Possible Workflow Considerations for Short Film Shoot

[riggieri]

Hey Everyone

We'll be shooting a short film for the first time on the HVX w/ the Mini35 adapter and superspeeds. I just have a question about our propsed workflow and if anyone sees any issues with it.

We will have 3 P2 cards. at least 1 8gb, maybe 3 maybe 2 4gb. Think we are shooting in either 720p24n or 1080i24pa. We haven't done the camera tests yet, so we don't know.

Anyways, the plan is to have a Logger on set. he is sort of going to do the job of a loader on a film set. The 2nd Assistant camera will take take a full card to the Logger with the camera report sheet for the reel. The Logger will then pop it into a macbook pro and copy the entire contents to external Hard drive 1, in a individual folder for that reel.

The logger will then use P2 Log to covert and log all the MXF clips to quick time, and log all the camera report information, and script information. He will save all the individual clip to Hard drive 2, in an individual foler for that reel. He will then save the XML for that reel into the same folder to import into final cut.

How does that sounds? anyone see any workflow problems? Thanks guys

Matt

[NathanPresley]

it can be kinda difficult to convert it to a quicktime film sometimes, so just
make sure he already can do it with out any problems before you shoot.

and bring a external harddrive if your not already considering it.

[Jofes6]

If you are shooting in 1080i, that is about 1min/gig. If your takes are long, that will not give the loader enough time to do all the dumping and converting.

My suggestion is have a laptop and an external hard drive. Number your log sheet in the beginning of the day. Have a log sheet for each P2 card. When the card is full, bring it and the sheet numbered accordingly, to the loader and have him dump the files onto the hard drive in a folder for that specific log sheet. Do this for the entire day and the next day, give an assistant editor, who stays at a production office, the hard drive and the log sheets and have him do all the converting and organizing.

Like I mentioned before, the 8gig cards do not last long, and if you are using 4gig cards, it can get stressful waiting on the cards to be dumped.

Hope this helps.

[ozduc]

The Logger will then pop it into a macbook pro and copy the entire contents to external Hard drive 1, in a individual folder for that reel.

This will not work as the macbook pro's do not have a PCMCIA slot for the P2 card. The last of the G4 Powerbooks is what you will need or a PC with PCMCIA slot. Just be sure to check the footage prior to re-formatting the card.


The logger will then use P2 Log to covert and log all the MXF clips to quick time, and log all the camera report information, and script information. He will save all the individual clip to Hard drive 2, in an individual foler for that reel. He will then save the XML for that reel into the same folder to import into final cut.

How does that sounds? anyone see any workflow problems? Thanks guys

Matt

No need to go through this step. Hand the drive with each "reel" folder, containing the contents folder and last clip .txt file, to the assistant editor and the corresponding log sheets/camera reports and they can log and import into FCP5.1.2 which creates the quicktime files on import.

[riggieri]

it can be kinda difficult to convert it to a quicktime film sometimes, so just
make sure he already can do it with out any problems before you shoot.
will do. we will defiantly be doing tons of tests beforehand

and bring a external hard drive if your not already considering it.
We will have two externals on FW800 already on set. one for the RAW p2 MXF files and 1 for the QT Files.

If you are shooting in 1080i, that is about 1min/gig. If your takes are long, that will not give the loader enough time to do all the dumping and converting.
Even with three cards? I mean it can't take longer than 10 minutes to dump the raw P2 mxf files to a hard drive and another 10-15 to convert to QT. we may move to 720P24n if we can't offlad in a redundant scheme within 20-25 minutes. None of the takes are overly long, so i don't think it would eb to big of a deal

Like I mentioned before, the 8gig cards do not last long, and if you are using 4gig cards, it can get stressful waiting on the cards to be dumped.
yea no time in the schedule for waiting. hoping we will have 3 8gb card. actually if the 16gb cards are out by march/april, then we will have one of those.

Also we will defiantly ave log sheets for each separate "reel" or p2 cards. just like in film.

This will not work as the macbook pro's do not have a PCMCIA slot for the P2 card. The last of the G4 Powerbooks is what you will need or a PC with PCMCIA slot. Just be sure to check the footage prior to re-formatting the card.
Yea i know. we will either have an adapter or a another HVX on set. or i will find a g4 to doit. Either way, we will find someway areound that

No need to go through this step. Hand the drive with each "reel" folder, containing the contents folder and last clip .txt file, to the assistant editor and the corresponding log sheets/camera reports and they can log and import into FCP5.1.2 which creates the quicktime files on import.
Well on the shoot, the logger and assistant editor was going to be one and the same. And the idea of having it copied to one hard drive as the raw MXF files and converting to QT right on set is that way it is redundant. I don't want to chance anything, plus all the footage will get looked at once, almost immediately after being shot, so we will know what worked and if there were any problems and we need to re-shoot a angle or something.

Can someone explain the advantages and disadvantages or using P2 logger or Final Cut 5.1.2?

[Jofes6]

The experience I have had with the P2 cards and offloading them via Powerbook, it has taken approx 1min/gig. This was 7 months ago so maybe they have improved. It all depends on shooting schedule. If they are short shots and enought time between shots, then the loader may be able to do what you need, but if they are long shots or documentary style shooting, it can back up really fast.

[ozduc]

Can someone explain the advantages and disadvantages or using P2 logger or Final Cut 5.1.2?

If you have the G4 powerbook and a couple of drives, the advantage is you can put the card in the slot, copy it to drive 1, then you can open FCP and bring up the import P2 window. There you can view each clip to make sure it copied ok, thereby releasing the P2 card back into circulation. While you continue to shoot the loader/assistant editor can be importing the footage into FCP which will in turn create the QT files onto the scratch disk (drive 2).

[riggieri]

thanks everyone for the help