Digital Film recording expense

[Manjeet Singh]

Hi Folks,

The moment I learnt about RED camera, I was about excited the new possibilities it promised in the world of cinema. Even promoted it to my friends, who might chip in to buy the camera. I am a aspiring film maker currently working in Bombay film industry as an assistant director. If any one of you have been to the city of Mumbai (Bombay) you would have noticed its flair for films. It produces the maximum no. of films in the world and it could buy tons of RED cameras! I wrote a blog on RED on a site, which is read by lot of film industry people:-
http://passionforcinema.com/a-promis...by-red-camera/

After reading quite a lot of threads and comments found answers to lot of my questions but one thing, which concerns me:-
.To make 35mm prints from REDraw code, one will have to do the color correction and then print it to make 35mm version. This process would be lot simpler than Digital itermediate step as it would ommit the stage of scanning the negative, but color correction and print would remain. So the main question is, how much would it cost to make a 35mm print after CC? Will it be comparatively lot lesser than conventional DI? I heard a talk about using Nitris, how much would it cost on Nitris? I wuld be very happy to get a 2k print at a resonable cost.


I would be happy to assist the RED team if they have an eye on a huge Indian market in every possible way!

Thanks,

Manjeet

[Stephen Gentle]

A 4K print of a feature film can easily be over US$50, 000

[Manjeet Singh]

Thanks Steve. So it is as expensive as doing a DI.
How about a 2K print or even 1.5K print?

[Thomas Mathai]

Where did you get the $50K quote?

[Emanuel A.]

I add my interest on the information.

[Stephen Gentle]

Where did you get the $50K quote?

I'm pretty sure someone said that in another thread...

EDIT: I took a look around, and some sites quote $40,000+, but DVfilm will do it for $20,000 [link] (that's 2K though)

[Manjeet Singh]

Thats a significant cost, which lot of the users might not visualize. You might shoot a film using a RED camera at a much much lower cost. Ultimately what matters the most is to have a 35mm print. If its cost as high as DI @ 2k print, which is close to around $35000(got the figure from a film maker, who DIed super 16 to get a 2k print), the overall cost involved in film making is mariginally less than shooting on 35mm. But for RED code since it does not have scan it should be cheap or may be there r other options like Nitris, whose cost is important to know.
I

[Antoine Baumann]

Manjeet, I do not really understand your comparison between RED images print back to film and DI.

As you wrote when shooting digitaly you skip the step of scaning your negativ film to do a digital grading.
But after that there is no reason for different price. Print back to film a 2k-4k film scan or print to film 2k-4k RED images involves the same technique (ARRI scanner) thus the same cost.

You can do the color correction on whatever system you like or your budget like (Nitris) but you won't escape the print back to film step, and this cost $ (as you wrote $35k)

antoine

[dalemccready]

you could also do a cheaper kine style transfer rather than laser record.

[Antoine Baumann]

Yeah exactly a CRT or a LCD....but it is sill something expensive.