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documentary precautionsH
Hello!
I am about to begin work on a rather large documentary project. I come from Premiere world, but I can find my way through FCP.
Most of the materials to be used in this documentary is on film reels, 16MMs and 35MMs. Transfer to an editable format will be carried by a pro house (not picked yet). My question is kind of general: what format will or should be used for output (i.e. what type of files will I get)? Will I get some kind of intermediate MOV (AVI)? Footage is picked rather tightly, so there won’t be more than 10-15 hours of material. I would be thankful for any kind of tips for this kind of work.
Thanks!
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12 Replies
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Well, you don’t say what you’ll be delivering, SD or HD. You don’t say what your system is, hoiw fast, or what storage you have. All important points in deciding what format/codec to use. It could go all the way from DV50 to Uncompressed 1080P. Tell us more about the final use.
Ed -
You will get much better (and impossibly conflicting) advice over the next few days. if you post in multiple forums, I ask you gather your best suggestions and return to all of them and tell us what you learned.
I approach all complicated projects by examining the final product and working backwards.
Look carefully at your program’s release medium and get your film printed to video to match the quality and rez of your ultimate release format.
Then have a low rez copy of the film masters made to whatever format you want to edit with. I’d suggest DV but that’s just me.
To pull this off, you need to make FCP’s terribly flawed Media Management system work properly so you can up-rez after your project is golden. For that, you need to practice and have a backup plan.Further, you need a backup plan for your project files and for your raw footage. And you need an intelligent and logical versioning process which includes a competent file-naming convention.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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In my opinion, all of these film reels should be telecined’ to 1080 dvcpro-hd files.
It’s a solid work flow and looks great.
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Oh silly me 🙂 The sole delivery format will be SD PAL DVD, I’m almost sure it won’t be widescreen because majority of footage is 4:3.
I edit on FCP on Intel iMac 2,13 GHz, which should be sufficient for SD. There is a possibility of a sponsored quad-mac pro with RAID array (which will be required anyway, right?). FCS 2.
So, you think that the codec of choice should be DVCPRO PAL?
Thanks for your answers!
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Mmmmm, which is it, yet-to-be-transferred film footage or 4:3? If it hasn’t been transferred yet, why won’t it be 16:9? And think about future uses, if it’s SD now, will it be HD in the future? If so, and you don’t have super, super fast drives, going with DVCPro (HD!) is a good path. Have it transferred to DVCPro100, edit it, and then go to SD from there.
Ed[Jiri Fiala] “Most of the materials to be used in this documentary is on film reels, 16MMs and 35MMs. Transfer to an editable format will be carried by a pro house (not picked yet).”
[Jiri Fiala] “h silly me 🙂 The sole delivery format will be SD PAL DVD, I’m almost sure it won’t be widescreen because majority of footage is 4:3.
I edit on FCP on Intel iMac 2,13 GHz, which should be sufficient for SD. There is a possibility of a sponsored quad-mac pro with RAID array (which will be required anyway, right?). FCS 2.
So, you think that the codec of choice should be DVCPRO PAL?
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[Ed Dooley] “why won’t it be 16:9?”
film is by nature a 4:3 aspect ratio full frame.
if its to be SD, I would have it captured as uncompressed 10-bit
if you can. -
[Chris Borjis] “film is by nature a 4:3 aspect ratio full frame. “
WHAT?????
That wins the award for misinformation of the year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)
Mark
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[Mark Raudonis] “[Chris Borjis] “film is by nature a 4:3 aspect ratio full frame. ”
WHAT?????
That wins the award for misinformation of the year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)
Mark”
I think what he meant is that a frame of 35mm film, the medium itself, is basically 4:3 (the Academy ratio is 1.37:1). Anything beyond that is a result of using a matte and/or anamorphic process to create the various aspect ratios for final viewing.
-A
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Thanks Andrew, that is exactly what I meant.
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Sorry, but that still doesn’t justify the statement. There’s 3 perf 35mm, super 16, cinemascope, and IMAX. These are all film formats that don’t even come close to 4 x 3.
If you want to make such a sweeping statement, you’ve got to qualify it.
Mark
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