Choosing the right workflow for the Blackmagic Cinema Camera (1/3)

As a director of post-production, my main and first task was to come up for a workflow that was efficient, maximizing both quality of picture while requiring as little time as possible. There are three parts for this workflow: 

• the recording format
• the software element
• the hardware element

Choosing the appropriate recording format when shooting with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera

The Blackmagic CC gives you the option to shoot in RAW or compressed format. RAW definitely is a better quality than compressed format, however it takes a lot more space, and therefore is more expensive. Considering our budget is very, very limited (we have 20.000 euros to produce the movie in Monaco, 1200 euros of which were allocated for post-production from my estimate), and after some tests, we decided we will shoot a mix of compressed and RAW: most of our scenes will be shot in a compressed format, which already allows us to color grade way better than a 5DmkII or any 8 bit codec, while some of our most challenging scenes will be shot in raw, like the ones that could need a bit of post-stabilization (we will then frame the shot a bit wider than needed) or very difficult lighting situations. 

Once we chose to shoot mainly in compressed, we had to decided if we’d shoot in Film or Video mode. Being the color artist on the movie, the choice seemed obvious to me: we will shoot in Film mode, to allow a better color-correction in post. I really don’t like how the Blackmagic CC renders colors in Video mode, especially the skin tones, and in the end it would take me MORE time to grade the already «graded» video mode than the flatter film mode.

Then, the choice was between ProRes and DNxHD. My choice was to shoot in DNxHD: ProRes, while being an apple format, is compatible with PCs and Mac, however, we always end up with gamma issues when using it, while DNxHD, the format created for Avid Media Composer (and therefore a good format for editing, more on that later) is free of this issue. You’ll see later it also is the format we chose for our proxies. 

To summarize, we will be shooting with DNxHD in Film mode for most of our scenes, and RAW mode for difficult ones.