Hi all - longtime lurker -firsttime poster. I thought with all the hubbub over RED, you would all like to know the actual workflow that happened to generate the IBC images:
For anybody at the IBC screenings, if you noticed the credit page... all the grading for the IBC presentation was done on SCRATCH. I've been working with the RED team for a little while now on those images and on preparing them for IBC. All the images shown at IBC went through SCRATCH at 2K, 4K, and (yikes) 5K.
The post path to get those images was:
1) Record off the camera and onto disk.
James M - part of the Oakley/RED production team - was the DP for the shots. I actually saw most of them being done, so can attest to the the fact that they were recorded directly off the camera and onto disk. There was no "funny business" with any of the shots. They are all pure RED. Everybody was a little nervous lighting around one of Jannard's 959s (the white porsche at the end of the sequence) but other than that, it was all good.
2) Debayer / color matrix images
The original images off disk were greyscale 16-bit TIFF at 4980x2560. The sensor is Super35mm -- 1:9 at 5K. After processing the images, we had 5K RGB 16-bit TIFF.
3) Downrez to 4K
Although we could have worked at 5K, we knew this was destined for the Sony4K. So we downrezzed to two sets of files - 4095 x 2160, and 2048 x 1080. The IBC Theatre is 4K. The SCRATCH system currently in the RED booth at IBC is showing 2K - so we needed both sets.
4) Grade, grade, grade.
We graded all the images at Hollywood DI on the old Warner Hollywood Lot through SCRATCH on two different systems - a Barco 2K (Neil - pipe in here with the exact specs,) and a Sony4K. All the initial grading was done in 2K - because it was just easier that way - less storage, less transfer time, less hassle, etc, etc.
Once initial grades were completed in 2K, we then transferred those grades to the 4K images. We looked at the 4K through the Barco, but also loaded them up on a Keisoku 4K DDR (courtesy of Asia Media Products - thanks Grady!!) that was playing through the octal-SDI links to the Sony 4K (provided by Keycode Media - thanks Mike!)
Jim (Jannard), Ted, Jarred, and James from the RED team all supervised the color sessions and made final decisions. The colorist was Bob Gill from FilmworksFX in Santa Monica.
I must say - I'm very impressed with the RED color team. From the time we started this process until the time we did the final images - their debayer and color matrix process advanced very fast. Smart guys. The last images they gave me were worlds better than the first.
Something important for everyone to know - from the final 5K RGB images pre-color to the rendered images at IBC - with the exception of one shot (Joanne - the girl blowing the bubble that Ted popped at the beginning of the sequence) the only color processes we did to the images were Lift (master) down, Gain (master) up, Saturation up, Lift (Blue) down. That's it. No shapes, keys, or secondaries. The RED team has done a very nice job with their debayer/matrix algorithms.
5) Approve and Render
Once final approvals happened, we rendered to a final set of 4K (4096 x 2160) DPX files. Those DPX files went to QuVis and Keisoku. QuVis went through their process to crunch the files for display. With Keisoku, it's just dragging and dropping file sequences, and it plays back uncompressed.
I believe that at IBC, playback is happening through QuVis, but I am not certain of that.
If anybody has any other questions, please feel free to ask. I've been under a pretty savage NDA, but now that the IBC press event is done, RED has blessed my talking about the workflow... If anybody at IBC wants to take a closer look at the images, they are on a SCRATCH system in the RED booth, as well as on the SCRATCH systems in the ASSIMILATE suites at the back of Hall 7.
I also have the images in LA, and once the RED team arrives back from IBC, I know that they will be setting up screenings. Probably the first screening will be for the reservation holders...
Lucas Wilson
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Assimilate, Inc.
Los Angeles
www.assimilateinc.com
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