Question with How to Get the BEST QUALITY?

[teryoon]

So I've decided that I'm going to take a bit of a risk for me and shoot a short film entirely in RAW with my 5Dmarkii. I'm shooting in around 2 months, so I'm just trying to make sure I learn as much as I can before doing this.

So before when I would just record on my 5D, I would render things out in Prores 422 for when I needed lossless files. Now that I'm working with RAW, should I change that? I'm thinking of rendering things out as Prores 4444 instead. Would that be a better idea? I know the file size is larger so it means less compression, but is it worth it do you think?

Also, I see that everything says 14-bit RAW Video. This has to do a bit with my current workflow. So right now, I'm converting the RAW files to DNG's > opening in After Effects and using ACR in AE > Rendering out the clips as Prores files. The question is, in After Effects, should I be working in 8-bit? Should I go ahead and change that to 16-bit/will that make any sort of noticeable difference?

Thanks for any help you guys. This film is going to be premiered at the end of the year at my school on a big screen so I want the quality to be the best that it possibly can be. I know I'm just being super anal with all of these details, but I might as well know.

[Midphase]

If you're "super anal" about quality, then this is what I would recommend:

Import .raw files into raw2dng or RAWMagic if you're on a Mac and convert to CinemaDNG image sequences.

Import CDNG files into DaVinci Resolve, export ProRes Proxy or LT for editing only.

Once you're done editing, bring XML back into Resolve, re-connect with the original CDNG files and do your color grading and final output from Resolve as ProRes HQ (you can do 4444, but I don't think it buys you a whole lot since one of those 4's is for the alpha channel).

If you want a step by step guide, there are tons on this very process in the appropriate Post Production Workflow forum.

[bnvm]

I cannot offer anything for Prores but I would recommend using 16bit in AE and keep it that way. You could also export to a 10bit log format to save some space but ideally you want to hang on to those extra bits until you export out your final cut. The more bits you have the more latitude you will have for color correction in post. I would only use 8 bit if you don't plan on doing any color grading beyond what you do when importing with ACR. I have been considering a work flow with 10 bit log DPX files since it's fairly standard with film, but haven't gone to far with that yet. Apparently 10 bit files with log encoding can retain all the dynamic range with a smaller bit depth so you can have the flexibility without going to 16 bit which can be a bit of overkill.