2009

Acquired on Film for Theatrical Exhibition
This workflow refers to programs shot on film and then mastered and output for theatrical
exhibition via film or digital projection. Color correction and film output may be
accomplished either by conforming the negative and using optical printers or through
a digital intermediate process and film printer.
Types of Programs
Program types include advertising spots, shorts, and features intended for theatrical
exhibition.
Typical Acquisition Formats and Means of Ingest
The acquisition format is typically 16mm or 35mm film (or their Super 16mm and Super
35mm counterparts) via any one of a number of cameras. Before you can ingest film into
Final Cut Pro, it must be transferred to a video or QuickTime format that Final Cut Pro can
work with. How you choose to transfer your film depends on how you intend to finish
the program.
• If you intend to conform the negative and have your program optically color-timed
and printed, you must first have the film telecined (transferred to video in real time).
Afterward, you’re provided with the transferred media and an accompanying telecine
log file, which you can use with Final Cut Pro and Cinema Tools to track the data that
allows you to ingest and edit in Final Cut Pro. At the end of this process, you use this
data to export a negative cut list with which to conform the camera negative to match
your edited video.
• If you intend to finish via a digital intermediate workflow using Color, you can have
the film transferred using a datacine process, where each film frame is scanned into a
high-bandwidth image sequence format such as DPX or Cineon. Each frame file’s
number is converted to timecode and stored in the frame file’s metadata. You can then
convert each image sequence to an offline- or online-quality QuickTime file for ingest
into Final Cut Pro. At the end of the process, you can reconform your edited sequence
to the original media using Color for grading and output.
• You can also use a combination of these workflows to suit your particular purpose. For
more information, see the Color documentation.
Quality-Control Guidelines
Whether your program is intended for film or digital projection, quality-control standards
are usually extremely specific in order to maintain color fidelity from the negative through
to the final distribution prints or digital masters that are sent to theaters. Color and
quality-control issues are typically worked out through the efforts of the facilities that do
the grading, film output, and/or digital mastering. What this means is:
• You’ll use Color, or another high-end grading system, to color correct your program.
• You need to carefully calibrate an appropriately high-end monitor using LUT profiles.
22 Chapter 1 Developing a Post-Production Strategy