feature film workflow

[slichy]

could anyone explain the complete workflow ,the softwares used in post production process of a feature film????? (i.e. starting from editing to release of the movie)

[ShadowCaptain]

2 minutes ago, slichy said:

could anyone explain the complete workflow ,the softwares used in post production process of a feature film????? (i.e. starting from editing to release of the movie)

The software and methods differ by studio, there is no "definitive list"

Something like this gives a good general overview of all the things that go into a movie, but its not a rule

 

http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/movie-making.html#editing

Its not THAT different to editing a movie at home, just it takes a lot more people with a lot more things to do

Heck some movies are made in commercial software, these 10 movies were edited in final cut on a mac

 

https://www.wondershare.com/finalcutpro/movies-made-by-fcp.html

[slichy]

i can understand the workflow!!! the software requirements remains a question mark..

 

[AkiraDaarkst]

2 minutes ago, slichy said:

i can understand the workflow!!! the software requirements remains a question mark..

 

Software requirements will always depend on what and how you want to edit, add in the final product.  CGI heavy films will utilize various software that is optimized for creating 2D/3D models, animation, motion graphics, compositing.  Movies with very little to no CGI can probably get away with using software like Premiere, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut.

 

Sound effects will require people who know how to record and edit sound, using the tools they specialize in. Software such as Adobe Audition would be an example of a tool sound engineers would use.

 

Some production companies and studios will use software that they've developed or has been developed for what they want to do, software that is somewhat proprietary instead of being commercially available.  Others will develop plugins for the commercially available software they use, plugins that are specially crafted for their production needs.

[slichy]

1 minute ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

Software requirements will always depend on what and how you want to edit, add in the final product.  CGI heavy films will utilize various software that is optimized for creating 2D/3D models, animation, motion graphics, compositing.  Movies with very little to no CGI can probably get away with using software like Premiere, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut.

 

Sound effects will require people who know how to record and edit sound, using the tools they specialize in. Software such as Adobe Audition would be an example of a tool sound engineers would use.

 

Some production companies and studios will use software that they've developed or has been developed for what they want to do, software that is somewhat proprietary instead of being commercially available.  Others will develop plugins for the commercially available software they use, plugins that are specially crafted for their production needs.

is adobe workflow the best ????( i use premier pro ... so is it advisable??

[LionSpeck]

2 minutes ago, slichy said:

i can understand the workflow!!! the software requirements remains a question mark..

 

I generally use Premiere for editing, AE (if necessary) for compositing, Resolve for color grading on all the scenes. My personal workflow depends on the source files: whether they're AVCHD (like with Canon DSLRs and Canon cinema cameras) or ProRes (from Blackmagic for example), I always begin with Resolve and I color grade the AVC directly (which sounds terrible, but Resolve handles really well AVC); I then export every clip separately in an exchange format (preferably Quicktime wrapping, Cineform or DNxHR) and edit with Premiere. Final export, all with PrPro (or queue on Media Encoder). I handle audio with Premiere, I have no needs to use Audition or Pro Tools.

[AkiraDaarkst]

Just now, slichy said:

is adobe workflow the best ????( i use premier pro ... so is it advisable??

I repeat, it depends on what you want to produce.  Some production workflows utilize a mixture of various tools.  I sometimes use a workflow that goes First do the preliminary cut of the sequences in Premiere, then export the project to DaVinci Resolve to do the color grading, then export the graded version back into Premiere/After Effects/Audition for the final post production before producing the final product.

[slichy]

what is next step right after edit??

 

[AkiraDaarkst]

Just now, slichy said:

what is next step right after edit??

 

Well if you're done with all the post production, then it's time to distribute your product to the audience.

[LionSpeck]

3 minutes ago, slichy said:

is adobe workflow the best ????( i use premier pro ... so is it advisable??

Adobe workflow is probably the best if you want to do many things (such as compositing, color correction, audio editing, video editing) in the same environment with 100% compatibility and cool tricks such as Dynamic Link. I can't say they're the best, because it depends on what you're doing. FCPX has less "advanced" stuff, but it has such a huge market of plug-ins, that (with its XML project structure) make it so easy to work better with other tools from other companies and especially with other people. I'd suggest you to go see this video to better understand different workflows:

 

[AkiraDaarkst]

22 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

The software and methods differ by studio, there is no "definitive list"

Something like this gives a good general overview of all the things that go into a movie, but its not a rule

 

http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/movie-making.html#editing

Its not THAT different to editing a movie at home, just it takes a lot more people with a lot more things to do

Heck some movies are made in commercial software, these 10 movies were edited in final cut on a mac

 

https://www.wondershare.com/finalcutpro/movies-made-by-fcp.html

I would say that, some of those movies that are supposedly edited in Final Cut also used other software as part of the post production process.  Final Cut may have been the primary tool but I don't think it was the only tool used.

[slichy]

the estimated footage size for an 2 hours movie shot over a 45 days schedule using RED ??

[AkiraDaarkst]

8 minutes ago, LionSpeck said:

Adobe workflow is probably the best if you want to do many things (such as compositing, color correction, audio editing, video editing) in the same environment with 100% compatibility and cool tricks such as Dynamic Link. I can't say they're the best, because it depends on what you're doing. FCPX has less "advanced" stuff, but it has such a huge market of plug-ins, that (with its XML project structure) make it so easy to work better with other tools from other companies and especially with other people. I'd suggest you to go see this video to better understand different workflows:

 

It always depends on what they want to include in the final product.  If they want to create a CGI heavy movie, After Effects might not be the tool they will choose to use.  They may prefer to use a more expensive and higher end software like Autodesk Flame.  AE is great but once you start compositing several layers it becomes more frustrating to use, our production company prefers using Flame which is also faster and we can see the compositions in real time. It only costs us about $8000 a year for a subscription to Flame.

 

 

[LionSpeck]

1 minute ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

It always depends on what they want to include in the final product.  If they want to create a CGI heavy movie, After Effects might not be the tool they will choose to use.  They may prefer to use a more expensive and higher end software like Autodesk Flame.  AE is great but once you start compositing several layers it becomes more frustrating to use, our production company prefers using Flame which is also faster and we can see the compositions in real time.

Well, I don't know a lot about Flame, but I guess (being it's from Autodesk) it's better "optimized" to work with 3ds Max and Maya; if you prefer C4D (for some reason), AE would probably be better, because Maxon and Adobe have a deal that extends Dynamic link to AE (which works pretty good too). Anyways, if your workflow is Ps for static graphics (like lower thirds), Audition for audio, Premiere for editing, Prelude for ingesting, Speedgrade for color correction and Story for the storyboard (it's actually really unlikely that some company is using ONLY Adobe programs, but it may happen; again this is just an example), having AE dips you completely into the perfect Adobe workflow.

[ShadowCaptain]

11 minutes ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

I would say that, some of those movies that are supposedly edited in Final Cut also used other software as part of the post production process.  Final Cut may have been the primary tool but I don't think it was the only tool used.

 I was just saying its interesting how consumer editing stuff is used more and more these days as it becomes powerful

 

The line between "consumer" "prosumer" and "pro" in photo and cinema are getting smaller

Many big studios are using consumer cameras and software (even if only for small parts of movies) like how on the martian they used go pros and stuff and mad max used olympus MFT cameras as the on car cameras

It shows that you dont need an Arri Alexa and full blackmagic desk of toys just to shoot and edit

But every movie, every studio, every editor will use differnet software,

 

a lot of CGI uses bespoke software too

[AkiraDaarkst]

16 minutes ago, LionSpeck said:

Well, I don't know a lot about Flame, but I guess (being it's from Autodesk) it's better "optimized" to work with 3ds Max and Maya; if you prefer C4D (for some reason), AE would probably be better, because Maxon and Adobe have a deal that extends Dynamic link to AE (which works pretty good too). Anyways, if your workflow is Ps for static graphics (like lower thirds), Audition for audio, Premiere for editing, Prelude for ingesting, Speedgrade for color correction and Story for the storyboard (it's actually really unlikely that some company is using ONLY Adobe programs, but it may happen; again this is just an example), having AE dips you completely into the perfect Adobe workflow.

I think you misunderstood me, I didn't mean to imply Adobe products are not good.  Adobe and Autodesk produce fantastic tools and we have a subscription for CC and Flame.  Dynamic Link in Adobe is great, we use it a lot but sometimes we mix using both Adobe and Autodesk tools in our production workflow.  AE and Flame are both very good tools for compositing but from our experience AE starts to lag and slow down when we have dozens of layers in a single composition.  With Flame, we can have dozens of nodes for a single composition and the performance will still be real time.  Obviously that comes with a price tag, for the software subscription and the workstation.  But even running AE in the same workstation as Flame we do not get the real time performance of Flame at all.

[LionSpeck]

Just now, AkiraDaarkst said:

I think you misunderstood me, I didn't mean to imply Adobe products are not good.  Adobe and Autodesk produce fantastic tools and we have a subscription for CC and Flame.  Dynamic Link in Adobe is great, we use it a lot but sometimes we mix using both Adobe and Autodesk tools in our production workflow.  AE and Flame are both very good tools for compositing but from our experience AE starts to lag and slow down when we have dozens of layers in a single composition.  With Flame, we can have dozens of nodes for a single composition and the performance will still be real time.  Obviously that comes with a price tag, for the software subscription and the workstation.

Well, I didn't misunderstood! I know that AE gets awful when you have many layers, and I can imagine Flame is better, I just wanted to say that many people that choose AE (like me) do it because it becomes part of the whole Adobe workflow, so you can work in Premiere with an AE composition that you haven't even rendered yet. Of course, you have to have a beast of a computer to do that , but you could. I knew you didn't say that Adobe products were bad, you were just explaining your reasons.

[AkiraDaarkst]

9 minutes ago, LionSpeck said:

Well, I didn't misunderstood! I know that AE gets awful when you have many layers, and I can imagine Flame is better, I just wanted to say that many people that choose AE (like me) do it because it becomes part of the whole Adobe workflow, so you can work in Premiere with an AE composition that you haven't even rendered yet. Of course, you have to have a beast of a computer to do that , but you could. I knew you didn't say that Adobe products were bad, you were just explaining your reasons.

Alright.  Adobe products have increasingly become better in the past decade, I've been using Photoshop for nearly 20 years now.  There was a time when Avid was one of the goto NLE for any professional video production but with the latest versions of Premiere, the choice comes down to personal tastes.

 

Tools like Flame are more suited for high end production or production companies with bigger budgets or richer clients, if you're a one-man-show or a small production company you should think twice before investing in it.  The same with Nuke, which is more similar to Flame than AE.

[AkiraDaarkst]

30 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

 I was just saying its interesting how consumer editing stuff is used more and more these days as it becomes powerful

 

The line between "consumer" "prosumer" and "pro" in photo and cinema are getting smaller

Many big studios are using consumer cameras and software (even if only for small parts of movies) like how on the martian they used go pros and stuff and mad max used olympus MFT cameras as the on car cameras

It shows that you dont need an Arri Alexa and full blackmagic desk of toys just to shoot and edit

But every movie, every studio, every editor will use differnet software,

 

a lot of CGI uses bespoke software too

I agree.  A software or hardware does not make the professional.  "Professional" comes from how you work.  You can be a professional video editor even with something like Movie Maker if you know how to use it well and all your productions or what the clients wants in the products you deliver are capable of being achieved with that tool alone.

 

You don't become a professional by buying a $10000 camera or $5000 software.  You become a professional when clients come to you and you tell them "Yes, I can create what you want, it will take me X amount of time and cost you Y amount of money and I guarantee that it will be want you want."  Obviously if the client wants 4K video and all you own is a camera from the 90s that records standard definition you need to invest in gear.

[AkiraDaarkst]

1 hour ago, slichy said:

the estimated footage size for an 2 hours movie shot over a 45 days schedule using RED ??

This is nearly impossible to answer.  We have no idea how many scenes you will be filming, how long is each scene, and how many takes for each scene.  There's also filming resolution and frame rate, file format, compression.

 

http://www.red.com/tools/recording-time

Let's assume you're going to be using the RED Epic Dragon camera, filming 4K 16:9 resolution with 24fps, with REDCODE 2:1 with HDRx disabled on a 512GB storage device.  According to the tool on the RED website you get about 57 minutes of recording time.  When you get to the editing floor, those 57 minutes of recording might result in 20 minutes of footage that you actually use.  This means you will need about 3TB of storage if the same pattern holds for the entire 2 hour length film that you will produce.  In reality from my personal experience, not using RED cameras, this is not always the case.  57 minutes of recording may end up being 50 minutes of actually used footage or it could result in just 1 minute of actually used footage. So I could end up generating files that's a little over over 1TB in size to several dozen TB in size for just the uncut footage alone.