Getting a 35mm Print for Festivals After a Telecine Edit

[jacko]

Hi David,

I am not too sure how to word this one but here goes. I am shooting my first 35mm short film, we want to enter film festivals so we need a print. Our film school has told us that we will do a telecine transfer for editing only, then the EDL will be used by the lab to cut the neg. Do they make a print of this neg, and can any grading be done at this stage?

A bit confused
jacko
AFDA film school
South Africa

 

[David Mullen ASC]

That's correct, although it is a bit more elaborate than that. You need to cut with a film finish in mind; often this is done with 24 fps editing systems. Any fades and dissolves have to be optical printer effects or done using A-B roll printing (which is probably what you'll do but you have to use lab standard lengths for the fades and dissolves.)

The EDL and the Flex File can be used to match time code to the edge numbers on the film used by the negative cutter.

The cut negative is answer printed to determine the set of red, green, and blue printer lights numbers needed to balance the brightness and colors of the image, shot by shot. You can't alter contrast in select shots or individual areas or color spots in the frame -- that can only be done digitally -- with traditional RGB printing, you can only make a shot brighter or darker, or shift the overall color in some direction (red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, magenta).

I'm sure they must be planning on giving you more instruction on how to edit a movie for a film finish.

 

[jacko]

Hi David,

Thanks for the feedback, I will be meeting with the editor and together we will be going to the lab to find out exactly what is required. Would you recommend shooting with correction filters for mixed light or should I shoot clean and correct optically later? I plan to shoot 250 daylight for both exterior and interior.

Thanks again
jacko
AFDA film school
South Africa

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, color-correction camera filters only correct the OVERALL image, so it can't really make a mixed source-lit scene look less mixed. You have to correct individual lights to match each other and THEN do an overall correction to the image, whether in the camera with a filter or in post color-correction. Assuming you even want to un-mix the mixed color temps in the shot.