'Reflections' - BMCC Dubai Roadshow Film

I've just posted on vimeo a film I was asked to make as part of the Blackmagic Design Dubai Roadshow last month. It was a great opportunity to visit Dubai, shoot a film and put it all together a couple of days before the roadshow presentation.

I shot everything RAW and only used my macbook pro retina for post, which in itself proved the effectiveness of the workflow using Resolve and FCPX, especially under pressure of having to show the finished, graded film at the presentation.

https://vimeo.com/hangman/dubai

Here's some more info and also some BTS photos.

A project commissioned by Blackmagic Design to shoot a film for the Dubai 2013 roadshow. The brief was to film on location in Dubai for 2 half days, edit for a day, grade for a day and then present the film the following day at the roadshow. We traveled with a small amount of equipment to be able to film quickly and easily and shot everything in RAW to allow for a stylised grade. All post was completed with a Macbook Pro Retina.

Camera: Blackmagic Cinema Camera (EF Version)

Lens: Tokina 11-16mm, Canon 17-55mm IS, Canon 100mm Macro IS, Zeiss 21mm ZE and Zeiss 35mm ZE
Accessories: Heliopan ND filter, Edelkrone SliderPlus, Manfrotto tripod, Cineroid EVF4RVW and Hawk-Woods batteries

Post: FCPX & Resolve

Sara Tonkin - Talent

James Tonkin - Shoot, edit, grade
Alan Witts - Music

DubaiBTS_005.jpg (517.62 KiB) Viewed 6054 times

DubaiBTS_001.jpg (435.8 KiB) Viewed 6054 times

DubaiBTS_002.jpg (288.33 KiB) Viewed 6054 times

Well done James. Lovely shots, and great editing. You mention that you shot in RAW and completed all post with your Macbook. I would love to know your workflow. Did you use proxies, or were there long render times? Thanks.

It was even better on the big screen, mind blowing what you can do in 3 days around Dubai with a talented film maker like James!

I picked up the Edelkrone slider too, cant wait to get my hands on it!

Give us a shout when your back in the sand pit!

Well done James. Lovely shots, and great editing. You mention that you shot in RAW and completed all post with your Macbook. I would love to know your workflow. Did you use proxies, or were there long render times? Thanks.

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the comment!

Workflow was actually quite straight forward:

1) transcode each SSD within Resolve lite to ProResLT for editing. Took about 40mins per card full of 30mins of DNG rushes. Sometimes I'll transcode to ProRes proxy to save space too.

2) edit with the ProRes files within FCPX

3) once the edit is locked, export an XML from FCPX to Resolve of the edited timeline.

4) import the XML making sure that the DNG files are already loaded into the Resolve project, that way it relinks the ProRes timeline back to the DNGs for grading.

5) grade the DNG timeline within Resolve, render, then export an XML back from Resolve to FCPX

6) add audio, graphics and any final plugins within FCPX to the finished graded timeline.

Might sound like a lots of steps, but it's a normal offline to online procedure and the fact that it can be done on a fast laptop makes it more appealing than the old days of messing around with telecine and tapes.

I've been working with Den Lennie from F-Stop Academy on some BMCC/Resolve workflow training, so watch this space.

It was even better on the big screen, mind blowing what you can do in 3 days around Dubai with a talented film maker like James!

I picked up the Edelkrone slider too, cant wait to get my hands on it!

Give us a shout when your back in the sand pit!

Thank you Marcel!

Enjoy the SliderPlus too, it's a neat little travel companion of a slider.

Let me know anytime you're over in London.

Very cool shots, James!
Grading, editing - all beautiful!

Please tell me - how do you monitor during shooting 16:9 for final composition 2.35:1 ?
With help EVF4RVW?

Best regards,
Pavel

Well done James. Lovely shots, and great editing. You mention that you shot in RAW and completed all post with your Macbook. I would love to know your workflow. Did you use proxies, or were there long render times? Thanks.

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the comment!

Workflow was actually quite straight forward:

1) transcode each SSD within Resolve lite to ProResLT for editing. Took about 40mins per card full of 30mins of DNG rushes. Sometimes I'll transcode to ProRes proxy to save space too.

2) edit with the ProRes files within FCPX

3) once the edit is locked, export an XML from FCPX to Resolve of the edited timeline.

4) import the XML making sure that the DNG files are already loaded into the Resolve project, that way it relinks the ProRes timeline back to the DNGs for grading.

5) grade the DNG timeline within Resolve, render, then export an XML back from Resolve to FCPX

6) add audio, graphics and any final plugins within FCPX to the finished graded timeline.

Might sound like a lots of steps, but it's a normal offline to online procedure and the fact that it can be done on a fast laptop makes it more appealing than the old days of messing around with telecine and tapes.

I've been working with Den Lennie from F-Stop Academy on some BMCC/Resolve workflow training, so watch this space.

Great. Thanks so much for that breakdown James. Very helpful to me as I'm new.
Cheers.

Very cool shots, James!
Grading, editing - all beautiful!

Please tell me - how do you monitor during shooting 16:9 for final composition 2.35:1 ?
With help EVF4RVW?

Best regards,
Pavel

Thank you Pavel.

Yes, the EVF4RVW is a superb accessory for the cameras due to having both frame guides for 2.35:1 as well as peaking, a waveform monitor and audio meters.

Really impressive! I'm in the market for an EVF myself.. looks like the Cineroid worked nicely for you!

[CaptainHook]

Awesome stuff as always James.

Very cool shots, James!
Grading, editing - all beautiful!

Please tell me - how do you monitor during shooting 16:9 for final composition 2.35:1 ?
With help EVF4RVW?

Best regards,
Pavel

Thank you Pavel.

Yes, the EVF4RVW is a superb accessory for the cameras due to having both frame guides for 2.35:1 as well as peaking, a waveform monitor and audio meters.

Great! Thanks!

Nice job, James. This footage is awesome.

Nice job, James. This footage is awesome.

Thanks Lorenzo!

Great looking !!
Thanks for sharing

First off, beautiful piece, really stunning. Glad to see the workflow of using a rmbp as well as I am picking one up in the next week. But I had one question and I dont seem to see if you have mentioned it...What external drives do you use or did you use for this piece? Thank you, and again great work.

First off, beautiful piece, really stunning. Glad to see the workflow of using a rmbp as well as I am picking one up in the next week. But I had one question and I dont seem to see if you have mentioned it...What external drives do you use or did you use for this piece? Thank you, and again great work.

Thank you. Yes the rmbp really is a great combination with the BMCC and for the RAW workflow via Resolve. I've been very impressed with it as I found myself getting around 12-15fps playback within Resolve playing back the RAW graded shot with at least 5-6 nodes of correction. I tend to use USB3 drives as I did on this project, particularly the Western Digital My Passport 2TB drives as they are good price per size and perform well speed wise over USB3.

Great job James. Thanks for sharing.