dv to theatrical screen, best way?

[Chris Gorman]

I need to edit footage already shot in dv but destined for large theatrical size screen.

Before I start the editing process are there any recommendations for how I can maintain the best image quality? I'll be doing lots of color correction, mainly just with adjusting black and luminence levels. A few clips might need to be slo mo. I'll be adding some titles and other graphics.

I'm editing on a G5 dual 2.3, Final Cut Pro 5.1 Suite. I'm confused about whether or not it's ever a benefit to do whatever? in order to work in 10 bit or is it a futile effort with footage already shot in dv. I don't know what's required or advised hardware or otherwise to work in a bettter ?compression codec, so any basic explanations on this are welcome.

This will be approx. 80 minute finished project, working from about 70 hours of original footage. Budget is an issue, so I want to get the best results without going beserk with the budget.

I'm equipped to set a couple 500 GB sata drives to RAID.

[Ash Greyson]

Need to know a lot more... are you making a film print or do you HOPE to make one? Budget should not be that much of a concern because a 35MM print will cost you $20,000 - $30,000. What the footage shot in 16:9? 24P? 60i? There a a lot of variables here.



ash =o)

[Chris Gorman]

Originally Posted by Ash Greyson

Need to know a lot more... are you making a film print or do you HOPE to make one? Budget should not be that much of a concern because a 35MM print will cost you $20,000 - $30,000. What the footage shot in 16:9? 24P? 60i? There a a lot of variables here
ash =o)

No chance of going to a film print or anything approaching that budget. This is dv 60i, 4:3 footage shot on a Sony VX2000 camcorder, documentary style. It was never shot with the intention of even showing it to an audience. But, after the fact, there's a story recorded which is worth sharing and being seen by special interest audiences.

No budget to start with, only the hope that some money could be recouped from some limited bookings and selling the DVD to special interest audiences.

As the editor, I'm trying to come up with a reasonable budget for my client so that he could have an edited version of the 70 hours (down to about 80 minutes) that he could take on sort of a mini tour/talk circuit, showing it to various audiences maybe rangeing in size from approximately 100 - 1500, projected at whatever size is required for that audience.

I've only seen dv 60i (delivered on dv tape or DVD) projected in smallish rooms on 8-10' screens. I know dv 60i does very well screened at that size.

But, and here's the actual question - how will dv 60i that looks decent on an 8 - 10' screen look when it's shown on much larger screens. Is there a magic size that's the limit.

There's just a few places where the footage has to maintain enough of the smaller detail to illustratrate a point. If certain small details are lost, I'd want to know if a graphic could be created showing that specific detail and maintain the detail on a large screen. How large? That's an unknown until the various locations eventually get booked. For now, let's say however large that would be for an audience of 1500.

Of course, we want the footage to look decent, but the story is the most important and would be of interest even if the footage is not film quality.

[Ash Greyson]

It will look fine in that scenario, WAY different specs for presentation versus theatrical....



ash =o)

[Don Donatello]

in general ( projectors of equal quality) the smaller the image the better it looks ... 4 ft wide will look better the 8 ft wide .. 16 ft wide looks worse then 8ft wide ...
the projector will play a part in the image quality ..

and ones acceptance of so -so image after awhile looks ok -
a documenary i shot ( hand size DV camera) had a private fund raising screening at a local movie theater (rented it) - producer was told they had vhs, DVD player, betasp , digibeta deck and they have a new 2k projector . Producer decides on digibeta - we had 3 week to prepare - we spit out a AAF file from our 8bit NLE and imported the edit into avid for CC, titles etc -finished 10 bit out to digibeta ... the producer shows up hour before sceening and finds out they don't have digibeta deck AND the 2k projector is non existence !! the projector was one of those old sony 3 light projection things ( red, green,blue ) , lucky the Producer had a DVD of the project in his car !!!
IMO the image sucked (image approx 15ft wide) ) , dim , soft , color fringing from the 3light sony projector not aligned , .. it did sound good ... after screening some persons said it looked good ( IMO Lies ) ....