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Filmout cost

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C.J.Harvaraj

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do anyone know how much will it cost to do 60 print of a 100 minute movie? will the cost be lower if i would do the prints in one of these countries? (india,china taiwan,thailand,indonesia,malaysia,singapore,vietnam,Philippines)


P/s: any idea of how much the shipment will cost?
 
Generally you'd use a laser recorder to transfer to 35mm intermediate stock as a negative -- after that, the costs of the prints are the same as from an standard 35mm IN, and they go down the more you order.

But the initial transfer cost can be quite high. Prices vary wildly these days. Not including all the D.I. costs like color-correction, the laser recording costs for a 100 minute feature can be in the $50,000 range, some place charge less and some more. The additional prints from the 35mm IN can be in the range of $2000 per print. There are also costs in making the optical negative for the soundtrack, etc.
 
if i have a 100 minute movie, shot on red, done CC (or DI) in speedgrade XR, have the final in dpx, can i just buy the producer 2 and start recording the movie to the film stock? Do i need to do a $50,000 laser recording?
 
Harvaraj,

It usually economical if you do all 3 activities at the same place.
1.Color Correction
2.Filmout
3.Distribution/Positive prints.

During our feature film our enquiries revealed that, It costs around $50,000 to $75,000 to do color correction using SCRATCH and RED RAW-to-2K DPX-to-Film Negative and one positive print with sound.(from top post house in US).
We will be doing More positive prints in India costs around $1500(INR.65,000).It's the similar rate in US.

It doesn't make any sense to shoot in US and color correcting in Other country.
I have seen some advertisement of a post house that does color correction of 2k files of 90-minute for $3500. I don't know how good it is but FYI.
If you are using RED, find a house that has SCRATCH, color correct.Get the DPX and then take it to any country you may want.
I heard that Indian labs can do Film out for $15,000(INR.600,000).

just my 2cents
 
C.J.Harvaraj said:
if i have a 100 minute movie, shot on red, done CC (or DI) in speedgrade XR, have the final in dpx, can i just buy the producer 2 and start recording the movie to the film stock? Do i need to do a $50,000 laser recording?
Click to expand...

How much is that Lasergraphics recorder going to cost you first?

Sure you could buy your own recorder, shoot a lot of tests to get it balanced right, do your own transfer to color negative stock, but you still have the costs of the film negative stock, the print stock, and the processing costs.

A 100 minute movie is about 10,000' for 35mm negative stock, and that alone is around $5000, intermediate stock is about twice that. And then there's processing it. And then the print stock and processing that. And the costs of making the sound negative, etc. There are basic physical costs for stock and processing outside of the transfer costs.

As I said, you can get lower quotes for a laser recorder film-out though at the bottom end, you still have the physical stock costs to deal with. Maybe you could get a transfer to 35mm IN using a laser recorder for $30,000 if you look around. Maybe you can live with a CRT transfer using a Celco or something.
 
visakk said:
I heard that Indian labs can do Film out for $15,000(INR.600,000).
Click to expand...

On a cheap un-calibrated CRT film recorder (HD at best). You may as well film it out off the calibrated color-correction suit's monitor... :)

No offense...
 
The Producer series seems to have this feature:
"Records uncompressed QuickTime movie files directly to film"
Does this mean that when i export the movie from speedgrade XR, i select the "export to uncompressed QuickTime" , then take external hard drive to any Producer 2 equipped 'shop' and do a (60) positive print for theatrical release?
 
Film out cost - queries

Film out cost - queries

Hi Red heads,

We're looking at shooting our first feature on RED. I'm very familiar with 35mm workflow, and am getting to grips with the HD workflow, but am hearing completely different things about costings.

We are contemplating the following route:

Offline on AVID using proxies from Redcine
Online, Colour correct and conform on SCRATCH
Film out to 35mm

AVID, I'm happy with the costs, no real difference to what I'm used to, bar the digitising cost, cost of tape stock etc.

Online, colour correct and conform, we're budgeting for 1 month at around $400-500 an hour. It's a 90 minute feature. Again, happy with this, as it is fairly straightforward and normal to me. I'm presuming the best route is to do this at 4k resolution, from the RAW files.

Now, hereafter comes the confusion for me... I'm guessing I can go from the 4K to film, rather than going from RED RAW to 2k DPX then to film negative?

Film out, we to end up with a 35mm print for exhibition. Now here is where I'm stuck. Can someone with some experience please talk through the steps at this point, and the costs? Including stock, neg cutting (which presumably isn't needed), processing etc. -- is laser the only route to go? If not, what are the others, and what are the benefits? If laser is the only route, once I've scanned in using the laser (what's the cost?), what are the next parts of the chain, and what are their relative costs?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or info.

Josh
 
At 4K - laser is the only option. But really - why would You go 4K to 35mm film? Just think about the fact that LOTR (The Lord of The Rings) was done in 2K. Did You notice anything wrong with it in the cinemas? You can keep Your DI at 4K for digital projection, but film out to 35 mm at 4K is in my honest opinion waste of money...

Please PM me if You want to hear more direct feedback...

Take care

Peter
 
The lower in resolution you go for the film-out, the worse the resolution is after the steps towards projection -- it's not like projection in theaters is some great equalizer. Lower quality origination produces lower quality theatrical prints.

Given that there is a loss in the chain, starting with a 4K film-out for mass release prints that will be made from an IP/IN is similar to a 2K film-out where all prints are made directly from the original negative, and making original prints from a 4K film-out will look even better.

It's nonsense that if the final resolution level of theatrical projection is around 720P that you should only start out with a 720P film-out. If you did that, what you end up with is even LESS resolution.

Now obviously there is a point where the extra quality of 4K over 2K may not be enough to justify the extra cost; you may look at a test and decide that 2K is good enough for your project. But that's not the same thing as saying that there is no point in ever going for higher quality.
 
David - with all due respect - I can't see any justification for the resulting economical drawback. I always recommend film-out to 35 negative at 2K from which direct release prints are struck. When larger quantities of release prints is required then we record two negs - but this is rather rare...

PJ did that same thing, even switching to Fuji stock for film out, as they felt the Kodak had little "too much" contrast... :)

Just my two pesos... :)
 
C.J.Harvaraj said:
do anyone know how much will it cost to do 60 print of a 100 minute movie? will the cost be lower if i would do the prints in one of these countries? (india,china taiwan,thailand,indonesia,malaysia,singapore,vietnam,Philippines)


P/s: any idea of how much the shipment will cost?
Click to expand...
Check out DVfilm.com. Not sure if they transfer 4K or even 2K material, but they do HD to 35mm. There's an instant price calculator on their site. Here's the link:

http://dvfilm.com/specials.htm

I used them to transfer NTSC footage from a DVX100 onto 35mm. It looked fantastic (considering the source material was SD) and their customer service was great. Very friendly and courteous.

Hope this helps!
 
Peter Majtan said:
At 4K - laser is the only option. But really - why would You go 4K to 35mm film? Just think about the fact that LOTR (The Lord of The Rings) was done in 2K. Did You notice anything wrong with it in the cinemas? You can keep Your DI at 4K for digital projection, but film out to 35 mm at 4K is in my honest opinion waste of money...

Please PM me if You want to hear more direct feedback...

Take care

Peter
Click to expand...


Hi Peter,

I tested a 6k down sized to 4K V 3K downsized to 2k scans of 35mm I had shot. In the cinema I could see the increased resoloution at the front middle & back row of the cinema. There is a clear difference it's just what you percive as good enough. The post house downplayed the advantage as they could not handle the data on a big project.

Stephen
 
Peter Majtan said:
At 4K - laser is the only option. But really - why would You go 4K to 35mm film? Just think about the fact that LOTR (The Lord of The Rings) was done in 2K. Did You notice anything wrong with it in the cinemas? You can keep Your DI at 4K for digital projection, but film out to 35 mm at 4K is in my honest opinion waste of money...

Please PM me if You want to hear more direct feedback...

Take care

Peter
Click to expand...


Hi Peter,

I tested a 6k down sized to 4K V 3K downsized to 2k scans of 35mm I had shot. In the cinema I could see the increased resoloution at the front middle & back row of the cinema. There is a clear difference it's just what you percive as good enough. The post house downplayed the advantage as they could not handle the data on a big project.

Stephen

BTW I was using 25 year old lenses, with modern glass I would expect even more improvement.
 
which is the best post house that can do a good DI and film out in LA area? Where do most of you guys go for a film out (within US).

(where do the big studios do it anyway?)
 
Just A note here, Make the transfer to a 35 neg is not the place to cut corners. I just went through all this with the Wordz Project. We had a sound sync problem, half way through the print. After extensive trouble shooting at E-Film(the only place I will go, talk about customer service) Dolby Labs, and Delux. It turned out to be simple fix. I'll post details on the fix latter on this thread.

If you want to get a scanner its your money, but is the the people behind to machine that are the real value. I think if you business is Film-making then make movies. The world is full of quality DI house's, let them have the overhead.

FYI a 120 min. movie we are developing is going to cost out the door, just under 160,000 prints will be under 1800 the more you do the less you pay, on quality stock. The savings by going to cheaper stocks, in my opinion is not worth the savings.

Peter is right, 2k is the way. Data management, cost, and the results bare that sound advice out.

Got to go to LA now... Big important meetings with Important people, that's right Hollywood wheeling and dealing going on. Don't have the time for the little people! When I say little people, I really mean just the Hoff :)
 
C.J.Harvaraj said:
which is the best post house that can do a good DI and film out in LA area? Where do most of you guys go for a film out (within US).

(where do the big studios do it anyway?)
Click to expand...


E-FILM

When it comes to Red, there is none better. They are not the cheapest but they are not the most expensive either. Again transferring your hard work to neg is not the line item, you want the lowest bidder to Win.
 
Hey Jaime,

Thanks for a link like that.There are so many alternatives according to your purse and backing nowadays; it's still valid to mention these alternatives.

I've got a problem that I might be able to sneak in here, 'cause it has nothing to do with RED or film transfer, well in fact it's the opposite: I want to transfer a B+W 16mm film @~10-12minutes of footage, that hasn't been corrected yet, to some HD codec I can edit in. Quicktime's okay, as I work on a Mac. I've got the Neg and a work print. I've checked out places like BWFF in Toronto, with Dragon at the helm. He's great, but they only do SD transfers. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated....

Sorry for this here and now, but I know the talent pool residing here, and a thread off topic with this feels still too off topic for me.

Anyone know a posthouse that does this? Screening 16mm films nowadays seems quite difficult, to say the least.
 
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