Shooting a 35mm short, POST-PRODUCTION QUESTION

Mihai Meda · January 16, 2005

My friends,

I will be shooting a 35mm short starting in a few days, in Romania. I'm Romanian, although I go to Columbia's graduate film program in New York.

I got this free deal from the school to process and transfer the stock once I go back to NY. I don't know too many details yet (which lab, ect). I know I want to show my movie in the May Festival on BETA SP (they used to show many movies in Windows Media 9 last year but personally I was not satisfied with the results).

What is the best way to transfer the footage to, once processed? To beta sp? To digibeta? I have my own G5 system with FCP for editing so probably I need to transfer again to minidv? This is my first 35mm (or film for that matter) project. I heard that digital to digital is better, in other words digibeta to minidv, edit, and back to digibeta. I don't think they can project digibeta so I need to transfer to beta sp in the end, probably.

In conclusion, to what format should I tell the lab to transfer to, keeping in mind that I will show my movie on big screen on a video format?

Thanks a lot!

Take care,

Bogdan

GeorgeSelinsky · January 16, 2005

What is the best way to transfer the footage to, once processed? To beta sp? To digibeta? I have my own G5 system with FCP for editing so probably I need to transfer again to minidv? This is my first 35mm (or film for that matter) project. I heard that digital to digital is better, in other words digibeta to minidv, edit, and back to digibeta. I don't think they can project digibeta so I need to transfer to beta sp in the end, probably.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ce faci? ;)

To do your dailies transfer for editing, mini DV works well for me. If you go to Beta SP then you have to have an analog to digital board on your digital editing system, this is getting rarer these days because of the prevalence of digital formats.

Once you're done with your edit, your supervised and corrected transfer should be done on a format like Digibeta.

Of course, if you intend to do a supervised transfer of your dailies from the very beginning, then you should go to Digibeta and have a mini DV dupe made (or a simultaneous transfer to mini DV, which is preferrable but more expensive).

- G.

Ed Chapman · February 11, 2005

Personally I would telecine to digiBeta and make a DVCAM clone for editting in FCP. The timecode the digiBeta should be matched with the TC on the DVCAM. You can perform your edits from your DVCAM source by bringing the material into FCP through "most" miniDV cameras and deck. Check to be sure they read the DVCAM timecode. DigiBeta is a far more stable and robust medium than miniDV and would be better to "re conform" from should you need to up-res. from DV.

Color space betaSP is roughly equivalent to DV, however, as betaSP is an analog source and A to D and D to A conversion will possibly cause it to suffer. Additonally, dubbing and analog source definitely shows generation loss.

Good luck.