Spencer Pharr will be producing and directing a new upcoming short titled “Sawed-Off” during the first week of May and asked me to sign on to the project as their editor. Spencer gave me some RED footage to play with in order to understand and choose a workflow for his film. This will be my first post-production gig dealing with the RED workflow. I’ve been reading up on a lot of workflow types with RED and I think I found one that I am happy with. Since I have a Dual 2.8Ghz Quad-Core MacPro with 8GB of RAM, I’ll be going with the following workflow:
Workflow: Work and Finish Using REDcode in Final Cut Pro
This workflow consists of working in Final Cut Pro with transferred RED QuickTime clips from the very beginning, eliminating the transcoding step completely. In other words, I won’t be converting any of the raw footage into Apple ProRes 422. Allow me to explain the advantages and disadvantages of this workflow.
• Advantage - This is an efficient workflow that skips the need for transcoding, and gives you access to high-quality image data when you grade in Color. Ingesting RED QuickTime media is fast when compared to transcoding. This is a good workflow for projects such as short films and commercial spots.
• Disadvantage - RED QuickTime media is processor-intensive when editing.
As I mentioned above, I have a pretty good MacPro computer and after a few tests with the RED footage in Final Cut Pro and Color, I’m happy to report that I have had no problems with this workflow.
RED NATIVE Edit Option
Color Correction Options
After ingesting the RED footage through Log & Transfer and giving it an overall color correction (there are 5 options), I put a short sequence together and sent it off to Color. What makes this workflow amazing is that all of the metadata transfers with the RED footage from FCP to Color. You now have control and can process your very own unique film look!
The RED camera writes raw, linear light image data to the R3D files that are recorded. The controls found in the RED camera’s Audio/Video menus in no way alter the way the image data is written within each R3D file. Instead, whatever settings were chosen at the time are stored within each recorded clip as metadata that determines how these media files are displayed.
This metadata can be overridden during the Log and Transfer process. For clips that were imported with native color metadata, the RED tab provides access to the clip Color, Color Temp, and View metadata originally written by the RED camera. However, this metadata can also be overwritten during ingest using a custom color processing option in the Log and Transfer window (1 of the 5 options I mentioned above).
RED metadata in Color
Changes to RED metadata
My Own Look in Color
These parameters are provided so that you can begin grading each clip in the state at which it was originally monitored during the shoot, or at which it was ingested using the Log and Transfer window.
Below you will find the process I went through for each of these clips. They began as RAW and Unprocessed, then were given an overall color correction when ingested into Final Cut Pro, then Color was used to get the desired look.
Unproccessed Image from RED Camera
Daylight Correction given in Final Cut Pro
Final Color Correction given in Apple Color
Unprocessed Image from RED Camera
Daylight Correction given in Final Cut Pro
Final Color Correction given in Apple Color
The RED camera and its workflow are the perfect marriage between the Film world and the Digital world. My brother Octavio shot on film awhile back in film school and can see the similarities between this and having your film sent off to be processed with a different color/look. These days though, you need to think at the speed of thought, and the RED camera and RED workflow are opening so many new possibilities that one has to wonder if this is the new path for indie filmmakers.
Yes, indie filmmakers have been happy shooting SD and HD these past few years, but with the innovation that RED is bringing to the table, its only a matter of time before all indie filmmakers step it up a notch.
If you would like to see the Uncompressed images from above, download them here:
Download RAW RED Images Zip file
One element of the Native workflow that you’re missing here is that you can do your one-light in RedAlert. When you save an RLX file in RedAlert in the Presets bin (which is the default setting, it shows up in your L&T window along with those other choices (native, tungsten, daylight, sepia, etc.)
Doing your one-light in RA is a much better, non-destructive option than correcting in FCP. Depending on your project, it can be a lot faster, too.
The Native workflow is a wonderful tool. Thanks for the article.
But what if you’re cutting a feature and don’t have the luxury of basically “onlining” as you go…
Plus, what if your DP is insisting on coloring at a facility that requires DPX files to work in?
Not trying to be contrarian - just asking how you’d solve those problems? Thanks…
If you don’t have the luxury of onlining as you go, then I would suggest you use RED ALERT and transcode to a format you can edit. Apple ProRes 422 is pretty good about that. You can read more about that work flow in the RED Whitepaper on their website. Remember that your editing 2K-4K size files, so you need a pretty beefy system with alot of hard drive space. If you don’t have those tools, then I think your shooting with a format that is a little out of your price range. Try something like DVCPROHD or AVC-INTRA.
Ah, another thing that just happened to me recently. I met up with the Director and DP of our upcoming project SAWED OFF and had to explain to the DP how the Final Cut Pro to COLOR process works and that we wouldn’t be touching any of the meta data until picture lock. COLOR can also export DPX files as well if you are going to a film print. Ultimately however, it is always up to the Director to choose a workflow that will best suit him and the production.
As you can see with those pictures above, the RED shoots RAW Images so the DP no longer has the power to give his own look, but rather, it falls on the Director, Editor, or Colorist who can choose the look of the film thanks to everything being digital.