Darn you Sundance

claxius

claxius

Active member
I wanted to enter my feature into Sundance but it stated that if accpeted the only formats permitted for presentation (entries can be in any format) are film or hd cam.

Can someone tell me if I'm in a world of hurt or not potentially converting my sd movie to hd. In other words, is it simple and cheap, or hard and expensive?

Any info would be appreciated. Thanks
 
You could do a film blow-up too, but it ain't cheap. I think you could cross that bridge when you come to it though ;) It's a slightly competitive fest.
 
uhrgl said:
You could do a film blow-up too, but it ain't cheap. I think you could cross that bridge when you come to it though ;) It's a slightly competitive fest.
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If you're selected into the festival, it will be much much easier to convince people to foot the bill for a blow-up.
 
^^^Big shot, there is the 16mm option, priced affordably at under 16k for 90 minutes :)

EDIT: Oh yeah, I met a guy from here at a fest:

http://www.alphacine.com/

Something else to remember is that rates are negotiable.
 
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If you get into sundance, it's worth the cash. I'm sure an uprez and transfer to hdcam would be way more affordable than film.
 
yeah man, you make sundance, you throw in a couple thousand more and do the HD CAM. at that point its more than worth it.

the hurdle here is MAKING sundance.
 
Wow, that place is a rip off. My last feature film I transfered it to 35mm film & they cleared up the image for under 6k. You just need to search around. I'll call the company and see if they have a online store.
 
swiperstopswiping said:
This may sound stupid, but does converting the sd with red giant's hd software count?
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If it's stupid then so am I because I was wondering the same thing. Seems too easy...
 
..you can blow up the image any way you want to. if you want to "uprez" it with your NLE or AE or instant HD.. it doesnt matter. just use what will give you the best quality in the end because its essentially free for you to use any of those options if you own that .. or other similar uprezzing software. the issue isnt really how you get the film to be HD size.. the issue is that they will only play your motion picture back in the theatre off of a 35 or 16mm film reel, or an HD cam tape. It would be considerably cheaper to use something like instant HD which appears to do a wonderful job of uprezzing, and then export the film to a high quality digital file.. (quicktime, AVI, ect..) that is acceptable to take on a large hard drive to a video duplication/dubbing facility, and have the film played out to HD cam tape in their facility. or you could rent a HD cam deck and dub it out to it yourself.. whatever works for you as long as your equipment doesnt drop frames on full res HD playback the rental would likely be alot cheaper since a half day rental or so would be pretty cheap (you can get a HD cam deck for between 400 to 1000 a day pending what type of deck you need if you need it to do anything aside from just recoring the incoming signal) vs having a facility do it and cut your arm off as payment for such a simple task when you walk in with an external HDD and all they have to do is playback and record the file out to thier HD cam deck on a tape that you can provide. alot of times a dub facilities deck heads are full of gunk too and will clog up some tapes. if you know people with HD cam equipment they would probably do it for free for dubbing credits in the film if its going to sundance, or at least do it really cheap. anyway it really doesnt have to cost you more than 1,000 all said and done, and if your film is accepted to sundance than 1000.00 is nothing to pay for it to actually be shown there considering the opportunity.. you can submit the film on DV tape. if they like it theyll tell you your in and youll have some time to come up with your HD cam tape for them to play.
 
horrorshockpictures said:
Wow, that place is a rip off. My last feature film I transfered it to 35mm film & they cleared up the image for under 6k. You just need to search around. I'll call the company and see if they have a online store.
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Horrorshock: I just sent you a PM about this. Sounds wonderful! More information would be excellent.
 
Bit more info:

David Mullen ASC said:
I think it's pretty clear: Sundance projects digitally using 60i/1080 HDCAM tapes.

So whatever you've mastered your movie on or at, Mini-DV or Digital Betacam, 24P, 25P, 50i, whatever, you need to spend the money to get it converted to 60i/1080 HDCAM.

Even if you shoot 24P/1080 HDCAM, you need to get a 60i/1080 HDCAM tape made from your master. They only want one tape format to deal with in the projection booths.
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http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/lofiversion/index.php?t12062.html
 
It's actually a very straightforward process to export to HDCAM from Final Cut Pro, you simply rent a Kona 2 or 3 card, pop it into your G5 (assuming you have a system that meets the specs), connect it up to the HDCAM deck via SDI (you will also need to rent an HD monitor for final color correct) and off you go. The step by step instructions are beyond the scope of a post, but essentially, one of the great things about FCP is it's not too hard to take your project to a high-end system or rent the pieces you need over a weekend for a "final online" and/or "final mastering" of your film. I've done it several times for both HD and SD projects and I'm pleased how smoothy it's gone... it will require patience as you re-render your timeline(s)... it's not a real-time thing like using high-end Avid gear... but the price is right.
 
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