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AE help for Cinema Ad
Hello,
Im new to this forum and am looking for advice on using After Effects to produce a 20 second cinema ad – which Im also new to. I use AE a lot to make video resolution work but this will be my first foray into the film world. The piece will be largely based around animating stills and vector graphics which shouldn’t present too much of a problem but there is mention of some material from digibeta or worse still DVD. Basically Im looking for advice from someone out there who does this kind of thing regularly
Will digibeta look terrible blown up to film res?
Im planning to output the job as numbered tiff or targa files for transfer to film is that a good way to go?
How should I set up the AE project – 2K seems to give a 4:3 aspect ratio?
When the advertiser specifies that tiitleing should be positioned for cinema projection 2.24:1 at 1.85:1 what does this mean?
I’ll be previewing this using quicktime on a PAL monitor – are there any pitfalls to be avaoided when making the transfer from a video/quicktime environment on to film?
Are there any resources online that are particularly good for this kind of thing?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Andy
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1 Reply
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You must talk to the person or agency who will be receiving your piece. You must ask them what they want from you. Now that is true whether you do video or film.
For instance, I recently did a cinema spot for the UK that went to an agency that handles those things over there. The agency gave the spec: the picture had to be PAL Digibeta, D1 widescreen, and the audio had to be a Dolby Cinema mix. The only spec missing was the frame rate of the Dolby mix: 25 or 24? If I recall, since the boys doing the Cinema mix determined that an optical print would probably be made (we knew it would eventually go to film), the rate should be 24. However, the person at the agency didn’t know either way and seemed to keep us at arm’s length from their techies, so the Deluxe boys here had to guess 24, then confirm with their counterpart over there that 24 is normal. If we had been able to talk to the techies over there, we could have saved some time.
So, if they want Digibeta, give them Digibeta. I’ve seen Decklink 8-bit NTSC on a theatre screen, and it was acceptable, not horrible. But it wasn’t film, of course.
If they want targas, give them targas.
If they want 2K, give them 2K.
They might want high-def. If you can handle it, that would be better.Start from the end and work back. You must ask the film house, or the distribution agency what they want. If the disties want film, and they don’t know a film house who can do the transfer, you have to find one, then ask them what they want. Ask them if they have any tips, as well. Admit it’s your first. Most of your questions should probably be answered by the film house.
Regarding the monitor:
– imagine the screen is bigger than you think and design accordingly.
– I recommend that your client spring for a test session at a theatre set up for digital projection, just to see how it looks on the big screen.Sorry, I can’t help on the other stuff, as I don’t do this regularly, and I was basically creating for PAL Digibeta, but designing with the cinema in mind.
Hope that helps.
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