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Telecine confusion


Tim Myers

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Hello, I'm going to school in the San Fransisco area and the college has offered to loan me a Bolex H 16 reflex camera to shoot my next student film on. My main concern is the telecine process, as I don't understand what it really implies. How do I go from having a bunch of used film to having the footage in my computer? Any idea about cost? And is there any way I could edit it in Premiere and then get it back on 16? Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

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Hello, I'm going to school in the San Fransisco area and the college has offered to loan me a Bolex H 16 reflex camera to shoot my next student film on. My main concern is the telecine process, as I don't understand what it really implies. How do I go from having a bunch of used film to having the footage in my computer? Any idea about cost? And is there any way I could edit it in Premiere and then get it back on 16? Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

 

The basic process is:

-You shoot the film.

-You have it processed and prepped (cleaned real good) at a lab.

-You have it scanned at a telecine house and they give you a digital video tape of your footage.

-You take that digital video tape to your computer and import it into your non-linear digital editor, in your case Premiere.

-You edit your project just like you would if it were shot on digital video.

-Now you can output your final project on DVD if your computer supports that.

-If Premiere supports cut lists, you can have the negative cut to match the edit you did in your computer.

-A negative cutter and a lab can make a print of your finished film.

-You could also output your finished project in a way that a digital inner-negative was created and you would use that to create your final print on film.

 

Hope that brief overview clears some things up. If you have more specific questions, please feel free to ask.

 

-Tim

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Most film schools (caveat: At least the ones I attended and looked into attending) don't expect you to finish to film anymore because of the extra cost. You cut out the extra post pruduction costs of negative cutting and getting a projectable print made...and you almost have enough money to shoot another short.

 

It's unfortunate because the student is left somewhat in the dark about these last few steps in film production, but I think learning the craft behind actually shooting the project, and editing it, is what is more important...at least in the beginning stages of the education.

 

Another unfortunate aspect was that before I graduated I noticed only a handful of people were shooting on actual film...a sad, sad day...

 

John

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  • 7 months later...
If you're a student at a film school, don't they expect you to cut actual film? What do the professors expect from you... a DVD or a finished projectable film?

 

 

Sadly, film is no longer a requierment. My teachers actually laughed at me when I asked to use the old 16mm cameras. All that is requiered from me is a pretty looking dvd. But then, this isn't an actual film school, just film production courses at DVC in the bay area. Lame, I know, but the grades weren't goood enough to get into a big boy school just yet.

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Hello, I'm going to school in the San Fransisco area and the college has offered to loan me a Bolex H 16 reflex camera to shoot my next student film on. My main concern is the telecine process, as I don't understand what it really implies. How do I go from having a bunch of used film to having the footage in my computer? Any idea about cost? And is there any way I could edit it in Premiere and then get it back on 16? Thanks for any help you guys can offer.

 

Having the neg cut and then getting a print made is expensive, cost prohibitive for most at the student level. Telecine cost varies depending on what you want (supervised, unsupervised, bestlight, scene by scene correction). Also, the format you output to will adjust the cost. Going direct to hard drive or to an HD format will jack the price up substantially. You should be able to get a student rate for a supervised telecine and dump to miniDV for around $200 an hour, probably half of that if you don't supervise the transfer. You can then hook up a miniDV deck or camera and import the footage onto your harddrive (you need a firewire port and a fast enough drive as well). For 16mm, a 2K transfer is nice. 1K gives you much less data to work with if you want to tweak things in your NLE, and it doesn't look as good.

 

You might consider shooting reversal film. You can have it scanned and edit digitally, but you could also edit the film yourself and project it. With reversal film, the film you shoot is also the film you project (no negative involved). You can edit with as little as a hand splicer and a lightbox, though a moviola would be preferable.

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Sadly, film is no longer a requierment. My teachers actually laughed at me when I asked to use the old 16mm cameras. All that is requiered from me is a pretty looking dvd. But then, this isn't an actual film school, just film production courses at DVC in the bay area. Lame, I know, but the grades weren't goood enough to get into a big boy school just yet.

 

 

I say this a lot and do realize that I am repeating myself, however it does stand repeating. Do your telecine straight to hard drive as an 10-bit uncompressed QT file. Many places do it. I highly recommend www.cinelab.com, they will work you a fantastic deal, especially for students.

 

 

chris

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Guest Allyn Laing
I say this a lot and do realize that I am repeating myself, however it does stand repeating. Do your telecine straight to hard drive as an 10-bit uncompressed QT file. Many places do it. I highly recommend www.cinelab.com, they will work you a fantastic deal, especially for students.

chris

 

 

I agree with Chris, it will save alot of hassel and money down the path to redigitise a digibeta, buy youself a new hardrive specifically for your project(if it is of noteable size). Digitizing at a higher bit rate than miniDV will retain more quality in the image, for the final output. It will of course require considerable more hardrive space.

 

Allyn.

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