HD IS Cheaper than film!

[Landon D. Parks]

Ok, I have heard a lot of people say that HD is just as expensive as Film. I cant see the to be true. This is my figures for my upcoming production. If I left something out. please alert me and I'll correct it.

 

 

35mm 3-perf film:

4,050 / hour @ $0.20/foot: $810.00/hour

x 20 hours:

$16,200.00

 

4,050 / Hour LAB @ $.15/foot: $607.5

x 15 hours:

$9,112.50

 

Telecine:

10 hours @ $1,000.00/hour

$10,000.00

---------------------------

$35,312.50/  TFC

 

Equipment:

===============

$3,000.00/day

x 2 days:

$6,000.00 / week

x 4 weeks:

$24,000.00

 

$24,000.00

+ $35,312.50

-----------------------------

$59,312.50 / Film and Equipment

+ $10,000.00 DP Fee:

$70,000.00 / Total Cost

 

 

HD:

Sony HDC-F950: $850.00

Zeiss Digiprime Set: $1,000.00

Directors Friend Recorder: $1,200.00

Dolly: $275.00

Track: $250.00

Crane: $700.00

Lighting: $300.00

Monitor: $350.00

HD Engineer Panel: $150.00

Waveform monitor: $250.00

------------------------------------------------

$5,325.00/day

x 2 days:

$10,650.00/week

x 4 weeks:

$42,600.00 Total Cost

 

Now, Tell me. how is $70k less than $42k?

 

Please, If Im not understanding somthing... let me know.

 

Disclaimer: I am not battling film here. I still love film. Im just tired of people who say Film is cheaper than HD... sorry.

[Laurent Andrieux]

I'm not a producer but you charge a dp on film, not on HD ?

 

Another point is you're going on video right ? (you charged a telecine in the film version).

 

I think that when people are saying film is not more expensive than video, it's because they' talking about going on film at the end, and that what you gain on the shoot, you'll spend in post.

 

How much will cost the post on your film if shot HD ? did you compare it to color timing on film ? I know it doesn't make sense here because you go on video, but imagine if going theatrical...

[Jason Rodriguez]

So how much footage are you shooting per day, and how many hard-drives is it going to take to stash that stuff?

 

A 250GB hard-drive will hold around 14-minutes of footage from an HDC-F950.

 

Also 250GB HD's are around $180.

 

You might want to drop the director's friend and go with the much "friendlier" (IMHO) S-Two with the D-Mag's. Having four D-Mag's on set with the S-two unit is around $1800 per day for 2 hours of 10-bit DPX@24p footage.

[Michael Nash]

Burning a 35mm film-out is what eats up the savings of shooting on HD, and is what can make an HD-originated feature cost as much as a film originated one. But if your master stays on HD or SD video, then HD production is cheaper (all other things being equal).

 

But with any budget comparison you have to compare the ENTIRE budget, ALL the way through to the bottom line. Anything short of that doesn't tell the whole story and is misleading. There are costs associated with each format that don't translate directly to the other, so you can't simply substitue line-items and have those numbers tell you anything meaningful. Only the bottom line after ALL expenses are accounted for matters.

[Landon D. Parks]

I'm not a producer but you charge a dp on film, not on HD ?

The reason I dont include a DP in HD is because I can do DP then. Where are in film, I dont feel safe. and would have to hire a DP. And Hiring an HD tech would be Too Expensive.

 

On Hd I can experament, and then say, no that dony look good, give me a wider lense, or add another filter... and I can see what it looks like before I shoot it. On film, you have to know what you want. And Know how to get it. and personaly, Im not a DP. So, I dont know a lot about a DP's job on film sets.

 

Another point is you're going on video right ? (you charged a telecine in the film version).

Yes, I would edit either Digitally.

 

I think that when people are saying film is not more expensive than video, it's because they' talking about going on film at the end, and that what you gain on the shoot, you'll spend in post.

Well, either way. once you scan the film and edit digitally. If you want to go to film, you will have to do a HD - Film Transfer. Which will run about $50,000 in my experiance. So, lets add that to the line: $70,000 + $50,000: $120,000.00 $46,000 + $50,000.00: $96,000.00... HD is still cheaper.

 

How much will cost the post on your film if shot HD ? did you compare it to color timing on film ? I know it doesn't make sense here because you go on video, but imagine if going theatrical...

All color timing will be done Digitally, even on film. So again, no added fee.

 

 

This is may Post-Process:

 

on Film:

1. Send film to lab for Telecine. (Cost: $10,000.00)

2. Load Digital film into NLE. (No addded cost)

3. Devinci CC. (Up to 5k)

4. HD - 35mm Transfer. ($50k)

 

On Hd:

1. Load Digital into NLE. (nothing)

2. Devinci CC. (up to 5k)

3. HD - 35mm Transfer. (50k)

 

either way, Film is still more expensive. not by a whole lot, but it still is technically more expensive.

 

Again, If I forgot somthing, or Am not doing somthing right.. alert me.

[Landon D. Parks]

and again, this is just from my experiance. Some people do stuff different than me. However, with my addings... even the TOTAL cost of the film comes to cheaper on HD.

[Landon D. Parks]

So how much footage are you shooting per day, and how many hard-drives is it going to take to stash that stuff?

 

A 250GB hard-drive will hold around 14-minutes of footage from an HDC-F950.

 

Also 250GB HD's are around $180.

 

You might want to drop the director's friend and go with the much "friendlier" (IMHO) S-Two with the D-Mag's. Having four D-Mag's on set with the S-two unit is around $1800 per day for 2 hours of 10-bit DPX@24p footage.

The NLE is on-set durring production... so every time the HDD fills, I just load it into the NLE and then record again. I had figured more than one HDD anyway.

[Spider]

"And Hiring an HD tech would be Too Expensive..."

 

There you said it!

 

And where is the expensive grader, which will do a nice grade and make it ready to be shot out on 35mm.

[Laurent Andrieux]

If you go on film at the end, the quality won't be the same... and if you had a dp on film, I'm afraid it would even add to the quality.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Well, there's nothing intrinsically stopping you just blasting straight out from your F900 onto 35, not that I'd personally want to. I might, after a few test runs, trust myself to grade a feature using desktop tools, but that's an equal expense either way.

 

Phil

[Ryan Puckett]

Your statements at the begining of this thread imply that you are proving HD will always be cheaper then 35mm in a typical production environment. Yet your are basing your arguments entirely on very non standard practices. Sure that might be just fine for your situation, but what relevance does that have to the normal costing structure for any professional production. Do you think the producers of any budgeted project will just decide "Oh we don't need a DP... we can figure it out ourselves and save the cash" I don't have any problem, with your approach. Just don't present it as an all inclusive fact. What do you have to gain from that?

 

Ryan

[Nate Downes]

How about as a countermeasure, we throw a nonstandard 35mm shoot:

 

B&H Eyemo, purchased for $3k

 

short-ends, $0.10 a foot

 

wow, the 35mm budget just dropped dramatically. Let's add some more

 

using a Nikon filmscanner over telecine: $600

 

That works, even if the scanner is terribly slow.

[Filip Plesha]

If you want really good scans, even slower than a cineon scanner.

It would work if you are making a short one minute advert or something, and if you edit the negative before the scanning, but there would still be registration problems. And not every still scanner can scan continuous strips of film.

And think of all the time you would spend spliting the frames into two in photoshop.

[Laurent Andrieux]

Doesn't anybody edit on traditionnal machines anymore ? I guess if one's looking for low budget and is issuing on film, it's certainly cheaper than digital (paid for) editing ?

[Nate Downes]

I still do editing by viewer/splicer on occasion. Yes, much cheaper.

[David Mullen ASC]

It's not really fair to exclude the cost of a DP in an HD budget. For one thing, don't you think an experienced DP would add production value either way, film or digital?

 

Most of the producers I've talked to about this who make low-budget features regularly all come to the same conclusion: HD is cheaper to shoot, but if you have to make a 35mm print, it costs about the same as 35mm. But as the shooting ratio increases dramatically, HD starts to become cheaper than 35mm even with the costs of the film-out.

 

But it's not really fair to exclude the cost of the DP in the HD budget, not to mention take a traditional route with 35mm yet cut all sorts of corners by shooting and posting HD in a unique way. For example, I'm sure that George Selinsky has spent less shooting his feature in 35mm than you have budgeted although this required some unconventional methods of shooting and posting to save money. And he served as his own DP.

 

However, if your project is not for 35mm print projection (i.e. theatrical distribution) I will agree that HD can be cheaper, although if the project is for home video only, then Super-16 is a perfectly acceptable alternative too.

[Filip Plesha]

Excluding a DP from a feature film..It's like excluding a fashion photographer

from a model shoot.

 

Film is visual storytelling, not just storytelling. Personally, whenever I go to cinema, i go because of the visual sensation of watching a movie, specially

if it was well lit. It is eye-candy for me.

 

P.S. Is traditional editing really cheaper than digital editing? What is

the cost of printing a minute of film compared to telecining a minute of film

at SD? (I am very unimformed about the prices)

[IngmarRosengaard]

If the thesis in question is that the aformentioned production constitutes the norm, then it is a matter of little question. Conversely, one need account for deals, and unconventional wisdom.

 

Case in point, my last feature was:

 

+ 35mm color

 

+ Cost of film = $0.5/ft. x 10,800 ft. = $5400

 

+ Cost of Telecine = $7500

 

Beyond that, I can't remember the other details.

 

Final Budget: $50,000 U.S.D

[Mike Brennan]

Yes directors friend could be replaced by S2 or the new SRW1 recorder which will be cheaper than S2 but needs a digitising step but then also serves as archive.

 

Most producers and production teams on features work to the established film method of pre and post production with a few tweakes. (some of them remember to strike the telecine costs from the budget others don't!)

 

The devil is in the detail. No one has written the book on digital mid budget ($500k to $5M) feature film production techniques yet.

 

The saviest film producer I have ever shown HD observed, "so we should get a production manager who has done drama on video."

 

There are numerous small cost savings with HD... from lower "neg" insurance, earlier striking of some sets to lower cost of storing rushes which are rarley noted in a paper budget. In the case of 2/3 inch HD cameras, lighting bluescreen to half the lighting level required for film achieves same depth of field.

 

Slo motion (beyond 120fps) and dynamic range are digitals weakest technical points at the moment but lack of production expertise is a problem too!

 

 

There is more to the story than quoting camera packages and telecine costs.

Budgets, regardless of size, are not an indicaton of production value!

 

Trying to comparing budgets of one feature shot on the cheap on film to another shot on the cheap on HD is ludicous if we don't judge the results.

 

How do we know if a fantastic performance was shot on the first take on film or if the director could afford to go to 4 takes on HD?

 

 

 

Mike Brennan