Over the years, Tyler Isaacson worked his way up the production ladder, first from PA to camera PA. Then, to broaden his production skills, he was trained by DIT Sam Kretchmar, one of the first DITs in Local 600 when the classification was created. He’s now been working as a DIT for seven years, with a focus on quick-turnaround commercials for brands such as Tide, Snickers, Ford, Progressive, Nintendo and Starbucks.

Ford Mustang Mach-E

In a recent chat, Isaacson talked about the intensity and demands of a daily shoot.

What do you consider to be your most significant issue when preparing for a shoot?
Setting up the right workflow with hardware and software tools that will get the best results, quickly. Once I know the location and how the shoot is set up, I organize my cart for maximum efficiency. I use modular components that I can easily combine in different arrangements. I build out my cart with everything on a Yaeger Junior. cart for stage jobs, or I split it up and pare down to a vertical Magliner cart for tight locations. 

In both situations, I use two core components — a video distribution/live grading kit and my transcoding workstation. I then add monitors (typically 17-inch and 25-inch Sony OLEDs), scopes, battery back-up, wireless receivers and other components the shoot requires.

What software are you using?
Right now, I’m primarily using Assimilate’s DIT Pack that combines Live Looks for on-set live grading and Scratch Dailies for transcoding. The seamless software integration streamlines my workflow for a huge boost in time savings. Because the software runs on both Windows and macOS, it gives me flexibility in my work and in building my DIT cart for different projects. Working this way is miles beyond just applying a CDL as a starting point. Not only do I have more control over the live image with curves, especially hue-hue and hue-sat curves, but being able to apply those exact same curves in Scratch Dailies and then being able to edit them is another time savings.

I also use Hedge for archiving media with checksum. Lattice is a handy app for converting LUTs between applications and viewing the LUT curves, which can be useful when evaluating an imported LUT.

How have you built your dailies cart?
I’m working on a custom Windows 10 PC that I have built into a Pelican 1510 rolling case. With a 14-core Xeon CPU, Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti GPU and 8TB of SSD RAID, the speed for rendering dailies is incredibly fast. For my external RAIDs, I like SanDisk USB C SSDs. They offer great value for the performance. I also use external Glyph 4TB USB C RAID drives for high-performance shuttles

What do you enjoy most about working as a DIT?
My job is the most rewarding when I’m able to collaborate with the DPs to achieve their vision. Having the powerful color tools and curves editor available live not only helps me and the DP set looks faster, but it gives us more creative latitude too. A DP may not get a chance to sit in on the final grade, so achieving a look in the dailies is often the only chance the DPs get to review their work. 

How do you like to work with the DP and other departments?
Since I’m working directly for the DP, this is where most of the collaboration happens. Sometimes the gaffer and I will sort out a flickering light without bothering the DP, but for creative decisions, it’s important to follow the chain of command.

The relationship with post and production is important too. In commercials, we are usually making transcoded dailies as we work, so coordinating with post before a shoot ensures we generate the correct files for them. A big part of the DIT’s job is making sure all the deliverables for a project — source camera files, sound, transcoded dailies, LUT files, reference stills — are well-organized and quickly completed.

How are you handling the live grading?
While I have used a Mac for live grading, I also wanted reliable software that could run on other operating systems. Since I was familiar with the Scratch Dailies UI, Live Looks fit into my workflow. I can quickly pull up old grades and match grades to dailies as I work. Having a look “memory,” in addition to previously saved grades, makes it easy for me to bounce between grades while working on a particular shot. Also, exporting looks into Scratch is saving me time on my dailies grade

My hardware is built around Live Looks and FSI BoxIO, which pulls live images from it and all the embedded metadata. I built all the gear into a small-form-factor 8020 rack for portability. It contains a 16×16 AJA Kumo router and two FSI BoxIO units to live-grade up to four cameras.

What specific aspects do you like about your tools?
Bottom line, it’s the speed, reliability and flexibility. Being able to manage resolutions, frame rates and color spaces individually by timeline (or reel) is hugely helpful, especially when dealing with multiple cameras and formats. Instead of just setting scaling “entire image to fit,” I can actually see and adjust how Scratch is managing the scaling on a per-timeline basis. I’m able to easily handle footage for the same project from a wide range of cameras, even phones, as well as different formats and resolutions on the same camera. It’s also easy to generate multiple export formats at different resolutions from the same material.

What are some of your best practices that you can share?
Because the DIT is solely responsible for all of the footage from a shoot, I think one of the best practices is to approach a job with a calm and organized mindset. If I allow myself to get stressed out or overwhelmed on a shoot, that’s when I’m most likely to make a mistake.

When there’s a hiccup on set — corrupt media, accidental reformat, camera issues, etc. — I always take a step back, assess and move forward with a level head.

I also like to use manual systems for rechecking my work. I make manual media reports, not because there aren’t great software tools that can automate this for me, but because it forces me to recheck card transfers one by one.

I also like to line up all of the original camera clips and transcoded dailies from a day on overlapping timelines to ensure they are frame-accurate. Ideally, I will compare every transcode to the source clip before I reshoot a card. Whenever I do catch a mistake while doing one of these manual reviews, it reinforces my confidence in the system overall.

What tips do you have for someone starting out?
Find mentors if at all possible. I was fortunate in my career to have people who were willing to take the time to teach me when I was just starting out. Not only Sam for the formal DIT training, but also countless assistants who answered my questions and showed me how a set is run.

Being tech-savvy is a must. I had a lot of experience with editing software and building computers, which helped me pick up DIT-specific tools faster. It’s important to understand how cameras work and how the files are encoded, as well as color theory and an understanding of how people perceive images. I had formal photography training that was very helpful for this. There are a lot of resources online, but there’s also a lot of misunderstanding that has spawned misinformation, so it’s important to read lots of sources. Read about logarithmic encoding, color spaces, bit depth, bayer patterns, 4:4:4 4:2:2 4:2:0, latitude, dynamic range, display gamma … and keep going from there. As for working on set and how digital cinema cameras work, nothing beats hands-on experience. Get on set any way you can, or get a job at a rental house, and be respectful of the work. You don’t want to get in anyone’s way, so wait for the right times to ask lots of questions and watch the ACs carefully. Being curious, helpful and kind will go very far.