Once open a time: DIT

Alexa XT ditOur company was serving professionally trained and qualified DIT for many digital cameras. Some of supported cameras were: Arri Alexa and models, Red, Sony F65, Blackmagic camera models, high frame rate (HighSpeed​​) shooting WeissCam, Phantom and many more.

Oktotech has more than 6000 shooting days DIT experience as a team. Oktotech was leader in the industry for DIT services.

Oktotech and all DIT crew decided to leave the service by the end of 2017 because of changed industry.

“We supply this service so your shoot will run smoothly and you get the most out of your team. The idea is, we train our DIT so your camera is set up correctly and your data is captured and backed-up securely, “On the Fly”. DIT work is relatively specialized so it’s important to realize that a DIT is not a substitute for a second camera assistant, but an additional role. The DIT must stay focused on the ‘back end’ of the camera, so you will still need a standard shooting crew including a Focus-Puller, Second AC and third AC.“

As well as numerous tv commercials and music videos, some of feature films have been listed below that successfully completed as DIT services:

 

The primary job for the DIT (Digital Imaging Technician)

Each new camera load must be correctly formatted and prepared for use on the specific camera, with complete metadata information for use in post-production.

One of our top priorities is for the DIT to avoid a data backlog.
The cost of the digital magazines is a substantial part of shoot expenses, and it’s important to properly calculate the ratio of cartridges needed per shoot.

A good DIT will organise and implement all camera settings to correspond with DP’s specified instructions. This includes:

  • Project settings
  • Metadata settings
  • Audio menus
  • Sensor settings
  • Colour, “look” and LUT files
  • Timecode and sync settings.

He will then work together with your crew to complete the appropriate monitoring configurations and conditions for everyone (i.e. DP, Director, Client, Focus Puller, Sound recordist etc…) to have access to the necessary information.

The DIT is on the set to assist the camera crew with all camera settings and relevant changes to the camera configurations as they become necessary.

DIT will also oversee any problems or misuse of the camera that may lead to loss of data, incorrect capturing of images, problems in post-production, acting as a fail safe against these issues.

Digital Transfer Station on Set

The DIT gets organised and sets up a “DIT station” to manage and back up all data (rushes) from shoot.

This station is the equivalent of a ‘loading station’ for a film(negative) shoot.

Occasionally, the DIT will be without his station while running off battery power in a ‘run and gun’ scenario for short periods of time.

The captured footage that is removed from the camera is backed up immediately onto a hard drive, and then backed up to a second hard drive. Often the DIT will use a RAID protected drive array.

As this is happening, the DIT will download the files into a pre-organised file structure that details shoot, date, roll and mag ID info for easy later access, both on set and in post-production.

NOT: Creating a simple text file at this point, the DIT takes any additional notes regarding takes or dark shots that need adjustment or such.

Time permitting, the raw footage is then checked against the original roll both through a digital checksum and by manual checking against the camera notes. After the footage is checked again from the second backup drive, the digital magazine is re-formatted for use.

All the camera ‘stock’ works in a shooting cycle which allows constant availability to the camera to shoot new data.

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