24 fps Film Workflow in FCP

Question

Hello all,
I'm planning out a film workflow for a feature-length motion picture I plan to edit with my Final Cut Pro setup.
The equipment is as follow:
Mac Pro Quad 2.66 GHz
5 GBs RAM
6 TB Cal Digit RAID
Kona LHe capture card
The stock will originate on 35mm and there is a chance that this will go back to film to have the negative reconformed (pending purchase by a studio and/or distributor). However, the initial plan is to master to HDCAM SR and do a Digital Intermediate.
Ideally, I'd like to stay in 24p (23.98) for offline.
One plan for offline includes getting all dailies transferred via telecine at one-light to DVCAM, then digitize and doing the reverse telecine in Cinema Tools, then correcting for the timecode variance, then doing offline in SD in a 23.98 project.
Would it time-saving (I know not cost-effective) to get all the dailies telecined at one-light to DVCPRO HD tapes at 24p, then digitizing into the system at 24p, and eliminating the whole "reverse telecine" process.
Is this the only way to ensure that offline and online media originates on 24p and stays that way? I want to stay away from conversion as much as possible.
Thanks in advance!
Mac Pro Quad 2.66 GHz / 5.0 Gigs RAM / GeForce 7300 GT / 2.0 TBs internal SATA    

Answer 1

Of course Keycodes...I planned on this from the beginning. However, for your recommended method, I don't see why we'd have to have our 1-light transfers to HDCAM SR 4:4:4...wouldn't it make more sense to transfer directly to DVCPRO HD tapes, dig them into the FCP station (we'll rent a deck and tri-sync) and cut, then pull our selects from keycodes for an HDCAM SR 4:4:4 master for the final format.
Ok, you really don't need to transfer as 1-Light, have the colorist make a full color correction. The only reason why I mentioned 1-Light was for reducing the time in the transfer suite. You still be have to do Tape-to-Tape Color Correction and they can do some pretty amazing stuff that you won't be able to do in the dailies and vice-versa (Go with a DaVinci System or EQ or Pablo).
The only reason why I don't recomend the whole transfer to DVCPro and the re-transfer to HDCam SR is because you can get the DVCPro quality from the 4:4:4 Master (Just digitize straight from the HDCam SR master with a DVCPro codec). You save the 2nd Re-Transfer time, the Dubs to DVCPro, the DVCPro Tapes and you same TIME. Remeber that they still have to re-clean the film, spend time loading to the telecine, and problems that are going to arise due to a re-transfer like possible scratches, lab dirt, chemical spots, film tears, etc. And these DO happen).
*Also, if you're also editing your way, and matching back to you keykode for selects, you won't be able to do it in Final Cut. I checked today and this option is only available for Avids. *
Since it's a 1-light transfer, is it really taking advantage of the HDCAM SR's 4:4:4 color space bandwidth? Why not go directly to DVCPRO HD if it's only going to be 1-light...
Again, don't do a one light. If you can afford it have the colorist do their best. Yes, if you are going 4:4:4 might as well go all the way. Regarding the DVCPro, see above.
I'm not sure our budget will allow for an HDCAM SR 4:4:4 transfer of our dailies. Is there typically a price difference between transfering on different HD tapes formats? HDCAM SR seems like it'd be more expensive than DVCPRO HD. If there is no price difference than I can see your point...but how good would it look at only 1-light (albeit w/ video color-correction).
HDCam SR 4:4:4 is expensive. Next best thing would be HDCam SR 4:2:2, followed by HDCam and finally DVCPro HD. Lately, DVCPro and HDCam are going about the same rate for transfers. If you have a good Post Supervisor he/she can probably sweet talk the post house for a HDCam SR deal. DVCPro HD has a compression of about 15:1, HDCam is 7:1, HDcam SR is 3:1 and SR 4:4:4 is 1:1. (It varies from source to source, these are only approximates) If you're doing a Film-Out, the higher quality, the better the Film-Out.
Oh, and one more thing... a friend of mine, after choosing his selects from the final format of his feature, had the HDCAM select reel made with a 3-light transfer, BUT, also had a downconvert made with Keycode and Timecode burn-in to help with the reconform...if the keycode stuff failed to match...it seems to help him a lot. Any merit to this method?
This is how you re-conform your offline. The whole DVCam dub thing is a given, is part of the method. You have DVcam dubs made (with keykode and timecode burns), you digitize this new material with its respective list and then you match the keykode from the dailies, to the keykode from the selects and bring in your new timecode from the new "selects" masters so that your sequence/EDL (and therefore online) will have matching timecode (the timecode from the original dailies will be useless). (*This system is only available on AVID as far as I know*). Again, this is where keeping track of keykode is super important and you will encounter problems.
In my humble opinion, most of this stuff is for the Post Supervisor to figure out with the Editor and the Post-House. I have talked to post supers that have gone this method and you would not believe how confident they were the 1st week and totally lost it after the 4th week. I have seen shows that have gone through 4 or 5 assistant editors and had to hire a 2nd editor to help with the problems that came up. I have worked on this kind of shows many times and that's why I HIGHLY discourage it.
If you (or someone else) wants to know more, feel free to contact me and I can go into details and help you figure out a workflow that will save you TIME and a lot of headaches and a tiny bit of money. My email is in my profile and feel free to contact me, I won't bite! At first...