Indie Filmmaker Mark Wilenkin Takes Advantage of SCRATCH-RED Workflow

July 16, 2009

Source: Assimilate

As an independent filmmaker, you might be working on a shoestring budget, but that doesn’t mean having to settle for second best. It’s quite the opposite when using a cost-effective, digital post-production workflow like ASSIMILATE’s SCRATCH Digital Process Solution, and especially for native RED-ONE 4K Digtal Camera files.

Young filmmakers like Mark Wilenkin (London, UK), with his HDCAM-mastered, 70-minute production of Henry The 9, are taking full advantage of the latest digital pipelines to edit, grade, and finish their visual dreams to the standards the film industry demands. With the project now completed, Wilenkin discusses the making of Henry The 9.

Henry The 9: A terrorist attack leaves the Prime Minister and most of the Royal Family dead, except for Prince Harry, who instantly becomes King Henry IX. He and a beautiful newsreader ponder the past, present and future of civilization.

Shooting with RED: We shot a series of talking heads against blue-screen, using the RED-ONE camera at 3072x1536, 25fps, in RED R3D format.

Images courtesy of Mark Wilenkin © Cloud Burst Films (2009)

Loading SCRATCH: We recorded around 280Gbs of RED material on disk, and since the footage is data, the files copy rapidly into SCRATCH – you just plug in the drive. I was impatient, and wanted to see what I had shot, so before I made back-ups I loaded the RED rushes in the SCRATCH CONstruct module and watched them straight away. Viewing quality is great at 2K in real-time. I would hate to have to watch or edit with proxies as is typical on other systems.

Balance grade: SCRATCH and all our monitors were calibrated to the industry-standard Rec709 color space. We had checker cards at the start of every take, so it was easy to balance the grade across the shots in SCRATCH. It’s lightning fast to apply the color corrections, you just copy and paste what you want on each of the clips, and with a simple click you apply your desired display LUT. You view the results in real-time 2K, or view frames at 4K.

Managing the footage: SCRATCH’s ability to manage data cannot be compared. You can call up shots, grade, and stack multiple versions and watch them instantly. It’s astonishing. I get blown away at how well laid-out SCRATCH is, and how I can keep pushing the work. I fall in love with it every time I use it.

Editing: I’ve worked on all popular editing systems, and SCRATCH is a joy to use. Its new EDL features are fast and accurate. It’s easy to sort out the rushes, and chose between takes in the Edit Module. It’s easy to slip and slide edits on the timeline, stack different versions, and compare the RED material with the composited DPX (linear) versions. And you can keep the edit live until you export to a range of formats, DPX in our case.

Support: When using SCRATCH, you’re part of a greater family of users, and I like the can-do culture of ASSIMILATE™. The documentation is clear, but if you need additional support, there is always someone there on the phone, or in the community. I have not experienced that level of service from other vendors.

Viewpoint: I would say to other independent filmmakers that if you want to deliver your film to the high-standards that distributors want, and save yourself headaches and hassles, consider a digital post workflow, and specifically SCRATCH. SCRATCH ticks all the boxes for technical requirements. It has served me perfectly well, and lets me squeeze the maximum out of my film.

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