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Red Camera workflow


Paul Graff

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Hi All,

I had originally posted this to the 1st time w/Red thread under "Equipment", but it is more appropriate here under "Workflow".

I will be doing an eight-day shoot with two Red cameras very soon.  It is a dialogue-intensive comedy pilot.  The editor and I have spoken, and the DIT and I have spoken, but knowledge is thin and I want to avoid problems.  I am recording on Deva Fusion with a 774t as backup (available; not sure I'll use it).  The editor plans to edit on Avid Media Composer and does not want to be stuck (or have an assistant be stuck) having to sync files by hand.  He is concerned this will happen.  The DIT says Red is optimized for FCP and he knows nothing about Avid or how sound is synced to picture with the Red files.  He plans to give the editor a hard drive with all the Red files.  What can I do such that it is as easy as possible for the editor to use my sound?

I propose this workflow:  I run 29.97ND, 48K and deliver 24-bit polyphonic .wav files.  My Denecke TS-C slate is 29.97, of course.  They (should, IMO) get Denecke SB-T boxes for each camera and these are set at 23.976 to feed the Red.  I cross-jam these boxes from my Deva.  Any feedback on this workflow is welcome.

Most of the camera work will be handheld, btw, and this is with two cameras.  I really don't want to feed any audio to the Red at all, and I certainly don't want them to use it.  If syncing is too labor intensive and if I send good audio to the camera, they might well use it.  If they want audio for dailies without syncing, a Comtek on each camera might do the trick.  I own plenty of Zaxcom stereolines, but does the Red even accommodate BEC boxes or have a 12V out to power them?  I am reticent to make any promises that the camera sound will be anything but a scratch track since I have not used this camera before.  And if I want it to be a scratch track, the Zaxcom sends seem like overkill and would send the message that the camera sound was more than a scratch track.  Plus I want to keep my focus on mic placement, noise control, and mixing on day one and not on trying to hang something else off the camera.

Thanks,

PG

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Hello Paul,

I did a 5 day shoot with the Red back in January.  Here were my findings:

First off, there is no gain control on the camera for line level signals.  I only fed a stereo mix to the camera with a standard beta-snake cable (with XLR to TA3 adapters).  I had to use the Stereo Out fader on my mixer to set a proper -20 dB reference tone.  Mono mix and isos were recorded to my 744T and Boom Recorder.  If you're sending audio with wireless hops at mic level, you may have a bit more control from the camera menus and/or receivers. 

In January, the Red still couldn't be slaved to TC.  The TC I/O was output only.  You may want to see if recent a firmware upgrade has changed this.  On my particular project, I ignored camera's TC and just jammed the slate from the recorder (23.976).  The editor used FCP and had no problem syncing my files.

After the shoot, someone told me about this cool breakout box for the Red, which eliminates the need for XLR to TA3 adapter cables.  Check it out:

http://www.toys4red.com

Also, here is a pretty popular Red newsgroup:

http://www.reduser.net

Best of luck!

-Lee Ascher

Los Angeles, CA

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Dear Paul,

We just finished Librarian 3 using 2 Red cameras and and a couple of XD's..

All went very well with our sound.. no issues at all with the editor or FCP...

We used  a simular WF to what you proposed --  23.97 worked perfectly.. Jamming from the Deva to a Denecke sync box and crossed to the RED's (on Battery changes and HD changes) . The Zaxcom 900 receiver with stereo adapter powered by Red and a Sennheiser evolutions to monitor the camera's.. 

Contact Robert Kennedy at Coffey Sound he has the right tech, current information, cables and equipment to make this a piece of cake for you..

Sincerely

Ron Scelza C.A.S.

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Thanks everyone.  I think I might have given the wrong impression (judging from an email I received).  Just to be clear, I am not defying anyone or setting my own agenda.  I always deliver what is requested of me.  This became a Red shoot on short notice and there is no post-prod sup.  The producer left it entirely up to me what I want to do and I consulted with the editor and DIT.  They are happy with me treating it as a film shoot and are not requesting sound in camera.

I am curious Ron.  Is the in-camera sound the primary audio on Librarian 3?

PG

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Dear Paul,

Glad you asked <"SNIP", Was the RED camera audio the primary source?>

No – The asst editor used the twice daily DVD RAM's mirrored from the Deva as the primary source and never used the RED audio… The RED cams sound was as another back up -- each camera having Ch1 Mix and Ch2 iso's along with the Sound Devices back up at the cart... (A Deva mirrored FWHD sent to the sound editor on completion)

I found our production workflow to be unique. A new position in the sound department was created…  "D-CAT" Digital camera audio tech...

Product:  Interface with camera department "DIT" to set correctly the sound menus. (2) Monitor & adjust the camera's audio out (in our case wirelessly), keeping levels correct and (3) TC, correct to slate and recorder (4) Video monitors to the sound cart working. --- This became a full time position… Wirelessly sending & monitoring the cameras audio and adjusting levels using Zaxcom ultimate wireless transmitters & a portable mixer in a harness…

Sincerely

Ron Scelza C.A.S.

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Dear Paul,

Glad you asked <"SNIP", Was the RED camera audio the primary source?>

No – The asst editor used the twice daily DVD RAM's mirrored from the Deva as the primary source and never used the RED audio… The RED cams sound was as another back up -- each camera having Ch1 Mix and Ch2 iso's along with the Sound Devices back up at the cart... (A Deva mirrored FWHD sent to the sound editor on completion)

I found our production workflow to be unique. A new position in the sound department was created…  "D-CAT" Digital camera audio tech...

Product:  Interface with camera department "DIT" to set correctly the sound menus. (2) Monitor & adjust the camera's audio out (in our case wirelessly), keeping levels correct and (3) TC, correct to slate and recorder (4) Video monitors to the sound cart working. --- This became a full time position… Wirelessly sending & monitoring the cameras audio and adjusting levels using Zaxcom ultimate wireless transmitters & a portable mixer in a harness…

Sincerely

Ron Scelza C.A.S.

Ron,

Its funny, a red cam came thru the rental dept the other day. and both myself and the cam op mentioned that a 4th or 2nd utility would be needed on this shoot for the above mentioned "D-cat" work duties.

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In pratice, no question about it --  Spot-on in your correct observation..

Multi camera and multi track for double system work well together

for a three man crew using (n) wireless and a boom..

The consideration is when you add additional sound to a  camera (s), RF Links -- They also need to be correctly adjusted, monitored, synced..  It'a a full time position for a 4th.. "D-CAT"

Sincerely

Ron Scelza C.A.S.

Ron,

Its funny, a red cam came thru the rental dept the other day. and both myself and the cam op mentioned that a 4th or 2nd utility would be needed on this shoot for the above mentioned "D-cat" work duties.

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Dear All,

New equipment, workflows, and last minute rush and change has become today's norm in our business...  Have you ever asked your UPM if it would be ok for production to hire on an additional thirteen member sound crew to do the project right?  I haven't asked yet, I just do it anyway!

It takes a very extensive knowledge base and a highly competent team to get it right and if you have the right team; you won't work and worry yourself to an early grave...…Qualifying statement;  In my well over thirty years of doing sound for Film & TV. I've found a great team that I highly respect and totally depend on for everything… from a kind word and advice, to research and repair… So as to not bloviate and tout the "C" word or the "Z" word --- Happy to share, just call or Email!

Sincerely

Ron Scelza C.A.S.

sometimes its nice when you have a person to talk to, and get feedback from.

the postings are cool, but you need that friendly customer service.

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We're working on a non-RED feature now (Sony EX) and are doing double system with an on-set syncer-upper.  The camera in use, like the Red, has no usable TC options.  We are sending audio the camera via a normal snake and are double recording on a SD machine to CF.  After each scene cards from pix and sound go to the sync guy, he transfers and syncs in FCP.  Audio TC is 23.98, as is video.  We use a TC slate, showing audio TC.  Seems very smooth.  Of course, the post-flow will be via FCP in this case.  Couldn't the on-set sync guy use a "native" or software Avid and do the same thing--set up the bins for the editor?  I don't understand why audio would use a different TC rate from video in this case--why not keep the whole show @ 23.98?  (Unless audio post has requested otherwise.)  I should say that this show has been mostly only 2 tracks, occasionally 4.  But even with 8 tracks you could still sync in the video app--esp if you used polys, couldn't you?  If the producers don't want to do this sort of syncing process and the editors don't want to do it then what, or who does that leave?  I'd consider getting some sort of audio onto the camera in any case, even a cam-mic, so there is a reference embedded in the video file.

Philip Perkins

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  • 2 months later...

I need to revive this thread.  It seems new developments are occurring on a regular basis concerning the Red.  I'm about to work on a single Red Camera low budget feature.  I got a few questions concerning the Red's workflow.  Philip brought up some great points.

- If they are shooting at 23.976 fps and are most likely going to be editing on Final Cut Pro, what should I roll audio at?  Wouldn't it be more simple to roll audio at 23.976 as well, or is it still advisable to roll audio at 29.97?  Editorial has not been hired yet so I can't ask them. 

- At this point, is it possible to jam the Red camera using a sync box such as Denecke's SB-3?  How well does it hold sync before having to re-jam?  If I re-jam it every couple hours would it be close enough?

- What type of cable would I need to be able to jam the Red?

- I'll most likely need to feed audio to camera as a scratch track.  Guess I would need to purchase a pair of TA3-M to XLR-F cables?

- Would I be able to monitor the audio via the Red's headphone out? 

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I need to revive this thread.  It seems new developments are occurring on a regular basis concerning the Red.  I'm about to work on a single Red Camera low budget feature.  I got a few questions concerning the Red's workflow.  Philip brought up some great points.

- If they are shooting at 23.976 fps and are most likely going to be editing on Final Cut Pro, what should I roll audio at?  Wouldn't it be more simple to roll audio at 23.976 as well, or is it still advisable to roll audio at 29.97?  Editorial has not been hired yet so I can't ask them. 

- At this point, is it possible to jam the Red camera using a sync box such as Denecke's SB-3?  How well does it hold sync before having to re-jam?  If I re-jam it every couple hours would it be close enough?

- What type of cable would I need to be able to jam the Red?

- I'll most likely need to feed audio to camera as a scratch track.  Guess I would need to purchase a pair of TA3-M to XLR-F cables?

- Would I be able to monitor the audio via the Red's headphone out? 

I still vote for keeping the whole show at one frame rate.  If post hasn't been hired and production has no ideas then I'd go 23.98.

It is possible to jam a RED, but someone else will have to chime in with how long you can expect it to hold sync.  The camera's TC connection is on a Lemo, but the rental house should supply the adapter to XLR or whatever.

The camera might come with the correct audio adapter cables--the ones around here do.  Coffey/LSC/Trew/Gotham etc all sell the adapters now.  I had a PSC style snake "fan" made up so I could continue to use the snakes I've had for years to feed video cameras.  This snake has a return line and cn plug into the RED's headphone out like any other camera.

Philip Perkins

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well I just got done with a Red Camera shoot (not quite).  On the 3rd day of shooting, the Red started to have "recording error."  After

long phone conversations with the rental house (Red refused to return our calls) they tried updating the firmware.  On day 4, problems still existed and hours were wasted.  The producers made the call to switch to a F900R and one was shipped in.  The F900R was used for the remaining 10 days of shooting.  I don't know how much of a pain it will be for post to deal with 2 formats, but at least the movie was completed.

Here's some observations about the Red during the limited time it was on set. 

- The camera package included the mini XLR audio cables and the lemo to BNC cable

- The Red jams to ext timecode.  However, it loses sync after a battery change.

- Sometimes it jams right away, and sometimes it requires you to hit record before it jams.

- The fan is loud as hell.  There is a setting to turn it off during recording.  This often is a disadvantage; it's so loud it masks other sound disturbances and you wouldn't hear them until camera is rolling.  Also, to record room tone will require the camera to be either removed from the room, turned off, or be rolling.

- Scrolling through a shitload of menus just to get to any function is a hassle.

- I do have to admit the Red's picture does look good though 

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I just worked on a Red camera in post (video color correction), and was actually surprised by how good the picture looked. It definitely looks a lot better than you'd expect a $17,000 camera to look.

But it's definitely softer than a decent (older) Sony F900 or F950, looking at normal 1080. There's also a kind of weird vertical noise in the picture that comes and goes, particularly with certain strong colors.

Lotta workflow issues with the Red, too. It basically takes about 6 hours from the time you get an hour of material to getting it converted with Scratch to a format with which the editor can use (like 1080 or, god forbid, standard def).

The sound on this job was all 23.98, and synced up just fine. Never heard the audio on the camera files; this client told me they gave up trying to get any audio in, and just trusted the double-system (Deva in this case). They also went through two cameras on their shoot, with one crashing completely on a CF card change.

There's no problem dealing with mixing the 2K files from the Red vs. the 1920x1080 files from a Sony HD camera. They uprez the latter slightly, and it all meshes well. Heck, we have to mix between film and HD all the time, and that's much more of a challenge.

Read the FAQs and other discussions on Red.com. They're illuminating and yet very wacky (and sometimes a little scary).

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Here's a workflow idea - DOUBLE SYSTEM, SYNC YOUR SOUND LATER......

It will be a long time before I treat the RED like a video camera (single system).

Double system, 'film style", and CHARGING for it. 

Plain and simple - it is by no means a mature audio recorder, and I'm sick of proponents saying that it is.

Audio is not the apparent focus here - it's the pretty picture.... 

Mike Filosa, CAS

Atlanta

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Lotta workflow issues with the Red, too. It basically takes about 6 hours from the time you get an hour of material to getting it converted to a format with which the editor can use (like 1080 or, god forbid, standard def).

First of all, I want to extend my gratitude to Marc for taking the time to post things here --- the depth of his knowledge in so many areas, even while working primarily in telecine, is absolutely amazing.

Regarding the workflow issues with the RED and specifically the time frame, could you compare this 6 hours for 1 hour of "footage" from the RED to the time it takes to prepare 1 hour of traditional film (this of course needs to have the time in the film processing lab factored in).

Thanks,  Jeff Wexler

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Hello Group,

I starting production sound mixing a new 2 camera Red television series a few weeks ago and the Red audio has been rocky to say the least.

Our workflow is 23.98 all around with syncing in final cut pro. My recorder is the Fostex DV824 in DDR mode with an Fostex FR-2 back up.

There is no telecine on this show, everything is handled in house. Production demanded that a usable mix track be recorded on all of the Red cameras for instant dailies. Dailies are distributed via Quicktime on the intranet. Production does not want to spend an extra day syncing up production audio for dailies now that the camera can record audio. This is a big deal to them and I fear it is the future. Two primary Red cameras with often a third one on the Steadicam.

The line level mix track comes from my mixer through a Cat 5 cable (which also caries back 2 down converted SD monitor feeds for my cart monitors) to the HD video village, where it is then Y split into two XLR cables built into the camera snakes feeding channel 1 of the A & B Red cameras. The Steadicam Red camera gets a Comtek 216 receiver plugged into channel 1

Problems so far:

The Red male mini XLR to female full size XLR has resistors built in to interface with the Red camera's odd, non standard audio scheme. These were causing the line level mix track to come in too low which required the assistant editor to boost the levels. The Red camera has NO line level adjustment.

Our solution was to build some mini XLR to full size XLR cables with NO resistors. This boosted the line level mix track being recorded on the Red camera by 20 to 30 %

Our picture final cut pro editors claim that dealing with more than one audio track on the Red camera causes huge problems for them at this time. Were trying to figure out what they mean by that?

The constant plugging and unplugging of cables has resulted in no audio be recorded on some of the Red camera's some of the time. Yes we need someone dedicated to this position. It has been a constant conversation on wether this in a 600 or 695 position.

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Regarding the workflow issues with the RED and specifically the time frame, could you compare this 6 hours for 1 hour of "footage" from the RED to the time it takes to prepare 1 hour of traditional film (this of course needs to have the time in the film processing lab factored in).

That was the thing the engineers and I were surprised about. Traditionally, it takes about 4-5 hours to take a roll of 35mm negative and process it, splice it together, then turn it over to telecine for dailies. (It takes another couple of hours to do print dailies, but those are rare nowadays.) We were shocked that it took as long as film processing. In fact, I think most LA post houses take 12-16 hours to turn around Red camera footage for dailies, which would include rendering, color correction, syncing, viewing copies, and so on.

In fairness to the Red camera, these rendering delays (the video equivalent of a sound mixer having to burn a DVD-RAM disk at the end of the shoot) are beginning to shrink. While taking Red raw footage and putting it through Scratch rendering now takes 5 hours (plus another hour to play it out to an HDCam videotape for dailies), this delay will inevitably shrink as computers get faster. There are rumors of 16-processor Macs on the horizon, so one hopes that it could eventually be done in real time.

--Marc W.

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