35mm production process

S

studiomaxer3d

Active member
Can someone please explain the process of shooting a picture in 35mm film and adding effects to it and then putting it on a 35mm print for projection.

I dont fully understand the telecine(and can someone tell me how to pronounce it) and film scanning.

And is telecining put on a tape edited and then put back on 35mm film.
or is it just done for offline editing? then how do effects get put on.

I would just like someone to go thru and give me the steps involved from shooting the film to projecting it.

Thanks a lot, im sure ill have some follow up questions.
 
I ll have a go at this but there can be more than one process or workflow.

"telecine" (pron. telly-sin-ee)

Very simply :

Film Camera shoots 35mm negative film

Processed in motion picture film laboratory and results in a negative ( can be printed to a
positive print if required for a variety of reasons)

Telecine transfers the negative ( or the print) to a video tape ( usually a Digital format tape). The telecine has a Color Correction stage that can manipulate the image.

Digital tape is loaded into computer for offline / online editing or FX generation and compositing.

Master tape is created and can produce dubbs for TV broadcast or used to output to film scanner if a projected film is required.

Hope this helps but a book from the library would give you more info and detail better explained than this small space allows.
 
my question now is... what digital tape can hold the information that films holds. the res of film is far greater.. then if film is printed from the digital tape it will have to be blown up again for 35mm projection resulting in a loss in quality, is this not correct?
 
Usually there is either a low resolution scan of the footage for the digital transfer, which is used for the digital edit process, which is why in the deleted scenes sections, the footage always looks lower res, or the digital footage is compressed for the edit process, and then an uncompressed version is rendered for the film out. It is usually High Def....
 
so when they originally transfer the footage they will make a copy to a HD Tape? and that is then printed to film using a film printer?

if there is no effects do they just take the EDL and cut the film?

can you notice the quality difference if the 35mm is put to HD? is the quality much different from the 35mm film? what res is the HD format that they use?
 
A lot of the time (specifically on higher budget films) you'd not transfer the footage to HD, but more likely a 2K or 4K scan of the film to hard disk.
 
ok so they'd scan it all..make a low res version for editing... then plug that EDL into the scanned film.. and print.....that makes total sense.. just need a lot of storage..

now what about these guys, lets say doing something for a festival. They shoot 35mm. They have a few shots that need some special effects. they need to edit. do they just put it on some ntsc tape edit it up. ad the effects and then just blow it up to 35 again.

im sorry for retardation levels im sporting. im just so confused. cause i know that no tape can compare to 35mm film.
 
Odds are, they'd go through a digital scan too, most likely a 2K.

Most films only scan the effects shots at 2K, and telecine everything at SD for offline editing.
Then when they've edited the film, they print the 2K frames to 35mm, and use the EDL to conform the original negative (or at least a work print) - so most of the film is still printed from film, never having gone through a digital intermediate (except the specific effects shots themselves)
 
ok that makes sense.. so only scan the stuff you need to add effects to. I wonder how they get the reprinted film to match the original film. do they then scan the whole film again, color correct, and then print again.

anyway, I think I'm starting to understand now.
thanks a lot.
 
I'm a little confused by your question,

What they'd do for effects work is scan the effects shots at 2K, add the effects, then print that to film. When they're conforming the negative, they'd use the print they made with the effects side-by-side with either the negative or the work print.


A lot of the time, you can actually notice that it's a bit softer, and that some of the value is a little off...
 
The audio is recorded separately, usually with a DAT recorder, and is synched with the sound using timecode (or before, by eye using the picture and sound from those clap boards).

It's edited and mixed, usually by synching the dialogue in the EDL, using it as reference for editing, and then, using timecode, a final mix is done, and it's printed onto the side of the 35mm film stock (to be read by the decoders in a theatre). The audio's synch on the 35mm film is 20 frames ahead of the picture, so that it can be read separately by the decoder, and played back at the same time.
 
It's written onto the side of the film itself, not within the projector's aperture of course.
Different methods of code are written, depending on the sound system used (Dolby Digital, etc).
 
so does the sound track exist on the film from the beginning(blank of course)?
or do they actually lay down a strip after its all ready to go?
 
There is no sound recorded on the film during production. They use a sync camera and an outboard recording device, which is why they use a "clapper" slate...so they have a reference point to sync the two.

The sound is only added to the print when it's getting ready for answer printing and internegatives.
 
The sound is "printed" to the edge of the print by means of special process. A sound negative is produced from the final mix and that is utilised with the picture negative (or interneg).

It appears on the print as a line that looks like a waveform.
 
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