Film Editing

INDUSTRY STANDARD CONVERSION PROCESSES

You probably already know all the steps invovled to produce a film project for today's market but just in case there are a few gaps we will do a brief explanation. This information has been assembled from experts from the SMPTE committee, a multitude of production houses here in Los Angles, and the top notch film cutters that others have designed there systems to interface with. This process is the standard in the non-linear film editing market place.

After the 35mm film is processed (24 fps) it is taken to a 'Telecine' house along with the audio (30 fps) which is recorded on either Nagra with center track smpte or Fostex SMPTE DAT. For now lets deal only with the film. Because film is 24 fps and NTSC is 29.97 fps we have an obvious problem. Our goal is to output a 'FILM CUTTING EDL list' that deals with 24 fps resolution.

Here's how it's done:
The first step is to digitize the film thorough an industry standard process known as 'Telecine'. This deals with video fields and interpolates film frames (24fps) to Video (29.97fps). As you know one video frame has two video fields.

Click HERE to download this chart.

This process is known as the famous "3 to 2 pull down". The second part of the solution is the Audio (30fps) syncing. As stated the "Telecine" process takes film (24fps) and audio (30fps- recorded independent of the film) and slows the entire process from 24 fps down to 23.98 fps and then does the "3 to 2 pull down" and records it to video tape at 29.97 fps. In most productions only the "Circle takes" (the ones the director says "PRINT") are run thorough this process. A "KEY LOG" report file and disk with the appropriate film frame to video frame are then given back to you. Input the material, and edit like you would any other video. Digital editing gives you instant ability to try a combination of different camera angles as well as the ability to rearrange the scene order along with all the audio effects and music until the desired flow of the production is reached without ever cutting any film or audio! Once the desired project is completed an interpolation module loads the video "CMX" list along with the film "KEY LOG LIST" and gives us a frame accurate film (24fps) EDL known as the "NEGATIVE CUTTING LIST". This list and the 3/4" video tape of the edited film are sent along with the negative of the film to a "Negative cutter" where the film and audio are cut and assembled for the final production.

A note on Audio:
If all your audio is recorded digitally during shooting, it can be directly inputted to our system and edited along side of the video, adding all music, sound effects, and voiceovers then rerecorded to a master digital audio track which is reproduced and distributed with the final film to theaters. Therefore, digital sound is maintained from the on-location shooting all the way to the theater. See Professional Audio Recording for more information.

PREPARING FILM FOR SPECIAL EFFECTS AND TITLING

After shooting, your film is first taken to a film scanning house and the frames for special effects are scanned to a resolution of 2048 X 1556 for full aperture (super 35) or the more commonly used Academy off-set which allows audio to be laid to film. Most all 35mm cameras have a grid for centering the Academy off set center of the scene just slightly to the right of true center. The frame resolution that is then scanned is only that which is shown in the theaters, 1828 X 1332. 99% of all motion pictures scanned use the Academy off set. Film scanning is also less expensive at this cropped image size. The scanned frames are then transferred to a DDS DAT tape. Next, you download the images to our hard drives and can apply any image processing special effects or titling to your footage at the full film resolution, thus insuring true 35mm film quality. Then download the processed frames back to DDS DAT and the digital tape returns to the film scanning house where it then is exposed to fresh film. You now have finished special effects or titling that is then sent along with the rest of the film to the negative cutting house.

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