workflow for big projects

TimPion

TimPion

Member
Hi,

First of all, let me introduce myself. I am Tim Pion and I am a productdesigner and since 2 years also Indie filmmaker. I am very enthousiastic about new software and try everything out I can get my hands on and I always try to find the right tool for the job. I have done some minor filmprojects including some effects, montage, 3d,...

I have started the making of a 60 minute movie about 2 years ago, together with a friend wo is co-director and co-producor. At this moment we are in the middle of shooting footage. We have all our hardwarematerial, storyboards, script and are perfecting or filming and lightning techniques.

Still, I have one big question regarding post production workflow. I have searched so long, and everywhere i find topics about "the right tool for the job", tutorials about creating disintegration, comparisons between motion, AE, Nuke and shake.
But never how to use all those tools together for 1 project. I can make astonishing videoclips and effects, but how do i integrate them in a 60 minute movie for the big screen (yes, thats right, we have a big oportunity for a limited display :-)

First of all, I need to say this project is a hobbyproject. Although its growing quit big and we even got some money from the governement, I am aware i cant make the next "matrix" and I am still sort of a n00b. But I want to make this movie in the most professional way I can and I am sure some of you can help me out with that!

So for the post production some facts:
- We are making HDV with a sony FX7E
- We use external sound and a clapboard, but we always take reference-sound with the camera's onboard mic
- We are with 2 editors/directors (but we are working closely together). I am on a mac and the other one is on a PC. I prefer FCP and he prefers PP. Its no problem because you can import from FCP into PP CS4 with no problem. We can also use the .EDL files for the rough cuts.
- My macbook 13" with 4GB ram is not a powerstation, nor is his PC. But thats ok, i use cleaner to make proxy's when I am editing and the laptop is optimized to use for heavy applications, so i can use AE and Nuke without a problem. Only big files make a problem.

Now the question is: how do I get the best workflow without losing quality and what are my options with codecs? I have heard about the cineform codec and the apple ProRes, but i have no idea what they do... For now, we just import through PP (to test our editing possibility's)
We can use lots of software (thanks to a production bureau we are acuainted with), so software cost price is almost no issue here (as long as they have it, we can use it).

What I was thinking is:

1
- import and save the files (what codec and program do we use here?)
- Create a proxy and use that one for steps 2 and 3

2
- Make a rough cut for every scene with the proxy (crossplatform: FCP and PP)
- save as a project named SCENE00X

3
- Import the SCENE projects on 1 platform (not sure if this will be the mac or the PC, but i think the PC is better for the final render, so i guess it will be the PC) and save them as PP (or FCP if we chose the mac)
- Import the SCENE projects into 1 big project which will be the whole movie

4
- import the scoremusic in this big project

5
- now get the original files (only the footage we used in our rough cut)
- Do some enhancements (stabilizer, noise reduction) (in NUKE or SHAKE on 1 platform, preferably the mac as I will be doing most of this)
- save as ENHANCEDFOOTAGE

6
- Sync external sound in PP or FCP
- Sync folley and soundeffects
- save this as a project named SYNCEDSOUNDFOOTAGE.
- import it to our main editing prog (FCP or PP)

7
- Overwrite the proxy with the SYNCEDSOUNDFOOTAGE projects

8
- Open the SCENE projects back and add color correction

9
- Open the big project containing the whole movie and we have now all the right footage in this project.
- render it out


In the end we have the following architecture where we make everything first with a proxy which is then replaced by the original footage.


  • project MOVIE: combines the SCENE projects with the scoremusic
  • project SCENE: Combines all the SYNCEDSOUNDFOOTAGE projects and add Colorcorrection
  • project SYNCEDSOUNDFOOTAGE: Sync sound and video, add folley
  • ENHANCED FOOTAGE

So here are my questions regarding this topic:


  • What do you think of this workflow? Is it realistic?
  • Do you think this is a good way to assure the quality?
  • How do you integrate NUKE and aftereffects (and others) without losing too much quality by compressing and decompressing again
  • Is it good to do the colorcorection in premiere or is there a batter way to do it?
  • What codecs can we use? ProRes, CineForm,... whats the difference? Is it an option to just import the footage through PP and then use it?

So, after a long reserach I hope to get all the pieces together here. Hopefully this information comes in handy for some more people trying to start their own big project.
Maybe one last question: I have read some filmmaking books and manuals, but none of them cover this topic. so if you could point me out to some good reading stuff, I' ll be more then happy!

Thanks in advance!!!!


Tim

PS: For those interested, you can view our progress at www.linesthemovie.tk
The site is in dutch, it will be available in English as soon as reaches it final stages.
 
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google up "quicktime gamma shift", before you make any decisions about what codecs to base the project on... since you'll be working cross-platform, you want to be sure and use a standard that won't tweak the gamma, as the files are moved from one computer to the other... retaining colorspace is important.

you'll want to transcode to the intermediate codec before anything else, but beyond that, my workflow is nothing like what you outlined, so maybe someone else with film-oriented 24p production experience can pipe in here.
 
Thanks for the reply! I took a quick look at the issue and its indeed something I have to look further into. If the crossplatform issue makes it to difficult we can always try to do al the main editing on 1 platform and just work with EDL rough-cuts multiplatform. I will try to get some more info trhough google :happy:

I am amazed I don't get more reply's. I am just looking for the basics of a workflow for a big project. There must be people out there with experience to share. I guess my idea for a workflow could be totally wrong, so if some of you can post me how they do it, it wil really help!

You say your workflow is totally different. What does your workflow look like?

And maybe one of the more important questions: Is it possible to do VFX in multiple programs? rotoscoping in Nuke and colorcorrection in AE or something likt that...
I guess the choise of codec will be very important here.

Also, you mention 24p, but our camera (sony HDR FX7) can only film 50i, so I guess we have to deal with interlaced video. Is that a problem?

Tim
 
For Premiere Pro, I've found that a DVCProHD workflow is pretty fast, real time, and good enough for SD DVD Output.

If you need to go to the silver screen, you'll need to do an onlining process for getting the most resolution possible.

When shooting some projects on a Canon 5d Mark II, we found that working in DVCProHD was the best. We went out to the web and never had to go online to the original h.264 MOV files it made.

Test a workflow, make sure you can go end to end, and then execute. Try a small sample project to really stress test your machine as well.
 
I will take a look at the DVCproHD codec, it souds very interesting. But we also have to go to the silver screen, so I guess i will need all the resolution I can get.

What exactly do you mean by "onlining process"? Do you mean importing the native HD footage back over the DVCproHD-"proxy" and rendering it back out?
Because then I'll be working with native HDV again and I thought thats a bad idea. Or is it only a bad idea to edit with HDV, While just rendering it is ok? Won't I need a very strong machine for the rendering? And how do I get the VFX done in this case?

Can you give an example on how to do the onlining? Is it just replacing the footage in the projects or is there something more to it?
And if I intend to do the onlining, why should I work with DVCproHD? Isnt it better to work with low quality proxy files to save some CPU and disk usage.

I know these could be stupid questions, but I am still learning the basics of working for the big screen with a large project :)
 
I just found this topic, which covers some of my questions:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/what-happens-vegas/75594-low-rez-proxy-edit-hdv-then-render-real.html

I have an... older PC but will be shooting a movie soon with the Sony Z1. Now... when I start to edit this monster... is it a viable solution to just capure a "Low Rez Proxy" version (say... even just DV quality), play around with it, color it, cuts, sound, ect. and then when it is complete just use the captured/saved In/Out points to re-capture the Z1s full on Hi Rez quality and replace the proxy DV files with the real Hi Rez files? (Then take a vacation to Hawaii for a week while it renders).
Click to expand...

Capture HD and use Gearshift (available from VASST) to generate the lower res proxies. When done editing, Gearshift can then switch you back to the original files for final rendering. Just do a search here for Gearshift for more details.
Click to expand...

This will make the onlining much more easy. However, I can't find similar software for FCP or Premiere.

And I still have the problem of the VFX and color correction, which I guess I 'll have to do on the native HDV in this case.

Tim
 
Editing HDV Natively in Premiere Pro wasn't a big hassle, and worked out pretty well for low end systems.

As soon as I brought it into After Effects for some Graphics/CC it all fell apart.

At that point, you have to seperate all of your graphic shots to something like Cineform, or Uncompressed and work with those shots in that format.

You might want to try and download the Cineform demo for your platform/editing setup. It really has a nice end to end workflow where you just convert once and stay there untill you export. This can save you alot of time as offline/online process is painful, long, and tedius for a large project.
 
TimPion said:
You say your workflow is totally different. What does your workflow look like?

And maybe one of the more important questions: Is it possible to do VFX in multiple programs? rotoscoping in Nuke and colorcorrection in AE or something likt that...
I guess the choise of codec will be very important here.

Also, you mention 24p, but our camera (sony HDR FX7) can only film 50i, so I guess we have to deal with interlaced video. Is that a problem?

Tim
Click to expand...

i shoot 24Mbps avchd... these days i do simple cuts with titles and a few dissolves, then off to dvd or the web, no color correction, i don't even do voice-overs any more... i was using canopus hq as the intermediate codec, the quality is xlnt, but now i'm editing native avchd with an overclocked core2quad.

not too relevant to your hdv situation, except that i also shoot interlaced as well... people bag on interlaced stuff, but depending on how it was shot(shutter speed and such), it can look really good, *if* the deinterlacer software is up to the task... i edit with sony vegas, which has the option of combining the fields instead of interpolating... something else to look for in your intermediate, if you are going to be delivering a progressive format.

don't do anything with the raw hdv, transcode it immediately, regardless of the editing platform(s)... then work from there.
 
Seems like CineForm is the way to go since we want to do color correction on all the footage to get a certain style.

What about ProRes? how does it compare with CineForm (on a mac)? We could de some offline editing on PC and online it in ProRes on the Mac i guess...

What do you think of the idea to import projects in each other like i described in the first post?
  • project MOVIE: combines the SCENE projects with the scoremusic
  • project SCENE: Combines all the SYNCEDSOUNDFOOTAGE projects and add Colorcorrection
  • project SYNCEDSOUNDFOOTAGE: Sync sound and video, add folley
Click to expand...
This way i dont have to edit in the big project all the time which will save me some CPU and RAM usage I guess. Or am I wrong?
 
Pro Res 4:2:2 is good if you're staying all Mac based, but just switching from PC to Mac could be a complete nightmare since FCP requires all your footage to be in .mov (or else its painful).

ProRes 4:2:2 is fully supported on the PC with the newest Quicktime. You might want to test having all your footage transcoded to ProRes 4:2:2, and then attempt to edit it on the PC. See if the performance is good enough to do it that way, however I have a feeling that the performance on a PC is going to be pretty poor (as with most QT codecs on the PC)

You still run into the issue of exporting Prores files from the PC if you decide to do effects.

I highly reccomend from my expierence not to change your Main editor at all. Create your Edit, and if you have to move to another system, prep your film for the migration, and move only once.
 
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