data wrangling Arri Alexa Plus footage

Hello all,

I am working a Media Managing position for an Alexa plus shoot in the near future, and am wondering if my current system will be sufficient to get the job done.

I have a Mac Pro running OS X 10.6.8 with dual 2.8 ghz Quad-core Intel Xeon Processors and 4 gb of ram. I use Final Cut Pro 6.0.6, Quicktime Pro Player 7.6.6, and Compressor 3.0.5.

A DIT told me I should get Al3xa Data Manager to make my life easier and to verify the clips are working properly.

With this system, will I be able to successfully mount the sxs cards and copy the footage to drive, and then spot check the clips to make sure they work? I know we will be shooting in Apple Pro Res 444. Since I only have Apple Pro Res 422 codec in FCP, Quicktime, and Compressor, will I still be able to play back clips in Pro Res 444, or will I need to download the codec plug-in? If so, where can I get that plug-in?

I'm a little nervous, as I read that people have had problems mounting 64 gb sxs cards to their mac pros.

Any help is great.

Thanks and Happy Easter!

AFAIK if you have QT 7.6. ... 3 or 4, not sure which dot point - you can view ProRes 4444 in FCP 6, but you can't render it out, so you'd be better off getting FCP 7, if you can.

FCP 6 is not a good environment for the later versions of ProRes (LT, Proxy and 4444) because you cannot get RT performance. This means that you have to keep rendering everything. I would recommend finding a copy of FCP 7 on eBay or using another NLE.

(As a side note: we make a similar tool to Alexa Data Manager that will work with any camera and comes in a pack with 9 additional tools: [www.digitalrebellion.com] )

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I agree with the advice of getting FCP 7, mainly because it is more stable and lets you work directly with the 4444 files. However, as usually the case with digital cinema formats, most guys prefer transcoding to something smaller like Prores LT or Prores for the offline and then conforming back to the full resolution rushes at the end. This beats struggling with rendering 2K files.



www.strypesinpost.com

Good point. On my current project we're editing 1080p ProRes LT with baked-in LUTs and conforming back to the ProRes 4444 Log-C media for grading.

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Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

Thanks guys!

Jon Chappell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good point. On my current project we're editing
> 1080p ProRes LT with baked-in LUTs and conforming
> back to the ProRes 4444 Log-C media for grading.


Hi Jon,

I'm about to start work on a project which will shoot ProRes 4444 Log-C Media. I don't want to bring the ProRes 4444 into FCP 7 as I'm worried the render time will be a burden.
I was wondering if you would mind outlining the workflow you used for editing in ProRes LT and then conforming back to ProRes4444, from transcoding the originals to a lower compression, all the way to creating the online. I'd be really grateful for an insight into how you handled this.

Stella

FCP 7 shouldn't have to render ProRes 4444 at all unless you add effects to it, but if you want to add LUTs (which I'd recommend) you'll need to create another copy of the media which could take up a lot of space and is probably better at a lower-bandwidth codec. We used ProRes LT, but in retrospect we probably would have been fine even with ProRes Proxy.

On this particular movie the editorial team was in LA and the production crew was in Europe, so they had a lab prep the dailies for us. I don't know the exact workflow they used but you could use any app that is capable of importing a LUT. Easy options are Resolve or FCP 7 with the LUT Buddy plugin.

Generate a LUT with ARRI's LUT Generator, then double-click the clip in the FCP 7 browser to load it in the viewer, add the LUT Buddy plugin (I believe it's still free, although how you download it free from Red Giant's site is a mystery, so you might want to contact them and check), then batch export. You may wish to sync sound at this point too.

My software:
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Forgot to mention the online workflow - just reconnect to the 4444 media in FCP 7. Then you can export an XML or EDL for grading.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...

For those people with a Blackmagic Decklink, AJA Kona or similar you can set the video output from the card to output the correct colour via a LUT.

I use this so I don't have to apply a LUT to the footage and its just a quick setting on the control panel. You see the LOG footage on the Mac screen and the corrected footage on the output monitor.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Good tip, didn't know that was possible.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...