Indie Film: Does a 4K finish pay off? (looking for examples)

[Bruce Allen]

Let's talk about indie feature films. Not TV or promos or short-form special content but good old fashioned indie film. Kinda a forgotten medium... but hey, it's my passion and I suspect one which a bunch of other REDUSERS share

I've been pretty vocal about saying that the average indie filmmaker shouldn't finish at 4K unless someone is paying them to do it, but maybe I'm ignoring some success stories. Actually, I know of precious few REDUSER breakout success stories, 4K or otherwise. Which is kinda sad, considering the vast number of people who bought cameras for specifically that purpose since, oh, 2007.

So: has anyone worked on an indie film (or know someone) that finished at 4K... and got more money / a better distribution deal because it was 4K instead of 2K?

Conversely, did anyone finish at 2K, then wish they had finished at 4K because they actually missed out on a deal but for some reason (shot half of it on a 1080p camera or whatever) were unable to finish 4K later? eg Netflix would have paid them more?

Follow up question: did they initially finish at 4K, or did they show a HD version or a rough cut and then once the film sold, then did the 4K finish?

A lot of people talk about this on REDUSER but I've heard precious few actual success stories and anecdotes.

I'll offer the first one:

1. Tom Lowe's TimeScapes.
Not exactly a traditional indie feature (it's a 52min runtime timelapse / slow-motion bundle of whacked not non-traditional-narrative awesomeness). But hey, let's count it.
BTW, I do think every REDUSER should buy a copy: http://www.timescapes.org/products/

Next?

EDIT: OK COOL, WE GOT RESPONSES

2. Craig Parkes - Ghost Bride
"The sales have mostly been in Asian territories that are early adopters. The numbers haven't been earth shattering, but compared to our other distributions have represented a worthwhile premium because finishing to 4K cost us very little extra - just more work on my behalf and a few bits of troubleshooting - but the people who can to the party in terms of post etc were able to give me what was needed for me to handle 4K delivery at no extra cost.
It IS a big headache - as no two deals so far have had the same deliverable, but I can make those deliverables myself and 4K has had an impact on the films total returns.
If finishing your film in 4K isn't going to cost you significantly extra - then it's worth doing, especially if you might be selling to territories that are early adopters of 4K VOD platforms."

3. Peter Lyons Collister - Netflix
"I have shot 6 films on Red and the last 2 being Dragon at 5.5K. None were finished at 4K mainly because the last had WETA doing 1100 VFx shots and a 4K finish for them was cost prohibitive. Currently I'm starting a Netflix feature shooting Dragon again at 5.5K with a studio mandated 4K post finish.
Netflix is helping with the chicken/egg issues with 4K tv manufacturers. It is quite possible that "true" 4K films will find higher interest in a few years."

4. A Pigeon Sat on a Bench Reflecting on Existence
From Bjorn: "Here is a good example of 4k indy film... Won the Gold Lion on possibly the worlds most prestigius Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival 2014.
It´s all 4k and I can only say that it is quite a remarkable film and the visual language it uses, hardly any camera motion, clips long as 10 seconds, most on a closed down UP lens then that really put the picture quality to a test. And at such usage 4k is making a huge difference. I was working on some of the vfx scene and saw them both in 4k and 2k and simply put it´s better in 4k no doubt.
I think the fidelity of the imagery is very much one of the reason it was picked as a winner, the 4k / RED one MX was ofcourse not the soul reson, lightning, makeup and scenography as of course also playing a huge part, not to mention the acting and story etc. But still it´s the one film that I think pulls the 4k straw in the very best way possible.
http://www.royandersson.com/pigeon/"

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Just so I am clear on what you are asking...

this thread seems to be in response to another discussion about the value of 4K (do tell me if I am mistaken). But with that thread - IMO, the controversial part, was about the headline, which discouraged shooting in 4K, while here you are asking about the issue of finishing and delivering 4K.

Personally, I have no argument with questioning whether a 4K finish is always (ever?) the right thing to do. But, just to be clear, to me that doesn't have a whole lot to do with shooting 4K. I might be going down the wrong path here so I won't elaborate much, but will just state my opinion that shooting in anything less than 4K on any RED camera makes no sense. How you decide to finish is another matter entirely; sometimes makes sense, sometimes not.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Terry, if you listened to Alex's podcast, it was mainly about finishing and delivering in 4K.

Many prospective indie filmmakers conflate shooting 4K with having a full 4K pipeline. Heck, many don't seem to even understand the offline-online concept. So I'm guessing that's why Alex went with shooting 4K - to talk to those folks. I certainly get a lot of those inquiries myself...

There is a flip-side to it of course: if there isn't a high chance of a financial benefit to finishing 4K, then you don't necessarily need to shoot 4K do you? You should just pick the best camera system for your project, whether 1.9K or 2.8K or 4K...

So: for all of the talk about having a 4K pipeline and its benefits, I'm interested in who knows of folks who actually have had a monetary reward for their feature because of 4K.

For that matter, if you shot or finished your feature at 4K and then didn't get any more money than you would have if you had shot / finished HD or 2K, that's probably a good counter data-point to the idea that somehow 4K on its own is a benefit to the indie feature filmmaker.

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

 

[Daniel Pearson]

Will be interested in hearing some examples, thanks Bruce.

 

[Brian Merlen]

Well I think this argument gets more stale with time now that every. Single. Camera. Almost. Shoots. 4k. Plus if you can't online offline ur post workflow is fucked up to begin with even in 2k lol. Your audio guy needs proresXQ to do basic audio work? Your AE needs 4444 to sync dailies? Gimme a break... If you can't shoot and produce 4k then don't but I think over time your stuff will be obsolete like SD and unlike Star Wars I doubt a professional uprez will be forthcoming. But the main thing is not every piece of content matters some that need a quick hd path and end of the day it's just fine in its own way. Some places still need interlaced stuff it's a crazy world and not everyone needs the same codec for their content or pixel count for that matter

 

[Phil Holland]

I have yet to self produce a feature, but for short films and short form content, yes. And two of those featured VFX in 4K. However, we're not talking studio level distribution in one of those cases, but commercially successful, yes.

Also, the truth of the matter it comes down to preference, potential, and possibilities. Tom, if I recall correctly, finished Timescapes in 4K as the content deserved that treatment and that's how he wanted audiences to experience his work.

The real truth for me is that the people, companies, and studios who buy my content or hire me to shoot content are only buying of funding 4K and up shoots. But that's also what I specialize in I guess, so perhaps everything is working as intended.

 

[Bruce Allen]

Well I think this argument gets more stale with time now that every. Single. Camera. Almost. Shoots. 4k. Plus if you can't online offline ur post workflow is fucked up to begin with even in 2k lol. Your audio guy needs proresXQ to do basic audio work? Your AE needs 4444 to sync dailies? Gimme a break... If you can't shoot and produce 4k then don't but I think over time your stuff will be obsolete like SD and unlike Star Wars I doubt a professional uprez will be forthcoming. But the main thing is not every piece of content matters some that need a quick hd path and end of the day it's just fine in its own way. Some places still need interlaced stuff it's a crazy world and not everyone needs the same codec for their content or pixel count for that matter

Thanks Brian. Rather than argue, I'm interested in simply looking for concrete examples of cases where 4K has actually brought in more money for the indie filmmaker.

And conversely, if you sold your indie film at HD or 2K and there was no financial reward to doing a 4K finish, that's interesting too.

I have yet to self produce a feature, but for short films and short form content, yes. And two of those featured VFX in 4K. However, we're not talking studio level distribution in one of those cases, but commercially successful, yes.

Thanks Phil! Yeah, you're one of the few! We're also doing short-form stuff at 4K and making money from it. The client accepts the 4K costs because they are prepared to pay for 4K, which is awesome.

And please dude - make your feature. We believe in you

But yes, I'm interested in the good old indie film thing - you know, make a feature, sell it for more since it's 4K and not 2K.

We've been talking about this since 2007 on REDUSER and Tom's the only guy I can name who's actually done it and got actual financial reward for doing it at 4K.

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

 

[Aaron McLane]

Filmmakers don't "finish" or "master" films, that's something the distributor does. And right now all delivery spec's still require a SD 4x3 among many others. I don't think anyone has been paid more to finish in 4k although it is just now starting to become a actual spec, thanks to 4k blu ray being right around the corner. This most recent Bond movie was not allowed to shoot on Alexa because Sony required a native 4k shoot and delivery so the film makers went back to film and spent an additional 3 million instead of shooting on the Sony or Red 4k cameras, although all the aerials, and there are a lot of them are all shoot on Dragons.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Filmmakers don't "finish" or "master" films, that's something the distributor does. And right now all delivery spec's still require a SD 4x3 among many others. I don't think anyone has been paid more to finish in 4k although it is just now starting to become a actual spec, thanks to 4k blu ray being right around the corner. This most recent Bond movie was not allowed to shoot on Alexa because Sony required a native 4k shoot and delivery so the film makers went back to film and spent an additional 3 million instead of shooting on the Sony or Red 4k cameras, although all the aerials, and there are a lot of them are all shoot on Dragons.

According to IMDB, Spectre was shot on film, Alexa 65mm, and Alexa XT for aerials. I don't doubt that Dragons might have been used, as we know movies these days tend to shoot a bunch of formats, sometimes some of them don't even make it into the specs.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Just so I am clear on what you are asking...

this thread seems to be in response to another discussion about the value of 4K (do tell me if I am mistaken). But with that thread - IMO, the controversial part, was about the headline, which discouraged shooting in 4K, while here you are asking about the issue of finishing and delivering 4K.

Personally, I have no argument with questioning whether a 4K finish is always (ever?) the right thing to do. But, just to be clear, to me that doesn't have a whole lot to do with shooting 4K. I might be going down the wrong path here so I won't elaborate much, but will just state my opinion that shooting in anything less than 4K on any RED camera makes no sense. How you decide to finish is another matter entirely; sometimes makes sense, sometimes not.

This is why I was encouraging everyone to actually listen to the podcast, regardless of the thread title.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

If I had to guess, the answer to your question Bruce is that not many have been required to have a 4K finish, and at this point probably very few have been paid extra money or seen extra funds allocated for a 4K finish, at least in the indie film world. But I do think eventually things will level out and 4K will become more of the norm. But right now, surprisingly we're still in the early days of 4K distribution.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

One thing that could happen I suppose is that when more 4k platforms emerge the demand for true 4K material may increase and those that have finished in 4K may be in a unique position to take advantage of this. Time will tell if that happens, but does seem like a possibility. How much money is involved remains to be seen.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

The question is a non-starter.

The first NLE to support a relatively stable 4K workflow was in 2012, with the release of Adobe Premiere CS 6. Timescapes has the distinction of being the first film to be distributed as a 4K file. Its official release is listed as 2012.

FCPX did not really become ready for 4K primetime until around 2014.

Resolve 12 was released around NAB 2015 and is only beginning to hit its stride as a viable NLE.


Therefore, while acquisition has been available for a longer period of time, 4K finishing and mastering on a variety of stable platforms is a VERY recent development.

So the answer to your question is going to be fairly self-evident: No. No one is getting better distribution deals as a result of the possibility of 4K right now.

However, the dots don't connect to the past - or even to the present, for that matter. They only connect to the future.


The more urgent question to me is whether the bottom has fallen out of the film market entirely. I'm at the American Film Market right now, and it is a simply terrible market, just terrible. Attendance seems super low. Rooms are empty - a lot of the older, established players seem to have moved to cheaper suites. It ain't pretty. Quite frankly, I'd be questioning the wisdom of making any narrative indie film whatsoever, 4K, 2K, or any K in between, in the current climate. People want to binge watch TV series, and they watch web docs - viewing habits are changing altogether. The narrative film markets are in a huge deflationary spiral. Everyone is trying to figure it out. This is the real elephant in the room. Not resolution.

 

[Troy Bakewell]

Meryem.

Wow. Your report from AFM is troubling.

Anyone have anything to add?

 

[Aaron McLane]

I was at AFM today as well. Terrible, have not seen one this dead before.

 

[Craig Parkes]

I can say categorically yes.

A feature film I produced, Ghost Bride, was finished to 4K and has already made UHD sales that made it worth the additional effort to finish in 4K.

http://www.ghostbridemovie.com/

The sales have mostly been in Asian territories that are early adopters. The numbers haven't been earth shattering, but compared to our other distributions have represented a worthwhile premium because finishing to 4K cost us very little extra - just more work on my behalf and a few bits of troubleshooting - but the people who can to the party in terms of post etc were able to give me what was needed for me to handle 4K delivery at no extra cost.

It IS a big headache - as no two deals so far have had the same deliverable, but I can make those deliverables myself and 4K has had an impact on the films total returns.

If finishing your film in 4K isn't going to cost you significantly extra - then it's worth doing, especially if you might be selling to territories that are early adopters of 4K VOD platforms.

For a lot of independent films it SHOULDN'T cost you a huge amount extra either, especially if you are not VFX heavy.

Bruce, PM me and I can talk specifics.

Having a UHD master of your independent film won't change your life, and a great HD film getting picked up for major distribution is of course going to offer better returns than a middle of the road indie that has been finished at 4K - but an extra revenue stream is an extra revenue stream, and given that in the future 4K delivery will be increasingly common, being able to access those future revenue streams DOES actually make some difference.

 

[Hugh Scully]

Every narrative I've shot, so far, has been fine at HD 2K for exhibition - short films mostly, web series, even the docs for private exhibition don't really need a 4K finish. The festivals I'm getting into aren't screening that high YET. The problem I recently solved with the RED has to do with acquisition. There are no HD cameras, except Alexa, out there that can render color, are free from artifacts, handle highlights respectably, has the dynamic range, organic skintones and blacks, and offer RAW for ultimate flexibility in the grade. So you really have to make a distinction here because shooting in 4K on a RED (this is reduser), blows the crap out of any HD camera you can shoot with and that includes the Sonys and the Canons. Also, when I get to shoot this feature, I could finish for 2K or not... because I acquired it in 5K. It may have been difficult in 2007 but it's a breeze to finish in 4K now.

How you render it out is least troublesome aspect.

 

[Nick Morrison]

The question is a non-starter.

The first NLE to support a relatively stable 4K workflow was in 2012, with the release of Adobe Premiere CS 6. Timescapes has the distinction of being the first film to be distributed as a 4K file. Its official release is listed as 2012.

FCPX did not really become ready for 4K primetime until around 2014.

Resolve 12 was released around NAB 2015 and is only beginning to hit its stride as a viable NLE.


Therefore, while acquisition has been available for a longer period of time, 4K finishing and mastering on a variety of stable platforms is a VERY recent development.

So the answer to your question is going to be fairly self-evident: No. No one is getting better distribution deals as a result of the possibility of 4K right now.

However, the dots don't connect to the past - or even to the present, for that matter. They only connect to the future.


The more urgent question to me is whether the bottom has fallen out of the film market entirely. I'm at the American Film Market right now, and it is a simply terrible market, just terrible. Attendance seems super low. Rooms are empty - a lot of the older, established players seem to have moved to cheaper suites. It ain't pretty. Quite frankly, I'd be questioning the wisdom of making any narrative indie film whatsoever, 4K, 2K, or any K in between, in the current climate. People want to binge watch TV series, and they watch web docs - viewing habits are changing altogether. The narrative film markets are in a huge deflationary spiral. Everyone is trying to figure it out. This is the real elephant in the room. Not resolution.

WOW. Fascinating. Perphaps this explains why the creators of "Fort Tilden" (charming NYC indie feature comedy) moved straight to a TV series with TBS ("Search Party")?

 

[Nick Morrison]

Again, I would say that for the next two years a 2K/1080 finish is probably fine. But after that? Who knows. Platforms/viewing habits are changing so fast, I would have to assume 4K could become a more defining standard faster than we think.

Already, Amazon and Netflix are pushing 4K enough to make it not just viable, but almost inevitable.

It's not a matter of if...but when...it becomes a standard (much like HD 10 years ago).

It's only a matter of time before the broadcasters follow suite, especially as many of them transition to digital (what's holding them back today is their 1080i/720p terrestrial presence on cable)

The indie filmmaker would be prudent to capture in 4K or higher NOW, master in 2K today, but be able to master in 4k tomorrow.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Every narrative I've shot, so far, has been fine at HD 2K for exhibition - short films mostly, web series, even the docs for private exhibition don't really need a 4K finish. The festivals I'm getting into aren't screening that high YET. The problem I recently solved with the RED has to do with acquisition. There are no HD cameras, except Alexa, out there that can render color, are free from artifacts, handle highlights respectably, has the dynamic range, organic skintones and blacks, and offer RAW for ultimate flexibility in the grade. So you really have to make a distinction here because shooting in 4K on a RED (this is reduser), blows the crap out of any HD camera you can shoot with and that includes the Sonys and the Canons. Also, when I get to shoot this feature, I could finish for 2K or not... because I acquired it in 5K. It may have been difficult in 2007 but it's a breeze to finish in 4K now.

How you render it out is least troublesome aspect.

To me, this is the key issue. This is exactly why you shoot 4K. I also agree with others that point out the importance of future proofing your content. I agree with Meryem that "This question is a non-starter."

As for the state of film distribution, vis a vis the AFM, I am wondering if there is simply a move afoot to look more towards digital self-distribution going forward. There are more and more avenues of various types developing. For this delivery, at least for the immediate time frame, 2K finish will probably work better; but that will also change rapidly as 4K screens are adopted and it becomes a competitive advantage to have 4K content.