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

[Elsie N]

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.

I think you are right Terry. And thinking along these same lines I see the need for an Indie middleman (middlewoman) between a content creator and exhbitor. Otherwise, you make a movie then spend months or more contacting and contracting with exhibitors when you could be making your next movie.

Another solution would be a mini-studio with a creative dept and a distribution arm.

 

[Elsie N]

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.

I think this statement sums it up pretty well. I am over-the-top excited to know that Blu-Ray 4k is just around the corner. Being able to encode your work IN HOUSE to universally watchable 4k causes a temporary short in my brain when thinking of all the possibilities.

 

[Noel R.]

Just replace the words "On weed" with 4K and this is how I feel about the whole argument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkA9rz-1YoA

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

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.

 

[Bruce Allen]

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.

This is awesome. Exactly why I started this thread. THANK YOU CRAIG!

The question is a non-starter.

Nice to see you too, Meryem. You are always so polite.

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.

I think you're confusing offline and online editing / finishing? It's hasn't been INSANELY expensive to finish in Scratch / Smoke / Quantel / DS in 4K. Just MORE expensive.

We did a 4K finish at Plaster City with Michael Cioni of a Ringo Starr music video back in 2007 for RED's reel. We finished the Ocean's Thirteen trailer in 4K back in 2007 too.

We have had the capability to finish 4K for a long time.

But that's not my question. It is: how many more people have actually been offered more money for their 4K indie film than they have at 2K?

Hopefully this can be a long-running thread with more and more successes in years to come. No idea why you're so hostile.

I agree with Meryem that "This question is a non-starter."

Terry, can we keep this thread centered around facts and success stories (or failures), please?

There are SO MANY other threads on REDUSER where people voice opinions but don't share actual experiences. Often the loudest people talking about indie film don't actually work on indie films, and are just voicing their opinion, which means everything gets kinda skewed.

I'm trying to make this different by actually soliciting the experiences of people who have actually done this or known people who did this. Sounds good?

I think this statement sums it up pretty well. I am over-the-top excited to know that Blu-Ray 4k is just around the corner. Being able to encode your work IN HOUSE to universally watchable 4k causes a temporary short in my brain when thinking of all the possibilities.

Um... YouTube 4K fits those criteria already? Not sure this is the right place for this chat though. Thank you, man.

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

 

[Bruce Allen]

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.

Thank you, Peter! Netflix features count in my book because basically:

Someone had a pitch, that they could have taken to a number of different distributors.

And Netflix said "we'll give you the best deal, but it has to be 4K"

And folks said "Awesome. Deal."

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

 

[Christoffer Glans]

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.
.

I'm not really following what you mean here; on one hand you talk about NLEs support for 4K and then make the point that 4K finishing and mastering is a very recent development. I stand to differ here since most productions I've finished in 4K didn't have 4K until the actual output. Editorial, especially complex and fast editing always benefits from offline editing and this concept makes it easy for me to produce and finish in 4K or even 6K for that matter, since I go back to the R3Ds for grading and mastering. I don't have fast drives or a huge and expensive post production setup, just a regular $3000 computer (five years ago) and I've been doing 4K deliveries during all this time. The concept of offline/online makes the whole debate just unnecessary. Finish in 4K and deliver in 1080p if that is what is wanted, you still have your 4K master for future occurrences. Most of the 4K argument the last couple of years have always been about making your work future proof. You are right that the phenomenon of 4K delivery is quite new, but both youtube and Netflix show 4K and have made it available for all who can see it.

I don't think there's any reason not to do 4K mastering. There are no downsides to it and as long as you shoot on cameras like Red, you will still always have 4K available and it isn't complicated to work in 4K at all, that's a myth, except...

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.

...when we are talking about VFX. Just like console games tend to lower resolution in order to "look better" with shaders and so on, VFX work is a balance between complexity and resolution and most of the time, complexity/quality is prioritized over resolution. I would probably not have it any other way myself, because a better VFX shot is more important than a slightly worse but at higher resolution. As soon as VFX artists and companies venture into 4K realms as standards for their work, we will see a much greater adoption of 4K mastering. Until then, the demand will grow as more deliveries and "channels" start to distribute 4K resolution while old TVs are replaced with new 4K TVs.

 

[Elsie N]

This is awesome. Exactly why I started this thread. THANK YOU CRAIG!



Nice to see you too, Meryem. You are always so polite.



I think you're confusing offline and online editing / finishing? It's hasn't been INSANELY expensive to finish in Scratch / Smoke / Quantel / DS in 4K. Just MORE expensive.

We did a 4K finish at Plaster City with Michael Cioni of a Ringo Starr music video back in 2007 for RED's reel. We finished the Ocean's Thirteen trailer in 4K back in 2007 too.

We have had the capability to finish 4K for a long time.

But that's not my question. It is: how many more people have actually been offered more money for their 4K indie film than they have at 2K?

Hopefully this can be a long-running thread with more and more successes in years to come. No idea why you're so hostile.



Terry, can we keep this thread centered around facts and success stories (or failures), please?

There are SO MANY other threads on REDUSER where people voice opinions but don't share actual experiences. Often the loudest people talking about indie film don't actually work on indie films, and are just voicing their opinion, which means everything gets kinda skewed.

I'm trying to make this different by actually soliciting the experiences of people who have actually done this or known people who did this. Sounds good?



Um... YouTube 4K fits those criteria already? Not sure this is the right place for this chat though. Thank you, man.

Bruce Allen
www.twitter.com/bruce_allen

Heh, sorry Bruce, Got caught up in the conversation and slipped out of the parameters (albeit narrow ones '-) of the thread.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

I think one main issue with 4k finishing is the bandwith limitations of the DCI spec. You lose so much tonality of you do a 4k DCP over a 2k DCP, sometimes real resolution too it seems.

Saw a test of 24, 48, and 60 FPS DCP sreening the other day (shot uncompressed @ 1080 for all framerates), and even though THAT wasn't the test, the decreased tonality in the 2k 60p example really was striking.
Now that is still less bandwith than a 4k DCP, which would equal 96/100 fps depending on territory.

But I hope the DCI specs will be upgraded to tolerate more of everything. And then I think 4k will be a great finishing format.

That said, I haven't finished Indie stuff at 4k for more than test purposes.
(I finished Sweet in 4k)

the process of 4k finishing isn't scary in itself.
And I currently work on a 24 episodes UHD show with lots of VFX.
It's totally doable if you plan your pipeline

(the delivery formats are streaming and mainstream TV, though, not silverscreen)

 

[Al Lougher]

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.

From what I hear most distros are preferring pre-sales now. They want to get in bed with the production before the film is made. That's what I hear anyway, but could explain why the market seems pretty dead.

And yeah, indie narratives are in dire straights right now. I'm mainly referring to micro/low-budget films mind you. The market is over saturated and rampant piracy is hurting a lot of indie producers. I have some friends that made some features (horror which is a strong market) that are making pennies on VOD deals. I'd be questioning my own sanity if I was trying to make an indie feature right now, 4K or not.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I have not had a distributor pick up any of the last 3 indies I was involved with. We did note "captured at 4K/5K" but I doubt that was even on the distributors radar. My theory is that the 4K camera original gives you a bigger swing at a profitable re-release in UHD/4K AFTER the 1080/2K version has made some money, or, in a huge stroke of luck, maybe they get a bite from someone like UltraFlix/etc. So my position is that a truly well done indie might be able to access particular distribution channels with a UHD or 4K master that otherwise they would not, but all of that is only relevant if the movie is successful at 1080/2K.

Perhaps the more cogent point for anyone considering what camera to shoot their indie on, is the characteristics of each camera system. On a RED, you will want to shoot 4K for a 1080/2K finish. Other camera systems may down sample in camera or use other signal chain techniques to hold MTF, use little or no compression, etc. that make shooting them at 1080/2K viable.

Cheers - #19

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Nice to see you too, Meryem. You are always so polite.



I think you're confusing offline and online editing / finishing? It's hasn't been INSANELY expensive to finish in Scratch / Smoke / Quantel / DS in 4K. Just MORE expensive.

We did a 4K finish at Plaster City with Michael Cioni of a Ringo Starr music video back in 2007 for RED's reel. We finished the Ocean's Thirteen trailer in 4K back in 2007 too.

We have had the capability to finish 4K for a long time.

But that's not my question. It is: how many more people have actually been offered more money for their 4K indie film than they have at 2K?

Hopefully this can be a long-running thread with more and more successes in years to come. No idea why you're so hostile.

I'm not hostile, for the record. I am a little frustrated by the underlying agenda, where you have insisted across several threads that 4K finish is a big mistake or folly for indie filmmakers. But you seem to be backing off that agenda and proceeding from a more open spirit of inquiry, which is leading to a more productive discussion.

I've found this version of the discussion to be pretty illuminating. Some great stories here, and I'm especially interested in what Craig had to say. Pretty interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing it, Craig.

The lack of uniform specs for 4K which Craig noted in his post is of particular interest, especially in light of the forthcoming release of 8K and the mad scramble which will undoubtedly ensue to figure out delivery. RED is always inventing these crazy new things and leaving it to us to figure out what the heck to do with them. That has been a big part of the fun of working in this RED ecosystem, from the start.

I've done some work with 8k fulldome using the Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to spec live-action footage. The planetarium director, who is also the director of IMERSA, has tried very hard to standardize dome delivery, but the screen configurations are so non-standardized that it has been an uphill battle. I'm curious to see how that scenario will play out, and whether pushing the 8K envelope will have any trickle-down impact on the speed at which 4K delivery normalizes. 4K delivery is obviously still in its infancy, and yet here comes 8K right around the bend. What a world!

One other note - I've been re-thinking my initial impression of AFM - upon further consideration, it's perfectly conceivable that the film market itself is doing just fine, even though the Market looked like a dust bowl - but that the way that people are doing business is itself changing. The need for face-to-face communication just isn't what it used to be. Very hard to say.

 

[Craig Parkes]

Just to chime in with Gunleik - no way no how would I do a 4K DCP for an indie feature. Totally not worth it.

As a case study I got the colorist of our picture to spit at 2K XYZ Tiff files and a 4K PRORES 444 master. I did the DCP of the film myself for theatrical festival release.

From the 4K Prores 444 Master I have submastered 3840x2160 UHD deliverables - these so far have included H.264 (yes really), H.265, Prores 444 and Prores 422. I also submastered to HD for VOD/Bluray and SD for DVD release. No two UHD deliverable formats requested have been the same, this is currently the biggest hurdle for non technically savvy film makers to delivering UHD for VOD platforms, if you are having to pay for others to do these encodes, and you don't have a very friendly post team, then UHD may be a big hurdle - but given where computers/UHD displays are at from even just two years ago right now this should not be a big issue for much longer.

A note re going from 4K to SD DVD release - high frequency detail and line twitter is a REAL ISSUE (especially in PAL land where there is no true progressive spec for PAL SD DVDs - if you are doing all this yourself then format conversion and encoding remains something that can bite you in the backside.)

Noise is a big consideration for UHD delivery - I went back and did Noise reduction on the entire film to satisfy broadcast specs - they don't want noise, and noise that may even be pleasing and filmic from a 4 or 5K shoot downressed to 2K and projected on a cinema screen may be problematic for UHD clients who are looking for noise free images when viewed by a broadcast engineer watching a UHD monitor from a few feet away.

Neat Video and other plugins can be your friends here. Also, there is good reason for them wanting noise free image that has little to do with aesthetics - encoding noise really hurts the efficiency of H.265 and other compression algorithms - you get better results when trying to shift UHD frame sizes over a 15-30mb/s pipe if you are starting from noise free images.

A lot of the Asian UHD Networks seem very interested in 4K 60P content (unsurprisingly a lot of them are owned by the same corporates who make the tvs) - this is obviously a no go for theatrical releases currently, but may be something to consider for specialist products if you can command a worthwhile premium. I would consult directly with a sales agent who handles 4K content specifically before going down this path and be aware that today's estimates might well drop tomorrow as there is more 4K Content to choose from (even though there is going to be more demand with more networks going online, I very much imagine that content supply will catch up/get ahead of demand pretty quickly as it will take less time for film makers to adapt due to ubiquitous cheap technology (Hello Raven) compared to broadcast platforms investing in getting their VOD networks off the ground.

 

[Stacey Spears]

For those that have delivered UHD+ resolution, which color space did you target? P3, 709, something else? Especially for the H.264 / H.265 delivery.

Anyone being asked to deliver high frame rate? Craig, I saw your comment about 4k 60P. If the material was shot at 24/25, are they wanting it converted to 50/60p? I have heard some stories about that.

 

[Craig Parkes]

So far everyone has accepted our title at 23.976 - All deliveries have been Rec709 targetted (or full scale RGB, often they don't specify at their end and because they are going out VOD and haven't offered specs I have simply left it in their hands. I have no idea what the results have been in terms of the look, but I am concerned about delivering to get paid and if they don't specify I figure they can get what they want from a full scale digital original easier than going to video levels.)

Again this is the issue of there not being a broadcast standard (or even an acceptable target like 'BBC spec') - It's a wild west in terms of deliverables.

 

[Craig Parkes]

Again - anyone wanting specific details of what I have delivered, to whom, please get in touch via PM. I think by a combination of my content (A English language ghost story with mostly Chinese faces - meaning it has found acceptance across Asia where UHD uptake is coming on stream faster) my background (post production supervision) and my projects budget level (very low) I am one of the very very few indies that have sold a dramatic feature film as UHD content at this point.

Almost all other content for these channels is documentary/non narrative - and the market for the content I think is mostly eye candy to sell TV's. It may be in fact that my situation can't be replicated - but I do believe having a UHD finished film right now will extend the sales opportunity for the title beyond what your average 2K/HD finished indie will have because networks will continue to move to 4K/Specialist 4K networks will keep popping up here and there and they ARE going to need more content. (A very capable sales agent for 4K content will keep the terms low for this reason, just a couple of years - so they can sell the content again!)

 

[Gunleik Groven]

It's not very hard, and not neccesarily very expensive (even with VFX) to finish in 4k these days.

My point was more like: If you go to cinema/DCP, there are significant image trade-offs going to 4k over 2k (and also so in say 48fps/2k like the Hobbit) due to the bandwith limitations in the DCI spec.

It will most likely become a more rewarding thing earlier in streamed services paired with HDR standards.

I do see a lot of advantages going that route though.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I think one main issue with 4k finishing is the bandwidth limitations of the DCI spec. You lose so much tonality of you do a 4k DCP over a 2k DCP, sometimes real resolution too it seems.

DCI bandwidth spec = 250Mbps. To put that number into perspective, here are the bandwidth numbers for a 4K DCP stream at 24p:

ProRes 422 Proxy: 155 Mbps
ProRes 422 LT: 350 Mbps
ProRes: 503 Mbps
ProRes HQ: 754 Mbps

And ProRes 4444 (no alpha) regular and XQ are 1131 Mbps and 1697 Mbps respectively. Needless to say, a bandwidth spec that lands between 422 Proxy and 422 LT is not very exciting. And of course 2x or 2.5x higher framerates really show the limitations of the bandwidth spec.

Saw a test of 24, 48, and 60 FPS DCP sreening the other day (shot uncompressed @ 1080 for all framerates), and even though THAT wasn't the test, the decreased tonality in the 2k 60p example really was striking.
Now that is still less bandwith than a 4k DCP, which would equal 96/100 fps depending on territory.

But I hope the DCI specs will be upgraded to tolerate more of everything. And then I think 4k will be a great finishing format. [...]

Agree!

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Yup. Even though jpg2k is a better compressor than prores, there just isn't enough bandwith in the 4k container for my taste, and that is more limiting than the pixelcount. I can kinda se reason to upskale a 2k-master in hardware for projection, over a 4k native master as the system works right now.

NOW this doesn't mean that I am against 4k acquisitining and mastering, just that for cinema, the 4k specs leaves a lot to be desired.
And I think thus it's rational that 4k and HDR specs reach TV/Streaming before they get really popular in cinemas.

(Which in a way seems very backwards... ) )

 

[Gunleik Groven]

And as a quick followup, I guess this is why RED did take a serious look at an alternative for cinematic distribution with REDray and .RED codec.
More or less:

Imagine what we could have done without the bandwith and compression restrictions of DCI.

Unfortunately they seem to have left that ecosystem, even though I think it would have been a good thing just to display what 4k projection actually could have been like.