Best output / screening method for student production?

[Derek Van Gorder]

Hello,

I am currently editing a 40 min. student short shot on the Red One at 4K, and I'm wondering what's the best possible means of screening the film, given student financial limitations. Due to some very generous donations, we managed to shoot it for about $2000. At this level, is there any reasonable alternative to just projecting an SD DVD? Festivals will come later; how can I get the movie to look as good as possible for its debut screening?

The school in question currently only has the means for SD and film projection; would having the school rent an HD projector be a practical request in terms of cost and set-up? And if so, what kind of output should I be gearing towards from Final Cut?

Should I consider projecting from a computer and just playing a quicktime export?

P.S.: On a related note... Clearly 35mm filmout is not an option, but looking into that got me wondering: what are the possibilities for 16mm filmout from Red footage? Has anyone tried this? Probably still outside their price range, but I couldn't even find any info on Google about it, and it seemed like an interesting notion to me, given the school is set-up to deal with 16mm film all the time.

 

[xmephestox]

35 mm filmout is usually done at 2k. if ur doing that downconvert to 2k and filmout from there

16 mm filmout is 1080p, if u go to 16 mm, downconvert to 1080p

no matter what, going down to HD you're going to take a big hit. it will look nowhere close to what you shot at 4k. however because of the laws of pixel housing, ur downconverted sd footage will still look better than anything originally shot on SD.

computer to projector, you still need an HD projector.

there probably isn't any avoiding going to sd if they aren't willing to get a hd projector and deck. maybe you can ask for a rental of a digi beta deck, and offload ur footage to that. it will probably look better on that as SD than any dvd you make.

hope that helps.

 

[Derek Van Gorder]

Thanks, I will look into what kind of projectors I might be able to rent.

Do you know of anyone who still does 16mm filmout from HD? I contacted a few places for pricing, but they said they no longer did 16mm transfers. Any place to get this done in NYC?

 

[Igor Ridanovic]

Thanks, I will look into what kind of projectors I might be able to rent.

Do you know of anyone who still does 16mm filmout from HD? I contacted a few places for pricing, but they said they no longer did 16mm transfers. Any place to get this done in NYC?

16mm will probably cost you more than 35mm.

How about showing it on a 50"+ HD monitor?

 

[Paul Leeming]

Blu-ray outputted through someone's PS3 to an HD projector if they're willing to rent one. 1920x1080 is more than enough for this type of event and will still look miles better if projected well than the average film print at the local multiplex

Have a normal anamorphic DVD version ready as well as backup.

HTH

Paul

 

[David Rasberry]

I second the blu-ray option. There are Blu-ray decks available for less than $300.00 now. Any video projector with XGA 1024x768 resolution made in the last 3 years will handle HD input at up to 1080p, though the best results will be with 720p if you don't have a true 1080p projector available. If you can, put a couple of minutes of color bars or a shot of a Macbeth color chart as a scene on the disk to use as guide for setting up the projector.