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Topic: Reprinting to a Different Format

Bill Enos
Film God

Posts: 2081
From: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 06-22-2002 04:38 PM

Our litter trailer is flat. How practical would it be to have a print of it printed anamorphically. Normal flat width. This would eliminate the several seconds of black while we change the aperture and lens.

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Josh Jones
Redhat

Posts: 1207
From: Plano, TX
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 06-22-2002 05:20 PM

It would cost far too much and if the lab did it at all (copyright thing I'm afraid) it would be far easier to just swap lenses.

We used to have a slide the said "adjusting film" or something to that effect. You could have one of those made and use it to fill the black.

Josh

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Gordon McLeod
Film God

Posts: 9532
From: Toronto Ontario Canada
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-22-2002 05:23 PM

If it is a house signature trailor produced for you you may own the rights anyway
Anyway the costs will be high. The print will have to be cleaned and then optically printed to a new negative with a matte and squeeze added
Then the soundtrack will have to be rerecorded to a soundtrack negative and then prints run in a standard fashion
Very expensive proposition
If you have acces to the original elements some of the work could be eliminated

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-22-2002 05:37 PM

We had our most recent policy trailers made in flat and scope. It didn't exactly double the cost, but it added a couple thousand to the overall bill. The animation was recomposed for a full-frame scope aperture and re-rendered out to its own film negative. The same sound negative was used for both flat and scope editions of the trailer.

Our trailers are sponsored by our soft-drink provider (they are mentioned in the piece) and so our actual out-of-pocket wasn't too steep.

So if you're really interested in having nice logo trailers (litter, policy, whatever) then you might want to investigate whether one (or more) of your concession brands would absorb some of the cost in consideration of product placement in the clip.

Alternatively, you could go with an abstract format that will play in either flat or scope.

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 06-22-2002 11:17 PM

You wouldn't be running changeovers would you?

If so you could make up all your trailers(flat) and your litter trailer on one reel and do a changeover at the start of the feature.

I used to do that all the time at the first theatre I worked at because we usually only got one flat and one scope trailer for two screens. We'd run all the scope in Aud 1 and all the flat in Aud 2.

It was great during slow nights too... you didn't start the trailer reel if nobody showed up, and if anybody came in ten minutes late you just started the feature.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 06-23-2002 09:39 AM

Is this snipe generic or custom-made? If it is generic, then it would be cheaper just replacing it with the many readily available trailers from production houses like Filmack, Pike, Cinema Concepts, etc. They offer every kind of generic policy trailers and snipes for reasonable prices. Almost all are available in flat and scope versions, or in the case of "text and background only" snipes, they are shot full frame and can be used effective in either format.

If this is a custom designed trailer, again, rather than looking to somehow convert the flat version to a scope version when there is no negative, you would probably do better just going to a production house and starting from scratch, producing a new trailer. If you let them see the flat version that you have, they could model the new production after the original, but you would be better off cost-wise just letting them produce a completely new production. Today these trailer are produced on computers and producing both a scope and flat trailer at the same time is a relatively simple process.

Frank

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 06-23-2002 10:24 AM

I agree with Frank that it would probably be more cost effective to make a new version, asking for both "flat" and "scope" formats.

If all you have are existing prints, trying to use that high contrast image will compromise quality. Even if you have the preprint elements for your existing snipes, it would probably be cheaper to generate new CGI artwork.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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