Filmout cost

[C.J.Harvaraj]

do anyone know how much will it cost to do 60 print of a 100 minute movie? will the cost be lower if i would do the prints in one of these countries? (india,china taiwan,thailand,indonesia,malaysia,singapore,vietn am,Philippines)


P/s: any idea of how much the shipment will cost?

[David Mullen ASC]

Generally you'd use a laser recorder to transfer to 35mm intermediate stock as a negative -- after that, the costs of the prints are the same as from an standard 35mm IN, and they go down the more you order.

But the initial transfer cost can be quite high. Prices vary wildly these days. Not including all the D.I. costs like color-correction, the laser recording costs for a 100 minute feature can be in the $50,000 range, some place charge less and some more. The additional prints from the 35mm IN can be in the range of $2000 per print. There are also costs in making the optical negative for the soundtrack, etc.

[C.J.Harvaraj]

thinking of filmout, is buying one of these a good idea?

http://www.lasergraphics.com/us/page...usfeatures.htm

http://www.lasergraphics.com/us/page...r2features.htm

[C.J.Harvaraj]

if i have a 100 minute movie, shot on red, done CC (or DI) in speedgrade XR, have the final in dpx, can i just buy the producer 2 and start recording the movie to the film stock? Do i need to do a $50,000 laser recording?

[Siva Kollipara]

Harvaraj,

It usually economical if you do all 3 activities at the same place.
1.Color Correction
2.Filmout
3.Distribution/Positive prints.

During our feature film our enquiries revealed that, It costs around $50,000 to $75,000 to do color correction using SCRATCH and RED RAW-to-2K DPX-to-Film Negative and one positive print with sound.(from top post house in US).
We will be doing More positive prints in India costs around $1500(INR.65,000).It's the similar rate in US.

It doesn't make any sense to shoot in US and color correcting in Other country.
I have seen some advertisement of a post house that does color correction of 2k files of 90-minute for $3500. I don't know how good it is but FYI.
If you are using RED, find a house that has SCRATCH, color correct.Get the DPX and then take it to any country you may want.
I heard that Indian labs can do Film out for $15,000(INR.600,000).

just my 2cents

[David Mullen ASC]

if i have a 100 minute movie, shot on red, done CC (or DI) in speedgrade XR, have the final in dpx, can i just buy the producer 2 and start recording the movie to the film stock? Do i need to do a $50,000 laser recording?

How much is that Lasergraphics recorder going to cost you first?

Sure you could buy your own recorder, shoot a lot of tests to get it balanced right, do your own transfer to color negative stock, but you still have the costs of the film negative stock, the print stock, and the processing costs.

A 100 minute movie is about 10,000' for 35mm negative stock, and that alone is around $5000, intermediate stock is about twice that. And then there's processing it. And then the print stock and processing that. And the costs of making the sound negative, etc. There are basic physical costs for stock and processing outside of the transfer costs.

As I said, you can get lower quotes for a laser recorder film-out though at the bottom end, you still have the physical stock costs to deal with. Maybe you could get a transfer to 35mm IN using a laser recorder for $30,000 if you look around. Maybe you can live with a CRT transfer using a Celco or something.

[Peter Majtan]

I heard that Indian labs can do Film out for $15,000(INR.600,000).

On a cheap un-calibrated CRT film recorder (HD at best). You may as well film it out off the calibrated color-correction suit's monitor... :)

No offense...

[C.J.Harvaraj]

The Producer series seems to have this feature:
"Records uncompressed QuickTime movie files directly to film"
Does this mean that when i export the movie from speedgrade XR, i select the "export to uncompressed QuickTime" , then take external hard drive to any Producer 2 equipped 'shop' and do a (60) positive print for theatrical release?

[JackSilver]

Hi Red heads,

We're looking at shooting our first feature on RED. I'm very familiar with 35mm workflow, and am getting to grips with the HD workflow, but am hearing completely different things about costings.

We are contemplating the following route:

Offline on AVID using proxies from Redcine
Online, Colour correct and conform on SCRATCH
Film out to 35mm

AVID, I'm happy with the costs, no real difference to what I'm used to, bar the digitising cost, cost of tape stock etc.

Online, colour correct and conform, we're budgeting for 1 month at around $400-500 an hour. It's a 90 minute feature. Again, happy with this, as it is fairly straightforward and normal to me. I'm presuming the best route is to do this at 4k resolution, from the RAW files.

Now, hereafter comes the confusion for me... I'm guessing I can go from the 4K to film, rather than going from RED RAW to 2k DPX then to film negative?

Film out, we to end up with a 35mm print for exhibition. Now here is where I'm stuck. Can someone with some experience please talk through the steps at this point, and the costs? Including stock, neg cutting (which presumably isn't needed), processing etc. -- is laser the only route to go? If not, what are the others, and what are the benefits? If laser is the only route, once I've scanned in using the laser (what's the cost?), what are the next parts of the chain, and what are their relative costs?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or info.

Josh

[Peter Majtan]

At 4K - laser is the only option. But really - why would You go 4K to 35mm film? Just think about the fact that LOTR (The Lord of The Rings) was done in 2K. Did You notice anything wrong with it in the cinemas? You can keep Your DI at 4K for digital projection, but film out to 35 mm at 4K is in my honest opinion waste of money...

Please PM me if You want to hear more direct feedback...

Take care

Peter