Lost Children - Mark Harris

Mark Harris said:
You're making me blush...

I am actually planning a blog post about directing actors. Not like I am some big know-it-all, but I would like to share some thoughts on it. Jack and I always spent time talking about ways to get actors to do absolutely nothing on camera. It ain't easy, so I will try to start a post about it over the weekend and hope to get some chimes in from the other people in the fest.
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This could be a very interesting blog. I always have problems managing this part of the performance especially when the clock is ticking. In order of importance, its imperative to pick the right actor to pull this off.
 
Bts

Bts

Few BTS shots:

The ELEMENT crammed to the gills:

element_1.jpg

element_2.jpg

element_3.jpg


Aram freaking out about lighting in camera and having to check the footy in REDAlert like a LITTLE GIRL:

aram_in_camera_lighting_panic.jpg


Hech using the Skater with the RED ONE to master a couple of really important shots. Let me tell you, these guys really pulled no punches getting the shots just right:

hech_skater_1.jpg

hech_skater_2.jpg


And Hech with the BFD(Big F-ing Dolly). Word of advice: if Aram ever works with you and says: "the dolly's easy. It fits in a suitcase like this..." and makes motions with his hands that lead you to believe the suitcase is really small, DO NOT BELIEVE HIM!!!!!

hech_big_dolly.jpg


Last word of Advice, if Aram says he had an experimental fish dinner that Leslie made, wait at least a week before having Aram on the set.
 
All right, I am not going to try to be all mysterious with this film. Going to share everything we do and learn.

Aram playing with some CC. Looks nice cropped for scope too:

Leah_Scott.jpg
 
Nice shot... Looking forward to what you gentlemen pull off here, Mark. I've been fans of you and Aram for a while.

How bout some tech bits...

Aram, why Red Alert? I've been usually playing in RedCine. What's your pref and how are you guys doing the post? RedRushes to an online format or working with proxies?
 
Thanks Geoff. I use REDalert on set because its windowed and I can leave it open and still copy media around. REDcine has that full window only thing I hate. I use REDcine on my old PC at home for testing CC on stills. When I edit I use 2K proxies in FCP and when the edit is finished I do a reveal in finder on each clip and open that file in REDalert on the Mac and do the CC and then do a save all quicktimes... and the changes automatically show up in FCP. Then you can apply any effects from FCP after that and render out the movie.
 
So you're rendering out the full file in redcine then? I did this for a short once, but it was a 20 min one and it took forever to get through a scene because some of the full shots were so long.

Have you used crimson to just relink and render what you need? OR is it more because for the time being, you want the latitude of being able to extend clips and perhaps re-edit a particular shot you're using?
 
Geoff_R said:
So you're rendering out the full file in redcine then? I did this for a short once, but it was a 20 min one and it took forever to get through a scene because some of the full shots were so long.

Have you used crimson to just relink and render what you need? OR is it more because for the time being, you want the latitude of being able to extend clips and perhaps re-edit a particular shot you're using?
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I am going to try the FCP plug-in this weekend to work with the native files in QT wrappers. If that does not work, I will likely edit the proxies. I tried REDCine, but it crashed my computer EVERY time I used it.

REDAlert generates QT files at full, half, quarter, that you can edit with in FCP as well.
 
Yea RedCine has a history of bugs... I've gotten it to be semi-stable on my macpro since I haven't upgraded any of my typical QT components in a long time. That's the big issue... errors with the QT components. I haven't batched a bunch of RedCine stuff in a while so not sure how it's running nowadays. I don't even remember how many times I reinstalled my OS, the FCP suite and all the Red post apps... It was crazy... but worth it ;)
 
Ugh, don't tell me that. Part of the reason I wanted to do RED on a short was to get the experience to use it on my feature. But if post turns out to be a massive headache, it might be to the circular file with the whole thing...

So far I can edit the 2K proxies from a USB drive on my quad-core Mac just fine. That's CCing in REDAlert. I would prefer the plugin and do it all in FCP, but we'll see...

For the contest it doesn't matter as much because the final is so small, I could prob just edit the 1080 proxies and be fine. But I want to get my brain around it.

I am very, very happy with the images Aram and Hech wrangled out of it though...
 
It's better these days. I wouldn't be concerned with a feature at all. The whole crimson process is definitely something you'd want to experiment with when doing a feature. It saves a lot of rendering time. On the other hand... you may just treat it like film and 'print' that particular shot, rendering the whole thing to a 1080 codec and then later, relink everything with a high res 2k img seq export later on down the road. The one great thing about Red post is that you have many options to follow.
 
How bad is it in your opinion to work with the 2K QT proxies? Color is going to be important to this film, and I've heard that is not the greatest way. Though, people on reduser do it.

Because color will not only be important, but changing actively throughout scenes in the film, I want to do it all in FCP/color. Not REDAlert, know what I mean?

So I will be coloring 2K proxies in this plan...thoughts?
 
Geoff_R said:
So you're rendering out the full file in redcine then? I did this for a short once, but it was a 20 min one and it took forever to get through a scene because some of the full shots were so long.

Have you used crimson to just relink and render what you need? OR is it more because for the time being, you want the latitude of being able to extend clips and perhaps re-edit a particular shot you're using?
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Nope. I only use REDcine for test CC on a frame or two. My work flow is:
Edit 2K QT proxies in FCP
After edit is done, I do a "reveal in finder" on the clips on the time line.
I open the clip I did the "reveal in finder" in REDalert and CC/brighten/tweak.
I do a "save all quicktimes" in REDalert to generate new colored proxies
I go back to FCP and it automatically updates to the colored proxies
I repeat for each clip. (You can save your look in REDalert and apply to each clip so it goes pretty fast).
I can render from there or add more effects like the Nattress or something to the new colored proxies and then render out to whatever I want.
Done.
 
Right, but in this one I am going to to need to color in color, because there will be many places where the color changes base on keyframe, say. Know what I mean?
 
You can ingest the R3D and rewrap them to prorez and then go back and forth to color or you can just render out the section you know you are going to ramp the style to tiffs and bring those into color.
 
Beat Takeshi said:
You can ingest the R3D and rewrap them to prorez and then go back and forth to color or you can just render out the section you know you are going to ramp the style to tiffs and bring those into color.
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What do you mean, wrap them in pro-res? You mean with the FCP installer from RED?

M
 
I think if you use "log and capture", it changes the files to Pro-res and you don't need the R3D files anymore since it creates a new independent file.
 
Mark Harris said:
How bad is it in your opinion to work with the 2K QT proxies? Color is going to be important to this film, and I've heard that is not the greatest way. Though, people on reduser do it.

Because color will not only be important, but changing actively throughout scenes in the film, I want to do it all in FCP/color. Not REDAlert, know what I mean?

So I will be coloring 2K proxies in this plan...thoughts?
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I actually haven't tried this route yet... I guess you could literally take the proxies straight in there and do your magic. The one aspect I dislike about the proxies is that you are technically sacrificing some image quality... but this ties straight into the old debate of codecs and datarate; where often we assume more is always better. Now this may be technically accurate but is it even visible to the eye? REDCODE is marvelous itself and it's nearly impossible for even the best to decipher between Redcode and Raw which are very different datarate wise.

So although you're technically sacrificing some bits to work with the proxies. Is it that big of a deal? I think that's completely up to your taste based on the final results you're seeing. I'd take some proxies into color, play around and render out to your deliverable format. I'd also take that same shot, do a quick one-light in Redcine or RedAlert and do the same work in color. See if it's worth it.
 
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