Theatrical film workflow

[PROCTER]

Hello Mr merchant, i just read your answer on the subject theatrical film workflow. Im struggling to set up a pipeline at moment.

if you could point me in the right direction to articles here on the subject would be very appreciated . Im a bit new to forum.

Im using all the great features now directly in premiere, warp stabailzer , chroma keying colour grading.

Q, should i be using all the great features now directly available in premiere, whole timeline is  just lurching .

Q. if the features are too heavy to actually use why are they there?

[Dave Merchant]

That's a huge topic, and not something you could deal with in one forum thread. The pipeline for a theatrical release is usually set by the studio and distributor, as they will have very specific technical expectations and departmental policies (e.g. what cameras are being used, is the grading being handled by an in-house colorist or subbed to an agency, is there a post house working on effects, which tasks are union-controlled, is the deliverable a DCP hard drive for cinema, film stock, rec2020 for broadcast or sRGB for web streaming, how are you making dailies, etc etc). Adobe software might not even be an option if you're using a cinema camera it can't read (e.g. Blackmagic)

Premiere Pro has a lot of tools available, but nobody ever expects you to apply them all at once. Even with a professional workstation you will rapidly run out of RAM and CPU cycles. Same applies if you try to use Adobe's dynamic linking features and pipe a super-complex After Effects composition into an equally complex Premiere timeline. Realtime playback and a responsive scrubby tool are luxuries, don't expect them to last very long.

The normal approach for a long-form project is to split everything down into simple tasks, build them in the most appropriate software, then bring them back together for the final export. Most times an After Effects composition will only handle a couple of seconds of footage, so there can be hundreds of separate 'jobs' being worked on. Something like a very basic chroma key (with good source footage) is possible in Premiere, but that's not the role of an NLE - hence why the tool in After Effects - and the third-party plugins - do a much better job at it. The more you cram into a single project file, the more chance of something going wrong - and it means only one person can work at the same time.

[Mo Moolla]

As Dave has rightly mentioned there is no right or wrong route to take when it comes to long form workflows. There are so many variations its incredible. Each studio has their own tried and tested method that they have worked on to ensure maximum output with minimum downtime. So whether you are on PP, Avid or God forbid FCP there are several rules of thumb I personally follow on long form edits.

1. I break down everything into bite sized amounts and never ever work on a full timeline until the end

2. Proxies are paramount when working with 4-8K footage

3. Visual effects are taking care of by software made for this purpose. I never ever use PP for any effects work

4. I do not use Dynamic link to go between AE & PP as its too RAM costly. The shots that require Vfx are exported out as a DPX sequence and then sent to AE and other software (dependent on what that fx shot needs)

5. If you aren't fortunate enough to have a render farm for the project I would ensure sharing work between multiple machines in small chunks. In essence give portions of it to the 2nd and 3rd editors if they are present (share the edit if the director/budget allows)

6. The biggest hurdle to all is this is when you get to coloring. 1st and 2nd light grades are ok but vy the time you get to 3rd you will be working on full res footage files and this is where software and hardware need to find a common ground. Once again rule f thumb applies. Don't try to color section at a time. Create "rooms" for scenes shot with similar lighting which can then be applied to various shots. PP is good at redistributing effects over various clips as presets so a "room" in PP's case would be a "preset: you create.

7. Which brings us to rendering.... Well all I can say is "Tell the studio you need a 6-12 node farm" lol. Just kidding. When it comes to final output, well, theres no substitute for hardware power. Bigger CPU, more RAM, Stable OS and machine. All these play a role but most importantly ensure your offline edit is free from any sort of frame dropouts, pulldown issues etc. Once you go to final res you need to make sure your offline is 100% or all hell will break loose

All the best with your feature

Mo

[PROCTER]

so you think on a long form piece dynamic linking after effects is going to be slowing down the whole process ?

[chrisw44157881]

i'd also do tests with color management. the built in Wraptor DCP creator only accepts srgb 2.2, so if your footage isn't that, then you'll need a lut transform. also, premiere's color management will add another transform from srgb 2.2 to bt1886 in the program window. if your monitor isn't calibrated for bt1886, it will only look correct in monitor calibrated to that same spec.

there's easy DCP creator and lots of others. also, afaik, premiere doesn't support color higher than srgb with luts so if your working in a large gamut like arri-color, the color gamut will clip.

whenever you do a big project, the professionals do a full pipeline test, all the way from test shoots, media wrangling, to renders, to dcp exports and playback in actual theatres before they even start anything.

[PROCTER]

Many thanks  for  everyone getting back to me on this subject (wish id posted question on the forum a year ago)

[Mo Moolla]

A real pleasure and glad it led to some interesting conversation and hopefully a few solutions.

[rodneyb56060189]

great thread ! There's this place used to be called " color by delux" and now is just delux or something.

if you go to their website you'll start to see a workflow solution in a "paid for" service.

It's changing fast re: digital and internet dailies, etc. But the basics are the same in production.

[R Neil Haugen]

I haven't done a project that humongous myself,  first. But I've seen several presentations by editors who have.

The suggestion to break things down is a major key. Frequently each scene is at least it's own sequence if not project. Bigger projects cause PrPro to load more stuff in cache & RAM. All slowing things down. So this segmentation not only makes the organization more clear it cuts the load on the computer drastically.

Using team projects with each scene being a project ... or at least each act ... also makes it easy for multiple people working different sections at the same time.

The suggestion to avoid dynamic links is also good. Especially during general cutting, making and exporting Warp clips to digital intermediaries to use those on the sequences while cutting, cuts the overhead load a TON. Making notes about this sort of thing is required. And using placeholder clips on a sequence whilst your f/x guy is working in Ae or whatever is common. You get the export out of Ae, you replace the placeholder clips with the full media from Ae.

If you are going to grade in PrPro don't do corrections until LATE in the project. You can do short test sequences separately from *working* sequences to try color schemes/palettes or to produce stills to send as suggestions to the colorist's process. But those should be in a test project allied with the over-arching main project.

And finally, several said for simplicity,  sanity,  and ease of processing during editing they set an old style proxy media protocol before starting the project. Maybe 2/3 formats/codecs were allowed on the timeline. Every clip outside those was transcoded to their chosen t-code format/codec on ingesting prior to being used.

And of course, make extensive electronic notes on everything that are constantly updated and shared with all involved.

Neil

[PROCTER]

thank s  all duly noted, its just the start of  the pipeline development,  this was just a test to see if the machine could actually output the files.

[R Neil Haugen]

Hoping for the best ... though it's long been noted that the D700's of that era machine, even more so in the twin-D700 arrangement, could overheat a bit and begin to perform with artifacts & grunge. You might want to add additional fans for that computer or blowing into the case.

Neil

[PROCTER]

Thanks niel  every bit of information helps.

i dont mind putting it on its side and building a fan for it im just worried they might already be damaged as adobe claims.

went to apple store but they just told me ring applecare

[R Neil Haugen]

Yea ... I know the fears. Some Apple stores are very helpful, some ... not nearly so much. Humans of course being human which is to say rather variable.

When this blew up originally, some Apple staffers clearly were awesome for their users, some ... even long after Apple admitted the problem and was replacing one of the D700's ... were far less than willing to help people get replacements. Had to be pushed, shown the links on Apple sites for doing so ... all that sort of thing. Again, humans being ...

Neil

[Mo Moolla]

Mac Pro (Late 2013)

3,5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5

32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3

AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB

Ah the "ashtray can" Mac. Great tech. Great design. But as a long form edit machine it can and will get very very hot. Theres just not enough ventilation in such a small form factor, no matter what Apple says. I would rather use a Mid 2012 "cheese grater", and sacrifice speed for reliability.

R Neil Haugen​ you can't add anything to that mac unless its attached to some sort of Apple proprietary cable. This is why I don't like the 6.1 Macs.

However if you are in a cooled, dust free studio environment with proper air conditioning the machine might just cope.

[R Neil Haugen]

We had folks posting here about setting up external fans blowing into the fan openings and sucking air out the venting side, or just plain taking off a side or something (don't know the case style) and sitting a fan blowing onto the computer.

Those things could cook GPU's right nicely to a toasty state, apparently.

Neil

[Mo Moolla]

R Neil Haugen​ Watch these

Mac Pro - Apple

Apple - Making the all-new Mac Pro - YouTube

[Mo Moolla]

The thermal design is quite different and Apple maintains its is thermally super efficient

I test a quad and a 6 core and both ran super hot on a 45 sec min AE render with the following effects added:

1. Optical Flares

2. Twixtor

3. Particular

4. Plexus 3

5. DFT Rays

6. Reflex DENoise

7. A little grading with Color Finesse

I dont trust these machines at all

[R Neil Haugen]

Apple says ... well, anymore, I'm not sure why anyone trusts Apple any more than MS ... when the CEO publicly says he doesn't understand why anyone still buys desktops and oh ... btw ... at the time he'd not updated his mobo's on those for like five years ... well, the guy is indicating the company ain't exactly loving the relationship with the people shelling out massive bucks for their gear.

Anyone ... using anything ... needs to test for themselves, right?

Neil

[PROCTER]

hi  do  you have  any  links  to this original  discussions?

setting up a permanent fan seems pretty straightforward

regardless of  the merits of apples deign i am  where i am  and  can not afford  a new high end machine and am looking at my options.

do you know if the AMD FirePro D700 6144 MB  can be replaced by user??

can they be replaced  with something better

is there an external device that can help with rendering.

does anyone know of e test that can tell me if they are just failing through overheating or permenanlty damaged?

any advice greatly appreciated

[R Neil Haugen]

Mo has much more knowledge of the Mac-overse.

For fans, several users each had different things they'd done, basically the cheapest/easiest way to pump air in or out.

Neil

[PROCTER]

I was very intrested in Vashi Visuals  posts on the subject.  my main interest is a working system fir 109 minute independent movie. He edited one of the sharknadI films. And provides a lot of insight into his process of getting it done.  I don’t know if I have understood correctly but he seems to be be transcoding all footage red/ Sony 4K/5k whatever into 1920x1080 proRez. And editing and rendering from this(except vfx). Al’ in the same timeline What are people thoughts on this? Perhaps the same concept but with a slightly higher resolution  Say 2k from 4K anamorphic footage,  transcoded and reformatted to 239 aspect ratio.

[Mo Moolla]

Hi again

"he seems to be be transcoding all footage red/ Sony 4K/5k whatever into 1920x1080"

Yes I do the same so I am working on a timeline thats easy to scrub at full res.

The vfx shots never get transcoded and my vfx pipeline is always at maximum notice footage resolution.

There is no need to proxy the vfx shots as we will work on them frame by frame. To check we output in a 2K or 4K format for dailies.

This was a workflow I followed on a recent client project that needed both PP & AE.

2 projects running in parallel for BP for the pre launch of Fast and Furious 8.

Project A was narrative in nature

Project B was a visual fx intensive TVC

Both were being output to IMAX as it was a prerelease

Assets from A were used in B

All Assets were shot on a Arri Alexa at 60fps and 120fps and Alexa Mini for drone shots at 240fps

Dynamic link between AE & PP were never used.

All vfx shots were output as DPX sequences and then cut into PP

Final outputs were all done from PP.

Versioning was done using ME for various output channels.

[Mo Moolla]

PROJECT A

PROJECT B

[PROCTER]

so footage (non VFx) transcoded to HD, these files are the actual ones graded and rendered from ?

because a 4K timeline would be unmanageable /unscrubbale?

[PROCTER]

Many thanks for all the advice ,really appreciated.

If it is appropriate i (i m not sure what forum  eticate is)  would like to continue the development of pipeline in this thread.

for those interested this is the concept piece for the project

Private video on Vimeo

password black