After shooting a feature with RED, should one get it printed in film or

[youngfilmmaker]

......just keep it how it is, burn it onto HD-DVD and send it to festivals? Is it really necessary to get it printed in film?

 

[Seth Larney]

Hi youngfilmmaker,

Just because it is RED footage, does not mean that you need to print it to film. It just means that if you need to, you have a suitable, high quality image to do it with.

You can deliver your feature in any method that is suitable to your needs, whether that be on standard definition DVD, or HD-DVD, Film, Betcam etc.

Many festivals will accept an SD DVD for consideration. Some of these festivals will then ask you for a film print *if* your film makes it into the festival, it will come down to which festivals you are submitting to.

Hope that helps,
Seth.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You need to find out from the film festival what digital format they accept. For the past few years, for example, Sundance wants everything to be digitally projected at 60i/1080 on HDCAM tapes (including 24P material).

Recording to film is very expensive, though a 35mm print does increase the ease of showing it around the world at different festivals & theaters. But considering that HD projection can look really good these days, it's better to hold off on a film transfer and see if you can just screen digitally.

 

[Martin Ludwig]

in the last years there were a lot of festivals not suitable for digital viewing. I am sure this will change very soon, not only because of Red. There are more and more digital produced films, and yes to print out is heavily expensive.
They have to change if they want to have the best films in the future

 

[Michael Morlan]

And, beyond preparing your project for festivals or theatrical distribution, there is the question of archival storage. A recent study by AMPAS revealed that storage costs for digital projects is nearly three times that of the same project archived on 35mm film.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

• "We are already heading down this digital road ... and there is no long-term guaranteed access to what is being created," said Milt Shefter, who is the project leader on the AMPAS Science and Technology Council's digital motion picture archival project. "We need to understand what the consequences are and start planning now while we still have an analog backup system available." In fact, the council already has identified instances where digital content could not be accessed after only 18 months."

 

[Seth Larney]

And, beyond preparing your project for festivals or theatrical distribution, there is the question of archival storage. A recent study by AMPAS revealed that storage costs for digital projects is nearly three times that of the same project archived on 35mm film.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

• "We are already heading down this digital road ... and there is no long-term guaranteed access to what is being created," said Milt Shefter, who is the project leader on the AMPAS Science and Technology Council's digital motion picture archival project. "We need to understand what the consequences are and start planning now while we still have an analog backup system available." In fact, the council already has identified instances where digital content could not be accessed after only 18 months."

This is a very vague statement (the Hollywood Reporter snip). Not being able to access digital content after X months does not tell us anything if we don't know what medium it was stored on. In fact, I'd guess it was probably stored on hard drives, which are not designed for long term storage, they will always fail.

While data tapes won't last as long as film, they will last a long time, and are MUCH cheaper. There are ways to safely archive digital data over the long term cheaper than film, you just need to know what you are doing. Future technologies can only add to this.

Cheers,
Seth.

 

[MAXHOFFMAN]

I recently traveled the film festival circuit with my short film and here is what I learned

A lot of indie filmmakers I know do this - submit your movie to all festivals on DVD (just for submission) and on the submission form tell the prestigious film festivals that require a 35mm print that you have a 35 mm print and if your film gets selected to one of the majors festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Telluride, Tribeca etc., then definitely spend the money to have it printed to film... but you don't have to make that decison to spend that kind of money until you know have been accepted

To the less prestigous festivals you get accepted to, if they will show your movie on digibeta or even just beta, consider it because the quality of the projectors at most of the smaller festivals is pretty outdated. I saw filmmakers who spent all this money on a 35 mm print in near tears when they saw their film projected in these really old theatres with bulbs that hadn't been changed in years. Some would disagree with me, but for smaller festivals, delivering beta or digibeta is fine.

Some of the prestigous festivals are become HD friendly. At Tribeca, they have an HD projector and we projected my film on D5 in one of the biggest screens in New York City and I was shocked at how great the quality of the image was. I saved thousands of dollars and nobody knew the difference.

Side note: For your DVD submissions make sure that you burn your DVDs on a professional system, so many indie film makers burn their movies on their home computer and they skip - i saw so many of those at festivals during their screening and it is heartbreaking - all that work and the movie is finally being shown to an audience and it starts skipping.

If you are new to film festivals, I recommend joining Withoutabox ... they are great. Learning the rules of the festivals is a little daunting at first. There were many festivals I got accepted to that I had to decline because I learned after I submitted that if I showed my film there, than it would disqualify me for the bigger festivals in the local areas that I was still waiting to hear back from. It sucks to have to say no to a festival that really wants your movie because you still haven't heard back from the major festival in that market. AFI is pretty strict about not playing any movie that has shown in another Los Angeles Festival

Best of Luck
Max

 

[Thomas Mathai]

This is a very vague statement (the Hollywood Reporter snip). Not being able to access digital content after X months does not tell us anything if we don't know what medium it was stored on. In fact, I'd guess it was probably stored on hard drives, which are not designed for long term storage, they will always fail.

While data tapes won't last as long as film, they will last a long time, and are MUCH cheaper. There are ways to safely archive digital data over the long term cheaper than film, you just need to know what you are doing. Future technologies can only add to this.

Cheers,
Seth.

Never believe what you hear about the long life of any digital media. The reality is that the life of digital media can vary wildly.

It's best to have at least 2 or more clones of archives to offset unwanted failure of any media. It's also makes sense to keep at least one clone somewhere offsite in a secure environment.

 

[Seth Larney]

I recently traveled the film festival circuit with my short film and here is what I learned

A lot of indie filmmakers I know do this - submit your movie to all festivals on DVD (just for submission) and on the submission form tell the prestigious film festivals that require a 35mm print that you have a 35 mm print and if your film gets selected to one of the majors festivals like Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, Telluride, Tribeca etc., then definitely spend the money to have it printed to film... but you don't have to make that decison to spend that kind of money until you know have been accepted

This is exactly how we do it. We have also used withoutabox in the past.

Good luck,
Seth.

 

[Seth Larney]

Never believe what you hear about the long life of any digital media. The reality is that the life of digital media can vary wildly.

It's best to have at least 2 or more clones of archives to offset unwanted failure of any media. It's also makes sense to keep at least one clone somewhere offsite in a secure environment.

You are absolutely right, Thomas. I can't stress enough that you need to know what you are doing when archiving digital media. The point is though, that it is possible with the correct procedures (redundant, onsite-offsite backups etc).

Cheers,
S.

 

[Ryan Patch]

One of the great things about the RED workflow is that you can edit with SD or HD proxies, and then once you have an EDL, you can ALWAYS simply re-conform to a different resolution straight from your r3d master.

Save time, money, and headaches by editing in SD or HD, take on the world in 4K if you must.