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What are the components of the workflow called?


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Reels. 

intermediate and print stock is normally delivered in certain length rolls (normally 2000 feet I think) so it was necessary to do the audio work and printing in the same length chunks or shorter to be able to handle it easily

Edited by aapo lettinen
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yes still called reels. here the projects are often posted full length but reel based working is also possible and may be useful sometimes if some of the reels are already picture locked and some other aren't and you want to start doing grading and sound work to the finished parts of the movie. 

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13 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

So if my film had 173 individual digital files or movie clips I would be correct in saying I post processed 173 reels for the movie?

no, those individual source material clips are just called clips or footage clips. 

Reels are the smaller parts the final movie is processed in to make the post processing easier in some workflows like when doing photochemical post. Typical film print reel length is approximately 2000ft which is normally around 20 minutes in the final movie and the last reel is typically shorter because not usually needing the full 2000ft to print that. The final feature length movie can consist of 5 or 6 or 7 reels for example and the finished reels are spliced together to make the final continuous print. In case of digital post workflow and projection one could do the "splicing" before doing the dcp and still process the digital movie picture and audio together in smaller parts before "making the final continuous print out of them". 

raw material film rolls are called rolls in post prod to differentiate them from Reels. the Reels are generally used to mean the finished movie parts and they have the final picture and audio tracks. 

In case of editing digitally you can edit "reel at a time" so that your movie is divided in smaller parts split to different sequences("timelines") . You can for example do the first 15min of the movie in a sequence, finish and lock the edit and send that 15min part to picture and audio post and start to edit the next "reel" which may be for example 20min or so. Doing the post in this way may be sometimes beneficial if there is lots of post work to be done so that it is necessary to start earlier with some parts of the movie when others are still in editing.

 

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4 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

Typical film print reel length is approximately 2000ft which is normally around 20 minutes in the final movie and the last reel is typically shorter because not usually needing the full 2000ft to print that. The final feature length movie can consist of 5 or 6 or 7 reels for example and the finished reels are spliced together to make the final continuous print

If you are projecting a feature length movie from real 35mm film you are usually working with at least two larger rolls of print film. the Reels of the movie are on those larger rolls in correct order so that for example the first roll contains the Reels 1, 2, 3 and the second roll contains the Reels 4 and 5. That is the whole movie. If you want to put the movie in one big reel before projecting it you will need to take the 1, 2, 3 reels from the first transport roll, cut out the tail leader which is after the reel 3. Cut out the leader which is before reel 4 on the second roll and then do a tape splice to attach the reels 4 and 5 directly after the reel 3. Then you will have the whole movie on one very big film roll so that it can be projected from start to end without any interruptions. After the show you will split the reels 3 and 4 to separate the movie reels from the same position than originally delivered to you and then you will attach the leaders back and send the two film rolls back to the distributor. 

When watching a film projection you may see the tape splices between different reels of the movie. 

If one would want to attach some sponsor logos and announcements etc. before the first reel of the movie that is called "Reel Zero" or "0-reel" because it is not actually part of the movie but is just attached before it to the projection print. This is done in DCPs as well for example if there is lots of screenings where partner and sponsor logos or other content needs to be shown just before the movie and that is done in more than one screening

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- Original Camera Negative (OCN) Reels; These are assembled by the lab during the transfer process and are a max of 1200ft. For digital, these would be identified as the actual cards that come out of the camera. This helps avoid confusion on set. 

- Reels without the OCN ahead of it, come from the film projection days where films were split on to 20 minute loads for A/B projector change over projection systems. This was to actually help the editors who couldn't playback more than 20 minutes at a time on a flatbed editing system anyway. So the whole industry has used 20 minute reels since the beginning. In later years, films were spliced together onto platters from those reels, but the studio's have always delivered film prints as reels. 

In the digital days, we rarely use reels. Even if a film is being recorded back to film, it's rare the post production team uses reels for any reason. As editing systems got faster and theatrical film presentation died, there was no need to cut/conform negative, so there was no reason to edit as "reels". Today, films are done in a single timeline and even though a lot of the audio industry still prefers reels, picture editing is one timeline and OCN information is only used to figure out where to find certain assets or if something is missing.

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