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Best format for film festival ‘print’ submission?
I submitted a preview / working copy of my film on DVD for selection. As the film has now been selected they have asked for a ‘Digital BetaCam Pal’. I confess I dont really know what this is but as I am currently assembling the film from scratch again I would like to ensure I send the best copy of the film I can.
The film is animation shot on digital still (approx 2272 x 1704 / 1.2MB per still) and I will put it together again with a combination of Adobe After Effect and Premiere.
What are the best pixel aspect and frame aspect ratios for a cinema projection and what will be the best format to send the film?
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4 Replies
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Congrats on getting your film accepted!
Digital BetaCam is a standard-def tape format. PAL is the UK/European standard for video (NTSC is North America).
You will need to find a way to get your project conformed and output to PAL DigiBeta tape, or it will likely not be shown. Are you near a medium or large metro area with professional video post-production companies? The best thing would be to contact one of them, be honest and say you’re new to this and need to do a PAL DigiBeta master for a festival. You have an advantage that you have a master format that is better than SD video; you will need to render out to the right format for the post house to lay to tape. The preferred format would depend on the post house, so ask them. The hard part will be finding a place that does PAL work. And, be forewarned, this will likely cost several hundred dollars…If you want to do a “native” edit in Premiere/AE, PAL for DigiBeta would be 720×576, 25 FPS, Upper Field First, 1.07 pixel aspect.
Here’s a link that might help fill in some tech details:
https://www.mediacollege.com/home/sitemap/video.html-Jeff
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Many thanks for such an informative reply Jeff!
I suspect they requested Digibeta because in my ignorance I randomly ticked it on the submission application! There are options to also submit any of the following:
35 mm | BetaCam SP PAL | HD Cam
I am just starting to appreciate that this is going to cost me a penny or two but am keen to get the best balance between price/quality given I have the opportunity to rebuild the project at the moment. Though from Scotland originally I am currently in Israel and expect there will be a suitable post-production facility somewhere around Tel Aviv…
Assuming I cant afford film, is the Digibeta (PAL 16:9) likely to be the best option? Do I have anything to gain (or will I just unnecessarily make life difficult for myself) building the project at a higher resolution…?
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An HD format (though they don’t seem to specify which of the multitude of choices) would be better than digiBeta. DigiBeta better than BetaSP. Film could be better than everything, and of course the most expensive to do correctly.
Israel is on PAL standard, so apologies for my foolish assumption you were in the States, where cross-conversion is sometimes tricky.
Keeping your project in a higher resolution is good; the only downside is longer rendering time. But, that way you can output to DigiBeta now, and HD or film later. In AE, all that is needed is resizing the final comp output. If you need to edit in Premiere, I would still start with AE and render out clips at the size you will be mastering at (SD, HD, etc.). Premiere seems not so good at resizing things.Most likely, you will end up with a QuickTime in the codec of choice of the post house, and then they can lay it off to tape for you. Again, tell them what you’re dealing with; they might be able to give you a good deal on doing HD with a simultaneous downconversion to SD, depending on what gear they have.
-Jeff
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Once again, many thanks Jeff! – I will get in touch with a production house out here tomorrow.
cheers,
Darryl
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