Monsters Workflow

Over half of the movie has been shot now and I have a load of great footage from a lot of different cameras. The a-cam was a Red MX but we also carefully shot on 5Ds, 7Ds and an EX1. And to add to that list, all the sound is dual system meaning it was recorded onto a separate recorder.

To deal with sound, Tim Dutton synced timecode as time of day with the Red and if another camera was running, shot a plate of the slate running for several seconds as well. At first I was looking at editing completely inside Premiere Pro CS5 to take advantage of the Mercury engine and its ability to work with almost anything in realtime inside a single timeline. The tests were great but the thing that still is a big bother with Premiere is its a pain to deal with dual system sound. Also, I might get to work with an editor and he's mainly a FCP guy. I batted around a number of ideas on getting a workflow that really protected the footage and transcoding was not really an option for me.

I've had Cineform for a long time and have had a love-hate relationship with it for years. I've used it on a number of other jobs but never really found a great way to take advantage of it. They've added major updates over the last year including a program called Firstlight. What Firstlight will give you is the ability to grade nondestructively a first look onto your footage. You can also load in .look files from Iradas Speedgrade. I'm trying out the trial for that right now. It's an amazing little program.

After testing tonight and seeing how Cineform is able to virtually rebuild the crappy h264 movs from the 5D and 7D and also closely protect the RAW data in RED files, I think I'm settled on a workflow. So here it is:

CONVERT
All footage will be converted into Cineform 444 and 422 DI files. From there I can build a Firstlight database and apply a LUT and basic grade to all the footage to give it an initial look. The active metadata inside each file applies the look in realtime. From there, I can ship the footage over onto the Mac and convert it into Prores files for editing. The look will bake into the files. Pretty cool to be able to edit with something like the final grade applied.

EDIT
In FCP, I can sync sound with Pluraleyes and replace the audio tracks quickly. Then the fun can start with actually making the movie. Once its done, I can ship out an XML file and copy the Prores files over to my PC to online in Premiere. From here I can reconform the footage back to the Cineform files. I can also link back up to the native Red files too if need be - and most likely will. Audio can ship out of FCP to go for finishing, scoring and sound effects.

CONFORM
In Premiere, I can now relink everything and also go into Firstlight to disable the LUT applied but I can also do a first pass on color to get everything looking even and flatten out any contrasting footage. Sequences can also have any overlays and transitions added here. I can then disable those transitions and leave just the straight cuts for color grading. I'll then render out separate sequences for each scene into DPX sequences.

GRADING
I'm a huge fan of Color. I think its a great app that has a lot of power in it that people miss. Testing some DPX sequences in there last night, I really found some new tricks I didn't realize existed when working with 5D/7D footage in particular. You actually gain a lot more finite control over the files and don't introduce loads of noise when pushing them around. Final grades will be rendered out in Prores 444 and final assembly can then trip back to FCP and/or Premiere for final finishing.



These stills here are directly out of Iradas Speedgrade. The looks can be exported and brought into Firstlight and applied in realtime. There's a little craziness happening in the jeans of the 2nd shot but in final color, something like that would be controlled.

Gear used on General Specific

I've been getting asked what gear we used to shoot the General Specific movie, our low-budget indie. The answer is, not a lot. Here's a quick rundown.

Cameras:

Sony EX1 was my main camera. Its little, has a great codec and is a workhorse. Seriously, its a tough camera that I can't say enough good things about. This thing took a bath in the Pacific one day and kept on going. I could rate it's ISO around 500 to 600 typically without worrying about noise. I'll still use this camera over the 5D on many occasions due to its easy codec and pro audio. Don't underestimate time savings in post.



Towards the end of production, the 7D came out and I added it to several scenes. Most notably the Russian scene. The 5D and 7D defintely have their own look, much like a film stock or the difference between a panny and sony. I also used it to shoot a VERY late-in-the-game scene with Wally and Clem in the car with a greenscreen backdrop. Considering we shot through the front and rear windshields outside in winter, I pulled keys that works well enough for the movie. You can pull a decent key off this camera but it definitely has its challenges.


Adapter:

On the front of the EX1, I used a Letus Extreme combined with a set of old Nikon primes I've collected over the years. I've been using the adapters since I built one of my own 5 years back and was the proud owner of the first Letus Flip (it kinda looked like a bomb).

Supporting this I had rails and support gear, shoulder mount and more from Zacuto and a baseplate and follow focus from Redrock Micro

The Zacuto rails and support I think you could hang a truck off the front of and not get vibration. Expensive but it'll last a very long time and its versatile enough that you can piece parts together in different ways to build around any kind of setup you might have.

The Redrock FF is the best quality vs. cost FF I've used out there. Very smooth and durable plus you get Redrock customer support which is some of the best in our industry.


Lights:

I used 2 Kino Flo Diva-Lite 400s heavily. Fast, bright, soft light and flexible. I have a set of both daylight and tungsten bulbs for both. A nice little touch sometimes is keeping one tungsten bulb in to just warm your key up a touch.

My other set of main lights was an ARRI kit with 2x650 1x300 and a 1K open face with softbox. I used that 1K a LOT as well. Great for popping up into a ceiling with a quarter CBT gel over it to lift your overall base light level.



Audio:
For audio, we used a pair of Audio Technica shotgun mics, a 4-channel mixer - which is essential. Get GOOD audio. A mixer will go miles in helping. You can cut off high end and low end noise at the source. You can get by with a mid-range mic but Jason managed to not need ADR on several scenes because of the quality of audio he got from being able to capture more accurately at the source.

We also used a H4N recorder for scenes with the 7D and synced with PluralEyes.



Other Items:
A basic set of sticks with a Manfrotto 503 head. It'll get you by for the price.

A skater dolly for a couple shots with wheels from Willy's Wheels.

A jib I wont name because it just didn't hold up well - expensive too - but had a LOT of camera shake

A light meter. This is invaluable on a small shoot for you. Finding contrast ratios between key and fill and backgrounds on your subjects is maybe more important when you have a limited number of lights.

A handful of used C-Stands from Matthews. Check your used photo shops. A lot of time, they get these in and Matthews gear holds up for YEARS.


A 5-1 reflector that I could quickly put up for bounce, shoot the 1K through for a big soft light or bounce as a hard fill with the sun. Also get yourself some black and white foamcore. It'll come in handy!







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That's about it, in general, not a lot of gear. And overall, very pleased with the look of the production. Shoot smart and you can get a long way.

Format Considerations for Acquisition

Now that's a boring topic, huh? I thought it would be a good one to lead off with. What I want to take a minute and discuss is how I approach what camera and format to shoot on going into production and how that effects the end deliverable. There's a ton of this info out there already but I figure it's worth my chiming in. I'll keep it short and make it a little more like a checklist.

WHO'S THE CLIENT?
This is the first question that comes to mind to me. You need to understand what kind of expectations already exist for who you're working for. They may have an end deliverable. For instance, Sony Music requires a 1080p high quality (422 color or higher) deliverable. Other clients might not have a master deliverable requirement but they may have been working with productions for years. If this is that case, seeing productions suddenly scale back to tiny cameras and crews might be scary. A new client, in need of eduction can at times be one of the easiest to work with if you start out the conversation correctly and coach them through how you're giving them a high quality for very little footprint.

SHOT REQUIREMENTS
Are you shooting slow-mo? Is your deliverable that high quality 1080p master? Then don't shoot that slow-mo off a 7D, EX3 or something that shoots 720p. You need to to acquire higher res, most likely RED or now Alexa or if you can afford it, Phantom. do you need to hang off a crane? What weight requirements do you have? Do you have shots that require unique views (i.e. worms eye view from inside a hole) - might go 5D on a remote.

STYLE REQUIREMENTS
Style is similar to shots but for me includes the overall look of the production. Are you going for more of a reality feel? You can shoot with something like a HVX or EX1 with its native zoom and feel good about it. Shooting for a more filmic look? Shoot as high quality as you can and in that case, take into consideration what kind of glass you can work with. One example might be RED with a good set of Cookes is a whole different look than shooting 5D with a set of L-series glass on the front.

VFX
Are you doing a lot of VFX work in post? How about a couple DO NOTS... DO NOT shoot with a camera with bad rolling shutter and cause it to show up (5D and 7D users). Do not shoot with high contrast shots that blow out or underexpose. Shoot with a camera with more latitude (RED, Alexa). Shooting for motion tracking? Use a camera with a clean codec that doesn't block easily.

LIGHTING and LOCATION
Where do you have to shoot? What time of the day? If you're shooting at night and have a somewhat limited budget, pick a more sensitive camera like a 5D or 1D. Pick a RED MX over the original RED for night, you'll drop your lighting package considerably.

TALENT
Who are you shooting? If it's a celebrity, put together a good package. You''ll be spending on everything else around them anyway. Acquire in as high a quality as you can.

TIME
One of the most important. How much time do you have on the shoot? RED is not fast, XDCAM is very fast. Do you have a limited window? Maybe you need to shoot multiple cameras with a limited budget, picking something like XDCAMs will drop your need for needing ACs for each camera.

What kind of time do you have in post? It's amazing what you can really do with the 5D's codec and especially the XDCAM codex as limited of a color space they have. But with enough time and layering, you can get a really filmic look out of them with color correction. RED will get you there faster and better in post. Time and deliverable are important here. If you have a really tight deadline, shooting 5D rather than EX1 would be an issue as you have a ton of sync sound to process. What are your storage requirements? Think post through before you shoot. Its very important.

Those are a few of the questions I go through on each production and finding the proper balance. No single camera is going to be ideal in every circumstance. Think it through, weigh your budget requirements, get creative.

The General Specific Trailer

The General Specific Trailer from Jeremy Hughes on Vimeo.

The movie we've been working on since Fall is wrapping up and we should be ready to debut it locally on Memorial Day weekend. In terms of crew, this was an extremely light movie production and its exciting to see how well it's turning out.