In general all distributors need the same thing - there are very few differences
from distributor to distributor. I found
THIS PAGE to be very useful.
From the audio side of things: Yep, that looks like a pretty standard list of deliverables. There are a couple of things to note:
1. With HD and theatrical release, the expectation is for both a 5.1 mix and a 4.0 mix (LtRt).
2. A full compliment of individual stems is required for both HD and SD delivery, plus the ubiquitous M&E mix. This of course requires a clean dialogue stem which has significant cost implications for the recording of the production sound as well as for the dialogue editing, sound editing and mixing.
It's worth noting that the document only lists the audio files and formats required for delivery, it does not list the technical specifications of the actual audio contained in those files! I am presuming there is another document which lists the technical specs of the audio itself. For example, you could deliver all the files and formats to comply with the required delivery items list and still have the film rejected due to incorrect levels, clipping, incomprehensible dialogue, etc, etc. This is where there are often differences between distributors or at the least, between different types of distribution: Theatrical, TV broadcast, DVD or streaming. To complicate matters further, technical audio specifications are currently in a state of flux and will remain so for some time, due to the ATSC A85 CALM act specs and the corresponding EBU R128 specs in Europe. This doesn't currently affect theatrical releases but directly affects TV broadcast and may have a knock on effect for DVD distribution and streaming services.
Of course you could ignore all these audio deliverables and specs but then the distributor would have to pick up the tab to achieve compliance. This isn't unheard of for theatrical releases, although it is in my experience very rare. It would usually cost between many thousands and under certain circumstances up to the several hundred thousand range to fix the sound retrospectively and therefore your film is either going to be a significantly less attractive proposition for a distributor or far more likely, just rejected/ignored!
Whether you go for the extremely high risk approach or whether you plan and budget to comply with audio requirements from the outset should be an informed decision but for most micro/low budget film makers it isn't. This is why more films are rejected (for distribution and festival screenings) due to audio deficiencies than for any other technical reason!
G
