Long Shoot In India - Workflow

aaronbsmith77

aaronbsmith77

New member
I am budgeting/planning for a documentary production that will take place in India. Hopefully in the fall. At the moment, we are looking at a three month run in India.

I am planning to use two DVX-200 cameras, shooting on P2 Cards (3 8GB for camera), offloading the P2's to P2 stores and then dumping the P2 Stores onto hard drives.

For hard drives, and looking at the Lacie SATA II drive:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10773

I am thinking of bringing 4 of these drives with me.

The will run the drives off of a mac book pro with a SATA II card in the newer PCI slots on those machines.

I am looking for opinions about whether or not this seems like a good workflow for this type of production.

I am also curious what recommendations people might have with regards to having backup of everything. Part of me kind of wishes I could hook the P2 Store up to Panasonic's HD deck and print the footage to tape. But I don't think this is an option.
 
aaronbsmith77 said:
Part of me kind of wishes I could hook the P2 Store up to Panasonic's HD deck and print the footage to tape. But I don't think this is an option.
Click to expand...

Using the P2 store to do that is not an option but you could use the macbookpro if you have FCP software installed. You would have to import the footage to the timeline and do a print to tape using a panasonic 1200 or 1400 deck connected via firewire.
 
lacie's do suck.... thats my 2 cents

other than that, seems like a reasonable WF

theres also dual layer DVDs to back up on..... 1 8gig card = 1 dvd

godspeed.
 
What!!

What!!

wgzn said:
lacie drives BLOW! avoid them at all costs!
Click to expand...

My 600GB Lacie d2 has been to Thailand, India (twice), Egypt, Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, China to name but a few. It was carried in a packpack thats been thrown around more times than I care to remember and its performed faultlessly along with 5 other variants of the d2!

You pays yer money yer takes yer choice!

Indy....

Taking the 600gb d2 to Japan and South Korea in 10 days
 
The drives may not be your problem/issue. You MUST have someone specifically DEDICATED to managing your media/data, especially on an overseas shoot. Someone who knows what they're doing, not a PA who's standing around. I spent 2+ weeks in Ethiopia w/ an HVX200, 5-8GB cards, a 17"PB, P2 Store, etc. I tested the workflow at home before we left. It was just me and an audio person on the shoot. I found I did not have the time to properly manage all the transferring and verification myself. Lost about 5% of our stuff for various reasons.

Don't use P2 Genie (unless you can really double check every transfer). Barry would recommend you xfer to a PC notebook with a PCMIA slot (wish I had) instead of a MAC. I took an external OWC 100GB firewire drive that seemed fine and backed all up at night to OWC Raid+1, mirrored drives. Definitely back up everything. If you're using FCP have someone import all footage as you go along to make sure it is alright. P2 Log Pro saved my butt retrieving problem cards/clips when I got back. Worth the $150.00.

If you have someone managing the data/importing you'll probably be fine. Shoot a card, hand it off, and find out 10-15 minutes later that the footage is fine. Me, next time out, the HDX900, good old tape, and a camera you can really operate!

good luck.mike
 
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