Frame size...Color or FCP

Hi guys,
I will grade a short film shooted with the RED in 4K and with the Canon 5D. The final result will be outputed on an HDCAM SR.

Here is my interrogation :
Shots from the RED were imported with LOG & TRANSFER in FCP7 in ProRes 422 HQ 2K and shot from the 5D were transcoded in ProRes 422 HQ 1920x1080.

The Edit was done in a 2K sequence in FCP7 than copy paste in a 1920x1080. The Shot from the RED were resized to fit in the 1920x1080 frame size.

------- i wasnt there from the first part of that workflow as i would have done that differently-----

As i wanted to grade those shots with the highest quality possible i imported them in 4K in Color with the CLIP FINDER workflow :

1-Export from FCP7 an XML from the 1920x1080 final sequence
2-Import that XML with CLIP FINDER than conform to have that
sequence relinked with the original RED Files.
3-Import that new XML in FCP7 than Send it in Color.

Here is the problem :
The RED shots (relinked) doesn't keep the reframing from the 1920x1080 sequence, its zoomed in in the new FCP sequence.

Should i resized every RED Shots in that sequence before sending to Color...OR....send that sequence as is in Color and only resized the Canon 5D shots. Because if i do the second option, i will grade in 4K frame size but my Canon 5D shots are not in 4K so i'll have to resize them in Color.

Well its not that clear guys...sorry...but im a bit confuse as what i should do.

Any good advice would be really appreciate. Keep in mind that the final result will be outputed on a HDCAM SR.

Thx.

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Here is my interrogation

Friendly tip? You probably meant "interrogative" here. Unless you're planning on shining bright lights in our faces and demanding that we give up the secrets.

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i wasnt there from the first part of that workflow as i would have done that differently

Yeah, glad to hear it. It sounds kind of sub-optimal. Unless you're doing very slight repos on every shot, I can't see the virtue of processing your R3Ds to 2K and then asking Final Cut to take them down to HD. Seems like the better choice would have been to go straight to HD first via Redline.

BUT, that's all in the past now.

If you're under deadline pressure and you just have no time to experiment ? or you don't feel like messing around with it and wasting time ? I would suggest going back to Clipfinder and re-doing your conform differently. Instead of conforming to the R3D media, render out ProRes 422 HQ or ProRes 4444 Quicktimes at HD resolution. After that's done, Clipfinder should give you a new XML that links to the processed Quicktimes, not the full-resolution R3Ds. The Quicktimes will all be the correct size and aspect ratio, so you can just remove whatever motion properties might have been on them to scale them down from 2K to HD.

At that point, you should have a nice, clean timeline that you can send to Color. You'll grade both the Red-originated and the Canon-originated stuff in Color at HD resolution, then bring that timeline back to Final Cut for output to SR.

I said "should" a lot there because I've never done those exact steps with those exact tools myself, so I can't guarantee that they'll work correctly. But that's what I'd try if I were in your shoes.

I'd grade in 4K and then resize once it's all rendered and back in FCP. You can easily do an output of the 1080p version and put that as an overlay so you can check shot by shot how much to reframe each shot. Going to take a day but the final quality will be much higher coming from a 4K raw grade than 1080p repos...

Noah

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Yeah if you have the time, grade in 4K. That's part of the point of shooting in it in the first place, surely.

OK so here is what i will do juste tell me if it make sense.

1- I will grade in 4K in Color with my settings in 4K 16:9 in Color. Of course the 5D shots will be much smaller but i will not resized them in Color, just grade them to be sure they match with the RED shots.

2- Than i will send back the graded timeline in FCP.
3- I will export a SCQTM of the sequence resized in 16:9 by the editor and put that SCQTM over my new graded sequence and resized that new sequence to be sure it match the final edit ( the 16:9 resized sequence).

I have a quick question Noah, a guy at my job suggest me that i should use the REDLog option instead of the REDSpace option in the RED window in Color. He told me that REDLog is what the Camera Realy see and REDSpace is what the human eye can see when you shoot with the RED...does it make sense ?

Thanks a lot guys...always so helpfull to post here.

Francois

>Of course the 5D shots will be much smaller but i will not resized them in Color, just grade them
>to be sure they match with the RED shots.

Color will render to whatever sequence codec/frame size you set to. If you work with mixed footage, Color will render everything to ProRes/ProRes HQ.

So, either you grade the 5D footage separately...

Or you up convert your 5D footage to 4K ProRes, and insert it in your edit sequence, to grade together with the rest of your footage. Then afterwards, down convert everything to 1080.

Your choice would depend on the edit.



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