before cutting the negative?

[Guest ariel]

hi, I have a 16m"m film going for a negative cut and after that a direct blow up to 35m"m. I have some quastions?

1. for the final sound mix, we are getting a telecine from the negative cut. my qaustion is that, will I be able to use that telecine for making the video version of the film, is it usable? if they do an A B roll cutting, how can they make a telecine from that?

2. for a direct blow up do you use A B roll?

3. we have some shots in the film that were shot in color negative and we want to transfer them to black and white. (we need to print them on a b&w positive, make a negative from that and place the negative in the negative cut. the quastion is :should we do it before the negative cut or we can do this process also after the negative cut is ready?

[Dominic Case]

For heaven's sake talk to your lab and to your neg cutter about these questions. It is VITAL that the correct procedures are followed, and you should rely on the people who are doing the work, not untested answers from the internet (however much you trust everythng you read here :unsure:

 

If you don't get clear answers from the lab, go to another place where you do get clear answers.

 

If you are going for a direct blow-up from your 16mm neg, then you must have everything done and assembled into the A&B rolls. That measn that the shots for B/W must be extracted first by your neg cutter, then the lab will dupe those via b/w fine grain IP and colour dupe neg (they may vary, but that's how I'd do it). The resultant b/w shots on colour neg are what you will get cut ito your A&B rolls.

 

Be aware that many blow-up printers produce a slight jump at some splices if they are not perfectly accurately made (and that's quite likely). Your neg cutter should be aware what you intend to do with the neg. Some labs actually have the neg cut in a single roll with over-length shots, and then cue the blow-up printer to skip the extra frames. This avoids printing anywhere near splices. Other labs have the neg assembled in A&B rolls but with overlapping shots (as for dissolves), and print "zero close" or "zero cut" style for the same reason.

 

So you see the reason you need to talk to everyone and get make sure they are all on the same page.

 

As for telecine, I don't know of anyone who does transfers directly from A&B rolls, but I'm constantly surprised by what is available. Once again there are splice jump issues. I guess that your telecine is a quick and dirty transfer to check the exact cut so that the sound is guaranteed to be in sync - a very wise idea - in which case it won't be much use for your video master. BUt I'm guessing.

 

You are absolutely right to ask these questions "before the neg is cut".

[David Mullen ASC]

For the sound mix, if you are getting the negative cut anyway, it would be more common to strike a 16mm contact print from the A-B neg, unless your sound place cannot project 16mm.

 

Otherwise, the common procedure is to use your NLE video edit (or if you edited on workprint, a dirty dupe of the workprint, but again, that would be 16mm) for the mix session.

 

Many problems with telecine-transferring an A-B neg: besides the risk to the neg and splices, you have splice jump problems and you have to go an do a video edit to cut the rolls back together. Most people would make an IP for transfer; if not, a low-con print.

 

If you are planning on doing a zero cut neg for direct blow-up to a 35mm positive (IP or print), I hope you edited the movie with that in mind because some labs require as much as a 5-frame handle on each side of the cut. And only a few labs offer this service. In fact, I used to recommend Colorlab in Maryland but apparently they stopped offering this service (direct blow-ups.) Direct blow-ups are probably more common in Europe though.

[John Pytlak RIP]

I agree that you definitely need to talk to your lab technical rep, to find out what methods they prefer and are equipped for. A good source to understand the basics, so you are "up to speed" on the techniques, is the ACVL Manual:

 

http://www.acvl.org/manual.htm

 

The ACVL Directory is also a good place to find a lab:

 

http://www.acvl.org/members.htm

 

http://www.acvl.org/acvlinks.htm

 

As is the Kodak lab and transfer facilities directory:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/...=0.1.4.13&lc=en

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/...=0.1.4.15&lc=en

[Noelle Kale]

Hi Ariel, we're looking into blowing up from S16 to 35. So far we've contacted FotoKem in Burbank. They were really great about explaining the entire process. A bit on the pricey side though. They recommended a direct HD transfer (master) in which we'd get the telecine from and then also be able to pull the shots from the EDL. We're not sure if we're going this route, (and this is just a quick summary of the process) but they may be able to help you make a decision which route to go. Check with a lot of labs, you'll be surprised how differently things can be done from lab to lab. Good luck.

[Guest ariel]

Hi, thanks for the information.

about the telecine: they are going to make a contact print from the A,B roll negative cut and a telecine from that so the sound designer can be sure his mix is going to be in sync.

I thought, if already they are making a print why not grading this print and use this print telecine for making a video master?

what is the best way to get a good video master? low contrast print? IP? what's the different?

another question: If the 16m"m is going for a blow up, should the grading be different? or it doesn't matter?

1 more question: the film was shot normal 16 (not super) but framed to 1-1.85 (top and bottom was ignored) and it's going for a blowup, any suggestions about what positive to use for the 35m"m print to get the best result from that 16m"m 3\4 cropped to 1-1.85?

thanks very much for your help,

Ariel.

[David Mullen ASC]

In terms of best element to use for a video transfer, the best is the original negative followed closely by an IP or IN. Worse than those is a low-con print and worst of all is a projection print, which is too contrasty.

 

Making an IP serves both as a good element for a video transfer (and since it is color-timed usually, the transfer goes a little faster) AND as a protection master for your original negative.

 

If you composed for even cropping top & bottom to 1.85, you don't really have to do anything other than blow-up the regular 16mm image to the 1.37 Academy 35mm format. The projectors will mask it to 1.85 top & bottom as they do with 35mm-shot material framed for 1.85. If you want to, you can hard matte the blow-up to 1.66 as a guide to projectionists to not misframe it, but that's not really necessary. Everything projected in 1.85, from the trailers to the feature, are all cropped evenly top & bottom, i.e. center-cropped with a 1.85 mask in the projector gate. So headroom for all should be the same.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Just one note - yes, it is absolutely critical that you get this right. However, I find that a lot of facilities - sounds like you're going to be talking to labs, neg cutters and audio people - are very impatient with people who ask a lot of what's seen as impertinent questions. Most of them seem to assume that the way they work is the same way that everyone else works, even if it often isn't, and assume that you should just intrinsically know how they prefer to receive information, instructions, materials, or whatever (and naturally if it goes wrong it's not their fault even if they didn't want to talk to you about it beforehand...)

 

I would say that it's because they're busy, but I doubt it, as the example I'm thinking of has just gone down the pan!

 

As always I'm factoring the general UK iriscability factor here, but even so, there's a lot of old men out there who just love laughing at beginners and would rather chortle at your failure than help you succeed, so watch your step.

 

Phil

[Sam Wells]

I dunno about UK labs but I think I might safely say that every lab I've ever dealt with would prefer you ask all the questions - whether beginning/basics, intermediate knowledge level, or years of experience level - BEFORE proceeding with any kind of cutting even before you cut the dailies.

 

Questions about frames & handles, A&B vs single strand, even choice of neg matcher or splicer are absolutely NOT stupid questions.

 

If the lab doesn't answer questions like those *don't go there*

 

PS I know a few lab owners I'm not talking hot air here.

 

-Sam

[Dominic Case]

It's important to talk to ALL the facilities, and then review the advice they all give you. Very often the ideal pathway so far as one facility is concerned will add work in another area: or the equipment that one house has installed is not ideally suited to the requirements of another stage along the way. If you are using a number of facilities (neg cutter, lab, telecine house, sound post, etc) you need to be sure that each is aware of the others' requirements.

 

Often there is no single ideal pathway - but if you choose to do one step one way, then you need to follow the other steps on that pathway, not hop around according to a random mixture of recommendations from different houses. Tell the lab who your neg cutter is, and who will do the sound post - etc. It could make a big difference. Make sure your editor knows exactly where everything is to happen.

 

The labs I know will always prefer to talk to their customers about the reequirements. Especially the ones who listen.