It's infuriating to me that more festivals aren't tech savvy. DVDs are dead and blu-rays are too expensive. Why don't more festivals accept file transfers? If I ran a fest I wouldn't want to bother with physical media. You can make a playlist in VLC and run blocks of programming off a laptop way easier than shuffling discs or burning a new master.
Dear Festivals, please get with the times
- Thread starter IndyJones1023
- Start date
All the codecs I listed are "pretty standard" or "king right now" ONLY for youtube or other online/consumer video presentations, not one of them is even usable for theatrical presentation, let alone standard or king. You appear to be proving my point about many/most DIY video makers not being "tech savvy" with regard to theatrical film/exhibition!
Yes, I'm honestly bringing up 35mm prints! Until a few years ago, if you wanted to exhibit at a festival, 35mm prints were the primary exhibition format. It cost tens of thousands of dollars to create a 35mm answer-print and screening copy and today a decent BluRay burner is what, about a hundred bucks? So that's 300-500 times cheaper than the primary fest exhibition format of just a few years ago (and 10 or so times cheaper than even the cheapest commonly acceptable exhibition format (HDCAM)) and you're complaining that BR is too expense!
You're not seeing clearly then, my company only exists due to advances in digital technology and I would hate to go back to the "good old days"! It's you who brought up the lack of "tech savvy" fests and the costs. When I explained that "tech savvy" personnel (previously, projectionists) are no longer a permanent fixture for cinemas and that fests therefore need to hire/attract specialist experts, which obviously increases their costs significantly, you call that a strawman argument?! ... Also, the times aren't really changin'. D-Cinema has been around for nearly 20 years, the standard DCP codec/container for over 10 years and the last major revision to DCP specs occurred about 6 years ago. I accept that times are maybe changin' in the fest world though, as many have been slow to catch up with the times, only fairly recently has DCP become many fests' primary exhibition format.
"I didn't know about a projectionist union. I see so many theaters that routinely use screens for skyping or conferencing or streaming of live events that I believe they must have this capability. :- What have projectionists or what you've seen theatres used for got to do with the submittal process? Theatres and projectionists are not used until the screening (or test screening) of those films which have already passed the submittal process.
"you only have to upload your film once to a storage site, then send out links when accepted to a fest." :- Here you are clearly referring to acceptance, not just the submittal process.
"You can make a playlist in VLC and run blocks of programming off a laptop way easier than shuffling discs or burning a new master." :- There are no "blocks of programming" until the films which make up the programming have already been chosen for exhibition, IE. Passed the submittal process. And, good luck trying to get VLC and your laptop to interface with a cinema server!
You have clearly been referring to exhibition (or submittal + exhibition) throughout this thread, starting with the last quote above which was taken from your very first post. I accept that you are now changing your argument to only the submittal process, as you now appear to realise that your argument is not in the least "tech savvy" as far as exhibition is concerned!
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No, I'm not changing anything. I wasn't referring to just the submittal process. BR players output HDMI and can be played back in theaters. In order to streamline the process, it would be great if more festivals updated their procedures to include accepting digital files for presentation. A laptop also outputs HDMI. Easy peasy. No need to get all defensive.
When you mentioned a print for theatre, I was thinking of the normal release ones.
"Release prints are generally expensive. For example, in the United States, it is not unusual for each one to cost around $1,500 to print and ship to theaters around the country. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Release_print
"Release prints are generally expensive. For example, in the United States, it is not unusual for each one to cost around $1,500 to print and ship to theaters around the country. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Release_print
Huh, most theatres only accept digital files for presentation! Due to the tech that the commercial realities of theatres demand, they only (as standard) accept one digital file format (DCP). Your problem is that you don't want to use this standard digital film format, you want to use a consumer digital video format, simply because it's cheaper/easier for you personally, and without any apparent regard or knowledge of the fact that cinemas are not designed to screen home video formats.
Your "easy peasy" suggestion will only work in a home entertainment system, not in a standard cinema! You are again proving my point and demonstrating your lack of "tech savvy"! It's not just a case of taking the HDMI out of a BR Player (or laptop) and plugging it directly into a consumer A/V Receiver or TV as you do at home, because cinemas don't use consumer A/V Receivers or TVs! You appear determined to remain ignorant of/ignore this tech reality, while at the same time blaming fests for their lack of being "tech savvy"?!!
It is possible to circumvent the cinema server and play BRDs (indirectly) into cinema processing units BUT ONLY GIVEN: Additional (non-standard) equipment and/or certain models of cinema processors (with certain interfacing options) AND, someone knowledgeable enough to plug/route the BR Player's outputs correctly and then re/configure both the player's output settings and the various cinema processors' input settings. Even given all these conditions, there's still all kinds of potential tech issues and a high probability of a fouled-up screening (or several) and that's just with BluRay, let alone a whole bunch of other consumer formats as well!
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So true. I spoke to the festival head of a major genre festival (really, really strong fest) and he had no idea about technicals.
He told me he even shot a movie and wondered if he could splice it together to make a movie to throw up onto a screen.
It was all SD footage. I was too scared to ask about sound recording.
For the filmmaker, a Release Print was just the final (and effectively cheapest) part of the process. A Release Print is just a copy made from the Internegative, which in turn is a copy of the Answer Print. The Answer Print was effectively the expensive one for the filmmaker and was the first instance of marrying of the colour corrected image with the sound "Print Master". I don't know what the process was on the visual side but on the sound side, the two basic choices were Dolby Digital (or Digital EX) or Dolby Stereo/Surround. To create the Dolby Print Master needed an approved Dolby dubbing theatre to create the mix, a Dolby technician (with proprietory Print Mastering equipment) and a licence from Dolby (which, last time I was involved in 35mm DD, was $8k for festival release only). Total cost of the (sound) Print Master (inc. license for festivals) was in the region of $20k-$40k, which might sound expensive by today's no budget video standards but was many times cheaper than commercial films and was the cheapest option for many film festivals.
The really major fests are all supplied with technical support by Dolby. It's entirely common that (higher tier) festival heads have no idea about the tech side of things, in fact I'd be surprised to find one who did!
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Yeah I was 100% talking about film festival SUBMISSION, where the programmers are watching your film privately on their computer to determine if they'll let you in the festival.
Of course once you are accepted, you'll need to submit a proper DCP that has been graded and mixed for theatrical screening.
I may be wrong, but I thought the OP was just talking about submitting to festivals, not screening at them.
I was referring to submitting. However, I've had more than one festival then ask upon acceptance to send a blu-ray.
Dolby Stereo didn't launch until about '76. Star Wars was the film which pushed widespread take-up of the technology, much like Avatar did for 3D but it took quite a few years for it to become ubiquitous. Dolby Digital didn't launch until 1992, one of the Batman films I think. By that time, pretty much without exception, every commercial film had a Dolby soundtrack, and it stayed that way until DCP.
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I read it's more to do with the quality not greatly suffering from their low tech of however they choose to watch it plus there's a lot of submissions. I reckon it's easier to just pop in a disc than going through through thousands of emails and waiting for each to download huge files, no matter how fast the connection is. If you're worried about the DVD getting lost, pay extra to have it sent as certified mail. For $100 entry fees, seems worth it.
I'd rather click on a thousand links to watch the films play online than pop in a thousand DVDs. And what festivals cost $100 to enter?
I prefer online digital submissions fro the very reason's you have stated. Easy to playlist, easy to access and more often than not, better quality.