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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Digital Post Framing Diagram

J Clark

J Clark

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The linked chart describes digital post production specs when dealing with a variety of formats and frame sizes from 4k down to web. Daily we negotiate digital resolutions and pixel aspect ratios on film and HD files so we I created this guide for our in-house reference when dealing with footage I/O, setting up edits and VFX composites.

http://hive-fx.com/Images/Guides/DigitalAspectRatios.jpg

There is a lot of research behind the creation of this chart, and if you find any errors, please let me know by email and we'll correct.
 
Along those lines, I think that physically shooting a framing chart, especially on a long-term project, can help reduce confusion downstream. Red makes a 16x9 "negative" but you may likely be framing for 1:85 or something else.
The nice thing about digital is that you probably would just shoot the chart once with each framing you'd be likely to use and keep that digital file as a "racking leader" (keeping in mind that the cameras may be somewhat unique and each camera body should have its own files) You could simply give the post house the appropriate .r3d file at the start of the project.
Shooting a movie on film usually means once per camera per show, but commercials it's every day, or even every film break, so the telecine guy has a chart at the head of each "batch" of dailies.
But I think that actually shooting a chart is a foolproof way of showing your intent with regards to framing, rather than relying on generated lines or overlays...
Cheers,
Harry
 
The inclusion of different reticles for compressed HD formats is confusing and irrelevant. The nature of 1440x1920 on HDCam, for instance, is that this is part of the compression scheme, and is used only to store the material on tape and restore it on playback. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual available picture area. Both HDCam and DVCPro are 16x9 in actual use, and what they do to compress the material for storage has no bearing on the image you're scanning.
 
I'll have to disagree with you on the grounds that you are clearly not in the post production/VFX side of the business and do not to have to manually work with these formats often. I might also assume that FCP or Avid is handling the aspect correction for you. When you attempt to work on these file formats in compositing and/or 3D for VFX work, it is very pertinent information.

If you'll notice, this chart is a guide for post-fx digital work flow and is absolutely relevant to what we do. I bring 14 years of feature film experience to back it up and these aspect ratio/pixel aspect ratio issues rear their ugly head on very project.
 
J Clark said:
I'll have to disagree with you on the grounds that you are clearly not in the post production/VFX side of the business and do not to have to manually work with these formats often. I might also assume that FCP or Avid is handling the aspect correction for you. When you attempt to work on these file formats in compositing and/or 3D for VFX work, it is very pertinent information.

If you'll notice, this chart is a guide for post-fx digital work flow and is absolutely relevant to what we do. I bring 14 years of feature film experience to back it up and these aspect ratio/pixel aspect ratio issues rear their ugly head on very project.
Click to expand...

I bring almost 30 years of post production and production experience - including about 9 years as a visual effects supervisor on television programs and feature films - to back up everything I say here as well, but I don't want to start a pissing contest with you. Don't assume.

I misunderstood the purpose of the charts. And, yes, most of the VFX work I have done has involved either film scans or frames that were captured directly via SDI, making the "native" aspect ratio of some current compressed formats irrelevant. Your situation is obviously different.
 
I would throw in the square pixel 16:9 pixel aspect ratios since that's what we almost exclusively work in for SD work.

864x486 etc.

Far too much danger of someone accidentally getting a pixel aspect ratio off somewhere and botching the shot the whole way through the pipeline unless it's handled at the end exclusively.
 
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