Response to How does video get transfered to film?

There are essentially two different ways video is transfered to film. The first is essentially filming the image off a screen and the second is by using computer uprez and then out to a film recorder. The first option ranges from incredibly simple to fairly sophisticated. Most films you see in theater or that are over 2 minutes in length that originated on video are done using a variation of the CRT to Film process. DuArt in NYC, FilmCraft Labs in Detroit, and 4MC in Burbank are the better known, DuArt being the cheapest and 4MC being the more expensive. A new company in Switzerland is offering a combination approach which looks fantastic but is even more expensive than 4MC.

For smaller projects like Music Videos and Commericals that will be shown in theaters use the uprez/computer method. This is very expensive, 2 to 4 dollars per frame! It also looks kick ass. I used to work at E-Film in Hollywood and while I was there, the Madonna video which was shown in theaters came through. They had shot on film, telecined to D1 PAL, and then after effects and on-line when from D1 PAL back to film. It looked fucking awesome. They also spent big money making it happen. Technically, the video is digitized and uprezed. Using PAL, the frames are printed out 1 to 1 which causes the program to be 4% longer. (24frames vs 25frames) Color correction is already done in the on-line or color-correction session before the process. The image is then uprezed to either 1k or 2k, depending on how much money you want to spend. Film grain is **not** added as it will acquire grain when you print it out to film naturally. Answer print is created and any minor timing changes are made, resulting in your final print.

Last year I transfered my film, "Circus Redickuless" from video to film using Film Craft in Detroit, going out to 16mm. I was very happy with the results. However, because I shot it on NTSC, it drops every 5th frame to create 24 fps which causes a strobing on fast pans or zooms. Had I done a high quality NTSC to PAL conversion, this could have been avoided, but I decided that the quality you lose doing NTSC to PAL is greater than the strobe effect. Since last year, Swiss Effects has come into the business and I've seen a film they transferred call "On the Ropes" which looked great (it was sourced on Hi-8 and BetaSP). I haven't seen it, but "The Saltmen of Tibet" was sourced on PAL DV and transferred at Swiss Effects and it is supposed to look awesome.

Phil

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