Why can't it be as simple as this....

[Luke J. Schneider]

sorry for the simpleton nature of this question, but i think i've done my due diligence in researching the archives here, and i'm still confused on this.

 

Let's say I shoot a 400' roll of 16mm, neg or reversal, doesn't matter, and lets just say its silent, (for a music video) though it is shot on a camera with crystal sync.

 

Why can't I send the film to a house for development and have it telecined directly to a hard drive in whatever format necessary (like a quicktime file) to be dumped into final cut (or imovie for that matter) , so i can simply edit right on my new macbook pro?? does this make sense? Do I have to pay to have it transferred to HDCam and then subsequently to hard drive? Am I correct in assuming that its a good idea to have a tape master just for the sake of having a real top-notch quality master?

 

At this point I should mention that I want to shoot film but I really am not going to be submitting anything to festivals or broadcasting this footage on tv. obviously the music video would be on youtube and the artists webpage. And we might make some dvd's to send out with press kits. I'm looking at it from more of a hobbyist standpoint, and i've been wondering if there's a simpler way of transferring film to a video file that doesn't require high dollar D.I.'s and whatnot.

 

a few other questions:

How much can I expect to spend assuming I have to have the 400' of 16mm developed and transferred to HDCam and then to Hard Drive?

 

Would it be affordable and practical, for my purposes, to get a HighDef transfer?

 

Also, am I correct in assuming that this would require a top notch super high speed external hard drive?

 

Is there an even more simple and less expensive process than the one i am imagining?

thanks in advance

[rik carter]

Why can't I send the film to a house for development and have it telecined directly to a hard drive in whatever format necessary (like a quicktime file) to be dumped into final cut (or imovie for that matter) , so i can simply edit right on my new macbook pro??

I've good good news! You can do this. Yale labs in Burbank will do it. Bono Film does it. There are more places all over the country that will develop your 16mm film and telecine it to what ever format you want.

[Nick Mulder]

I'm kind of in the same boat/situation that you are at the moment ...

 

I am getting a transfer of super16 footage at near on 2k resolution dumped directly to my drive as a series of .tiff's (external yes, just firewire400 though) - I can effectively get whatever res and aspect i want so its a bit redundant of format etc...

 

I can then convert this into whatever format I need - miniDV, web, 720/1080 HD - whatever codec etc... for proxy/offline low bandwidth/compressed versions and then for delivery(extra $$$ getting in put onto say digibeta though) - the time and therefore $$$ spent holding up the hardware whilst tranferring the files at the post facility is actually in excess of the original transfer amount, but I'm effectively future proofing myself as I have all the footage at such a high res format - expensive holding up all that space on my drive however - I prob wont keep it all once the final cut is made though.. film is the ultimate storage format ;)

 

However, yes - i think there is a market for people like you and me and patience may bring us some form of product/service that will force down costs - either that or we get good at making stuff a cut above the rest and join the ranks of the real pro's with the money to spend, i.e. someone elses dollar

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Basically this can be done at most big post houses and will def be happening more and more in the future. The reason it's not happend yet is that there hasn't been a standard for saving video on harddrives that is easily understood by all devices. Now, this is less and less true, so it will happen. Also, it was a safety to have all the footage on tape for archival purposes.

 

The future of telecine is already happening in this way, btw - you scan the film overnight and then grade from hard drives in your session. Systems like Northlight, Baselight and many other work in this way. Having done both, I'm however not entirely convinced they manage to "get all the information" off of the negative when they scan it, but that's what they keep telling me. I find that I have more latitude and that the end product looks more luscious when we grade straight off the neg, buty maybe I'm just a cantankerous git.

 

Only thing I can say is this: it's worth spending some money at a proper post house and get it done to HD by them, than going to places like the above mentioned that have appaling quality. Thy basically have a setup of a projector shooting into a DVCAM and they're rarely any good.