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Red 4K WS (2.33:1) for festival screening


Albert Smith

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I have a film we are coloring now shot on red in 4k widescreen with the weirdo aspect ratio 2.33:1, My question is what to output this for festival screening since most still do HDcam. We have a in house Davicini lite suite and since it can really only handle 1080 regardless of it only outputting 1080 anyways.... we need to decide if it's worth it to take it elsewhere and finish in 2k scope or something.

 

 

Anyone have any experience with this? It seems it might not really be worth it and we should probably just finish it in 1080 and letterbox it, but it does hurt my heart a little to keep losing resolution. What about anamorphic projection....squishing the whole picture onto hdcam?

 

 

thanks for any insight.

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Dcp spec is 2048x858 or 2.39:1. I'm not sure you can fit your aspect ratio into it without pillar boxing.

 

An anamorphic lens in front of a digital projector will most likely cut your resolution noticeably.

 

If you render to 1920x1080 from the 4k original it should look about the same resolution as 2k, so that would be my suggestion.

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  • 1 month later...

Even though the ratio is wrong you can still get a 2K (or 4K, for that matter) DCP finish. You could keep the standard 858 high and pillar-box. Then during presentation the projectionist can at the very least bring the side maskings in (and ideally set up a new masking file on the projector to match the shape and position of the screen masking)

 

Alternately go for 2048 width and let the height follow. Then during presentation a new lens and masking file would be needed but you'd keep the full resolution, and venues that show it using the standard 'scope set-up would simply show a 2.4:1 crop.

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Even though you could technically pillarbox or letterbox a DCP, it doesn't actually meet the written spec. So, it won't pass QC and likely won't be something a distributor would accept as a master. So, that raises the larger question of whether this version of the film is only for festival screenings, or if it's also your final master that will be handed over if the film is sold. If it's the latter, I would stick with a HDCAMSR, as you can cram any aspect ratio you want in there, and likely won't get any push-back from a potential distributor.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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So the DCPs I've seen of GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ and any other Academy Aperture films you care to mention should have been rejected by distributors?

 

You can read a little about the issue here:

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f16/t000900.html

http://www.edcf.net/edcf_docs/DCI%20and%20OTHER%20Film%20Formats.pdf

 

It appears that currently 1.37 Academy is fitted inside a 1.85 DCP container with side masking. A 2K DCP uses the full 2048 width for 2.39 movies or the full 1080 height for the other formats.

 

Obvious a distributor who wants to show "Gone with the Wind" will be fine with this, the question is whether a distributor buying an independent movie wants to deal with this. There was a recent movie "Meek's Cutoff" shot and shown in 1.37 Academy, but otherwise, distributors tend to frown upon non-current projection standards so there is a bit of a risk there, or at least, the risk is that it will get shown incorrectly.

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