Preparing for DCP from FCP 7

[Shane Ross]

[Sofia Marmorstein] “Who creates the DCDM? me (editor in FCP) or the people doing the DCP?

If I have to create it how would I go about that or what exactly would I be supplying the post house to create the DCP,DCDM etc?
“

Ask the post facility that’s doing the work. THey know better than we do.

[Sofia Marmorstein] “I have done a lot of research on DCP creation etc but I still find myself stumped by the exact workflow and duties that fall on me as editor or on the colorist or post house for DCP as they are all different parties.”

Again, talk to the post facility. Communication is key!

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Nick Meyers]

don’t you do it,
this is a job for an expert
you’d need to MAKE the DCP, and then be able to CHECK the DCP.

get the post house to do it,
or at least talk to them, they will recommend someone.

“I am working on FCP 7 on a 1920×1080 Prores 422 HQ timeline but will be bringing that into a 2k timeline of 1920×804 and swapping everything with their higher res and uncompressed version etc.”

are you saying the original footage was 2k, and you’ve been working with HD proxies?
and now you are doing the re-conform?

that’s not for the light-hearted, either.
the media manager would be a better tool,
a simple copy & paste will mess with any motion effects you’ve done.

often the post house will do this,
but if you think you;re up for it, it can save you some $$ to do it yourself.

nick

[Sofia Marmorstein]

Thank you Shane, I will get as much info I can from the post house.

[Sofia Marmorstein]

Hi Nick, Thank you for you fast response. Knowing the post house will take care of the DCDM is a huge relief since as you yourself said I have a lot on my plate at the moment:

[Nick Meyers] “are you saying the original footage was 2k, and you’ve been working with HD proxies?
and now you are doing the re-conform?

that’s not for the light-hearted, either.
the media manager would be a better tool,
a simple copy & paste will mess with any motion effects you’ve done.
“
yes that is correct. We have a lot of 4k red footage as well as many many high res still images that have all been downsized to under 4k to be able to edit in FCP. Initially we were going to make a 4k conform at the end and therefore the post house would have to deal with it but now we are going to 2k which FCP can handle and so I will be manually copying and pasting the picture locked film into a new sequence and reapplying all the motion effects by hand ( I have a formula to apply to each one, so more tedious than anything).

Hopefully it all works out in the end and I will have all correct files to give the post house.

I also have a subtitle question but I will make a new post for that.

Thank you again for your help.

Sofia

[Nick Meyers]

FCP wont work with RED footage,
you’ll have to get that down converted to 2k Prores.

Resolve might be a good choice for this.

apologies if you wave al this worked out already
nick

[Michael Gissing]

With Resolve you have to set the project info first and not change it so an xml from FCP7 will set the wrong frame size. So use Media Manager to create a 2k project from your HD proxies in FCP7 first.

Import that into Resolve and relink to the r3d files. Then you will have to resize. All this assuming Resolve will be used to grade/online

[Michael Gissing]

And ditto the advice on the DCP. I have made a few DCPs using Open DCP software with various success. I find cinemas are technically all over the place and often unable to articulate simple information like what disk formats they can read on the theatre management systems. At first I followed the DCP spec but soon found cinemas are often not able to accept ext3 formatted drives although that is the spec.

I now hand over to DCP specialists as I really don’t have the time or interest in managing cinemas lack of professionalism. Broadcasters can be pedantic but at least they adhere to technical standards and have people who can properly explain any tech issues.