MacBook Pro 15" for Prores Proxy Workfow?

[Hocane]

Hi guys.

Need some advice and would be great if someone can help me out here!

Ive been hired to work as a DIT/Editor on a 120 minute indie feature using the Blackmagic 4k Raw Cinema DNG workflow. The producers are on a very tight budget and I needed some advice to set up the computer system.

The idea is to shoot 4K cinemaDNG Raw, use USB 3.0 drives to back up files and and make a rough edit offline using ProRes Proxy with the proxies hosted in a Thunderbolt drive. Once edit is done, the producers intend to take offline files to a post house for online conversion, color grade, final delivery.

My question is this:

Can my 2014 Macbook Pro 2.5GHZ i7, 512GB Flash Drive handle these tasks with ease and without delays?

1. Data Capture on set from SSD to 4TB Lacie Thunderbolt Drive
2. Create ProRes Proxies for the offline edit
3. Edit full length 120 minute feature in real time using ProRes Proxy format without any rendering delays (edit only)

The main concern is delays on set during data wrangling and edit at my home studio.

Advice would be most appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[wonderspark]

Whenever I'm asked this question, I always give the same answer. The only way to know for sure if your workflow is realistic is to shoot a test and run the workflow.

I'd test a 5:1 shooting ratio for the entire film, so 120 minutes x 5 takes = 600 minutes, or ten hours total footage to edit. Say you plan to shoot the film over ten days, so divide by ten, and that gives you one hour of footage per day. Adjust this according to your pre-production schedule.

So, to test the workflow accurately, go shoot one hour of moving camera footage with the same camera and edit workflow you'll be using, and then try your ProRes proxy workflow on your MacBook Pro, just like you plan to do on set. If it works, disco! If it chokes, or you find yourself unable to complete the workflow fast enough to also get some sleep before repeating the process the next day, then you know you need to make changes.

The reason you can't just ask if it's possible to do it, is because others might well be able to do it with their experience and resources, whereas you may not, even using the same gear. You don't want to find out that it's not going to fly right in the middle of production, so run a realistic test and be sure before you shoot.

Someone will ask you, "Are you sure this will work?" You don't want to answer with, "Yeah, I *think* so," or, "It *should* be fine." Everyone wants to know that you've successfully done this before. I've taken a massive job doing something I hadn't done before, certainly not at the large scale I was facing, and I did a test-run before the job started. It saved me, because I discovered right away that I needed to change my workflow in order to succeed. What *should* work and what *does* work can be quite different.

Good luck!

 

[CASLondon]

Try the macbook pro forum or the digital video forum. Blackmagic has good user forums. And, you haven't mentioned your NLE, you might want to start with that.