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Question about submitting a short film to festivals.

H

harmonica44

Me and some friends, or rather a team of aspiring filmmakers, have finished post production on a short film and would like to make some copies of it for sending out to festivals. However, we do not know what DVD or blu ray format to put it on. Even if you put it on a disk, we are not sure how to transfer it on correctly, for the proper quality and format that they want.

We put out adds on craiglist and facebook, but haven't really found many responders. All of them say they are not familiar with festival standards and are just use to putting movies on disks for family home viewing.

I talked to a guy who runs a local festival. He says that he is no expert on how the movie should be put on DVD (that's not his department), but that he knows that 9 times out of 10, a movie is rejected by how it is formatted in it's final copy, that is presented to them. So if that's true, we want to be very careful when hiring someone, and make sure they do it right.

What should we be aware of, format and transfer wise (if that makes sense), when getting our copies made for festivals? Also does blu ray make a better impression or is DVD just as good to them? Or should I just send the movie electronically, like through withoutabox, or something like that? Thanks.
 
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Okay thanks. I know it's not the same as setting everything to the highest, I am just doing that as a safety, since I am not sure what the highest would be. I exported in 24bit/48khz cause I was told before on here, not to use 16 for some reason, but that was a while back.

In Premiere Pro, the highest export setting is h.264, which is what I shot on with the Canon T2i. But what if in the future, I edit a project that was shot in a higher format than H.264, what then for export?
 
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NO, you can choose Uncompressed Avi.

Press: CTRL+M

Choose: format: Uncompressed Microsoft AVI
(Under format there is a long list of possibilities!
Including MPEG2-DVD and MPEG2 BluRAY )

Using H.264 as codec for a mastercopy is silly. You'll be compressing everything. And when you need to export anything, you'll export it again.
No good idea.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Okay thanks. I tested it out on my tv so far. So far the image looks a little dark, like a little faded. I cannot find the 'double pass' on Premiere Pro, unless it has a different name on there or something. Should I use the Encore DVD program that came with my Adobe package, to make the DVD properly, or is sending it to right to the burner, causing it to look faded, and lower quality? I will try encore, just not sure if it's possible to hook up the burner with it, maybe they are incompatible or something.
Click to expand...

did you make sure your colors (vectorscope) and IRE levels (YC waveform) were broadcast safe throughout the video? That could be why it's coming out darker on the TV...I think
 
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WhiteOpus said:
did you make sure your colors (vectorscope) and IRE levels (YC waveform) were broadcast safe throughout the video? That could be why it's coming out darker on the TV...I think
Click to expand...

Or did you ever watch something you made on TV?

Since your monitor is 'calabrated' by eye and your TV probably not at all...
 
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Yep I watched it on the TV. However, other movies look good on the TV in comparison. Other movies look 'normal', yet mine looks faded, so it's not the TV's calibration, it has something to do with the DVD burning.
 
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I got a guy I know to make the DVD who edits commercials, music videos, etc for people.

What do you mean did I bring it back into Premiere Pro? I am not sure what you are asking, sorry.

I will export the movie in AVI uncompressed then. However, it asks me what "aspect" I want , as well as choosing between V210 and UYVY. It also says that will export it with a width of 720 and a height of 480, Even though it was 1920 by 1080 before. Why does it say that, if so?
 
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harmonica44 said:
I got a guy I know to make the DVD who edits commercials, music videos, etc for people.

What do you mean did I bring it back into Premiere Pro? I am not sure what you are asking, sorry.
Click to expand...

Well, you say other movies look good on your tv.
I guess you mean movies you didn't make.
To rule out that there is just a big difference between your TV and monitor I asked you, did you ever import (a part) of those goodlooking movies into Premiere?
That way you can see how it looks compared to your TV and compared to your own project.

This way you can possibly eliminate a transcoding setting error.
Or you'll discover that calibrating with your eyes wasn't that perfect.

harmonica44 said:
I will export the movie in AVI uncompressed then. However, it asks me what "aspect" I want , as well as choosing between V210 and UYVY. It also says that will export it with a width of 720 and a height of 480, Even though it was 1920 by 1080 before. Why does it say that, if so?
Click to expand...

Ever heard of presets that don't necessarely use the settings you need?
You can adjust them. (WOW!)
You can double click on the numbers and make it 1920x1080 (how hard is it to figure that out? Nobody ever told me that.)

Aspect has to do with non-square pixels incase you would use SD or HDV.
But since you shot in HD, square is what you need.

V210 and UYVY are just ways of writing the data. You can keep it on V210.
Test it first with a small section.
Other wise choose: Export>Windows AVI: codec: none (then you don't have to worry about V210 or UYUV)

You could have googled this as well.
You would have known the answer in 10 minutes, instead of 3 days.

G O O G L E . C O M
 
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Okay thanks. I did google but google would tell me which one was better. But if they are both the same than, there ya go. Thanks.

It asks me for the width and height of the movie. The width is 1920 and the height is 1080, as I understand it. However, when I try type that it, it tells me that the program does not support those dimensions. But the movie was shot in 1920 by 1080 according to the camera, so why won't it?
 
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Check your settings in the export menu.
Codec setting comes before dimensions. Set it to none.
(Probably it says: codec: DV
That's a SD codec.)
Than set dimensions and aspect.

The good news: you can save your settings as a preset :)
 
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Okay thanks. When I make a copy of the movie though, there is no picture when I play it back. It just says the name of the movie on a green screen when I try to play it. Did I do something wrong?
 
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Your harddisk is probably too slow to play uncompressed HD video.
You can check the video by importing to PPro.
To make it play:
add level without doing anything.
If the timeline line color is still yellow in stead of red:
Shut off hardware GPU acceleration (don't forget to put it on again!).
This way the timeline needs to render a preview. The line above the timeline should red now.
Press Enter.
Computer makes preview, so you can see the render turnedout without errors.

After years of doing stuff in PPro you still need a week on a forum to export a movie.
Try more. Be more adventurous in the software. Google more. Think more.
And then ask.
Because asking right away is NOT faster.
It teaches you nothing. Especially nothing about trying to find a solution by yourself, which is a skill you really need to work on.
It only makes you passive. It creates the feeling you can't move forward.
But the big secret is, you're not moving forward because you give the initiative right away.

It's ok to ask questions, but please, try to figure out something first.
Especially about exporting movies.
Your comment saying you can only export to H.264, because it was shot in H.264 actualy showed you never really looked at the export settings menu.
Next time I expect something like: "I exported a movie with these settings, but now this or that is wrong with the image. What should I change in my settings?"

BTW, did you look how other movies look on your computer, compared to your TV?
Did you import a part (that you think should be as bright or dark as your own project) into Premiere to look at the luminance waveforms? And did you compare it with your project?
This is important, otherwise you'll come back over and over again with the same question about why your project looks darker on TV.
 
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Oh yes I see. Thanks. Well I have played the movie on my computer and TV, and compared it to others. It still looks more faded. I imported it back into Premiere Pro, and there is picture, so it's there. Thanks.
 
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Okay thanks. Some film festivals ask fro 5.1 surround. However when I export uncompressed from Premiere Pro, it does not allow a 5.1 export option. It just allows mono and stereo. Any thoughts on this?
 
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