Shooting pilot for TV series - 24PN, 30PN, 24p, or 30p?

A

AdamT

Active member
Been thinking about this and am unsure the proper course of action.

I'm shooting a pilot episode in late June for a possible TV series, in 720p. While I love the look of 24PN (and more minutes on the cards), I'm wondering the policies and technical requirements of the networks for acquisition? Say a channel like TruTv. Would there be problems with a 23.98fps master? Would they not accept it, and thus wasting all this time making the pilot?

From what I understand 23.98 is also an NTSC standard in the US, and TVs add pulldown for 29.97 (depending on the TV)?

Maybe 24p (29.97) would be better? 24PA?

The other issue is we're shooting on both an HVX200a and a Canon 5D MKII. The MKII can only do 30pn (29.97) and 24pn (23.98). The 1080 will be downrezed to 720p to match the HVX. So that is a consideration as well.
 
If you like 24p, shoot 24pN. You can render out an edited master in 24pn or 24p-within-60p, whatever the deliverable is that the channel requests.
 
No NTSC TV adds in pulldown from a 23.976 signal. The pulldown is added in before broadcast.

I don't think there's any digital broadcasting done at 23.976, either, only 60i or 60p, even though 23.976 broadcast is technically possible.

But as Barry said, a 23.98 master can always -- ALWAYS -- be delivered in a format appropriate for 60 hz broadcast. There are no issues, only proper procedures.

As for 30p stuff, you can't convert it effectively to 24p (won't look good), or vice-versa. So, I'd shoot everything the same unless there's an artistic reason to do both (as in, there's a motivated reason why the two look different).
 
It's also a creative subjective choice as far as what frame rate you should go with. They have different "looks". Which one suits the story better?
 
David Jimerson said:
But as Barry said, a 23.98 master can always -- ALWAYS -- be delivered in a format appropriate for 60 hz broadcast. There are no issues, only proper procedures.
Click to expand...

David, working in FCP and assuming the program was edited in a 23.98 timeline, what would be the proper procedure?
 
If 24p is what you want, then shoot 24pN and 23.98 on the Canon.

Export will be to whatever format they need.

I just want to get past the idea that I so often see -- that if you're going to broadcast, you shouldn't shoot or edit as straight 23.98. If 24p is what you want, of course you should.
 
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