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rescanning film
Hi all,
I’m working on a documentary that shot about 2.5 hours of 16mm film spread across about 7 tapes and around 13 lab rolls, as well as a little over 2 hours of 35mm film on 6 tapes corresponding to about 20 lab rolls. I believe there are even one or two tapes that have both 16mm and 35mm film on them. All of the tapes are DVCAM or Small format DVCAM tapes, with maybe one or two MiniDV tapes. So we have no online quality material from the film, but have been editing the material from the tapes in for quite some time (don’t ask me… I came late to the party). We have no real tracking information, most, but not all tapes have edgecode burned in, but with no log files. The only info FCP has is the tape name and tape TC.
My boss wants to rescan the film to an online format, and we are deciding between DPX and D5 with new DVCAM clones.
I have two essential concerns.
1) If we do DPX, what software will I need to generate new offline files from those DPX files and how do I relink these back to the edit? What is the best software for using DPX in FCP when it comes time to online?
2) Without having any log files, is there any way to generate a pull list of some kind (not from the edit itself, but going through the source files and nixing several minutes of footage on many of the reels we know will never be needed), without having to just manually write down all the edgecodes (something I’m not even sure the telecine house will accept…) I figure I would cut in the large chunks I know we want to rescan into a new master sequence (one for 16, one for 35??), but will an EDL mean anything? Does Cinema Tools reverse telecine do any of this? But is it too late to have the KN numbers put in and do they go in FCP or in Cinema Tools? Also, is there a way to do this without having to have Cinema Tools actually render through a reverse telecine if that function means anything to me?
I feel like I may be screwed here and have to blow it all up, rescan everything and reingest everything and cut it all back in by eye. Who knows, that might even take less time than trying to fix everything for re-links. Ideally we would just make new online tapes that would match up with what we have now, but its all so messy, and without the KN numbers I can’t figure how exactly to get new telecine tapes to match tapes that were made several years ago and without log files.
I’ve done this on Avid numerous times, but not on FCP, and I’ve always had log files to work with when rescanning film for an online. Hopefully I’m just missing an FCP function or am too new to Cinema Tools.
Thanks in advance,
Jacob.
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5 Replies
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Well 1st: how organized is the timecode on all these tapes vs. the lab rolls?
typically every lab roll gets a timecode hour assigned to it. lab roll 1 will be 01:00:00:00, lab roll 12 will be 12:00:00:00, etc… In this case you really don’t need edgecode because you can scan film based on timecode.
but if you’re getting dailies made from different labs at different times then lab rolls and timecode is probably all over the place.
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Like everything else, its kind of a hodgpodge. There is a group that is consistent and has proper hours applied to the lab rolls and the tapes (I even have one tape that has 3 different hours on it for 3 different labrolls), so some of those are OK. But there are others that are not, and I have some overlap timecode as well.
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honestly i haven’t worked with cinema tools and keycode lists in a few years…everybody just does timecode anymore. but i’m pretty sure you can build a new cinema tools database and hand enter the keycode so you can output lists. someone else will have to guide you on that.
Just a thought: if there’s not that much film and there’s some money sitting around (ha!) it might be simpler to get everything telecined to D5 or HdcamSR flat pass. Then you can overcut the whole shebang and do a tape-to-tape final color. Depends on the quality of the gig vs. where it will be shown vs. money available. It would probably take less time than trying to build logs and lists and hoping you get the right film transferred.
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When each lab roll was transfered to DVCam, the lab probably gave you logs on a floppy disk. Most people stick these disks in a drawer and forget about them because they don’t know that they have telecine logs on them, and besides, nobody has floppy drives anymore. You should find these floppies, buy a USB floppy drive and use them to help make pull lists.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Thanks for your input.
Looks like we will end up doing a flat pass through all 36 labrolls. Likely going to datacine to DPX instead of tapes. Boss wants to get some in at 4k for use as stock footage.
My question now becomes, what is the easiest/cheapest program to output some lowres quicktimes for editing from the 4k and 2k DPX scans? I may not need these at all since it looks like most of the film can be rescanned with corresponding TC to match our original DVCAMs that we have been using, but I’m likely to run into a problem with a couple of rolls and need to reingest them to be able to properly conform to the full res DPX files later.
I’ve also read a little bit about programs like Gluetools. First of all, how good are these DPX-FCP integration programs? Secondly, aside from color grading (which we may just do in Color), can FCP handle outputting for a 2k DI? We will definately be outputting at 1080p (the majority of our footage was shot on HDCAM), for likely an HDCAM finish, so we’re good to stay in FCP for that. I’ve done a couple of 1080p finishes that we’re printed onto film, but that wasn’t a true 2k finish. Can this finishing be done in FCP or will I need something more powerful, like an Avid DS?
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