s16mm transfert to DVCPRO HD ?

[Etienne Caron]

Hi,

I'm gonna be editer for a first short made in S16mm by a young filmmaker.

Here the price for the post that the Lab (Montreal, CA) bring me :

1- FILM PROCESS
2400' of 16MM + cleaning = 384.00$

total = 384$

2- RUSHES TRANSFERT
Film transfert techlight 16mm SD = 720.00$
Synchro SD = 108$
Betacam SP's tape (30 min.) = 25$
Disquette 3.5" = 2$

total = 855$

3- MASTERING SD (ONLINE)
FCP Online SD (4 hours) = 500$
Color correcting SD (4 hours) = 800$
Titles creation (4 hours) = 400$
One Digital betacam's tape = 38$

total = 1738$

GRAND TOTAL = 2977$

Thats way too much for the production, because the budget of that short (around 20 min.) is 5,000 $ So i plan to do:

1- A 16mm techlight rushes transfert in DVCPROHD. (with timecode and keykode burn in the black stripe area)
2- Edit the whole movie ONLINE in FCP able to handle the workflow. (with a AJA Kona 2's card)
3- Color Correct in Apple's Shake or whatever on my computer.
4- Mask the timecode and keykode to do a SD output in plan to burn DVDs for film festivals application.
5a- If accept, send the DVCPROHD version of the movie to a post house that will transfert to a HD's tape for digital projection.
5b- If accept to a any major film festival like Sundance, Canne, Clermont ferrand or whatever... beg for more money and send the EDL's cut list to the lab and re-do a film transfert techlight with the only shoot needed in HDCAM SR or a 35mm blow up.

I'm totally green and only edit DV movies for friends... would like to know if my workflow make sens ? Do i will have more trouble then the normal flow (offline in DV)? Will cost too much ?

Since the DVCPROHD is used by the Panasonic's Varicam, it make sens that this codec got some kind of a nice performance ? even in HD Post-production?

nyways, will call the lab to have some price...

thanks...

[Jocelyn Deguise]

Your friend should have shot his movie in video.

[Glenn Chan]

Etienne,
Did you have any luck in your question?
If not, you can try asking the CML-basics mailing list. There should be people on there who can help you out with your query.
http://ls.cinematography.net/read/all_forums/

2- My whack at attempting to answer your question:

A- The cheapest workflow for you may be to convert your film into data (i.e. on a firewire drive). This way, you can avoid the cost of renting a deck and attempt the online yourself.

One way to do this would be to transfer onto digital betacam (tape). Then find a company that can capture the tape into a computer format (i.e. the uncompressed 4:2:2 codec / quicktime). Be sure the format does work in your editing system- does the codec work in your FCP system, and do you need a fast RAID to play that format back?

As far as the DVCPRO HD codec goes... it ain't great. It has roughly the same level of compression as DV, although the color space is slightly better. It would be preferable to work off a better format like uncompressed data, HDCAM SR, D-5, or HDCAM.
This may be a moot point anyways. HD telecine generally costs more than SD.

[Etienne Caron]

Hi Gleen,

Well, techlight transfert directly to hard drive is not a service offer by lab here in Montreal. They do it for their "in-house" editing business but not for customers or even for indie short-film production.

Best workflow so far for our budget is a transfert to Digibeta on tape, rent a deck (around 300$ per day)and capture it to transfer to a hard drive and do the online at the best you can do on a G5 with all the speed you can get from the budget or facility we have in hand. Go to a post-house and ask for a transfert back into Digibeta tape to send to festivals.

hope it will work fine.

will keep note and try to share when we will finish.

thanks a lot.

[Etienne Caron]

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