE importer (v1.3.0), After Effects Settings Dialog and workflow guide. Note: Supports RED ONE cameras up through Build 18.

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24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native

Loyal blog readers, we hear you loud and clear on the recent poll- you want more workflow stories on Twenty398.com. So this is your chance to make requests in the comments. Let us know some specifics, what do you want to know more about? The Final Cut Studio workflow? Avid? Color? Scratch? Crimson Workflow? RED Cine? Working with DPX files? Please sound off on the comments and tell us what you’re curious about and we’ll get to work!

Here’s the mission:
Cut a 7 minutes short (While Waiting… Facebook group here, Teaser here. Reduser discussion here.) in FCP and finish in Color with the new RAW workflow.
Deliver DCP master with Compressors Quvis Wraptor plugin

Sounds pretty simple really!
Cut. Send to Color. Grade. Render. Send to compressor. Cinema bliss. That’s what it says on the package, right?

Well, if this workflow really works that well, I’ll be sure to report!

But I have a hunch there’s a couple of hurdles along the way. I would love to be proven wrong.

I’ll first walk you through what’s been done thus far.

The short was shot over a week, this summer in Norway. Principal photo was Ingri Fjestad. All shot on RED One, most in B16, a couple of night shots with B15. (Yes. I know that’s odd, but that’s how it is). The cam was natively ballanced throughout most of the shoot (5600k/320ASA) to get the metering right.

All but the same night shots were shot on an old set of Cooke Speed Panchros. The 18mm was vignetting like a real over-done post FX.
The night shots were shot on ARRI/ZEISS ultra-primes.

Mostly it was shot in 4k 2:1, but there are 3k shots in there.There’s also a couple of simple composites in there, and primary delivery is 2048×858 DCP.

I cut the piece from the M proxies. When the Color workflow emerged, I re-conformed the cut to H proxies with Hans Georg Dauns excellent Clipfinder, and have just recently locked the cut.

More after the jump… › Continue reading

Adobe has made no secret of their intention to natively support .R3D files directly in Premiere CS4. It looks like they’ve taken a step closer with the release of Premiere 4.0.1 with that ability supported. The one piece of the puzzle missing is the actual plugin from RED itself that’s necessary to complete the picture. Soon? Details from Studio Daily.

Native RED R3D support: Both Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 version 4.0.1 and Adobe After Effects CS4 version 9.0.1 provide a true file-based workflow for RED R3D files, without transcoding or rewrapping, via RED’s beta plug-in available at www.red.com/support. Native handling of RED R3D augments Adobe’s existing support of Sony XDCAM EX, Panasonic P2, and AVCHD tapeless formats, providing users with software-only HD workflows from capture to output. In addition to downloading the RED plug-in, customer must update their software to Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 version 4.0.1 and Adobe After Effects CS4 version 9.0.1, accessible for free throughout the Adobe update manager in the Help menu of the applications. To learn more about RED workflows with Adobe video solutions go to: www.adobe.com/products/premiere/pdfs/red_adobe_cs4_beta.pdf

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24p, 4K, adobe, os x, RED, windows, premiere, native