Appendix 1

Appendix 10: Example Workfl ows
Panasonic’s new portable HD bank, which has a single P2 Slot and a hard drive that you can use to
transfer an entire P2 card in about four minutes.
The format can be DCV Pro, HDV, 720p, or 1080i PVC Pro HD and the frame rate can be 23.98 or
29.97.
There are also several systems for recording to drive in HD Cam, HD Cam SR, or even raw data.
S.two of Reno, Nevada, makes the digital magazine (D.MAG) removable hard drive that is hot loaded
into their Digital Film Recorder (DFR). This is a fairly large device that defi antly does not mount
on the camera. The raw “fi lm stream” data from the Thompson Viper can be recorded via a dual data
link to the camera. Unwanted takes are deleted to clear up drive space. When the D.MAG is full, it
is transported to the edit room and downloaded to an array of drives. It is also backed up before the
D.MAG is cleared and reused.
Once the media is delivered to the edit room, the data is simply imported, a database created, and
the project is ready for editing. On broadband video formats such as HD Cam or raw DXF data from
the Viper camera, this requires editing right on the main editing system with a disc array. Or, the
media can be down-converted to a narrower video format such as DVC Pro HD that can play directly
from a hard drive or even a FireWire drive.
This is where the Red Camera workfl ow could change everything. The Red has a small, swappable
drive right onboard the camera. Once full, the drive is swapped out and downloaded. So, while this
is very similar to the AG-HVX200, and the Viper with the D.MAG, the differences are stunning.
The resolution of the Red One is claimed to be 4 K, not 2 K like the Viper and the AG-HVX200.
Both Viper and the Red One can record 10-bit uncompressed data to drive, which needs some processing
before it can be edited. The AG-HVX200 records a compressed 8-bit digital format, DVC
Pro HD. The drives for the Viper are huge and require an even larger device to operate, the Digital
Film Recorder. The Red drives are tiny, light, and mount right on the camera. And the biggest difference,
the Red is less than $20,000, and the basic drive system is less than $1,000. Cheaper than
the rental of the DFR.
And, tapeless does not necessarily mean fi lmless. It is possible to shoot 35 mm and then scan all
selected takes to 2 K or 4 K DPX data just like the output of the Viper. While high-speed scanners
are not as good as slower, pin-registered scanners, they are, nevertheless, very good. In this case, the
camera negative would be sent to the lab for processing and scanning, and it would then be vaulted
and never touched again. The reason this is not done now is simply the costs. It is so much cheaper
to edit fi rst and then only scan the footage used in the fi lm, but this does add much more work to
the workfl ow. If tapeless workfl ow becomes the norm, and scanning continues to get cheaper and
faster, this “virtual fi lm” workfl ow could become commonplace. That is provided that fi lmmakers
still want a “fi lm look” and the digital processing does not ever truly look like fi lm.
Finishing a tapeless project is no different than fi nishing a project shot on tape or scanning fi lm to a
DI. DVC Pro HD can be fi nished right on the editing system and then recorded to tape. Color correction
can be done in Color before recording to tape or it can be done tape-to-tape after the show
is recorded to tape.
Many 2 K and 4 K projects will be edited to down-converted DVC Pro HD. After the picture is locked,
the HD media is taken off-line and the edit is relinked to the DPX media on the drive array. The Red
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