Belaboring the obvious, film to digital

G

GINS

Member
Only a single, archival print exists of a film I directed many years ago.
The owner will let me borrow it (if I accept considerable responsibility for it)
so I can make a digital file of it. I want to re-edit the film, zoom in on
scenes, add newly shot material -- so I can re-issue it on DVD and
stream it. I plan on doing this in FCP7. (Old habits die hard!)

The owners are offering to do a transfer to SD near by them.
I want a transfer to ProRes HQ, right?

Please critique my thinking and make any suggestions ~
like which are the right facilities to do this. Deluxe NY ?
 
Why would you go to all this trouble to make an SD copy? You should be getting a transfer to at least 1080P. And if you're thinking of zooming in, then you need to have it scanned at 2k or 4k.

Deluxe is a good, if pricey option, Technicolor would be at the same level of price & quality. Also check out Alpha Cine in Seattle or Cine Lab in New Bedford.
 
Yeah you definitely want 1080p ProRes or uncompressed. And are they giving you a print or the negative? A negative will yield a far better transfer.

Noah
 
A cut negative would have some problems on a regular telecine. There would be warped frames caused by the splices running through the transport rollers, usually 20 frames before and after every splice. It would be better to have a cut negative transferred on a pin registered scanner. Usually a more expensive option, but no warped frames from the splices.

OTOH, a negative is less likely to be faded than a print, so it's sometimes a tradeoff.
 
Thanks, guys. Yes, I will do 1080P prores HQ. Image is coming off a print. A little naive. Can I even edit in fcp7 if i have it scanned 2K ?
 
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