By Si.

Im currently working on a short film, directed by Steven Spencer, entitled Momster.  The film was shot by our very own Ed Moore using the RED camera at 4K resolution and is produced by Rachel Carter. The film is one of two of the 2007 slate of Digital Short projects funded by Screen West Midlands that we’re involved with.

One of the first things I had to decide when it came to me in post, was which workflow i was going to use to get it in and out of Final Cut.  Due to ‘time constraints’ (which seem really popular in this industry) I chose to get my hands on Crimson and go for that route. Crimson acts as an intermediary between Final Cut and REDcine, the software used to process the .R3D files that the camera creates.

On previous projects shot on RED we had chosen to transcode all the footage to Prores HQ before the edit, but at an approximate time of 6:1, it was quite a lenghty process if you had shot a few hours of footage.  Working straight from the proxies and using Crimson solves that issue allowing us to get straight into the edit.

Using the proxies generated by the camera, I edited the film using Final Cut.  Once the picture had been locked, we went via Crimson to get our timeline into REDcine.  So rather than transcoding all my files upfront to Prores HQ, I now only had to do the clips used on my timeline.

Ed and I then went through the sequence in REDcine, cropping and resizing of any clips which needed it, before giving it a basic colour treatment and exporting it out to Prores HQ.  The film now has to go off to the Vis FX team to add the eponymous momster and other CGI shots, before coming back here for the grade.

SO thats where it is now, being Momstered.

By the way, check out my new website here. If I don’t keep up the blogging on the site you’re all welcome to come round to the office and whip me.