Film Festival Transfer Question (ALL CAPS edited out by admin)
by Timothy Anderson
on
Jun 2, 2008 at 12:20:14 am
Hello,
I have a short film in several film festivals, thus requiring format transfers to HDCAM, DigiBeta, and Mini-DV. I have already supplied the post house with an uncompressed Quicktime of the short, which was shot at 24p (16x9) 720p with the HVX-200. Now, when doing the transfer to the tapes, the guy from the post house told me I could 4x3 it or letterbox it. I chose to letterbox it to preserve aspect ratio. Now, however, I am reading about 16x9 Full Height Anamorphic Digibeta - is that a better solution for film festival projection? What is the best format of the two for festival projection onto cinema screens? The post house didn't even mention that Full Height Anamorphic 16x9 digibeta was an option? In fact, I had no idea it existed until I read about it. Is this a different kind of Digibeta tape? Or just a method for the transfer any post house should do? I got the transfer done at Sun Media in Las Vegas. Should I have the transfers re-done into this format? How can a tape format be anamorphic? Please, any advice helps.
Re: Film Festival Transfer Question by David Roth Weiss on Jun 2, 2008 at 11:59:18 pm
[Noah Kadner]"I'd go with letterbox- most festivals will botch a native anamorphic projection on tape."
As I said in response to a similar question last week, Murphey's rule of projection states, "If it can be projected imporperly, it will be projected improperly."
David Roth Weiss
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David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
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Re: Film Festival Transfer Question by Timothy Anderson on Jun 3, 2008 at 2:31:57 am
Hey Noah -
Thanks that's what I am leaning towards sending them, but I am wondering how letterbox will look projected onto a cinema screen - will they project in 4:3 and does that leave space on the sides of the screen or do they fit a 16:9 onto it and how would letterbox look if this is done? Poorly?
I am correct in saying that the only two aspect ratio-preserving options are 16:9 letterbox (which is 4:3), and 'squeezed' 16:9 into a 4:3 that unsqueezes if projected in 16:9, yes?
Re: Film Festival Transfer Question by Noah Kadner on Jun 3, 2008 at 3:09:13 pm
[Timothy Anderson]"I am correct in saying that the only two aspect ratio-preserving options are 16:9 letterbox (which is 4:3), and 'squeezed' 16:9 into a 4:3 that unsqueezes if projected in 16:9, yes?"
That is correct but the latter will rarely happen properly at most festivals.
