Red vs 35 mm Cost

[Troy Smith]

I need some help as we have never shot film and need to compare prices of red vs 35mm, for a potential customer.

I'm looking to fill in the blanks for 35 mm, what I have so far below, and if anyone knows of specific houses in la that are trust worthy and cheaper then the prices I have, pls let me know, I don't want to scew the price higher for 35mm then it needs to be.

1. Film Stock from kodak $600 for 10 mins
2. Processing ?
3. Telecine to Dvcam for offline edit via avid $1000 per/hr of footage w sound.(That was Quote from Fotokem)
4. Negative cut for a 90 min feature. COST?
5. Old School Color Time. COST ?
6. Answer print, 90 mins COST ?
7. Release print, 90 mins COST ? around $40,000

I know there a few other little steps, but this will give us a ballpark of what
we are looking at, still waiting for calls back from a couple of houses to fill in
blanks, and thought I would post here in the mean time.

Any help appreciated.

THanks
Troy Smith

 

[Jim Exton]

I need some help as we have never shot film and need to compare prices of red vs 35mm, for a potential customer.

1. Film Stock from kodak $600 for 10 mins

2. Processing ?

.10 a foot at DeLuxe

3. Telecine to Dvcam for offline edit via avid $1000 per/hr of footage w sound.(That was Quote from Fotokem)

An SD transfer at Cinelicious is $200 an hour (that includes either tape or to hard drive)

4. Negative cut for a 90 min feature. COST?

Depends on the number of cuts made.

5. Old School Color Time. COST ?

Done when the answer print is made.

6. Answer print, 90 mins COST ?

9000 ft at $1.50
9000 ft at .30 for each corrected print (if you made cc changes the first time)

7. Release print, 90 mins COST ? around $40,000

You will need an Interpositive and a Dupe Negative before you get release prints.

Both are roughly $1.20 a foot
Release prints are .30 a foot.

 

[M Most]

4. Negative cut for a 90 min feature. COST?

Depends on the number of cuts made.

In most cases, it's charged by the reel, usually between $300 and $400 per reel. So for a 10 reel feature, that would be about $3000 to $4000 (a bit cheaper than a video assembly).

7. Release print, 90 mins COST ? around $40,000

You will need an Interpositive and a Dupe Negative before you get release prints.

That's only necessary if you're doing a large print order. You can safely make at least 20 prints from the original negative.

You both overlooked titles and opticals. In the past, most optical houses will offer a package for standard titles and opticals. However, there aren't a whole lot of traditional optical houses left, so you might wind up doing these digitally.

Any comparison of this type must be made with the additional knowledge that if you want a contact printed, photochemical finish, you must shoot 4 perf, 35mm. And if you're comparing all of this to a digital shoot, you must consider the fact that to get a film print from a digital shoot, you must in all likelihood do a digital intermediate, which carries considerable costs. The real difference in cost is usually directly related to how much footage you expose. The more you shoot, the more you spend on film, for stock, processing, and transfer (assuming you transfer everything). That's where the savings really happens in a digital shoot, because the cost of additional footage is minimal. If you have an experienced director and a cooperative cast, and can keep the footage to a minimum, the overall costs are much more comparable. But today, that situation is rare, especially in low budget productions.

 

[John Portnoy]

Film stock: 55 cents per foot.
Processing: 10 cents per foot. Assume 90% of purchased neg will be processed.
Telecine (assuming 4-perf 35mm feet): 20 cents per foot. Assume 90% of processed neg will be transferred.
Neg cut: $12,000
Answer print (where the neg is timed): 90 cents per foot (10,000 feet is what I normally assume, plus 1000 feet for textless negative)

That takes you to parity with a film out neg. Interpositive, internegative, 85 cents per foot (include the textless too). Checkprint (first print off the internegative) 22 cents per foot. OSTN (soundtrack neg), 60 cents per foot (varies with the number of sound deliverables on the neg - SRD and Surround are base level; DTS timecode and/or SDDS add cost).

Don't forget you'll need to scan negative to do your opticals and titles digitally, and film them out. Probably allow $7500 for a basic set of main/end titles plus a few opticals, including scan/record.

 

[John Portnoy]

If someone offers you a $4,000 35mm full feature neg cut, run. The cost is $10-$12K.

 

[NateWeaver]

Proving once again, a film finish is not for amateurs.

Looks like a good way to waste a lot of money if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[Troy Smith]

THanks alot guys, great info.

 

[donatello b]

". Telecine to Dvcam for offline edit via avid $1000 per/hr of footage w sound.(That was Quote from Fotokem"
"An SD transfer at Cinelicious is $200 an hour (that includes either tape or to hard drive)"

1st, 1000 hr is way to much for a Dvcam transfer
IMO forget Dvcam or any transfer to tape ... go direct to hard drive ... then you have to decide if you have it transferred at 23.97 or 24fps ... seems if you are going for a film print that 24fps is probably the way to go ...perhaps some experienced post persons can shed some Light on 23.97 vs. 24fps for film print ( from neg, not digital data)

 

[michael zaletel]

Ask yourself how much it costs to stop rolling film and get a roll developed and a few frames digitized so you can see exactly what you have before you break down the set and send the extras home. That's the true cost of film over digital.

-michael zaletel
(shooter)

 

[NateWeaver]

Ask yourself how much it costs to stop rolling film and get a roll developed and a few frames digitized so you can see exactly what you have before you break down the set and send the extras home. That's the true cost of film over digital.

People who have experience shooting film don't have this problem. I'm not trying to be snarky, it's just the truth.

 

[M Most]

If someone offers you a $4,000 35mm full feature neg cut, run. The cost is $10-$12K.

I was trying to remember our costs based on 5 reel TV episodes, but it was also a long time ago. Not to mention that I wasn't including splicing, a stupid omission on my part. Seeing as how a) time has passed and b) there aren't a whole lot of negative cutters left, you're undoubtedly more up to date on this than I am.

I would point out that while 90% of purchased negative will likely be processed (assuming that the stock estimate is accurate), 100% of exposed negative will be processed. I've also found in recent years that on many projects, 100% of processed negative will also be transferred, especially outside of Los Angeles. I also maintain that the IP/IN is not necessary for a small print order, also based on recent experience with some smaller features that made less than 20 prints. I didn't include the cost of the optical track because that's necessary regardless of what the picture's origination format is. Your figure for a basic title and optical package sounds about right, but I would likely budget it closer to $10,000 to be on the safe side and allow for some basic "shot fixes."

It's been a while since I had to do a full film post budget, but I'm hardly an amateur at this.:embarassed:
Not to mention that posting on an Internet forum - particularly one that is dealing with a digital camera company's product - is not the most reliable or even sensible way to come up with a real budget to present to a producer.

 

[donatello b]

6. Answer print, 90 mins COST ?
7. Release print, 90 mins COST

depending on how many prints you need ...
at some point you might need

6 answer print
6b Interpositve
6c dupe neg
7 answer print off dupe neg
7b release prints

 

[Dan Hudgins]

35mm vs. Red

35mm vs. Red

Film only looks good when people with skill and experience handle it for you, mostly at great expence. There is no reason to end up with a "low budget" look to your project if you understand what causes such.

We are going DIY DI since it lets you "fix" most of films inherent problems with dust, scratches, gunk, exposure and contrast problems you get shooting on location with inadequate lighting.

It is possable to make a 35mm movie with a few prints to show at much lower costs in 35mm than what is stated above, but if you do some of the tasks yourself you need the extra time and you need to know what you are doing, film is very hard to get good results on, it is not a magic media that makes things look good, people think "that was shot on film and looks great", my Brother does that, its taken me years to convince him that its the lighting and art direction (as well as DI) not the medium that makes for most of what people think the film look is.

The biggest advantage of using the RED ONE over 35mm film is that you can shoot at a much higher ratio and the camera is light and quiet. If you shoot film the numbers on the footage counter are like the pirce digits on the gas pump, "look there goes our money, weeeee".

Being able to shoot a higher ratio lets you concentrate on the actors and their performance something that all lower budget films need more than anything else.

The price of one or two RED ONE is about what the negative for one film costs, so if you make more than one film you can start to come out ahead, maybe, it depends on your shooting ratio. But if your film sells because you ended up with a better result using RED ONE, then the costs difference did not matter, because making a film on 35mm that never gets shown, is no advantage.

A shooting ratio of less that 10:1 is dangerous to your chance of success, anything under 5:1 is not going to happen if you don't have dialog in more than a few shots.

A feature film of 90 minutes has about 550 to 700 cuts/shots in the finished edit. Maybe 1/2 to 1/3 of those are different setups, so you need about 300 camera positions, if you can do 30 a day that is 10 days minimum, but with a union crew you will not get 30 camera setups per day probably, so figure 20 shooting days minimum, perhaps. You can get a hand counter and watch some good DV of clasic films and count the cuts per 5 minutes to get some idea of the cutting rates during a movie, you can plot them on graph paper, try "Them!" (1954) first.

If you want to make feature films you can email me and I can talk to you about various options if you want to try to shift value to the results. My DI system has a good option for making a good motion picture sound mix, sound is half the end experience. It works with RED ONE and 35mm film scans, DIY or not... You should budget for the ADR and Foly as well as the orchestration, orchestra, recording, and mix, a good soundtrack can take 6 months of work or more.

Making Killer's Kiss (1955),

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048254/

Stanley Kubrick seems to have spend quite a bit more on the sound than some aspects of the production,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer's_Kiss

BTW, thats not his first film, he tried to buy back all the prints of his first film and destroy them(?)!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Desire

If you have never shot 35mm film before, you should look at Fear and Desire (1953) to see what can go wrong, etc.

35mm does tend to pick up more hairs in the gate and stuf than 16mm, in part because the frame are is larger and the film moves faster to makes static that draws crud onto it, and tends to scratch more because the loop motion is larger... And rolls are bigger to get sinch marks on...

 

[Richard Goodwin]

You might also want to factor in changes to what has to be done while shooting. For instance with film you are going to have to do gate checks, more frequent mag changes (much more frequent depending on the amount you shoot per day) and other housekeeping duties that you don't have to do for digital.

Of course the impact of these sorts of things very much depends on the type of project you shooting.

 

[michael zaletel]

People who have experience shooting film don't have this problem. I'm not trying to be snarky, it's just the truth.

huh? even the most experienced have told nightmare stories about bad focus pulls, dust, and other problems not seen until too late?

Not trying to be snarky either but come on?

-michael zaletel
(shooter)

 

[NateWeaver]

huh? even the most experienced have told nightmare stories about bad focus pulls, dust, and other problems not seen until too late?

Not trying to be snarky either but come on?

-michael zaletel
(shooter)

Things like that happen occasionally, but generally not a large enough factor to influence choice of film vs. digital. It's just a nice extra.

In my experience there's just many things that can go bad while shooting digital that aren't noticed until later as well. It's not like the Red's preview image (or typical onset monitoring methods for it) are so good that you can't miss buzzed focus, or dirt on the sensor, etc etc.

I read your comment as "with film you never know what the image really looks like until it's on a screen", where the truth is with a DP with experience knows pretty well what it's going to look like. If you did not mean it that way, then carry on.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Extra takes for safety?

Extra takes for safety?

the truth is with a DP with experience knows pretty well what it's going to look like. If you did not mean it that way, then carry on.

That might be, a good DP hopes he knows what the end result will look like, and he should, I would not want someone behind the camera who does not have the experence to be able to expect a particular result, but even so, some of the time it is just luck to get what you wanted to come out, not just because of the camera issues but the acting and everything else.

In the real world films gets messed up along the way and in the lab, read the disclamer on your lab drop off receipt.

With RED ONE you can load the R3D file into a laptop and watch the shot with rough CC and get an idea if there are major issues before everyone goes home.

With both camera you will probably need extra takes for safety, but with film there are extra costs for safety takes, with film you add 10% to 20% more to the film and processing costs, as well as the added magazine changes and such...

 

[michael zaletel]

Things like that happen occasionally, but generally not a large enough factor to influence choice of film vs. digital. It's just a nice extra.

In my experience there's just many things that can go bad while shooting digital that aren't noticed until later as well. It's not like the Red's preview image (or typical onset monitoring methods for it) are so good that you can't miss buzzed focus, or dirt on the sensor, etc etc.

I read your comment as "with film you never know what the image really looks like until it's on a screen", where the truth is with a DP with experience knows pretty well what it's going to look like. If you did not mean it that way, then carry on.

It's all good Nate but it's sort of like suggesting that a great programmer doesn't really need to compile his code to identify errors before committing to the SVN. Sure, a great programmer (or DP) can probably get away with it but that extra testing step of verification can make the best even better. It takes all of about 3 minutes to take a CF card out of the RED, load it on an on-set Mac Pro running a 30" monitor and view a few frames at 100% resolution (1/4 frame at a time). IMHO, any DP shooting RED that isn't doing that before tearing down a set or lights, leaving a location or sending everyone home just doesn't understand the bedrock principles of quality control. They don't do it because it wasn't possible with film but it is now and they have no excuse. The question is not whether the film turns out well for top DP's on a consistent basis but whether it could have turned out even better had they been able to view a few frames at 100% resolution on set before moving on.

-michael zaletel
(shooter)

 

[Craig Parkes]

I'm with Nate - Missing something on set is not a function of the medium you are shooting on, it's a function of the crew and the pressure of the set.

I know of more than one HD shoot which had nice big full res monitors on set where because of time pressure/lack of proper equipment/time/crew discipline a messed up shots and didn't notice until too late, and they were just shooting HD, not 4K.

I have heard/read of more than one RED production where bad on set practices have led to lost footage, and technical issues have led to days not being got.

I've also been on set when the electrics in a film camera have failed and a replacement body was not on site - because it was a lower budget.

Problems on the day that happen to cause headaches in post are almost never 'unavoidable' problems that happen because of the medium being used. If that was even remotely the case the medium used would stop being used.

I mean - if your AC missed focus, and didn't KNOW right then and there that they missed focus, or at least have a bad enough feeling to ask for another take then the problem is the AC - not that you were shooting on film versus RED.

In fact if the above happened on a film set, it would likely mean another take is got straight away, on a RED set might mean everyone waits for the cards/drive to be offloaded and the shot checked - which could be more expensive to production in terms of time then just taking another take and trusting the AC got it right when they said they did.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Film only looks good when people with skill and experience handle it for you,.

35mm does tend to pick up more hairs in the gate and stuf than 16mm, in part because the frame are is larger and the film moves faster to makes static that draws crud onto it, and tends to scratch more because the loop motion is larger... And rolls are bigger to get sinch marks on...

Hi Dan,

Video usually looks better when people with experiance and skill are involved too. Benjamin Button is a prime example.

As far as hairs in the gate, first off that dirt came from somewhere eliminate the problem by keeping everything very clean!
35mm 4 perf has a huge amount of cropping so quite large hairs would not be seen, S16 has very little & 2 perf none so dirt is more of an issue. To be honest I get a hair in the gate with 35mm about once in 10 years, it's always been when the loader has not cleaned his changing tent properly! I always go and investigate the source!

Stephen