WHEN YOU NEED IT DONE "ON SET"
DOWNLOADING, TRANSCODING, COLOR CORRECTION, DIGITAL DAILIES
Data Management has rapidly become one of the largest concerns of production organization. Duplication, backups, creative security and bonding requirements have become predominate concerns and substantial additional expenses.
In additional to all the concerns on just getting the data from one place to another, the files produced by modern digital capture cameras cannot be directly ingested into the many demands of editorial systems. Files need to be transcoded, possibly synced to sound files and color corrected. Furthermore, there are several format demands to produce digital dailies.
At 4:4:4 Camera we are proud of our reputation of our knowledge and our practiced professionalism. Beyond our competitive rates and equipment inventory, the advantage with including us on your production team is our skills and our direct support of not just the equipment, but of the workflow and of the image. We take responsibility for the entire process, capture to timeline.
It should be recognized that sometimes and in some situations, many parts of the data workflow are better served or can be better accomplished by a postproduction facility. There are also clear advantages when conducting certain parts of the workflow, they are better accomplished "on set" and/or in the immediate time frame that can be offered by on set data management. With a serious combined cooperation between the various concerned camera department crew, the producers, the postproduction team, and 4:4:4 camera as equipment providers, the most efficient workflow can be developed.
We have many successful partnerships with local postproduction facilities ( I think the people at Cineworks are fantastic www.cineworks.com), with several union data mangers (New Orleans is blessed with several), as well as a very successful relationship with a local Data Management Specialty house, (Trade Digital Cinema www.tradedigitalcinema.com). We are not looking to build a digital workflow that plays into our best interest, however, we strive to build a network of individuals, facilities and specialist that benefit the specific requirements of each production.
Some might start explaining a camera with the actual camera. I think with the digital workflow, it might be best to start with talking about the post production delivery and meeting post expectations.
This is where we have had the biggest problems and definitely needs the highest regards in terms communications between the camera rental house and the postproduction facility. The digital file that is streamed out of the camera and onto a hard drive is a proprietary RAW format. A RAW image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of a digital camera. RAW files are so named because they are not yet processed nor do they contain a wrapper that can be used with a video editor or even viewed. A RAW file must be processed by a raw converter in a wide-gamut internal color space where precise adjustments can be made before conversion to a file format such as MOV or AVI for editing, or further postproduction manipulation. These images are often described as "RAW image files" (note capitalization) based on the erroneous belief that they represent a single file format, and thus deserve a common filename extension, .RAW. In fact there are dozens of raw image formats in use by different models and manufactures of digital cameras. If you want the greatest range available in terms of color space, resolution and image detail in your highlights and your shadows, working with the RAW file offers you the greatest tool set.
4:4:4 Camera is way out front of the post production industry and taking quite a lot of learning curve to develop the skill sets and tools to pull all this information out of the RAW files and onto a video format.
As a camera rental house we developed a couple of different RAW file conversion processes in support of our clients and in the interest of delivering the superior quality image that digital cameras are capable to produce. I spend a lot of time on the phone with the post houses, however that time is, and has been, extremely invaluable for my foundation and utilization with RAW format cameras like the Phantom, RED and the Arri Alexa.
For a quick, on-set, basic level, we have developed a “Lunchbox” solution. The Lunchbox is an extremely efficient Windows based PC built into a single lightweight package. The software at the core of this package is a program from Iridas called Framecycler. Framecycler reads the Phantom RAW file in real-time. In addition to offering a color and gamma correction tool set, Framecycler can export the results to a variety of video formats and image sequences. This enables us to deliver to the post house any number of files to match into their specific workflow. You can download a trail version of Famecycler off of their website.
To meet the demands of a large production, we manufactured an Apple based package that includes data verification, color correction, and software that can transcode the RAW file into any number of editorial demands as well as iPad dailies.
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