my red/color indie experience
by Greg Pilon
on
Oct 23, 2009 at 8:01:49 pm
Well, I finished my first red/color experience and wanted to share some problems with others to get feedback.
First my system, running old 2.66 intel. First problem is Red and color don't like the ati 2600. Its says that you can still do prores 422hq and that the card just can't handle 4444. That is incorrect had problems with 422hq as well, if your doing high end spend the $400 and get ati 4870. Switched that half way through the project, grades seemed fine at least going from ati to ati. Might not be same if you change to a nvidia or something else. Also, even though the ati 4870 says it won't work on your old 2007 2.66, thats wrong. Works great.
So this was an 1hr plus long show with over 835+ cuts. When I finished grading, I broke the render into 2 versions because we where still working on the back end. The next day, even though stuff had rendered, my renders disappeared in the color project. (According to today's update that was suppose to be fixed). When everything was rendered, I went to send back to fcp, fcp would open but no seq would showup? Exported out a separate xml and that would not open in fcp either.
So what to do?
Well, the only thing I could do was take all the render files and bring it into a new project.
Rebuilt the whole project, which was a pain.
Had to re-export clips with dissolves to get handles for the media, which if it would have relinked back, should of been there?
Redo all speed changes, it seemed color didn't like speed changes even though I see people have had no problems with them. The problem with Red is it is not as easy to just bake your speed change in, because you then lose your 4k rd3 access once in color. So work around, I don't know??????
The director while in editing liked doing digital zooms on certain shots.
Geometry will transfer over into color, but you can't have any keyframes transfer in. This is a bad on me, because it is stated in the color manual with Red. My advice, if you want to reframe, and do zooms or pans, build that in color and keyframe there any you will be taking the re framed zoom from you 4k rd3 plate.
So after doing more reading color does recommend you break the seq into 15 to 22 min sessions, so I don't know which is better 15 or 22min, but I suspect that's the reason my project wouldn't re-link back to fcp with my 835+ cut seq? I don't what else it could be, we had speed changes, some stills and other stuff in the timeline, but color is just suppose to ignore that stuff, so I don't why it would not go back to fcp.
I have done other red projects, but have only been 5-30 minutes long with no problems in the past, so I don't know if the size was the problem? And I have got to get clarification on the new rules, with the new color, because I did not prep my seq for handles with dissolves thinking that was fixed and speed changes, which create a problem for baking in and then not accessing for 4k master, so I will have to figure out these problems. If anyone has an answer I would love to hear it.
In closing, I have to be honest in saying this was frustrating to say the least to spend and extra 2 days rebuilding a project. Luckily sound was behind, and they where not held up me, but I am concerned on my next long project, because I can't afford to look like an a-hole when we finished correcting and the project doesn't go back to fcp. I developed this workflow for the movie, but only tested with shorter seq. I can't afford to have the I don't what the hell is going on the day of delivery, so test your workflow. I don't know why the length of a project would effect something, but they do recommend going 15-22min, which honestly is a problem they should fix because thats just a pain.I may have to look at upgrading to the scratch lite( rocket fuel or something like that) for 10,000 to hopefully not have these problems or get apple color working without problems so I save a few years on my life. In Colors defense, you can't complain about the price, and I achieved looks that higher ends systems charge a lot of money for, so you get what you pay for. So, learn the rules and put up with them, or get out of the kitchen.
Re: my red/color indie experience by Greg Pilon on Oct 26, 2009 at 1:38:32 am
[Uli Plank]"First of all: are you using Color 1.04 or 1.5? Speed changes and stills should work in 1.5, and it can handle longer projects than 20 minutes."
I was using color 1.5 i imagine that the speed change stuff would work if was able to re-link the project back to fcp
[Uli Plank]"Next: how was your timeline edited in FCP? Did you ingest or did you edit proxies? The latter can cause lots of trouble in Color."
I ingested with fcp log and transfer. Red settings to native in L&T
Re: my red/color indie experience by walter biscardi on Oct 24, 2009 at 12:52:57 pm
[Greg Pilon]"First my system, running old 2.66 intel. First problem is Red and color don't like the ati 2600"
Sure it does. Our Mac Pro 3.2 was running the ATI 2600 until last week when it died and I replaced it with the 4870. That machine did a five hour RED timeline a few months ago with Color 1.0.4.
[Greg Pilon]"Redo all speed changes, it seemed color didn't like speed changes even though I see people have had no problems with them."
Color 1.5 adds the speed change recognition. Anything earlier requires the speed changes to be baked in.
[Greg Pilon]"So after doing more reading color does recommend you break the seq into 15 to 22 min sessions, so I don't know which is better 15 or 22min, but I suspect that's the reason my project wouldn't re-link back to fcp with my 835+ cut seq? "
Again, Color 1.5 did away with that limitation.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production Biscardi Creative Media
Re: my red/color indie experience by David Battistella on Oct 25, 2009 at 2:19:11 pm
Greg,
Your experience sounds like a a classic example of why it is important to ask questions before you undertake a project of this size and to do tests.
You solved all of the problems yourself but it sounds like you were going to the manual after or during the post post process, so what can you really expect?
For the record, and I am not trying to disagree with walter, but I strongly recommend breaking up any long show into reels that are 15 to 22 minutes long. I have a few reasons for this.
-Less media in each project to manage.
-Easier to identify where the problem media is without holding up the progress of the whole project. IE. if you have a problem in reel 2, reel 1 and 3 can still be completed.
-things are easily restitched into one timeline in FCP
-I just think that smaller XML's are better than asking fcp and Color to track 835 events.
Foe example, I just did a 27 minute film in six reels, so I could break up the renders, etc.
It's really great that you posted your experiences because it helps others see that planning is a very important part of going it alone. My experience has taught me to look at any post experience like a solo sailing trip around the world. You have to have as much knowledge as you can muster to complete that experience.
Post is mostly a pain when you travel down an unknown road. It's pretty seamless with experience and I think that the experience you just had with Color has probably taught you a lot.
I hope your next one is better.
David
Peace
Check out my new web series.
http://www.ripperhockey.com
Re: my red/color indie experience by Greg Pilon on Oct 26, 2009 at 1:53:10 am
[walter biscardi]"[Greg Pilon] "First my system, running old 2.66 intel. First problem is Red and color don't like the ati 2600"
Sure it does. Our Mac Pro 3.2 was running the ATI 2600 until last week when it died and I replaced it with the 4870. That machine did a five hour RED timeline a few months ago with Color 1.0.4."
I had success with the ati 2600 in color 1.0.4 But, nothing but problems with that card in 1.5 Maybe my card was on the verge of crapping out? Switched to the 4870, no problems, and you get 4444 with is a plus. It's just sometimes I would get a normal render, but about 80% of the time I would get a quicktime with green blocky noise all over the screen.
[walter biscardi]"[Greg Pilon] "So after doing more reading color does recommend you break the seq into 15 to 22 min sessions, so I don't know which is better 15 or 22min, but I suspect that's the reason my project wouldn't re-link back to fcp with my 835+ cut seq? "
Again, Color 1.5 did away with that limitation."
Well, maybe they have, but I could not get this project back to FCP with any success. It is only speculation on my part that this was the problem, and no one has been able to come to any other conclusion. Also, if they did solve this, then they should remove the recommendation of cutting up the project. Why keep it in if there is no problem, becuase breaking up is a hassle if there is no reason for it?
