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Exporting Feature Film Shot and Edited in 23.976, but has to go to DCP at 24
Hi all,
I’ve been working on an indie feature for a long time now, about 2 years since I came on the project. It’s been an insane procedure, and I’m hanging on for the credit at this point.
The film was shot in 2011 on a Mark II in 23.976, and was shelved until 2014 when I was asked through a friend to take a crack at it. Being naiive at the time, I decided to. As a more experienced editor and technician now, I probably would have taken some more things into not before cutting the picture, like getting paid 10x more, and prepping the data beforehand, but c’est la vie.
Because there was no timecode (DSLR) I attempted, and failed, countless times to set up a DaVinci timeline for the colourist. We tried EDLs, Resolve project files, XMLs, everything. They were all broken. So I actually had to give him an extremely high fidelity export of the entire film, chopped up on edits and dissolved, so he could grade each shot and hand it back over. I know, a really horrendous workflow, but this all stems from production-side failures, no budget, and me being the entire post team until recently.
The film is graded, the credits are done, and the subtitles are done. It’s all on the Premiere timeline, and the festival the film has gotten into has requested a true-24fps DCP format be uploaded to them with the mix (a proper 5.1 mix was done at Deluxe and the six tracks handed over to me, which are lined up in the timeline).
There are the specs from the festival:
**Exhibition Copy: WE NEED YOUR EXHIBITION DCP BY 4/1/2016
Only Acceptable media: Digital Cinema Package (DCP)
Required specifications for the DCP:
Resolution: 2k or 4k
Aspect Ratio: 1.78 or 1.85 or 2.40
Frame Rate: 24 fps
Audio: Surround 5.1 or Stereo
If your DCP deviates from these specifications above, please let us know
immediately. 24 fps is not optional.Here’s my issue that’s been keeping me up at night. I am exporting the video and audio stems separately. The leader and tail pop have been sliced off by the In and Out markers on all tracks, so the audio and video are identical lengths on the timeline.
For video I am exporting, as per the DCP guy’s request (not even attempting to use OpenDCP as I’ve never done it – getting a proven DCP mastering house to do it), as Uncompressed YUV 4:2:2 QT.
I am going to export each of the 6 audio tracks from Premiere using the same settings they were bounced out of ProTools in from Deluxe.
My concern: When the DCP man brings the video and audio into whatever he’s using, they need to line up to the frame. If I select “24” and export as 24 fps, I assume the length of the video will change with added frames every so often. How will I compensate and ensure that the DCP process is a smooth, drag, drop, perfect line-up process for the post facility doing it?
Thank you for your help, and sorry for the novel.
Cheers,
Mike -
4 Replies
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Hi, I’m not sure I understand well…
Your movie is 23.976… you had your mix done at 23.976 so audio and video have the exact same duration, right?
Why don’t you just drop the 23.976 movie to the dcp facility and ask them to do the conversion? -
One other key item to be aware of: (I have done 5 DCP’s so far)
In premiere, make sure you have each surround stem in a mono track and NOT
a multichannel mono track.Otherwise, when you export the stem, the audio levels will be lowered considerably.
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Thanks for the tip!
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left out an important part to make sure each one is properly channel routed in the mixer
and panned:L (1&2)pan left
R (1&2)pan right
C (3&4)pan left
Lfe (3&4) pan right
Ls (5&6) pan left
Rs (5&6) pan rightThis is a standard SMPTE 5.1 track order
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