Best way to export a feature film (2 hours length) for festival use and submission

T

taras4444

Well-known member
Hi guys,

My first post back here in ages but i thought id try as you're all super helpful and have aided me a great deal along the way.

Basically I have finished my debut feature film that was shot on the panasonic af100 and am now looking to export it from adobe premiere cs6 with the best possible setting but also so that it won't take years. The film is saved into different project files and sequences so my plan was to export each and then put them all together in one file and export that, but I've never used hd footage for such a long duration (the run time is 136 minutes) so I am unsure what is the best options.

I tried exporting the first 17 minutes in h.264 with best render quality checked and a high bit rate target in the 30s etc at 1080p 25f and it took a whopping 12 hours! (and is 4 gb!) Is this normal? At that rate it will take another 80 hours continuous to just export the sequences then god knows how long to export the main project when it is all together. Also I am concerned that the files will be too big for blu ray etc.

How do the professionals do it? As the feature films you see on blu ray etc now are of excellent quality but they must some how manage the file size, i dont know any blu ray discs over 25gb!

Also Sundance do an online screener and state either quicktime or flash maximum 2gb is ok, is there any better in terms of quality?

I just found my rendered h.264 video too that took me 12 hours and it is out of sync with the audio too, no idea why! :S Worrying now!

Any advice or help will be greatly appreciated! Panicking a bit now that i have this completed film and can't get it off my laptop lol!

Thanks Taras
 
Also just wondering as now I see that blu ray does not support 1080p 25frames what is the best settings to export my 25fps 1080p footage to blu ray too for viewing in the usa (sundance?) Any suggestions can't seem to find anything about this particular subject on the net :S
 
I just did something like this in FCP7. In my case I did a Apple prores 4:22hq wrapped in a quicktime. Looks pretty damn good. I sent the whole 60gigs out in a HD.
 
Nice thanks for the response. Did you have the film in different sequences or projects and render those first? And how did you manage to get the 60 gigs out to festivals, they accepted a hardrive? I dont have a mac but have been recommended DNxHD for Pc wrapped in the quicktime too so i may do that.
 
I'm guessing you didn't transcode the footage to a more edit friendly format (such as ProRes or DNxHD). Normally you would do this before editing. It takes a while but it makes the editing smoother and saves you time later on.

If you create a ProRes or DNxHD sequence and copy all your sequences into it you can then export the timeline. Any mixed frame rates or frame sizes will slow the process as will any colour correction of other effects.

The easy way to create a 25 fps BluRay is to use the 1080i setting. If your source footage is progressive it will still look progressive (if you think about it - when you watch a movie on an interlaced TV it still has the progressive characteristics of a movie)
 
Hey thanks Gary that's good to know. I am planning for the final master to render each sequence and the entire film out as a DNxHD codec for future easier use to export it for blu rays dvds etc. But for the time being been in a bit of a rush for a US film festival deadline at the end of the month so have exported and have a master h.264 file of the film at 1080p 25fps.

As it is for a US viewing should I render the film out at a h.264 blu ray setting with the ntsc 30fps setting? Would that be viewable in the US? Thanks again
 
I think the better workflow would be to nest all to sequences that make up you film into one master timeline in Premiere. Then you would render that timeline using Media Encoder into whatever specs your festival requires, plus your DNxHD master.

And there is little advantage to converting to 30p if your are sending screeners on Blu-ray, as that format supports 24fps.

Cheers,
Craig
 
Hi Craig, thanks for the reply. My project is in 25fps progressive hence the need to convert. I tried exporting it as a 30fps interlaced project but when watching it on my tv (in the uk mind you) it has those horrible lines/combing teeth whenever there is movement. Would this not show up on a us tv? Bit worried!
 
Yep, export to a lightly/not compressed codec (DNxHD 220x or ProRes HQ minimum, IMO) and then use Handbrake/what have you to transcode into H264s.
 
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