Editors have you ever recieved this request?

[Joe Riggs]

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I'm nearing picture lock on a film and I received an interesting request from the individual that will handle the post sound.

The person wants me to break the film down into 15 minutes reels and send the sound that way. Their reasoning is
"the track count can get rather high and I won’t be able to do as much sound design if the film is in one giant chunk".

Have you ever experienced this? Maybe I'm crazy and this is the norm in some circles but whenever I have transferred files to a sound person in the past, I'll send them the entire film and it's never been an issue.

The only thing I can think of is perhaps they are using an older system that can't handle it?

My main aversion to this is that it needlessly complicates matters and creates much more work for me. I would need to create 9 exports and sync them back up as opposed to 1.

Your thoughts?

Thank you,

Joe

 

[Scott Crawley]

Maybe they are planning to use Logic X? That might explain a new concern over an expanding track count.

 

[Mike P.]

I've had a similar request, but it was't for that small of chunks. As mentioned certain apps (like FCP7) have a limit on how long and deep their OMFs (or some formats) can be, so it's much easier to deliver and work in smaller chunks.

 

[Savva Svet]

I've had a similar request, but it was't for that small of chunks. As mentioned certain apps (like FCP7) have a limit on how long and deep their OMFs (or some formats) can be, so it's much easier to deliver and work in smaller chunks.

+1 to that!

 

[jake blackstone]

That applies to grading as well. Grading in reels is a standard operating procedure. Saving a reel while working might take you :30, but saving a whole movie may take 3-4 minutes or more. And you must do it every 30 minutes or so. Losing a reel worth of work is bad enough, losing the whole movie is a disaster.

 

[Frank Cueto]

Same here, we split films into reels up to 20 minutes long. Not only is it more efficient, if a intl. distributor buys the film and wants to go to film he already has it split into the necessary reels.

 

[Chad Bonanno]

Earlier this year, an Ableton Live Audio post guy asked me break up a 25 minute episode into 5 parts, but kept the timecode running. First time thats ever happen to me, it reconformed just fine. Possibly a limitation in the software or just easier to work on the chunks.

 

[Greg M]

SOP

 

[Mark Allen]

Splitting a movie into reels is totally standard and required for theatrical distribution as well as anyone who isn't doing theatrical but is dealing with legacy based delivery requirements. If this company does theatrical movies, their workflow is probably based on working in reels. Some houses that crank out audio for movies are splitting the movie up for different people to work on different reels at the same time as well.

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

It's because of file size limitations on many pro sound setups, don't want individual OMF files over 2GB, and because you could only get 12 min of film on a reel in the old days.

 

[Marcus Struzina]

It's also worth taking care where you split the reels. I've tried to find break points between scenes and hopefully where not too much audio
bridges the gap. It just tends to make things easier.

 

[Paul Harb]

Its standard for features to be edited as 20 min reels give or take a minute. The reason comes from when a feature is to be filmed out for distribution, 22mins at 24fps being the length of a film reel. Its always fun trying to find the perfect spot to break a reel creatively within those limitations.

 

[Marc Wielage]

The person wants me to break the film down into 15 minutes reels and send the sound that way. Their reasoning is "the track count can get rather high and I won’t be able to do as much sound design if the film is in one giant chunk".

Yes. Every Hollywood film ever made is generally sliced up into reels prior to the mix and color correction. Here are some detailed discussions on why features have traditionally been split into separate reels during post-production:

http://vanhurkman.com/wordpress/?p=847

http://www.evanschiff.com/bd/articles/organizing-a-projects-reels-and-versions

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/post...reels-one-long-file-session-feature-film.html

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/277/9044


One reason is that a "Super Session" of all the reels combined tends to clog and slow down Pro Tools mixes and also color-correction sessions. You can combine them all into one, but the reality is, when changes are made -- and believe me, this can happen at any point, even when you're "sure" that the movie is locked -- it's easier to ripple changes in one 20-minute reel than a massive 120-minute+ reel.

Note that typically, the sound supervisor works with the editor in order to determine a quiet place to make the reel break, so that music or spoken dialogue does not travel across the cut.

The other thing that mixing stages and colorists will typically ask for is that each reel be given its own countdown, a 2-pop, and then the first frame of picture on an hour (02:00:00:00 for reel 2, 03:00:00:00 for reel 3, and so on). Some post houses have different preferences, so ask first.

Once the film is completely finished, color-timed, mixed, and titled, then you can worry about building the deliverables together with the appropriate mix, each deliverable as a complete package (all reels cut together as one film).

 

[MichaelP]

Its standard for features to be edited as 20 min reels give or take a minute. The reason comes from when a feature is to be filmed out for distribution, 22mins at 24fps being the length of a film reel. Its always fun trying to find the perfect spot to break a reel creatively within those limitations.

Usually at different scene breaks, interior to exterior, etc. and not over a music bed as it will be obvious there is a reel changeover. And it can be shorter than the ~20 minutes if need be, Need to save room on the reel for leader and academy countdowns, etc.

Michael

 

[Marc Wielage]

Usually at different scene breaks, interior to exterior, etc. and not over a music bed as it will be obvious there is a reel changeover. And it can be shorter than the ~20 minutes if need be, Need to save room on the reel for leader and academy countdowns, etc.

Under duress, Technicolor's facility in North Hollywood could do reels that were a hair longer than about 2000', which works out to 22 minutes. I can't recall ever dealing with a feature film that had a reel longer than 22 minutes, but I've seen lots of films that had odd 1000' or shorter reels because of weird editing or sound situations.

One exception would be American network TV shows cut digitally, and for those, generally they do use one consolidated file about 42 minutes long. Some of those are challenging to deal with in color-correction, particularly when they get over 2000 cuts (which is not impossible).

 

[MichaelP]

We just did a feature DI that had over 1000 events in one reel!

Michael

 

[Marc Wielage]

We just did a feature DI that had over 1000 events in one reel!

That's trivial. It's the ones that push 2000-2500 that are hard, especially if there's a dozen or more layers or nodes on many shots.

I worked on films in the 1980s that had a thousand cuts in a single 2000-foot reel. Not many, though. And I can recall an episode of the half-hour sitcom Dave's World that I worked on that had 750 events in 22 minutes (including dissolves and power windows). Of the 400 or so episodic shows I've done, I think that one was among the most challenging.

 

[Craig Parkes]

I worked on films in the 1980s that had a thousand cuts in a single 2000-foot reel. Not many, though. And I can recall an episode of the half-hour sitcom Dave's World that I worked on that had 750 events in 22 minutes (including dissolves and power windows). Of the 400 or so episodic shows I've done, I think that one was among the most challenging.

Man, that would have been rough. What sort of turn around did you have for that? I've done one magazine style aviation show where it was often just over 550 shots for 24 minutes, and that was quite a bit (although, of course this was a lot of exteriors with often wildly varying exposures as well as being brokeng into 5 different stories, each needing to have it's own look - so the work wasn't as much creative as it was evening things out and give each story just a bit of extra pop.)

 

[M Most]

Sitcoms are usually budgeted for anywhere between 4 and 8 hours of color correction. One hour dramas are usually expected to be done in 12-16 hours, with most shows being closer to the 12 hour figure. I think it's worth pointing out that there are now about 6 facilities that, between them, turn out about 90% of what you see on broadcast and "high end" cable. One of those is owned by a studio (Universal). The others are the five major post facilities left in Los Angeles. Between all of them, you have approximately 30-35 "final" colorists. So it's a rather select group, as it has been for years. To occupy one of those chairs you must have a combination of both great coloring ability and speed. Some of those colorists are faster than others, but they can all turn out a first class show in the time allotted, and do it week in and week out. For most people who have never been in one of those seats, that seems like an almost impossible task, especially with productions wanting to cut that time frame down even more every year. But if you came up in the "Hollywood system," as both Marc and I did, it's not only possible, but normal and expected.

 

[Craig Parkes]

Sitcoms are usually budgeted for anywhere between 4 and 8 hours of color correction. One hour dramas are usually expected to be done in 12-16 hours, with most shows being closer to the 12 hour figure. I think it's worth pointing out that there are now about 6 facilities that, between them, turn out about 90% of what you see on broadcast and "high end" cable. One of those is owned by a studio (Universal). The others are the five major post facilities left in Los Angeles. Between all of them, you have approximately 30-35 "final" colorists. So it's a rather select group, as it has been for years. To occupy one of those chairs you must have a combination of both great coloring ability and speed. Some of those colorists are faster than others, but they can all turn out a first class show in the time allotted, and do it week in and week out. For most people who have never been in one of those seats, that seems like an almost impossible task, especially with productions wanting to cut that time frame down even more every year. But if you came up in the "Hollywood system," as both Marc and I did, it's not only possible, but normal and expected.

Hi Mike, I can totally imagine, what with having a support infrastructure behind you and work going through a well managed pipeline, AND being a dedicated colorist, how doing that sort of turn around week in week out is totally feasible. Especially when there is both an established workflow and an established look for a show.

The show I was doing was actually a pretty similar turn around on the color correction, although I am sure my relative inexperience was a major impactor on how much I could get done in that time frame.

I know quite a few heavy production post people in New Zealand all who are finishing shows week in/week out who deal with similar schedules - I was just surprised about 750 edits for a 22 minute sitcom, that's some rapid cutting for that sort of content - averaging an edit every 1.76 seconds.