Red FCP-Color workflow

I got this tip from the Indie4k blog Its a simple workflow for editing Red camera shot material in FCP and grading-finishing in Apple Color. Or using Apple Color to make DPX or CIN files for finishing on other systems like Smoke/eQ etc 

For this you need the following... 

An Apple FCP 6 or FCP 7 vsystem with the entire Final Cut Studio installed. 

The system needs to be an Intel Mac - MacPro or iMac, or MacBook Pro. 

The latest version of Red software - Redrushes, RedAlert, RedCine All correctly installed. 

A free software called Clipfinder . 

A word on Clipfinder. Its made by a German scientist called Hans-Georg Daun and it free. But there's a PayPal button on his site. 

If the software works for you, I urge you to donate generously. Remember, this software can do what others do for no less than US$ 150, so donate accordingly. Link at end. 

You start by making Quicktimes of the Red files using RedRushes or Clipfinder itself. You can make Quicktimes of any resolution even 720p and set the resolution to Quarter. These settings can give you even real-time exports out of a new MacPro. 

These Quicktimes will carry timecode from the R3D. Provided you set it that way. You then edit them in FCP. Make an XML out of FCP. Run Clipfinder and point it to where the Red files are located. Clipfinder makes a new XML now referring to the R3D files. 

Actually referring to the _H files which are 2048x1152. You then send this sequence to Color In Color you can grade to your heart's content Then come back to FCP for further editing etc. Or from Color you export to DPX or CIN Set handles as you wish. 

Take the DPX to Resolve eQ, smoke/Flame Lustre etc.

Some things to look out for...

The XML that Clipfinder makes after re-linking to _H files, creates a sequence in FCP that has the same name as the original sequence. So quickly rename it to avoid confusion. DPX files out of Color work fine in Shake, Resolve and iQ/eQ. But some versions of smoke/flame/lustre can't open them. For these systems better to use Cineon. 

Color does only a half-res De-Bayer so if your needs are 4k and or full-res De-Bayer film then this workflow may not be for you. This is for FCP ver 6 and Color 1.0.5 or older. FCP 7 and Color 1.5 and later does De-bayer in full res, even 4k Red to 4k DPX.

If the Red files are on a FAT32 or other non-Mac drive, Clipfinder may not work for making a new XML. Copy files to a MacOSX HFS drive and it will work fine. 

How about editing on Avid? Can we have more details on FCP XML or Color settings? Can you do this for us? Or, we tried and ran into serious problems. Or even, our Red workflow was a disaster, we eventually rendered out Red files to Digibeta, captured them and worked like a normal video. Red camera has been a nightmare for us. etc etc. 

Hey, nothing's easy. and nothing's free. Press that yellow 'Donate' button on the right and I'm brimming with answers and help. Especially if you're in Mumbai, India. 

The origin of this tip is the Indie4k blog archive. An excellent resource for simple common-sense answers to India film-making problems. the original link is here. 

I am grateful to those bloggers and give them full credit for this excellent idea. I've only amplified it a bit. 

Clipfinder can be found here.

And you can mail me any time with the link below. 

Or at

neil (at like e-mail at) sadwelkar (dot like full-stop) com 

Post for a feature length film on a Red camera

Shooting a feature length Indian film with a Red camera is now a possibility. Cameras are coming in, and hiring them is getting easier. Some have already done it. And many more are testing the waters and mulling it before taking the leap.
Apart from all the other arguments and discussions on the aesthetic of Red vs. film, the post workflow is a different. And if the Red camera saves you money from not having to shoot hundreds of cans of film negative (each costing about Rs. 10,000), it also needs you to be responsible with the storage of this data. And have a good plan on how to finish the film.

So, for all those who are considering shooting on Red, here's a check-list of gear you must own or have access to. For the post of a movie shot with the Red camera.

On location
MacBook Pro
Firewire CF Card readers - two at least.
Portable RAID 1 drive. Like the Sonnet Fusion F2
You'll also need a SATA adapter like the Sonnet Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34
A good utility like ShotPut Red for copying and backing up these files.

At your place
Desktop MacPro - 4 core or more 2GB RAM per CPU, so an eight-core needs 16 GB RAM
Safe RAID - Sonnet Fusion, CalDigit, anything running RAID 5 or RAID 6 for which you can get failed drives replaced in India easily. And with 5 drives or more.

Licenced software - FCP, Crimson, GlueTools, Pomfort.
Red software - RedAlert, RedCine, RedRushes. The latest versions tried and figured out.
Large monitor - Apple or some other 30". Small monitors are a disaster.
Capture card - BlackMagic or Kona Broadcast monitor - or good LCD TV.

All Software - Buy, Buy, Buy. Don't look for cracks, don't pirate. 

All this can go between Rs 7-10 lakhs. If you don't want to sink in that kind of money figure out rentals with a post house. Or installments with a bank. But do NOT skimp on any of these.

Red shoots data. On CF cards. Your rushes are data. As long as your data is safe you have a movie. If your data is lost, only a re-shoot can get it back. And till you re-shoot, you don't have a movie.
With Red data, a drive failure can make you lose 20 hours of rushes in a fraction of a second. Especially with cracked software.

Now is Rs 10 lakhs too expensive? So develop a paranoid, maniacal reverence to data and obtain a obsessive compulsive disorder of continuously making backups and triple-checking them. Once per hour.

Next, get a good post crew. Identify an editor. Have him or her improve their reading on digital formats and get familiar with the Red workflow. And all the products listed above. Avid or FCP doesn't matter as long as the editor has a good plan. If the editor is Red-skeptic, get another editor.

Repeat this process till you find one who believes. Make sure your editor's plan is in sync with the people at the post house that is doing the final film grade and output. Again, both the editor and the post house need to believe in this whole thing. If they are skeptical, or in a Red-bashing, or FCP-bashing, or Avid-bashing or general digital-bashing mood, let them go.

The editor's age doesn't matter as long as his thoughts and beliefs are from this century. Yes, even twenty-somethings can be really old school when it comes to the Digital Film process. Finally, identify all the deliverables - film print, promos, trailers, HD tapes, DigiBeta tapes, DVD, maybe Blu-ray - and ensure the editor and post people have heard of all these and have a plan on starting with Red and ending up with all these.

Actually your post plan also depends on the final deliverables. If your post team don't have a plan, find a consultant (hint, hint) who can sell you a plan. Yes, sell a plan, as in pay money and get something in return. The goods you're buying is advice. Don't expect free advice.

Most consultants treat free and paid advice with different degrees of seriousness. So if you have the intent (to pay), make it known up front. Making a film and completing it so that people can buy tickets and watch it, all this starting with a film camera and film, is easy. If you and your crew know how to, can follow instructions, and have a plan.

The same applies to starting out with a Red camera and CF cards. Except that the instructions are different, as is the plan.

First TV commercial shot on Red in India

Some days ago, on the one hand there were Reds withdrawing support to a Government, and on the other, a Red that was probably ushering in a revolution in acquisition for mass entertainment.

Unless someone has completed a TV commercial in India before the 12th July, this is the first TV commercial in India shot on the Red camera. I'm not sure I can name the product, but maybe I will after its released.

Two old friends worked on this commercial - Rajesh Krishnan and Murlidharan. Actually they are both very young, 'old' friends means we go back a long time. Rajesh's company Soda Films produced it with Rajesh directing and Murli as the cinematographer.

The commercial was also simultaneously shot on 35mm with an Arri 435 camera. I had to edit the Red material while the film material was edited at Rajesh's office. Eventually we'll tally both edits so one can have a comparison.

My editing workflow...
1. Tried to do log and capture in FCP with the Red data. It was taking ages as the files were on a USB drive. I set the Log and Capture all night on a Quad core Intel MacPro, and it stopped sometime after doing 41 (out of 123 clips). This method seems completely impractical, unless one wants to mark and capture.
2. Tried Redrushes to convert the clips to Apple ProRes. I set it up to convert all clips to Apple ProRes SQ at 1920x1080. Earlier, I did small tests scaling at different sizes, and the scaling size doesn't seem to affect speed. My rush of 123 clips totalling about 23 mins, on an Intel Quad Core took 4 hours to convert from Red to Apple ProRes. Again, this method isn't very impractical.
3. So I decided to edit the _H or _M clips directly. First I tried this on my 24" Dual core iMac, (only 1 Gb RAM) but that choked and couldn't play the _H or _M clips smoothly. For some reason, even the MacPro couldn't. Somehow my MacBook pro Core2Duo managed.

Incidentally all the said machines have MacOSX 10.5.3 or above and Quicktime 7.4.5 or above. And I downloaded the latest QT codec, Redcine, RedAlert and Redrushes on all 3 machines.

So eventually the edit went like this.

I edited on a MacBook Pro. Using the the Apple ProRes clips since they played most reliably. After the edit, I made a new edit by eye matching the _M clips. So now I had two edits. I gave both EDLs to Mithun.

Guess why I had to eyematch to make an edit of the _M clips? Because FCP cannot reconnect an edit made of ProRes converts to an edit of _M clips. Because file names are different. More importantly, Redrushes when converting Red files to Quicktime, changes timecode after 22 hours to 00 hours. Not after 23 hrs. So one set of clips had wrong time code.

About the look. On a MacBook Pro screen its hard to say. The Red files when opened in Quicktime, and also FCP, look a bit dull, almost like log. When made log to lin in Shake they look better but not quite right. I did a 'send to Color' on the ProRes sequence and could muster up a decent grade. With Rajesh guiding me and Mithun looking jealously over my shoulder.

Eventually we'll grade this film's film version and the Red version, both on a Scratch system to make them look the same, colour and contrast wise. And maybe output both to film and see them in a theatre.

Conclusion. Working with Red files is not terribly different from working with 'normal' film and tape media. There is s slight lag when working with the _M or _P files. FCP appears less responsive. But apart from that its similar. An important difference is that if one is working with _M files, one is actually editing at 2k resolution. Wow!

Stability. There were no crashes throughout the edit. My MacPro was also doing other things when converting. And my MacBook Pro was doing a software update and mail checks while I edited. No crash. Not even with the client (Rajesh) present. Most machines behave well till the client arrives.

Software issues. Before one edits a film shot on Red, one should get all the latest software updates and install them. And spend a day or so, doing converts and timing stuff. On a long project, you cannot take one route and then change midway. 10 hours of Red footage can take up to two days to convert, so you better do it right.

Overall I'm positive with this Red working. Its really here now. Depending on how Benchmark manages the marketing in India, the revolution is upon us.

Initially, many editors will crib. Some won't be able to import footage, others won't be able to play it right. Timecode issues will come up. Entire edits and rushes will be lost to drive crashes. Mostly it will be human error. An entire set of folks, cinematographers and editors will trash this Red workflow and say it 'simply doesn't work'.

I've been through this many times before. When Movieolas and Steenbecks gave way to Avids, many said it would never work. Now it does. When Umatic and later Betacam tape came to TV acquisition, when FCP grew in popularity, basically whenever a large scale change in working happens.

Eventually there will be two sets of people left. Those that have successfully understood and adapted to this new digital workflow, and those that are yet to manage.

Red camera in Mumbai, India

Ted Schilowitz, of Red camera, the 'Leader of the Rebellion' as his card says, and like the main spokesperson for Red was in Mumbai yesterday. As was Nacho, Vice President of Scratch. They launched Red for DOPs and film-makers in India.

It was a small party The Club, Andheri West. A collection of film-makers, Cinematographers and others gathered on a rainy day. I was possibly the only editor around. No wait, Rajesh Choudhary was there too.

Among the cinematographers were very old friends Anoop, Vijay, Murli, Mahesh, Chiang, Rao saab, and lots of others. Names on the tip of my tongue but not 'coming out'.

Benchmark is their (Red and Scratch) representative in India. They have one camera now that they'll use for promotion and plan on bringing in about 50 more in maybe a few months now. So the first step for Red camera feasibility in India seems licked if even half of these many can be made available by year end.

Not many film technicians seem to have heard of Scratch. This is a Windows based DI software. Scratch can conform EDLs to scanned material, grade rather well, and then output to film or HD/SD tapes.

Assimilate is the company that makes Scratch and there are already 16 in India. If someone tells me the last Hindi movie graded totally on Scratch, I'll put it up here.

I'll write about post with Red in a bit. It starts with editing natively on FCP.

For Red finishing workflows, there's a low-cost product called Scratch Cine. This can open and conform Red R3D files, but not other formats. It can play back, at 24fps, Red files at 1k and 2k (not 4k) There's no info on how many sound tracks it can play and how good it stays in sync.

So, for now, Red has made an official entry into the Indian film production industry. Soon more and more cameras will become available. Cinematographers will start using it, Sound recordists will love it for the zero noise, but will need to get used to the connections and recording system.

Editors will have to get used to 'rushes' with cryptic alphabet-number names, folders within folders, a good storage and backup regimen, but no more keycode-timecode-telecine log grappling.

Post and DI houses and systems will need to come to terms with workflows that involves FCP, Scratch and others. And DI houses geared only to film and DPX, will have one more reason (after HD) to get real and equip themselves to handle non-film shooting for film release.

There will be many who will scoff at this whole new digital film thing. But then, it was another rainy day almost 8 years ago when Apple launched Final Cut Pro here. Many scoffed, some still do. And even before, on a not so rainy day six years before FCP, when Avid launched editing on a computer. The Steenbeck crowd laughed heartily then.

Will Red be a revolution in the way we make movies here? I doubt if we'll take 5 years to find out. Ask me around this time in 2009.

The Red camera is real

Just back from IBC 2007 at Amsterdam. I saw the Red camera up close.

First, I saw a large screen presentation of 'Crossing the line' a film shot on the Red camera. Directed by Peter Jackson, its a war story. The film was shown in a large theatre - as large as Metro in Mumbai. Really huge screen.

But the 'Red film' was not on film 35 mm. It was a digital 4k screening off the new Sony 4k digital projector. Presumably playing 4k files from a Clipster. It looked great, really good. No grain, no scratches or spots of dust, clean sharp picture, great contrast and saturation. But did it look like film? More on that later in a separate post.

I also went up to the Red stall and saw their presentation on work flow. As well as a small presentation at Apple's stand and Assimilate Scratch.

Here are some work flows...

For now, the camera shoots 4k RAW files to a memory card. later it will shoot to a removable hard disk. So it will shoot to 8 Gb CompactFlash cards. It shoots as RAW images just like Digital SLRs do for still photography. An 8 Gb card is good for 4 mins. I need to re-check at what res its 4 mins.

After the shoot you connect the card via a card reader to FCP and you can 'transfer' not capture these files via a new 'Log and transfer' window. Here you see all your shots as clips. You choose shots even mark in and out, and transfer them to your hard disk. The raw files are transferred and there's a reference Quicktime that opens in FCP as a 2k Quicktime clip.

Then edit away at 2k or even downres to Pro-res, Apple's new nearly lossless codec. After you are done, you can make an EDL and send it to Assimilate Scratch. Scratch, is a grading system running on Windows. Scratch connects your EDL to the original 4k files. And you can then grade 4k.

Once done grading, you can export to dpx, 4k or 2k depending on your film recorder. Then record out to film.

All this is work flow that's here and now and demoed. No one has actually done all this for an entire feature length film, so one doesn't know how it will all hold up to the rigours of a real schedule.

And other manufacturers - DaVinci Resolve, Nucoda Film Master - told me they were in talks with Red to use the Red codec in their app so they too can work with Red RAW files. The months to come will show interesting work flows. Maybe even FCP-Color will show up a complete Red work flow.

Examples of Red images
http://gallery.mac.com/videoresources#100050