[Tod Hopkins]

Last I checked the behavior is still unpredictable, though it may not be precisely the same. I suspect it is related to non-standard frame sizes. I have grown accustomed to working around it so I have not experimented with it much recently.

[Tod Hopkins]

Just a caveat. Like you, my feature experience is limited, but having just struggled with the exact same question, I feel qualified to give you the simple answer.

For me, the hardest adjustment to make was that it’s not about “levels” but relative loudness. The aha moment was when someone helpfully pointed out that theaters do not adjust volume. The playback is fixed to a standard loudness or, more precisely, SPF. The theatrical standards are for playback, not production. Ultimately, you rely on eyes and ears, not meters. The closer you can get to cinema playback, the more accurate your judgment will be.

For some more technical info that might help you conceptualize relative to broadcast read this:

https://simpledcp.com/sound-levels-in-cinema/

But here’s the key quote: “What comes as a shock to most people who are more familiar with
broadcast audio delivery norms is that theatrical mixes do not have any
official limitations or guidelines regarding loudness. Of course, this
isn’t license to mix the film as loud as you can make it but rather to
afford you the widest dynamic range as an artist to explore your
auditory world of your film”

On a side note, this is somewhat true of the picture except that the luminance and color space is similar enough (on average) that if you stick close to Rec 709 broadcast, you need only concern yourself with the “film look.”

simpledcp.com

Sound levels in cinema

Theatrical audio mixes differ from broadcast, disc, and online audio mixes in a number of ways. When delivering your files for DCP creation, it’s important to know what kind of a mix you have and how that will affect its … Continue reading

[Tod Hopkins]

Micro-budget. Master to broadcast standards except for audio. Keep your gamma low, blacks down and shadows shadowy. Theatrical projection will ere on the high side, meaning high blacks and poor contrast. I don’t mean overcompensate. Just be careful. For wide release, you need to be 24fps. Many small theaters are 24fps only. If you’ve mastered at 30fps, this is a significant problem and you’ll want to work through this before mastering or you’re going to see a lot of nasty stutter. You may need to replace or process shots.

Audio. Other than zero being max, you have much greater dynamic range, 60 db at least. Use it. In other words, don’t compress things to death, keep your voice where you want to be the baseline (this is subjective and depends on what kind of movie you’ve made so tricky). Give yourself headroom and be careful about your quiet sounds. The audience will hear them. Monitor carefully. Ideally, you’ll want to get into a calibrated space but that will be tough. Maybe you can do a favor for the projectionist in your local art house to run your video (most can run video) during off hours so you can hear what you have in a theatrical space.

Mix to 5.1 surround, but assuming your show is natively stereo, you’ll only use left, right and center. Music left and right. Voice center. SFX depends on the intended effect. In a small room you can monitor this mixed down to stereo. It will work well enough. There are some rules of thumb for filling back channels with music but unless you’re in a calibrated space, this is tricky. I would only do this with music and it’s not really necessary. You will not use the LFE channel unless you have explosions and even then you’ll need to be in a calibrated room to do that properly.

My recommendation, if you are doing the DCP yourself, is to do your first pass to the best of your ability and find a way to screen it in a theater. You might be able to arrange something will a small theater or maybe a cheap deal with your local post house just to screen it and take notes. Then go back, adjust, and try again.

[Tod Hopkins]

Mastering and QC for DCP is not significantly different from any high-quality master. You can take a broadcast master directly to DCP though that would not be ideal. Theatrical projection is more forgiving than broadcast from a technical point of view, and less standardized, assuming you are not creating a feature for Dolby or IMAX. For aesthetic quality control, you can view in any well-calibrated room, but to do it properly you would want to be in a fully calibrated suite with cinema-calibrated projection AND sound because cinema evaluation is highly subjective rather than technical. In the real world that limits you to major market facilities. Frankly, your mix is a much bigger issue than picture in a theatrical release. The mix standard for cinema is specific AND subjectively relative. Meters will only get you part way. A theatrical mix can only be properly evaluated in a cinema-calibrated room.

In short, if you want it done right, you should be mastering in experienced post facilities calibrated for and familiar with theatrical release. On the other hand, almost anything can go to DCP and be projected.

[Tod Hopkins]

Need? No. They may benefit you depending on how complex the project is. Proxies have two major roles. They simplify real-time playback and they allow for editing with less storage. A Mac studio with fast media storage will have no problem playing a couple of streams of 4K. Once you start layering and applying effects, real-time playback will slow down. The more complex your edit, the more your real-time playback will benefit from proxies.

Proxies can also benefit you if you need to edit the project using less storage because you can work with proxies even if the full-resolution media is not available.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to create your proxies when you start the project. You can create proxies at any point. Just right-click the clip in the bin.

The downside to proxies is that they take time to create and use additional storage. They also make your project a bit more complex and problem-prone.

[Tod Hopkins]

Sometimes you need to dig deep. Thirty years from film to video to non-linear to virtual and sometimes I still rack my brain on “simple” concepts like this. I appreciate the opportunity to work my way through an explanation, and that you made the effort needed to understand.

[Tod Hopkins]

Well, as you can see, it is a confusing topic, but I believe what you want is the Duration, not Media End which is peculiar to Premiere.

Duration indicates the length of active program including every frame. In other words, if you output that program as a file without time
code<i class=””>, Duration is how long the picture will be. If you take three sequences with a Duration of 01:00:00, and string them together, The result will total 03:00:00. If you take three programs with a Media End of 01:00:00, and string these together, your resulting program will be 3:00:03 because each is actually one frame longer than one minute.

You can see this in Premiere if Zoom all the way in. Place your position indicator at the END of your sequence in
Premiere. The position indicator will sit at the frame boundary at the end of active video. This position will equal your Duration, not the Media End.

[Tod Hopkins]

First, let me compliment you on asking this question. Most people would just gloss this over.

Timecode counts time, not frames.

Premiere is identifying the Out Point incorrectly. To be fair Premiere is doing what makes sense to users visually in a graphical environment, but it’s not correct historically or mathematically. Hence the disconnect between the Out Point and Duration.

We like to think in frames, but timecode designates cut points, not frames. Each TC increment marks the beginning of a frame, not the frame itself. The Out Point is the point in time AFTER the frame. If you are thinking in frames, think of it as the stop-frame.

Premiere designates this correctly if you export an EDL, but not in the bins.

The duration Premiere reports is correct. If the duration is 2:00:01, you are one frame too long. By the way, 2:00;01 does not exist in drop-frame timecode. It is dropped because TC counts time, not frames.

[Tod Hopkins]

Haven’t seen this question in a long time. The prior response is correct. If you are being precise, TC indicates the beginning of a frame. An Out Point is marked at the end of a frame so as to include that frame. If you mark an in and out without moving the position you’ll have a one frame duration.

When you need to be inclusive of all visible frames you must use the out point as your end, not the last frame’s TC .

A one hour show’s last visible frame is 00:59:59;29 (at 29.97 drop frame). Speaking of that, if you are using non-drop and you end at 59:59:29 you are actually over an hour. Don’t make that mistake.

[Tod Hopkins]

Reference level is not the same as peak levels and DCPs don’t have a signal maximum (other than -0).

TLDR: Set your levels to broadcast standards with your average or median levels at -20.

Ref -20dBFS is the common reference level for broadcast, the “reference” historically being the level of the 1Khz tone in Bars and Tone. These days it’s easier to think of this as the average or median level of a standard voice narration which is typically set at reference level.

Cinema soundtracks are not referenced not to a digital meter level but to a specific playback loudness, aka volume. Theaters do not have volume control so you mix to a specific playback loudness in a calibrated room. This standard reference level is 85dBc.

Note the dBFS and dBc are completely different measures. The first is a digital signal level. The second is real-world loudness.