The filming went well, that’s not to say we didn’t hit any snags (why is this never a surprise?). After we got to the TV studio we just stood there for a wee bit, scratching our heads figuring out what had went wrong.  As it was expected, the radius of the wheels on the Dolly was too large.  The TV Studio ended up being a wee bit smaller than originally anticipated (the floor plan was incorrect!).  Shortly after which Mike dismantled and mantled the whole thing in a space of about an hour.  So after a bit of rehearsing, chalk marking, weight distributing, duct tape laying we were ready to go.

The green screen wasn’t nearly as lit as it probably should have been but I’m pleased to say it worked out fine in post.  All the boys/girls did a stand up job bringing it all together for the shoot.

Kimberley was a star. Not needing too much direction, she was a natural.

Its been a few weeks, and I am pleased to say that the film is now complete.  First thing I must say is that it’s no longer an ‘Identity’ video.  It’s more a promotional video, commercial, advert, what you will.

The film has shifted from the original concept but I hope it still holds true to it. The journey has been a good one.

Keen to get away from any music rights issues I created the music track.  Woopy.

I just want to thank Rehan Yousuf, Kris Keegan, Mike Dunning, Shu Moon Leung, Babis Fasterous, Neil Martin, and Kimberley Brand for all the help.

The video is now live: http://www.krayamotion.co.uk

For most of last week, once the sun dipped past the horizon, the office has been turning into a workshop. After much hammering, sawing, thinking, drinking and thoughtful deliberation I’m pleased to say that the dolly is now complete. And it looks cooool. oh and it seems to work as well. Can I add that its not just a dolly, its a magical one, not in the harry potter sense of the word, rather its built in such a way that if pushed, it follows a circle thanks to its angled wheels.

The obvious catch is that we will need a smooth surface, but that bridge will be crossed this weekend when we are filming.
Here is the concept:

Baby dolly (Thanks Mike!):

Papa Dolly (Thanks Keegan!):

We are hoping to have the film completed by the 23rd of October.  If everything goes to plan…

Dear Diary,

360° track and dolly system don’t come cheap, so we are looking into building one ourselves and the initial deduction is that its not going to be easy.  We understand that there is a reason why its not cheap, but you gotta give it a try!.

Building the dolly itself looks to be a walk in the park, some ply wood, swivel wheels a piano chair and bobs your uncle. The tracks on the other hand is a different story and would involve getting a piece of material thats strong enough, then bending it to a perfect circle.  This will require some heavy thinking and heavy machinery. On top of this, metal and labour can be expensive, so we are researching plastic piping.  Plastic piping works well for a straight track, but not sure about bending it.  We are getting together tonight to test some of these materials.

To film the actor with the camera doing full 360° revolutions around him/her will mean that we will need to green screen the entire background.  Unless, we have two people tracking a sheet of green screen in the background in sync with the camera.  All of this sounds fine is theory but setting up the lights on top of all this won’t be easy.

I feel I have to mention this.  Mike and Kris had another very interesting take on the track and dolly system.  They proposed a rather revolutionary idea, have a Jib on either side, with the pivot point in the middle (where the actor stands).  One arm will hold the camera, the other holding a sheet of green screen.  Essentially the actor stays still, and the arms rotate around him/her like some time travel contraption.  Maybe for another shoot!!.

Things are fast starting to take shape, more coming soon.

The concept for the 20sec film is simple, emotion.  Kraya Motion is about story and a story is parts ‘in motion’, ‘e motion’.

After some discussions the first draft of the script is complete and we are sketching up some storyboards to get the visual idea and realise possible hurdles.  While the story is looking simple the production is summing up to be quite complex.  We will need to incorporate some clever CGI, some well timed camera movements and a dash of brilliance.

Since our green screens are too small our production assistant Rehan is researching hires, but all we have got so far is his detailed research analysis of the Champions League draw, apparently FC Barcelona are playing Inter Milan but I am assured that the green screen research is coming along nicely.  All this while he is getting hyped up by playing the Rocky theme tune in repeat.

Good times..

The initial step of learning to use the camera was probably the most straightforward thanks to the ‘Camera Usage’ manual provided by RED. After this however, its all gets a bit vague.

Thanks to reduser.net I was able to setup a workflow in the end.  Here are the steps I took to do it:

Who should use this

This is the workflow when handling R3D files and not quick time proxies.  This only changed the first few initial steps, if handling QT proxies then you can still follow these instructions, you will just have to cover the QT proxies section in the FCP whitepaper released by RED.

Workflow Overview:

There are three packages I am using:

• FINAL CUT PRO 6: Editing Package, Nuff said.
• REDCine : REDCINE acts as a telecine “film to video” converter, converting the REDCODE RAW data into RGB video, providing basic one light image processing and color correction.  Some of its abilities include Color Temperature, Saturation, Contrast, Brightness, RGB gain, and various other image control options with R3D files.  Since most of the camera settings have been saves as metadata these can be adjusted using REDCine.  REDCINE can also crop, resize and reposition footage, as well as offering a much more advanced option list of compression and export file choices.
• CRIMSON WORKFLOW : is a tool for transforming sequences created in popular Non-Linear Editing Software, such as Final Cut Pro, Avid and Premiere. It allows proxies, and offline material to be replaced by higher quality material, by efficiently managing the use of two software products distributed by the Red Digital Cinema Camera Company, namely Redline and Redcine.

The Process

RAW (R3D) Footage > Final Cut: Edited footage exported as XML > Crimson: XML from FCP imported, then XML generated for REDCine > REDCine: Footage pulled in using the XML reference file, colour corrected (resized if needed) then Rendered > Crimson: To generate roundtrip XML back to FCP > FCP: Export > Delivery > Happy Client > Happy Me.

THE FOLLOWING MIGHT LOOK A LITTLE LABORIOUS, BUT I PROMISE ONCE YOU DO IT THE FIRST TIME THEN THE SECOND TIME WILL BE A HELL OF A LOT FASTER.

Okay so there is the overview. Now to the detailed steps.

1. Backup and transfer your footage from your Mag
2. Fire up Final Cut Pro.  *1 Log and Transfer the footage on *2 native
3. Edit the footage.
4. Once you have the finalcut export the sequence into an XML file .
5. Load Crimson
6. CRIMSON : In Crimson you will see a series of tabs (Match, Frame, Color etc).  The default tab is Match.  Here is where we are going to match the XML data with the links to the video files.
   1. In the Match tab, Click on Choose under Source Sequence at the top.  Then point to the XML file you generated from FCP.
   2. Under the ‘Search Folders’ click on the ‘+’ button and add the folders where the source R3D files are.
   3. Then click on Match.
   4. Now to generate the XML file for REDCine:First check that ‘Use “cowboy” intermediate is selected in the ‘Intermediate’ tab. I would also recommend that you dont use the default directory and specify one.
   5. Now click on the ‘Redcine’ Tab
   6. Click on ‘Export Redcine XML
   7. You can export the roundtrip XML now, but I leave this till after doing RedCine.
7. This will generate the XML file for Redcine to read all your in and out points from your edit.
8. REDCINE: Load up Redcine:
   1. We will need to load something called the ‘Intermediaries’ that Crimson has generated.  To do this, under the ‘Project’ section, click on ‘LOAD ALL’ for shots.
   2. We need to point to the intermediaries file that Crimson should have generated (NOT THE XML FILE).  This will be under the intermediaries folder in the Crimson Folder in ‘Documents’ (user > documents) or the folder you have specified.
   3. This will load all the shots from your project, but your IN and OUT point will not be accurate So:
   4. Under ‘Project’ click on ‘OPEN’.  Here point to your *3 XML file that was generated on Step 6) – 6).  Now you have the complete edit pointing to all the relavent files loaded in REDCine.
   5. REDCine the project ) — There are video tutorials here here. (link coming soon).
   6. Once completed then Export the project.  This can take time, depending on your computer and the size of your project.
9. Now we need to import the footage that has bee RedCine’s back into FCP, to do this:
   1. Go back to Crimson. Click on the ‘Roundtrip’ tab and click on ‘Generate Round Trip XML’. You will need to generate a Rountrip XML file from Crimson (You can technically do this at step 6) – 6) ) but I prefer to do it now.
   2. Back to FCP and import the ‘Round Trip XML’. (You should find this in the same folder as the other XML files).
   3. The XML will be impored as a sequence into FCP.  Load this up and you will now have edited footage from REDCine.  Set your project settins to match what was selected in REDCine (ie. SD, HD etc).
   4. Now you will need to check that the imported footage is okay.  DRAG the initial edit (offline) into the imported (online) edit.  Then check to make sure that all the in and out points are where it should be.
   5. Now you have the option to send to Colour for the final grading.
   6. Then follow the FCP workflow to export the footage to which ever medium your client wants
   7. Delivery to client
   8. Get paid
   9. Buy a Scarlet
   10. The rest is history.

* 1 Make sure you have gone through RED’s whitepaper on using RED footage with FCP.

*2 If you are impatient (and have a computer that would make nasa jealous) then I would recommend Transferring the footage as Native instead of ProRes.  Native is a lot faster but can be a lot more processor intensive.  Essentially going native means you are not transcoding the footage to Apple ProRes 422 which makes the logging process longer.  MAKE SURE YOU HAVE UNLIMITED RT SWITCHED ON when doing this.

*3 If your RED CINE does not load the XML file generated by Crimson (”failed to load construct” error) then it means that you might need to install the beta version of Crimson: Crimson:RipTide. If this doesn’t fix it then check the directory location stated in the Intermediaries tab.  It might be that you need to add/remove the prefix.  I normally specify a directory to save the intermdiatries to as opposed to using the default one.

* Wrong in and out points? not in sync?  Make sure that you set the correct frame rate for your sequence in FCP (Right click your sequence > Settings)

List Magazine

This is the result.

Thought I would post up some instructions here since the information on most of the sites I stumble upon where either outdated or irrelevant to solving the problem.

Right. Here is how I got it working in the end.

Setup the share

If your user account has been setup then follow this:

1. to your ’system preferences’ > Sharing (Under ‘Internet & Network’)
2. Check File Sharing
3. You will have a little window in the middle called ‘Shared Folders’ there:
   1. Click the ‘+’ button and select folder
4. Now to get this baby visible in Windows.
   1. Check ‘Windows Sharing’ few below ‘File Sharing
   2. If you dont have the ‘Windows Sharing’ option, then click on ‘Options’
   3. Check SMB
   4. Check your username
   5. Click Done

From Windows Vista

1. If your workgroups*1 are the same then you should see the share in ‘Networks’. If you dont see your mac share then follow *1 footnote.
2. Double click on your mac share
3. Type in your user details
4. If you are lucky, then BOOM, thats you inside yer mac.
5. But like me if you are unlucky, then BAM, you will get “Login Unsuccessful”
6. MAKE SURE YOUR Login name is workgroup/user.
7. Still unsuccessful?
8. Follow this:

Thanks to Malke @ vistax64.com for the following:

enabled, you will need to change the following policy in Windows Vista:

Start>Run>secpol.msc [enter]

To enable Windows Vista to connect to Mac OS X with Windows File Sharing

Click on “Local Policies” –> “Security Options”

Navigate to the policy “Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level” and double-click it to get its Properties. By default Windows Vista sets the policy to “NTVLM2 responses only”. Use the drop-down arrow to change this to “LM and NTLM – use NTLMV2 session security if negotiated”.

In Vista Home Premium, you won’t have this tool so per MVP Steve Winograd, do:

1. Run the registry editor and open this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

1. If it doesn’t already exist, create a DWORD value named LmCompatibilityLevel

3. LmCompatibility value to 1

4. Reboot

Boom! That should be you accessing your MAC share from your VISTA puter.

*1 To set a workgroup it simple.  Go to System Prefernces > Network > select ‘(your connection, ie. AirPort, Ethernet) > Click ‘Advanced’ > Click ‘WINS’ > Type in a workgroup > Make sure you go back and apply the settings

Having said this the biggest problems have been the smaller things:

1) How the ‘HOME’, and ‘END’ key works.  I don’t want to press ‘Command + Left’  or ‘Command + Rightt’ or infact ‘Command Anything’  I want to press the Key with the writing ‘Home’ and ‘End’ on my keyboard.

2) The other one is the command key (or for you PC nerds. Eh he hem, users, the window key).  Pressing the Window key in windows is actually pointless(apart for some sneaky minimising of facebook by pressing Window+D followed by a even sly Window+E button for the explorer window), it doesn’t do that much, where as in the Mac it does what it says on the Key, it controls.. things.

In other words, windows has control, Mac has command.  Steve, Bill, come on, seriously?

So, after a bit of research on the net, and various blogs mentioning Terminals, Library folders, nano, copy past code, yaddy ya, i found a very useful tool.

DoubleCommand (they should probably think about renaming this to PcKeysOnMac)

Mmmmmm, Checkbox goodness

Its an open source application that gives you complete control of how your keys behave.. no coding required.  So if you are the type who gets no pleasure from copying and pasting code, tweaking system files, following instructions, and general geeky things then go to:

http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/

Oh, and it will be in your system preferences once installed..

Boom!

The year is 1896, the film is called “Arrivée d’un train à La Ciotat, L”, the plot “A train arrives at a station” duration: 15 minutes, format: black and white, sound: none, yet this is possibly the only film that evoked emotions in an audience to an extend that they jumped up off their seats and ran out of the picture house in sheer terror. No, this was not shown in IMAX SUPER EXTREME HIGH DEF 3D 3000, there is no CGI, and THX was nothing more than just three letters floating in the universe with no meaning, waiting for George Lucas to be born. What happened? Wide Shot of train heading towards the camera. What’s to make them think that the train being projected running towards them is not real? Nothing… this is cinema.

Its easy for us to rationalise and conclude that this would never happen to us, and in all probability it wont, but we cant deny watching Star Wars and not be scared shitless by Darth Vader. We know its just a film, just light projected on a screen, just an actor in a suite, all set in the past, way way back in the past, so you tell youself that there is no need to be afraid, yet you develop a distinct distaste towards this man, his dark jedi powers and his ventilator.

The year is 2009, welcome 72 feet wide by 52 feet tall screens, Welcome digital 6 channel cinema sound systems, welcome acronyms HD, CGI, Dolby, THX, IMAX. Welcome cinemas with people strolling out, trying to find their bearings, trying to subdue their nausea and friends flattening each others hair that’s standing on end. Some grasp the wall for support and tell their mates “holy ba jesus, that was unreal?”. It’s the cocaine of films, but it will always remain just that. A temporary high and the final low when you realise that the car ride back home will just be 30mph, sticking to the white lines and red lights.

We are after the proverbial carrot projected in front of us. Salivating at acronyms and numbers. So I say screw HD and lets just watch a movie. Don’t get caught up on blue ray, get caught up on the story. Start a DVD collection and don’t upgrade to blue ray. DVD is all we need, its cheap, its clear, you have non linear play black, it sounds good, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s not high definition but the right definition.

Watch a good movie on a 2” inch screen and you’ll forget the screen first and yourself second.  Lets stop living on the other side of the grassy field and enjoy the patch right here.