How does hollywood transfer film to digital?

R

RTLdan

Member
Hello,
I wasn't sure where the right catagory was for this, so mods can move it if they think there is a better place than this!

I'm interested in knowing how Hollywood transfers their film to digital for editing.
I've heard of 'telecine' but only in broad and vague descriptions.
I know some people do it by projecting onto a screen while filming with a digital camera. This sounds a little bit amatuer to me.

If possible. I would like to know the method hollywood uses - right down to what machines are popular.
I would also be appreciative to learn alternative methods that produce professional results, but that are less expensive to get started in (assuming hollywood's way is VERY expensive.)

I'm really curious to know how it's REALLY done.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated, especially hollywood war veterans ;)

Thanks in advance!
-Daniel Rheaume
 
I've always wondered this too.

I've also heard that Spielberg doesn't edit digitally... but I find that hard to believe.
 
When you have the Film sent to the lab to be developed you have an option that you could chose to get the the film transfered onto a digital tape( be it mini DV or what not) then you can just capture the tape into your machine to edit....at least thats the only way I Have seen it done.
 
bballplaya283 said:
I've always wondered this too.

I've also heard that Spielberg doesn't edit digitally... but I find that hard to believe.
Click to expand...
Believe it.

He is the last of a dying breed.

He loves to come into the editing room, and to see Michael Kahn wearing various lengths of film draped around his neck. He proudly carries the torch of those old schoolers who first mentored him in filmmaking.
 
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there are also some methods where they get it sent to the lab and transfered uncompressed but most of the time they compress it to 2k. so they transfer it to a higher quality media not mini dv that would be funny. i expect transfer directly to a drive some how for best quality and probably maybe even beta.
 
gus van zant also still edits by reel to reel. he talked about it on the elephant dvd.
 
Well, like Cory said, its just an option at the lab. There are varying degrees of quality according to the method and telecine options- one-light, supervised, etc. For instance, you can get digital dalies which may just be filming your projected negative or you could go the varying degrees of telecine route which is essentially a negative (or positive) scan while controlling the amount of lights and color balance. Telecine is generally for transferring to video and staying on video. OR you could go the very expensive DI route, which is a much higher res scan and employs only digital tools from my understanding this allows you to be even more accurate with colors and playing with fine adjustments. DI, unlike a traditional telecine is great for going back to a film print or for digital theatrical distribution as well as DVD, internet, etc.

PS: do a basic google search or wikipedia it, you'll find a wealth of information explaining it in greater detail than anyone is probably willing to go into in this forum.
 
bballplaya283 said:
I've always wondered this too.

I've also heard that Spielberg doesn't edit digitally... but I find that hard to believe.
Click to expand...

SPR was the last film to win an Oscar for editing that WASN'T cut digitally.

He probably uses digital sometimes, but he's said that he loooooves to actually cut the film himself with Michael Kahn.
 
Oh, and Jackie Chan still really likes editing reel to reel and actually cutting and splicing the footage. He said that he finds it more fun and rewarding than digital. I believe it.
 
Once you cut and splice your footage, would you get it transfered to digital for adding all of the special effects? I find it hard to believe you could do any modern type special effects without a computer.

BTW, when I've been saying "hard to believe," I'm not doubting it, just stating ignorance on the topic.
 
I'm surprised this question hasn't been answered for real yet. Here goes: you take your film to a post house, and they do it for you. With magic.



Crappy sarcasm aside, they use a film scanner. Just like the one you might have in your office, but much bigger and faster, and it scans every frame of film as it spools from start to finish. Most of these types of facilities will also offer color correction (color timing) tools and editing stations, as well as professionals on staff to help you utilize those tools: color timers and perhaps a few on-staff editors if you didn't already have somebody to do that.
 
Once you cut and splice your footage, would you get it transfered to digital for adding all of the special effects? I find it hard to believe you could do any modern type special effects without a computer
Click to expand...

For special effects the film is scanned in, the digital effects are added in, and the final result is then printed back onto film and then added onto the final reel. I'm not really sure what you use to print the film back on, but as with lots of things hollywood uses its probably mega bucks.
 
in general ..
1) film is shot ..
2) film is then transferred to SD tape on a rank ( flying spot scanner)
3) edited on NLE ...

when finished a neg cut list is produced by NLE ... neg cutter then checks the list .. usually the neg is pulled ( cut ) flash to flash ( camera ON to camera OFF or with handles = extra frames at head/tails of every shot) ..

4)35mm is assembled on one roll .. it is then put onto a printer that can do "zero cut printing = if 20 frame handles were pulled ( say every shot has extra 20 frames at head and tails of neg) zero cut printer can just print the frames needed and ignore the extra handles .... if neg was pulled flash to flash then zero cut only prints the needed frames ... after viewing the cut neg it is then TIMED ( color corrected) ... at some point a IP ( interpositive = a low contrast positive of the neg film which still carrys a orange cast ) or Dupe neg ( DN =copy of neg) is struck ... a IP or dupe neg might be used for the transfer back to tape for DVD/vhs ..

note: once the IP/DN is color corrected all timing changes are stored for future use ...

NOTE: today SD digibeta is usually the master format sent to company that converts to mpeg/avi for DVD/vhs... that will change with HD DVD ? ...

a dv/beta copy is struck and sent to the DVD aurthoring house .. they then create the menu's etc ... the digibeta is then sent to company that will convert it to mpeg2 .. and some point the mpeg2 is mastered with the menu and then sent to a dupe house for mass printing ...

AND while the film is playing in theaters the art dept ( or hired 3rd party) already is planning the BOX for DVD/vhs release ...

today for a DI ( digital interneg/intermediate ) when they hit #4 instead of zero cut printing 35mm film many will have the pulled NEG 2k scanned , then match the edited cut and from there go back out to FILM ( IP or neg) for theatrical release .. they may use that 35mm IP/Neg to be telecined back to SD for DVD/vhs ....

telecined SD /HD -flying spot scanner = usually film is running at 29.97 and converted to VIDEO
todays .. some can go direct to hard drives at 23.976 .. there are 2k spirits ( brand) that can run 23.97 and go to HD formats ( down converts ) or can run at 24fps and go to hard drives as individual frames ... there are now 4k spirits in the market place ..

2k scanner .. these are machines that scan each 35mm frame ( usually 1-several seconds per frame) this is where one is paying $ 1 - 3 per frame !!!
these frames tend to be cleaner then video / 2k spirit scans ...

so not all DI are created equal ...
hollywood usually =goes 2k/4k scans - again these are $ per frame and are the BEST ...
next is 2k spirit transfers = $$ per hour ( these are getting better every year)
coming up the near bottom would be a telecine transfer to HD = $$ per hour
and less would be transfer to SD ...

hollywood doesn't use film chains on todays movie's ....
 
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Most of this info is in the previous posts, but let me just clean it up and attempt to remove confusion. I am a student at USC but I also supervise the post facilities for thesis projects cutting in AVID, so I've grown quite familiar with a lot of workflows.

The fact is, there is a distinction that needs to be made. There is a difference going from film ==> tape (Telecine) and film ==> digital file format (DI - Digital Intermediate).

The former is the older way, a machine that uses light optics to quickly "project" the film image on to a receiving area that writes the images on to tape... The Davinci 1k, 2k line do this. Commonly, for SD, people telecine to DigiBeta, as it is the crem de la crem of SD tape stock, then they dub down from there. Becoming more common is to telecine to HDCAM, which I will explain down below. Contrary to an above post, telecine is NOT mostly used to go and stay on tape. In fact, it IS - THE - WAY that films are transferred for editing... even if a DI will be used, the film is first telecined so that editors can have something to work with, they don't need 4k uncompressed files.

The latter (DI) is the more modern practice of using an advanced 35mm film scanner (like a really big expensive version of the one you have at home) to literally scan every frame directly to digital still images)... this method was first employed in entirety on a feature on "O Brother Where Art Thou" to give an example the timeline. Typically, once a film is edited a locked and ready for VFX, the negative is cut, then scanned to hi rez files that are handed off to the VFX teams for work. The DI files are then color timed and reintroduced to film for release. The versatility in color correction and visual effects work is obviously unsurpased, but, the price as of now, is typically out of the range of a standard independent budgeted film.


In terms of workflows. As mentioned above, telecine is still the way to go to cut a picture. Barring Michael Kahn, who, indeed, cuts on a Moviola (although after his cut, everything is now DI'ed and Spielberg employs mass amounts of color and VFX work, contradicting himself, in my opinion). Film has edgecode. When you telecine, the telecine house transfers the edgecode #s to what is called a flex file... essentially a batch capture file that you bring into your AVID or other editing suite. You then capture your footage from DV, Beta, or whatever you flavor is. The tape (which has been pulled down to 29.97) is reversed back to 24 frames per second, and ideally, if you have an edge code burn in, the edge code on the window burn matches the edge code provided by your flex files.

You edit. You picture lock. And in the end you export a "cut list" which is a list of edge code numbers for every cut in your film. That cut list is handed off to a negative cutter who carefully handles your original negative, cutting it together to create a negative master. From that you strike an answer print, color timing the footage to get the colors the way you want them, and there is your movie!

The drawbacks here are obviously special effects. In the olden days optical effects were used. Titles were shot in an animation house then superimposed with optical printers onto the film... fades and dissolves were also possible.

Nowerdays, some people opt to take just the parts that require effects, titles, etc, an have them DI'ed. Then they get the DI scanned back to negative film, telecine that back to tape, recapture, and re-splice in the effects footage in order to get a cut list with the new negative film with effects introduced.

Alternately, a lot of students I see are opting to shoot in something like super 16mm, do a supervised telecine to HDCAM (where they sit over the telecine operators shoulder and make color comments on the footage). They then stay in an HD workflow with a 23.976 timeline. They dub down from HDCAM to DV and capture the DV into an avid (again, the editors, unless they are all Walter Murch, don't need HD to edit). The key thing to note is that DVCAM and Beta formats are all 29.97 in america, so the footage again has to be reversed back to 23.98 in the AVID or your editing program. There is then some trickery to match time code, and keep in mind that going from 24 to 23.98 gives you a .01% slow down of your footage... so your audio has to be slowed down (or pulled down as audio people call it) .01% as well, or your audio sync will drift. A lot of people have been having problems with this.

Anyway, from here you edit, then depending on how you want to finish, you either export an EDL, or just take your editing project to an online house. If you use AVID, I suggest you find a house that uses the AVID DS NITRIS line to online. Then you can simply bring in a bin with your final cut and they can recapture everything from HD.

While my reasearch shows that telecine from film to HD isn't much cheaper than the original work flow resulting in a film print... I have found that it is cheaper for super 16 projects, and, it also gives you much more versatility with special effects, titling, dissolves, etc.

Remember, with super 16 your choice is either to blow up to 35 or go to tape.

With 35mm, it's probably best to stay in a film workflow, as it is a pity the loss of resolution going down to digital.


Now, if you shot something digital and wanted to go to film, that's a bit different. There are places like efilm that specialize in HD and DV to film. It is expensive, and the lower the digital rez, the lower the film rez in the end, but there are great scaler machines out there and good houses can give really good results.

I hope this helps, of course there are more details than this, but this is a good start.

If you are in the LA area and looking for places to do telecines, I'de recommend The Post Group or Laser Pacific. For HD onlines Victory Studios. And for film processing, classic old Deluxe.

I have had the best experiences with those houses, personally.
 
Just to clarify the above posts:

In general, the final delivery format dictates which path to take:
A. Film scanned to digital files (theatrical release)
B. Film scanned to video tape (television release)

Both are valid depending on the delivery.

Film scanning used to be reserved only for FX shots but the price has come down to a point where the entire final neg can be scanned to allow the most flexibility in FX and color correction. This is perfect for projects going back to film for theatrical.

Film scanned to video tape, whether SD or HD, would be used when the delivery is for television. Commercials, network dramas, television movies, etc, will mostly get a film to video telecine on a high end telecine like the Phillips Spirit Datacine which was mentioned above. The telecine operator (colorist) will have a control device for color correction such as the DaVinci which acts as a front-end for the telecine.

Top colorists are highly valuable and many are stars in thier own right.
They make big bucks. Did I say BIG?

Dailies would be struck directly to videotape for use in editing. Not much color correction at this stage and the term "one light" is in play at this stage.

For many years now, nearly all studio theatrical video versions are finished in HD for the various television deliveries such as DVD, network, cable, VOD and... IPOD!
Even though they have only been distributing SD for DVD, they already have the HD masters waiting in the vault for HD distribution.

If you are finishing the video version on a high end HD non-linear finishing system, your one 24P edit timeline can downconvert realtime to SD with both NTSC and PAL versions produced from the same timeline.

These days the DVD is already well under way by the time the film hits the theaters.
I have worked on a few DVD extras docs and we always recieved a digibeta master of the final or near final film as well as an 8 channel timecoded DAT of the clean score. The digibeta copy has both a timecode burn and also an identifying code burned in to prevent any theft. When the DVD extras that contain footage have final approval, a clean digibeta of the final film is brought in for a short period of time to redigitize the shots that made it into the extras.

Many DVD "extras" production companies have graphics designers on staff and produce all of the content of the DVD including menus, leaving the authoring house to do just authoring and encoding.

AND, [SIZE=-1]M. Night Shyamalan also likes to cut on film.
[/SIZE]
 
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what i find a bit strange is all the big networks are broadcasting their prime time shows in HD ... which i would then think commercials would be HD but as far as i can tell they are SD .. the commercials i've been involdved on ( 150K - 1mil budgets) all shot on 35mm film - only one has been completed HD .. sometimes the elements are 35mm to 2k frames ( or we transfer the 35mm frame divided into 4 quads - each quad/pass to digibeta - then patched together in AE = final apporx 1440 x960 ) but the final edit/delivery is to digibeta ....
last project was shot on cinealta and 35mm but final out is digibeta ...
 
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