Episode 2
FCG002 - FCPX 4K Workflow (feat. Sam Mestman)
Sam and Chris go into a very detailed step by step workflow of how to get Red footage into FCPX and work efficiently. R3D, RMD, Red Cine-X, and Proxies. They also discuss We Make Movies, the artist collective that Sam founded in LA.
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Featuring
- Chris Fenwick
- Sam Mestman - @wemakemovies
Transcription
00:00.001: It's going to make a new bin.
00:00.001: But you know, well, and it's just one of those things I think it's going to get ironed out, but that is the number one thing I think that needs to get fixed.
00:00.080: Oh, wow.
00:00.160: I decided I was going to look him up.
00:00.160: Okay, let me get my level.
00:00.160: So how's it going, man?
00:00.160: Yeah.
00:00.160: Let's face it, it was probably one of the world's worst product rollouts in the history of modern man.
00:00.160: And that's really, you know, on the post side, that's the direction I'm heading more in terms of, you know, the professional side of what I do.
00:00.160: So the big one was uh compound clips.
00:00.160: That was more of a legacy thing, but in you know, current workflows, you no longer need those, but those would also live in that folder as well.
00:00.160: I do the same thing, although not with red files.
00:00.160: So say for instance you're on a multi-day shoot, right?
00:00.160: I don't know how geeky you want me to get, but I'm good.
00:00.160: Now for those of you who are not so red workflow experienced like myself, this is possibly a little bit it's similar to like
00:00.160: Final Cut10 is going to make one for you.
00:00.160: A simlink that goes back to the original RD.
00:00.160: Yeah, the alias, the little thing with an arrow on it if you go into your original media folder.
00:00.160: Alex McLean, my partner on Final and Digital Cinema Cafe, is a hardcore Red fan.
00:00.160: Yep.
00:00.160: But what you're telling me is if I don't have the hardware to go get the card and the chassis and all that, and I have the time, and I have the time, you're saying I could do it without it.
00:00.160: And applying it to your event.
00:00.160: And know some very specific things and how to maintain all of these things in the chain, you can run into serious problems.
00:00.160: Excuse me, or opened up or you know made easier, that would be good for everyone.
00:00.160: the app, maybe.
00:00.160: You know, Final Cut 7 is old too, and they were like, Well, it doesn't really work that good.
00:00.160: What's it called?
00:00.160: Yeah, you know, a year and a half.
00:00.240: What do I do on a daily basis?
00:00.240: And that's and mostly catering on the high end with clients.
00:00.240: there is a very vocal majority of people that um want to talk negative about Final Cut 10.
00:00.240: Apply to get people to talk about any Coke.
00:00.240: I was an editor and colorist for, you know, probably about 10 years, and I say that in the past tense.
00:00.240: testing connections, seeing what work what works and what doesn't work currently with LumaForge.
00:00.240: We're basically in there being like, well, is this going to break stuff?
00:00.240: You know, it's it really has nothing to do with anyone else.
00:00.240: Usually when people whine about it, they have very few specifics and it's usually from people who haven't spent much time with the app.
00:00.240: get deeper and deeper into it, you have to learn more and more subtlety and nuance and power over the the machine.
00:00.240: And really quickly, you start going, wow, this is really fast.
00:00.240: adjust or fix or modify or whatever.
00:00.240: I have more with the other programs.
00:00.240: And you tell me which one's going to pick it up quicker.
00:00.240: you know, talk about like another issue is, you know, Premier XML is kind of difficult to deal with, you know.
00:00.240: it doesn't work nearly as well, believe it or not, with Resolve as Final Cut X does for whatever reason.
00:00.240: And all kinds of terrible things would happen.
00:00.240: and how modern some of the features are in Final Cut 10, and especially the events browser and how that works and some of the metadata.
00:00.240: Well, my first experience with it was a mixture, I think, of aggravation because
00:00.240: I started with it on day one.
00:00.240: And that's a long story, and I don't want to go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that today compound clips work much better than certainly day one, like you're talking about.
00:00.240: It was kind of game over.
00:00.240: how to use that and the way I work changed from my final cut seven days.
00:00.240: I don't even know what else is living in there, but the only two things that matter are the R3D and the RMD.
00:00.240: But when I take when I roll a shot off on a red system, I'm going to get that clip
00:00.240: So that's the type of file it is.
00:00.240: And I'll have all of my footage for the entire movie living in a separate folder in the Finder on the drive.
00:00.240: Exactly.
00:00.240: it makes a little sidecar file.
00:00.240: Audition needs to see that.
00:00.240: You know, in the day directory, whatever it is named after that day.
00:00.240: you know, 5D and uh s whatnot footage in the same way.
00:00.240: And it's going to apply any resizes, anything you've done just to the original media.
00:00.240: But you're starting from the day one collection, and then you could just add it from there.
00:00.240: and then flip back or conform somehow to the original R3Ds to really take advantage of it.
00:00.240: Genius thing in Final Cut 10 is that this is a one-click process to go back and forth between the offline and online.
00:00.240: Then at the end of the day, you're just going to select all of the clips that you imported from that day.
00:00.240: half res ProRes proxy version of your R3D media.
00:00.240: Is complicated, but in but if, but by not doing it, we're really just kind of shooting ourselves in the foot.
00:00.240: And that's where the the big boys will get they'll either put these cards in a tower or have you ever used any of the systems with Thunderbolt and the chassis and stuff?
00:00.240: performance upgrade.
00:00.240: You could do this stuff, you know, as cards come in, correct?
00:00.240: You know, which you can do right now.
00:00.240: Within 10 minutes of downloading your footage, you could literally begin editing and searching pretty much based on anything in Final Cut 10.
00:00.240: All right, so I just wanted to clarify that because that's a word.
00:00.240: Play, which I think is a great application.
00:00.240: Half resolution stuff, so it's a little bit larger than HD, roughly.
00:00.240: I mean, it's definitely a non-standard resolution.
00:00.240: your looks and you can re-white balance and you can you know adjust the levels and stuff.
00:00.240: Well, you can do it in both.
00:00.240: Yeah, exactly.
00:00.240: Okay, let me ask you a scary question.
00:00.240: Yeah, I got to say on a side note, when we ran into each other, well, I'll say when I ran into you at NAB back in the kind of back corner of that hall, I was like.
00:00.240: Whoa, this dude's got Final Cut 10 open.
00:00.240: It was we were running it across all the modern Macs, MonoCut, all these things that people say you can't really do with this little Fisher Prize toy, you know, you could do six months ago.
00:00.240: old freelance gig before I'd I'd gone out to Apple or, you know, I just was like, well, I'm just gonna go and start up my own shop and see how far I get before I have to go take another freelance gig and I never had to.
00:00.240: there was some initial stumbling blocks.
00:00.240: Yeah.
00:00.240: Right.
00:00.240: For me, I would just love to see a little bit more consistency in terms of response time.
00:00.240: Some of that's going to be interesting too when the new Mac Pro ships, whether and as the hardware gets faster, whether it catches up to
00:00.240: You're not seeing that.
00:00.240: 2007, 2008.
00:00.240: after making the movie and you know, it was maybe the best time to come.
00:00.240: Really, all we had left, I still wanted, you know, the whole point of all of this is to go and keep making movies.
00:00.240: had no idea how we'd how we'd launch another movie or do any of this stuff while we were finishing up the other one, but um we knew all these people who had scripts and we knew all these actors who wanted to do stuff and uh so we started this periodic kind of reading series.
00:00.240: We uh well, it's funny.
00:00.240: You know, you guys are only a few short hours away.
00:00.240: discussion.
00:00.240: What we're doing over here.
00:00.320: over an hour about networking and using Final Cut 10 in a shared environment.
00:00.320: I certainly didn't get any negative questions.
00:00.320: And I'm walking by this booth, and I see this guy has Final Cut 10 on one of the displays, and you did not see it very many places at all.
00:00.320: Some of the other places of the world.
00:00.320: Venture called FCP Works.
00:00.320: Doing a larger event in January that you'll be hearing a lot more about soon.
00:00.320: So right now we're gearing up for that.
00:00.320: But it sounds like this new venture is more about being a value-added retailer.
00:00.320: once we know kind of what works, we sell those solutions to clients.
00:00.320: Is more on the video side as opposed to microscopes.
00:00.320: kind of transitioning into this, I don't know, sort of dumb luck, transitioning into this role, which I think is a lot more fun on the industry side than what I had been doing.
00:00.320: you know, editors who have chosen this tool to use.
00:00.320: Yeah, if you're in a modern workflow, absolutely.
00:00.320: editors, finding the appropriate hardware solutions because you are seeing that people are turning to this tool over others.
00:00.320: That's the time when you are most likely to put your fist through the monitor or your head through a wall.
00:00.320: And she's new to the business.
00:00.320: You can't even do 2K.
00:00.320: they went through pain with Final Cut 10 that Abbott and Adobe are both going to have to go through at some point with their editing applications to get those up to modern
00:00.320: hardware and code, and Apple redid it from the ground up.
00:00.320: Premiere is fully sixty four bit?
00:00.320: It was parts of it, I was like, wow, this is great.
00:00.320: Why they did what they did.
00:00.320: Actually, it is contained in a folder full of data, correct?
00:00.320: Yeah, I actually never use the import window.
00:00.320: based on whatever the thing is called, and I'll put my media there outside of the Final Cut Events folder.
00:00.320: Red files.
00:00.320: Or do you want me to make a copy of it and bring it into the Final Cut events folder?
00:00.320: Well, no, it would be, but you would have to be doing it through the original media folder.
00:00.320: Ah yes.
00:00.320: Sifts through all that information that's in there and says, oh, here's the R3D file, and that's what it makes a link to.
00:00.320: Exactly.
00:00.320: Yeah.
00:00.320: you know, like your audio will start to drift.
00:00.320: If I zoomed in 5% and moved.
00:00.320: But really, at the end of the day, I'd much rather not be worrying about codecs or any of this other stuff than just spend my time on what's on screen.
00:00.320: Sniggly click, you know, right-click, do this, make these proxies.
00:00.320: You can have a fully synced, renamed according to scene take and camera angle event.
00:00.320: That's ready to edit.
00:00.320: Just start, you know?
00:00.320: the stuff that you really want to get is those notes and her notes so that you can make smart collections and some of these other things.
00:00.320: It has you know, 'cause it'll actually still in your timeline, your proxy timeline will still be 4K, you know, or whatever it was that you shot, you know, that's that's where that's going to live.
00:00.320: Could somebody else be opening up those clips in another room on another system and be
00:00.320: That's crazy.
00:00.320: Yeah, no, definitely no problem with that.
00:00.320: Never looked back on it.
00:00.320: So in your experience and in the things that you're dealing with, are there any things what are the things that you would like to see change?
00:00.320: working with Final Cut 10 in a group workflow, which everybody else is saying it can't be done.
00:00.320: You just haven't been able to figure it out, essentially, is what you've been saying.
00:00.320: is not always as clean as it should be, you know, and it's gotten much better in the past year, but I'd love to see that improve where there's, you know
00:00.320: Yeah, you know, I got news for you.
00:00.320: piece of hardware underneath it.
00:00.320: And a flash startup drive, SSD startup disk.
00:00.320: You need to plan for distribution, and probably the biggest thing that most independent filmmakers don't realize until they've gone through it is that you need to build an audience.
00:00.320: Now we've made something like, I think, more than six features and I don't even know how many shorts.
00:00.320: They're going to do it because they just moved up there.
00:00.320: Yeah, I mean, I just met the lady from SF Cutters the other day.
00:00.320: Absolutely, man.
00:00.320: Email me at Chris at digitalcinema cafe.
00:00.320: And it's cool that you are so knowledgeable and willing to share.
00:00.400: And they're like, Yeah, let's talk.
00:00.400: I think it was more than easily more than half the room.
00:00.400: Now, they're on Twitter and they're on the web, and you can read all about them.
00:00.400: It is far exceeded versus Premier or Abbott, you know, in terms of how many people are actually paying attention.
00:00.400: We specialize in 4K workflow and currently for us the
00:00.400: Right.
00:00.400: went worse.
00:00.400: Various places and on top of that, being an editor in the industry for a whole bunch of years.
00:00.400: You know, so like with most applications, with most edit systems, you can like sort of sit down and go, okay, yeah, clip, clip, clip, dissolve, overlay, okay.
00:00.400: Crazy, it feels at least initially like this is stupid different.
00:00.400: You're a person who's edited with a different tool previously.
00:00.400: take two people who have zero editing experience, put one in front of an Avid with no instruction manual, and put another one in front of Final Cut 10 with no instruction manual.
00:00.400: it becomes usable in a client situation.
00:00.400: How I wanted to work with the program after that, once I kind of made the commitment, and then I started finding all of these little things, and some of the metadata started to make sense to me.
00:00.400: Okay.
00:00.400: File that lives in that folder with the R3D clip.
00:00.400: So now I do I use the import command?
00:00.400: And find all the footage.
00:00.400: So and what you're talking about there is on the import preferences, you can detel you can tell Final Cut, do you want me to leave your media where you tell me it is?
00:00.400: If you go back into Red Cine X at some point.
00:00.400: Now, so I grab the folder from the finder.
00:00.400: Yeah, in your timeline.
00:00.400: Comma says four in ten hyphen a majority of Americans.
00:00.400: I've never, to be honest, in anything I've done, it's never been mandatory that I have it, you know.
00:00.400: Wow.
00:00.400: you know, fixing, you know, setting levels and stuff.
00:00.400: events and compound clips and multicam clips and passing those in a group workflow.
00:00.400: It should all be instantaneous as you go through the timeline.
00:00.400: Yeah.
00:00.400: Well, Sam, it sounds like We Make Movies has been a real success.
00:00.400: Yeah, and she was she was great and uh she came I was at uh Creative Sphere doing the whole 4K thing and she came down.
00:00.400: you know, very detailed little sniggly questions were a little too much for this show, but I'm willing to bet that the people listening are very interested in furthering
00:00.400: their ability to use Funnel Cut 10.
00:00.480: I think there's like three of us.
00:00.480: But I'm mostly doing it on my own stuff at this point.
00:00.480: Another tool that's better.
00:00.480: I think that one of the things that Final Cut X does suffer from is what I like to call an inverse learning curve.
00:00.480: And I just wish people would judge some of the other programs to the same standard that they judge Final Cut 10.
00:00.480: And it's going to be different for the other guys?
00:00.480: And well, and that's the other interesting thing is if you look I mean, yeah, granted, I don't think anyone can argue that Apple dropped the ball on the launch a little bit.
00:00.480: In Final Cut 10.
00:00.480: But it didn't really click for me until 10.
00:00.480: Like for example, tonight I'm recording this conversation in Adobe Audition.
00:00.480: Which is that in a traditional world, before you could even get going editing, you would, on a practical level, I know you can edit from your R3Ds and Premiere, but it's not very practical for a long-form project.
00:00.480: Divide by two, and that's what the dimensions will be.
00:00.480: The whole thing here is like the whole purpose of editing.
00:00.480: allows multiple people to tag some of this stuff.
00:00.480: And it's just going to automatically cut it in half.
00:00.480: Do I do the last question I think is I know that in Red Cine X you can apply
00:00.480: But let's be clear.
00:00.480: I'm a little busy making podcasts right now, but I'll keep that in mind for sure.
00:00.480: Yeah, you just let me know.
00:00.560: No problem.
00:00.560: Did it seem like the room was otherwise warming to the application as well?
00:00.560: We well, it's an interesting time to be talking to me now, too, but there's actually
00:00.560: And now in terms of like day-to-day editing, it's mostly it's you know, I'm kind of like it's kind of like being in a lab, you know, I'm just kind of a scientist, but it it
00:00.560: Well, actually, I would almost disagree with that in the sense of what I do is I sell the solutions that I would use if it were my project.
00:00.560: not the only person out there.
00:00.560: Most professional piece of edit software, but you can't even deliver at a professional resolution for the cinema, which is 2K.
00:00.560: So it's basically it's Final Cut 7.
00:00.560: So if you if you well, and that's what they did.
00:00.560: The changes are going to overlap between the programs.
00:00.560: and will help me in terms of like setting up my shot the way I want it to look.
00:00.560: RMD file that Final Cut 10 can read, but the RMD file that Final Cut 10 makes may not be compatible with RedCine X.
00:00.560: There, which I don't have to think about, but the final cut needs to have that.
00:00.560: I don't even know what the word is, like process it, or what is the next step that I do to get it.
00:00.560: Okay.
00:00.560: probably don't pronounce what you just said, Lacey Pi, which is Los Angeles something, something.
00:00.560: And it's not necessarily simple.
00:00.560: You know, over the past few years, sort of turning into this much larger thing that I don't think any one of us really thought would happen.
00:00.640: So, are you like on a day-to-day basis, are you sitting in a suite cutting?
00:00.640: pointing other people kind of in the right direction.
00:00.640: I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind.
00:00.640: And there's the little option that says add to bin and then parentheses include subfolders.
00:00.640: So that's good.
00:00.640: And in terms of what happens when you're done with your movie, it doesn't matter how many awards you win or some of these other things, you know
00:00.640: Myself and a couple of friends of mine, we went off and made this independent feature film and learned the hard way about the distribution process.
00:00.640: YouTube Studios.
00:00.720: We're about to launch a new venture, believe it or not, that I think some people out there may have some interest in, which is a
00:00.720: in terms of price versus performance, I don't really see how it's even remotely controversial that there's another tool that's better
00:00.720: Okay, I'm struggling with parsing that sentence.
00:00.720: 'Cause you know, if you really tried to test out all the features and kind of put it through its paces, you know, where I ended up with it was I'm going to let them fix this and I'm going to keep using Final Cut seven until it hits a point where
00:00.720: To allowing it to get adopted at some of the higher levels.
00:00.720: Whoa, whoa, whoa, what does that mean?
00:00.720: The Fusion Drive.
00:00.800: The NAB in many, many years.
00:00.800: In general, I mean well, it's interesting.
00:00.800: Okay.
00:00.800: Yes.
00:00.800: Is there like, you know, how long does it take?
00:00.800: You can get it done if you're a little bit patient.
00:00.800: No, it's and that's really the whole thing.
00:00.800: Which is now, what, like a year old?
00:00.800: It stops with that one frame short.
00:00.800: That have come through the workshop itself have actually gone out and been made.
00:00.880: When it comes to Matt.
00:00.880: A definite choice to say, no, I am going to actually support the
00:00.880: Okay.
00:00.880: How aggravating that can be.
00:00.880: So at the last meeting I was at, it was all about metadata.
00:00.880: we are working on that will improve this even further.
00:00.960: But I think, you know, even if you look I mean, some people must be looking at this stuff because if you look at all all of the amount of hits that like each of these things when someone bothers to talk about the app
00:00.960: Okay.
00:00.960: It's very easy to get lost with if you don't know the rules with
00:00.960: At the end of the day, for your movie, or you're going to have some issues.
00:01.040: Order: I'm going to release them in, but for now, I'm going to release this one as number two.
00:01.040: What was your take on it?
00:01.040: Was that in the onion?
00:01.120: Did the software not work or did your mind not work?
00:01.120: So and if you haven't created an RMD upon import, you should, because that's what decides what all of your raw settings are, and that's what the RMD file.
00:01.120: Well, you know, in I think in terms of media management, and we'll see what happens when the new version comes out.
00:01.120: And from there, I've got all kinds of annoying things that I could list.
00:01.120: Right.
00:01.120: You know, honestly, s getting into that, I had no idea we were going to crack open the whole red workflow thing, but I'm glad I did because in the last
00:01.200: It's going great.
00:01.200: And she doesn't bring a bunch of baggage.
00:01.200: So while it is while it might be 64-bit, I think Avid is 64-bit, it's still built on old code.
00:01.200: So if I want to say, yes, here's on my day one, but if I also want to say these are exteriors, these are action shots, these are, you know, explosions, whatever.
00:01.200: I mean, it is extremely fast, except when it's not, if that makes sense.
00:01.200: Where we'd take our scripts and some of our friends' scripts and cast them with actors that we knew and got some wine and snacks and got everyone together in a room and then it ended up
00:01.280: Well, it's interesting.
00:01.280: You know, if you look at the interface and the like how modern some of the stuff is, have you been in Premiere recently?
00:01.280: So the RMD gets made in Red Cinex?
00:01.280: And it's going to automatically apply the day one keyword to all of those clips.
00:01.280: Now the offline version, is that the proxy that we talked about?
00:01.280: If you found yourself way in the back of the convention center, like you went in the wrong entrance, that's how you found me.
00:01.280: He was looking over my shoulder once.
00:01.360: So that's going to work well with our new our new Mac Pros, yeah?
00:01.360: So whether you open up the clips in Final Cut 10 or Red Cine, if you've taken the time to make the RD beforehand, changes you make to the RAW in either program are going to bounce back and forth.
00:01.360: I've learned a little bit about red.
00:01.440: Forget 4K.
00:01.440: You're going to click that, select all of the clips in the bin, right-click, and save RMD.
00:01.440: It simplifies the offline to online workflow, which if you've worked in a Final Cut 7 red atmosphere, you know
00:01.440: I'm looking forward to it.
00:01.520: Well, let's see.
00:01.520: You know, I've also had conversations with people that were running it on older machines where, you know, Final Cut 7 actually works pretty good, but then again
00:01.600: She's been working here for about not quite a year and a half.
00:01.600: So that was your turning point where your eyes were open and said, okay, now I'm down.
00:01.600: Wow.
00:01.600: And then Ten Point Six came out and I basically I was like, well, that was the best job I'll ever have.
00:01.600: I'll be there.
00:01.680: Once you get into the principal editing, you're just going to flip over to proxy mode, cut from there.
00:01.680: Are you doing any work with Michael Sioni over at Lightiron?
00:01.760: Well, it took me a little while to find him, but Sam lives in LA and he works with a group called WeMakeMovies.
00:01.760: So you are saying your choice is if I was going to sit down to cut a project, I'm going to choose 10 over the other choices.
00:01.760: So, in the same way, my R3D and my RMD are, you know, forever linked.
00:01.760: There is going to upon import, Final Cut 10 is going to make an RMD, whereas if you've made one already, it's going to have
00:01.760: Very cool.
00:01.760: So, thank you so much again for listening.
00:01.840: That's exactly what I demoed at NAB.
00:01.840: It's modern code, and you will be so happy if you put, you know, a modern
00:01.920: No, you know what?
00:01.920: You know, this is not something that I necessarily thought we would get into, but while we're here, let's
00:01.920: So once that happens, it's a couple clicks.
00:01.920: And what it's going to do is, it's basically going to create an RMD in that little folder so that when you bring it into Final Cut 10, whether you make a change to your raw data in Red CineX or in Final Cut 10.
00:01.920: I mean, it's sort of turned into this whole thing that, you know, really just came down to the fact that we were broke and we're trying to figure out how to get more stuff made.
00:02.000: Right.
00:02.000: I can't think of maybe New Coke.
00:02.000: Did you immediately have stumbling blocks or was it Nirvana?
00:02.000: So you can.
00:02.000: What's your take on that?
00:02.080: Well, it kind of depends on when you talk to me.
00:02.080: You know, it was kind of like, what were you guys thinking?
00:02.080: The name of the file is an R3, and it's in a folder.
00:02.080: If you know, once the Magma and Sonnet update their chassis for Thunderbolt two.
00:02.160: Right.
00:02.160: It's like a two-step process, really.
00:02.160: So now what does the proxy process take?
00:02.160: You can't roll back.
00:02.160: No, you do in a lot of cases, except sometimes when you'll grab a group of clips, right, and go and move them, you're going to see a little bit of a jump or some of these other things where like
00:02.240: Alright.
00:02.240: And she's like, wow, this software's stupid.
00:02.240: You can't even deliver in 2K from the world's leading editing program.
00:02.240: Um, and I demoed this the last uh Lacey Pug, and it's only going to get easier.
00:02.240: Let me give you a chance to tell us a little bit about We Make Movies.
00:02.240: We've got one up in Toronto, actually.
00:02.240: All right.
00:02.320: Are we actually going at this point?
00:02.320: So I know that and I don't know a lot, so please correct me if I say this wrong.
00:02.320: And within, I even have a beta of an app that will apply all of the script supervisor's metadata to that event, which means that
00:02.320: Yeah, you need a nice graphics card.
00:02.320: And we'd gone and made this movie, and I was editing that, and you know, was found myself hugely in debt because of it, and some of these other things.
00:02.400: I mean, when I did Lacey Pug a week or two ago, there was dramatically more hands-up when they asked the question versus the last time I'd been there.
00:02.400: I've got to say, I'm really excited to talk to you.
00:02.400: Oh, interesting.
00:02.480: And there are a lot of Closet Final Cut 10 users out there that don't want to admit they're using it because all the cool kids make fun of them for sitting with the ugly girl at lunch.
00:02.480: So definitely, you know, we're in a major a minority.
00:02.480: I downloaded and decided to cut my reel with it and web series.
00:02.480: I don't know where I found that, but oh my goodness, yes.
00:02.480: I just was like, well, because actually I happened to be lucky enough to be to get to go out to Apple and see behind the scenes for a little bit.
00:02.480: I'll talk to you later.
00:02.560: Very cool.
00:02.640: I started using lots of compound clips and then you would blade the compound clips.
00:02.640: Okay, keep going.
00:02.640: And that sidecar file is where it stores all of your markers and information.
00:02.640: Gotcha, yeah, yeah.
00:02.640: There's oh, you know, I think in terms of the timeline, I think some of the responsiveness
00:02.720: So, you know, once they get settled, you know, as soon as it happens, I'm going to let you know.
00:02.720: All right, I'm going to let you go.
00:02.800: The same thing will happen.
00:02.800: Depending on how much you shot, you know, you can you'll do a couple of hours overnight without needing a red rocket or anything on a decently fast system.
00:02.800: He's like, wow, that timeline's really slippery.
00:02.880: Right.
00:02.880: And that's so my time line is actually 4K.
00:02.960: So how do you get your R3D files into Final Kite 10?
00:02.960: And our approach is actually to go and target what the script supervisor is doing because that tends to be
00:02.960: I want to talk to you.
00:03.040: Hey, Chris.
00:03.040: Hey, welcome to Final Cut Grill number 2.
00:03.040: But I went this year, 2013, and when I was wandering around in one of the halls, I kind of ended up in the back scary corner of one of the halls.
00:03.040: Yeah, I will agree.
00:03.040: It's not something that we do all the time.
00:03.120: And although I didn't really, there wasn't much time for QA on mine because there was someone going right after me, and I kind of went up against my time limit.
00:03.120: It just is this is the way that I would work, and that's kind of what I advertise.
00:03.120: And but I actually, you know, it's not even that I made a choice that I was going to use Final Cut 10.
00:03.120: I mean, look at Avid, for instance.
00:03.120: Okay.
00:03.120: And then other parts of it, you know, completely didn't work.
00:03.120: How when did that come out?
00:03.200: And what I do in my day to day is on the post side, because I also run an independent film collective called We Make Movies, but on the post side,
00:03.200: Now, does Final Cut have a problem with it because it's a non-standard resolution?
00:03.280: The hands went up.
00:03.280: Gotcha.
00:03.280: Because the RMD is it, was it RMD file?
00:03.360: Yeah, far away.
00:03.360: And in a lot of cases, that's why I like when I talk about this stuff, I'm like it's technically easier to edit now in 4K than it is in 1080 in some cases.
00:03.360: Gotcha.
00:03.360: So, if you have a roll edit, right?
00:03.440: By the way, I saw this headline today.
00:03.440: You are definitely, you're the guy with the arrow in your back because you're on the bleeding edge of.
00:03.440: Yeah, that works too.
00:03.520: Day one, day two, right?
00:03.520: I feel like editors, you know, we love to make things complicated.
00:03.600: Essentially, it's an artist creative collective, whatever you want to call it, of people that get together and help each other make movies.
00:03.600: And on occasion, we have to put her in front of a legacy project that was in the past cut with seven for her to
00:03.600: What I will do is I'll make a new event and I'll make a keyword collection within that event and I'll call it day one, for instance.
00:03.600: So, no matter where you are, a change to your ROV settings is going to get reflected all the way down the chain.
00:03.600: It's similar in process.
00:03.600: Okay.
00:03.600: Well, next time you're in San Francisco, let me know.
00:03.600: All right.
00:03.680: I think you'd be surprised.
00:03.680: You know?
00:03.680: So I kind of played with it, you know, because parts of it were really interesting.
00:03.680: And then there used to be this thing where you can make proxies.
00:03.680: You know, you try and play it back and like it just it works, but it doesn't quite quite work.
00:03.680: Well, it's literally just doubling it.
00:03.680: It's like, what word is he saying?
00:03.680: Okay.
00:03.680: Okay, so you s like you said in the beginning
00:03.760: Well, yeah, surprise, surprise.
00:03.760: And it is going to be dedicated to providing professional solutions with Final Cut 10.
00:03.760: And I kind of I've transitioned more into a lab role.
00:03.760: Yeah, I didn't start using compound clips until they reimagined the logic behind them.
00:03.760: Okay.
00:03.760: It's been a long day.
00:03.760: com.
00:03.840: Well, okay, so this is an interesting question.
00:03.840: And look, it's a good piece of software.
00:03.840: Gotcha.
00:03.840: Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
00:03.840: I was like, Well, what kind of machine do you have?
00:03.840: Take care, Chris.
00:03.920: So the logic is that Red Cine X will make an
00:03.920: Gotcha.
00:03.920: It's well, it's basically 2K, correct?
00:03.920: That's interesting that you're saying that because my experience is that the timeline is really fast.
00:04.000: And I'm doing a lot of testing with products and
00:04.000: Well, do you know why that is?
00:04.080: And you have certainly you have the background, but you also, you know, here you are, you're actually making
00:04.080: Yeah.
00:04.080: Which means that if you it which means that you could potentially have two different RMDs
00:04.080: So that's the biggest thing for me.
00:04.160: Sam Mestman, how the hell are you?
00:04.160: Yes, no?
00:04.160: I drag them out of the finder, dropping them onto the keyword collection, which automatically applies all those all that keyword stuff.
00:04.160: And I'm thinking outside the box here.
00:04.240: And then, you know, what we do from there is
00:04.240: So, what I will then do before I'll import it into Final Cut 10 is I'm going to go into Red Cinex.
00:04.240: Okay, all right, so that's cool.
00:04.240: And if you bring your footage in at the end of the day and you crank through this, or if you're on set.
00:04.240: Well, this is a whole big thing that I have, you know, which I would love to see.
00:04.240: So that's the episode.
00:04.320: So now that I at this point, you're in a world that I understand.
00:04.320: Yeah, I think simplifying some of that is literally the biggest hurdle on the professional side for people.
00:04.320: We've done three successful Kickstarter campaigns.
00:04.400: So I think it's getting easier for people.
00:04.480: And it comes from a long background of like being an independent colorist and delivering movies for
00:04.480: And I guess for me, like a lot of the naysayers, like at this point, I want specifics in terms of what I can't do because I
00:04.480: I like to call it Final Cut 8.
00:04.480: There's a couple other things in there.
00:04.480: It takes two seconds, and I'm going to make sure I've made an RMD for all of my
00:04.480: So that's a huge pet peeve of mine.
00:04.480: You need a minimum, I think, at this point for a long form of 16 gigs of RAM.
00:04.560: Yeah.
00:04.560: I'm good going to I can rewind this if I need to.
00:04.560: Okay.
00:04.560: Although this is complicated stuff, what you're telling me is this is a world of difference from what it the way it used to be.
00:04.640: I think there's a lot I think it's most of the negativity is focused, I think, in and around in LA versus
00:04.640: Well, mission accomplished.
00:04.640: And so, so on a day-to-day basis, that's the media that I'm going to be scrubbing and messing with.
00:04.640: Okay.
00:04.720: Okay.
00:04.720: So is it half res of the 4K data or half res HD?
00:04.720: But really the advantage of all this is now it's literally possible.
00:04.800: So group workflow, 4K workflow, and right now we tend to think that the most advanced professional workflow out there involves Final Cut, 10 and Resolve.
00:04.800: Right, gotcha.
00:04.800: Okay, so let's talk about red.
00:04.800: All of your clips are going to have RMDs.
00:04.800: But if you have if you're using Simlings, which are those little aliases, if you have your import preferences turned off
00:04.800: Audio.
00:04.880: Are you a day-to-day editor?
00:04.880: If you guys are on a SAN and you have access to the same exact piece of media, yeah, that'd be no problem.
00:04.960: I think as far as post-production is concerned.
00:04.960: But I would, I would, you know, I would love to see someone do this test, right?
00:04.960: So all you're going to do is find the top folder with your footage in the little finder section in the top left, and then you're just going to right-click.
00:04.960: Okay.
00:04.960: Now I I'm sorry, I can't remember.
00:04.960: I haven't done that.
00:04.960: I'm thinking maybe you need to bring it around to other cities.
00:04.960: And this, you know what?
00:04.960: Tell your friends, share the love, you know, let everybody know.
00:05.040: And but you're saying symlink, old time Mac people would call that an alias file.
00:05.040: You're just going to take that folder and drag it over a keyword collection that says day one, and then it's just going to import them.
00:05.040: Yeah, it's just about a year.
00:05.040: And you roll your edit back between two clips, and you want it to go completely back over the previous edit, you actually can't.
00:05.040: Well, actually, we've got a couple people that I'm hoping.
00:05.120: You're a hardcore Final Cut 10 fanslash evangelist, and that's exactly the kind of person I want to talk to on this show.
00:05.120: I don't see how it is remotely possible that there is or controversial that there is
00:05.120: I mean, there are some ridiculous things in that program that no one really seems to want to talk about.
00:05.120: I mean, is there more to it than that?
00:05.120: From the finder, and by grabbing the folder, final cut.
00:05.120: I guess the difference is that live play
00:05.120: Yeah, those are really nice.
00:05.120: And we'd love to see one in San Francisco.
00:05.200: Like, there has to be some reason that this happened.
00:05.200: What do I do next?
00:05.280: No, no, explain.
00:05.280: 6 and the red workflow came out, and that's when it was, you know
00:05.280: So there's not much math involved because it's cutting the stuff in half, but again, that's exactly what to do, and I like that kind of math.
00:05.280: But within ten minutes of downloading your card onto a hard drive
00:05.360: And we have been given putting her in front of Final Cut 10 more and more.
00:05.360: So we just decided to get together and start.
00:05.440: I am in just the last couple of days, I have people lining up to talk to me.
00:05.440: LA is not indicative of the rest of the world.
00:05.440: I think that's a very good point.
00:05.440: So that was Sam Mestman.
00:05.520: And like I mentioned, there is a
00:05.520: It's you know, I haven't there I have no problem with it.
00:05.520: And when you drag an AIFF file into Adobe Audition,
00:05.520: So, you know, we came out to LA during the writer's strike.
00:05.600: So when I.
00:05.600: So now I have my shots in there.
00:05.600: Now, I know a very little bit o about the Red World, even though
00:05.600: Well, it's actually it's not radically different than what he's doing with live
00:05.600: That's awesome.
00:05.600: You can do that exact thing.
00:05.600: Yeah, so if some of that stuff gets ironed out.
00:05.600: She's a powerhouse.
00:05.680: And the last two years have been a lot of pain.
00:05.680: Interesting.
00:05.680: You're going to right-click and transcode transcode the media and then select proxy.
00:05.680: It says, and you've got to listen carefully to this.
00:05.680: I don't understand these words.
00:05.680: Meaning, you know, it was fast and responsive.
00:05.680: Hey, no problem, Chris.
00:05.760: And I was just so thrilled to talk to the guy.
00:05.760: But what kind of made me cross over was the red workflow on not having to do the conform anymore.
00:05.760: And by default, it's turned on where it will make a copy, but I turn that off.
00:05.760: That I loved that one.
00:05.840: What is going on here?
00:05.840: Yes.
00:05.840: I might have been the only one.
00:05.840: Well, it's like a three-year-old iMac or my three-year-old MacBook Pro, and I'm like
00:05.920: Like, it's always nice, but
00:06.000: Right.
00:06.000: Yeah, they did their job.
00:06.000: And I get aggravated when I have to go back to Final Cut 7, honestly.
00:06.000: If you don't really know how everything works together
00:06.080: Well, I think the room is definitely warming.
00:06.080: Well, you know, there's peop there's still people that say New Coke was just.
00:06.080: So, what's really interesting is, you know, here we are, we're talking, I've been talking mostly to
00:06.080: So you have to do a certain amount of this stuff.
00:06.080: And I think that's about it.
00:06.160: Gotcha.
00:06.240: In this episode, I'm going to talk with Sam Mestman.
00:06.240: Well, let's say let's go back.
00:06.240: Is that something I do in RedCine X or do I do it in Final Cut with the plugin?
00:06.240: So I have an editor sitting down and he's cutting the pictures.
00:06.240: Thanks for listening.
00:06.320: We're kind of taking a little bit of a detour here.
00:06.320: You still can, but you don't need to anymore.
00:06.320: And then what I always make sure I do is I disable the import preferences.
00:06.320: I'm always amazed at how quickly they boot.
00:06.320: We'll hook up.
00:06.320: This is a great conversation.
00:06.400: So what you would then do is you'd go through, you'd organize all of your footage and put your keywords on, do whatever you need to do.
00:06.400: Yes.
00:06.400: I think it last October-ish.
00:06.400: It's like, I wish that
00:06.400: Because for the most part, it works great, except when sometimes it doesn't.
00:06.400: What's your experience?
00:06.480: I still do it.
00:06.480: And because there is enough about it that it's just like
00:06.480: But I know that at some point I want to
00:06.560: I'm good, man.
00:06.560: Because from what you're telling me, you're a busy guy.
00:06.560: But we
00:06.560: Oh, I'm very interested.
00:06.640: I hit the record and then I call and I let things go as they are.
00:06.640: I think we're going to make this number 2.
00:06.640: Did you get questions that were indicative of people that actually knew what they were doing?
00:06.640: What was the problem back then that you ran into?
00:06.640: Yeah.
00:06.640: And you're like, well, no, actually it does work.
00:06.640: It's somewhere between sixty and who who even knows shorts have been
00:06.720: So let's back up a little bit.
00:06.720: Well, let's talk about it if you don't mind, I'd like to kind of go back a little bit.
00:06.720: Wow.
00:06.720: It'll just ripple across.
00:06.720: Yep, right around there.
00:06.800: My argument is that Adobe's attitude has been, let's just make Final Cut 8.
00:06.800: As a matter of fact, we have a woman that works in our office here.
00:06.800: It's actually, it's creating an R3D file.
00:06.800: Sometimes it'll be an RMD file, which is a red metadata file.
00:06.800: And the reason you're going to do that
00:06.800: What was the oh, the aha moment for you was 10.
00:06.800: She knows everybody.
00:06.880: I'm not here to tell you that it's perfect.
00:06.880: And I do I bring my
00:06.880: And then when you're done editing, you're just going to flip back to use original or optimized media.
00:06.880: Is that a walkaway overnight?
00:06.960: Okay.
00:06.960: So those two files together now represent what
00:06.960: You definitely demystified some things that I was a little concerned about.
00:06.960: I mean, it is happening.
00:06.960: And I was just, it was very interesting to get into that.
00:07.040: Because.
00:07.040: I'm down with this.
00:07.040: And especially over Thunderbolt too, you'll see a significant
00:07.040: There's, you know, for instance, you can't completely roll back over a clip.
00:07.040: Thanks for having me, man.
00:07.120: And that's exactly it.
00:07.120: We'll hang out a little.
00:07.200: Yeah, well, let's face it, in 1990 when that first came out, it did little postage stamps.
00:07.200: Literally, all you're going to do is you're going to go to the top level where all your R3Ds live.
00:07.200: No, not at all.
00:07.200: Yeah.
00:07.200: Yeah.
00:07.200: But um, you know, there's there's a a ton of people up there and I'm up there every now and then and uh it'd be great.
00:07.280: Yeah.
00:07.280: So it figures out the math of
00:07.280: Yeah, give or take.
00:07.280: Hope you enjoyed that.
00:07.360: Please go to the iTunes and make comments.
00:07.440: How are you doing?
00:07.440: And part of me was really trying to understand
00:07.440: And this is a bin inside of Red CineX, not a keyword collection in Final Cat 10.
00:07.440: We just got access to
00:07.520: Well, I I'm sure that it is fully sixty four bit.
00:07.520: Yeah.
00:07.520: So We Make Movies was this strange little experiment that we had a few years ago.
00:07.600: So,
00:07.680: And
00:07.680: So that was problematic.
00:07.680: Right.
00:07.760: Final cat ten, at least in my experience, I would say that that first like hour that you sit with it
00:07.760: I'm going to take my card, I'm going to copy my card onto my work drive, onto my RAID.
00:07.760: Yeah.
00:07.760: Oh, wow.
00:07.760: Gets read by both applications.
00:07.760: On the machines that I work on, we have the
00:07.760: I had no idea we were going to get into the whole 4K thing, but I think this is a topic that comes up a lot.
00:07.840: And however, being an inverse learning curve, it starts hard.
00:07.840: You know, it'll be media and then within that I'll have it broken down according to projects.
00:07.840: Yeah, before you go any further, I want to say: so, most people who don't live in Los Angeles.
00:07.920: And now I focus a lot more on
00:07.920: I actually have not.
00:07.920: I have my RMD file.
00:08.000: Tell me a little bit about the kind of work that you um that you do.
00:08.000: Agreed.
00:08.000: You know, it works, it's functional, like I can use it and it does what I need it to do.
00:08.000: Let's talk about using doing red and doing 4K.
00:08.000: Well, I do too when it comes to editing.
00:08.000: It's the Los Angeles video.
00:08.000: Like, we have clients who are doing it.
00:08.000: You need to start a chapter in San Francisco.
00:08.000: This was fun.
00:08.080: And I walked up to him, and his name was Sam Mestman, and I talked with Sam for
00:08.080: And I think there might be
00:08.080: Go ahead.
00:08.160: And actually there's another app that
00:08.160: Okay, go ahead.
00:08.160: You want to get it going?
00:08.240: I'm doing well.
00:08.240: It would be hard to find one that
00:08.240: And
00:08.240: This is the big thing, right?
00:08.320: It's still built on old XML and some of these other things.
00:08.320: What was it like when you first experi your first experience with it?
00:08.320: Okay.
00:08.320: And the kind of
00:08.400: I didn't get
00:08.400: Yeah.
00:08.400: But the concept is exactly the same.
00:08.400: You know, at the tail end of that as it was kinda I think I actually got here in 2000.
00:08.480: I have my like annoyances and grievances, you know.
00:08.480: For Adobe to go and catch up with some of that, it is not going to be a simple process.
00:08.480: Okay.
00:08.480: But you're saying that
00:08.560: And so when I decided to do this show
00:08.560: It's a little sidecar file that's going to get made.
00:08.640: In quotes, it says, We hate math.
00:08.720: Not a problem.
00:08.720: So, enjoy later.
00:08.800: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously, there are things that we have to do that
00:08.800: I didn't catch that from your earlier description.
00:08.880: And let's face it, what we're talking about here, although this is a very
00:08.960: And it was purely on the red side.
00:08.960: What are the things you'd like to see be different?
00:09.040: I've recorded a bunch of episodes and I'm not exactly sure what.
00:09.040: I had that, or I could have gone back to my
00:09.120: Thank you for agreeing to be a part of our little show here.
00:09.120: Now, I haven't been to
00:09.120: I think along with the world's worst product rollout that we mentioned earlier,
00:09.120: But they're set up now for the next ten where they don't have to do a major overhaul.
00:09.200: Does it literally take your resolution?
00:09.360: I mean, I know how much you do with we make movies, and I want to talk about that for a little bit.
00:09.360: Okay.
00:09.360: Well, you know what?
00:09.440: And it just so happens that I'm
00:09.440: But I mean, I watch it I've I will say this, I've watched it demoed many times.
00:09.440: There's a great filmmaking community in the Bay Area.
00:09.520: Is at the end of the day, I think
00:09.520: I have this.
00:09.520: But I think the biggest problem is
00:09.520: I'd love to see.
00:09.600: Yeah, no, I've got a Magma box.
00:09.680: And that's where it always comes from is
00:09.680: Like, this is the world's supposedly
00:09.680: This is the whole reason for any of this.
00:09.680: I think right around then is when it it came out.
00:09.680: A friend of mine who actually works at Adobe, I'll say.
00:09.760: Yeah, it's amazing, right?
00:09.760: It is my understanding that
00:09.760: So you need to transcode and be offline probably for the majority of your edit.
00:09.760: There's a studio feature that's doing it, but you have to know the rules.
00:09.920: Yeah, I get angry with it too.
00:09.920: If you have a rocket, it'll be really fast.
00:10.000: I d I'd rather just spend my time on the story, you know?
00:10.000: Yeah, I would say so too.
00:10.000: And now we have this thing.
00:10.240: Yes, they do, and thank God.
00:10.240: That is the first thing I do.
00:10.240: And
00:10.320: And so I apologize if my
00:10.400: At any rate, Sam's going to talk about that a lot more in the interview.
00:10.480: It's XML based and we're basically it's like taking a spreadsheet
00:10.480: Right.
00:10.640: If you're noticing any problems with the feeds, by all means
00:10.640: Maybe we'll hook up and do this again after 10.
00:10.720: But
00:10.720: And if you don't make an RMD before importing into Final Cut 10,
00:10.720: 6.
00:10.800: It's a little
00:10.800: And it's going to make a
00:10.800: And I think
00:11.040: It's I used Final Cut 10 and resolved because
00:11.120: When you first sat down with Final Cut 10,
00:11.120: It's great.
00:11.120: Oh, God.
00:11.200: It'll be awesome.
00:11.200: I don't know how deep you want me to go.
00:11.280: That one drives me nuts.
00:11.360: And she's doing great in it.
00:11.360: That's where.
00:11.360: Right.
00:11.360: Yeah?
00:11.440: And as you start to
00:11.520: Agreed.
00:11.600: So it's got a lot of legacy there.
00:11.600: It works good, right?
00:11.680: Wow, very cool.
00:11.840: But
00:11.840: Now I can still put additional keywords on it.
00:12.000: Ah, okay.
00:12.080: What is what does Sam Mestman do on a daily basis?
00:12.080: And we're going to be
00:12.080: So I'll make a project, you know.
00:12.080: So now when
00:12.080: That's cool.
00:12.160: This is my second interview today.
00:12.160: Yeah, it's not even close.
00:12.240: And then I figured out a lot of.
00:12.320: I don't even remember.
00:12.400: And you know, I just sort of
00:12.640: However, in terms of
00:12.800: I we I would love to see it happen 'cause it's
00:12.880: Good good deal.
00:12.960: But if you look
00:12.960: I'm fine.
00:13.040: Might have been
00:13.120: 1 comes out.
00:13.200: Very cool.
00:13.360: That's really the whole
00:13.520: Right.
00:13.520: Keep going.
00:13.680: It just isn't.
00:13.760: So, let's go to that interview.
00:13.920: Cool.
00:14.000: Okay.