Background
I’m a firm believer that a good film is generally made from a good story, not from a poor story with lots of technical bells and whistles added. However once armed with a winning script, it makes sense to use to best advantage the tremendous power of film-technology now available.
This section of the website focuses on some of the technology areas that I’ve been able to optimise on previous projects. A very helpful second string to the bow is an in-depth knowledge of broadcast sound and video equipment, and in tandem to my PPS responsibilities I own a broadcast engineering firm called CPR which integrates and supports many of these systems on a daily basis for clients throughout Auckland. You’ll find more information about CPR here.
Equipment and technology are changing at a very rapid rate, it would be my privilege to research and recommend an ideal solution specifically for your own production. The paragraphs that follow can be taken as an introduction from Doug Braddock’s perspective -
High Definition
High definition and 2K processing has been around for a number of years but has been extremely expensive, relegating it to high-end post facilities and very large budget productions.
That’s all changing, and very rapidly. The high-end remains, but now there are many more equipment brands in the running and prices are a lot more affordable. Cameras and editing equipment that can process HD are becoming much more common place.
For film and drama projects with the potential of international sales it’s now becoming almost a given that a high-definition master should be produced enabling future HD broadcast and DVD sales. Presently an HDSR master is the most widely respected mastering format; HD release dubbs may be HDSR or HDCAM depending on the client’s requirements.
In order to make an HD master a project generally needs to be shot on film (Super 16, or 35mm), or directly on an HD video format. VFX, online editing, titles, colour grading, aspect conversions, and versioning will all need to be done in the HD domain.
Depending on your budget, and whether you intend to print your final product to 35mm for cinema release, there are a number of workflows that can be followed.
Like more information? I’d be very happy to meet with you – I can talk-through diagrammes of workflows used on previous productions and suggest a path that will best suit your requirements.
Digital Intermediate
For nearly a century film projects have been shot on film, and finished entirely on film.
In the last decade a hybrid approach has been used on bigger budget shows where special effects or complex title sequences were created on a computer system (an expensive process at the time), printed to back to film, and included in the film finish.
In recent years, with the increase in computer power and the reduction in the cost of hard disk storage, it’s become viable for even lower-budget films to be entirely processed in the digital domain. This means that whether the production is shot on film or high definition video, it is assembled in its full length, graded, and mastered as high definition computer files. The computer files are then printed back to film for cinema release (or distributed as high definition video).
There are now numerous post facilities in New Zealand that are using DI techniques. I’ve worked with most of them, and can make suggestions to maximise quality, speed of turn-around, or budget savings depending on your requirements.
Aspect Ratios and masks
A decade ago television was all 4:3 and things were a lot simpler.
Now it’s not unusual for a project to have to meet numerous delivery shapes. A recent film project I was involved with threatened to require all of the following:
2.35:1 Cinemascope theatrical release
16:9 High definition release
14:9 Local broadcast
4:3 Version to enable legacy sales.
Framing, telecine, VFX processing, in fact practically all stages of production from set-building and direction through to release dubbs stand to be affected. Mistakes made can be very costly.
It’s vital to ‘begin with the end in mind’, and decide the rules between DOP, Director, and Post Production before rolling camera. There are approaches that can minimise the creative constraints, and save money down the track.
Shooting speed
Cinemas continue to project at 24fps. PAL countries continue to broadcast at 25fps. NTSC countries continue to work at 30fps. High definition formats can work at the various speeds, and HD also brings the new considerations of progressive vs. interlaced scanning. Add all these options together and you have the recipe for a lot of confusion, and potentially extra complication.
Once again it’s essential to ‘begin with the end in mind’, with a clear understanding of how the production will be released. It’s then feasible to shoot, telecine, digitise, edit, compose music, sound tracklay, and master in the most effective way.
There are techniques for editing which favour being true to cinema speed, or true to the sequence of video frames (or a combination of both). I would be happy to make recommendations as to the system best suited for your project.
Sound Post conform
Shooting speed has a huge bearing on sound post conform, and the workflow chosen ought to be fully understood (and agreed to!) by the Sound Post facility from the outset.
Another issue with sound post is version tracking. A video edit suite is designed to make changes, and the editor will generally make many adjustments per day as the story is refined into shape. The sound department on the other hand is often working with a hundred or more tracks of audio, often on several different systems, and even a single ‘ripple’ change can take hours to action.
In the ideal world the picture editing department would completely lock the film once, deliver to sound, and make no further changes whatsoever.
In practice the speed of turn-around, or late-change imperatives from overseas co-Producers often means that the sound department (and composer) must cope with editorial changes.
There are ways of minimising the chance of late changes, and techniques which can help the sound department to most efficiently be able to cope with these. Ask me about my Milestone system and Shotlister changes lists.
Another issue is whether your project will be released with a sound mix that is Stereo, Dolby Stereo (4 track), Dolby Digital (5.1 track), or Various THX variants (7 or 8 track). The details need to be determined with your sound department, but will have ramifications for numerous other areas as well:
Location sound recording (multi track non-linear recording system may be required)
Telecine and rushes syncing (decisions as to how best to represent the multi-track material to editing).
Editing department (how best to handle the additional channels, what kind of output to give to sound post).
Stem creation and speed-changed variants of final mix for highest quality sound on all delivery masters, and full satisfaction of the delivery schedule.
Standards Conversion
It’s highly likely that for international release you’ll need PAL and NTSC versions of your project (potentially a 24fps cinema speed version as well).
There are several techniques for creating the different standard masters. Where the project exists on film it can be telecined at different speeds (this is expensive, and requires sparkle repair to be done at least twice). It’s possible to do a high quality conversion from PAL Standard Definition to NTSC Standard Definition, though there are some distributors who will not accept this. It’s also possible to do conversions from a High Definition video master, depending on the frame rates and formats involved. Aspect ratio conversion is also an important consideration.
Edit systems with shared storage
On productions where several editors are collaborating, or for episodic projects where footage is shared between suites, it makes a lot of sense to configure your installation so that all the suites have access to the same common pool of digitised footage.
The technology to do this has been around for a decade or more, but is just now becoming cost-effective enough to be viable for low and medium budget projects.
There are a number of options available – I would be happy to make a recommendation as to the system that would best meet your requirements.