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Stage 3: Having the Film Retransferred
The actual retransfer is fairly simple. This workflow assumes that each camera roll of film
was originally transferred to a separate reel of videotape, with a marker frame assigned
to each roll of film at a point before the first shot begins and a hole punch permanently
identifying that frame. The telecine operator assigns a timecode value of XX:00:00:00 to
each marker frame (where XX is an hour value that is incremented for each subsequent
camera roll being transferred). The marker frame creates an absolute film
frame–to–timecode reference for each roll of camera negative.
Using the pull list, the telecine operator loads each camera roll and cues up each needed
section of camera negative for retransfer to tape, recording timecode for each shot that
matches the same timecode that was originally transferred relative to that roll’s marker
frame. This makes it easy for each clip to be recaptured and relinked to your original
Final Cut Pro sequence. During this second transfer, the operator makes careful adjustments
to the color and contrast of each individual shot to ensure the highest-quality result.
Important: When retransferring film, it’s important that the telecine operator maintain
the same 3:2 pull-down pattern that was used during the original transfer. Otherwise,
you may have problems when the fields of your online media don’t line up with those
of the originally edited offline media after the reconform process is finished.
Stage 4: Reingesting and Relinking the Transferred Media
After stage 3, you’ll have a series of tapes, one for each camera roll, containing only the
shots specified on the pull list. Because the retransferred shots are only a subset of each
camera roll, there will likely be timecode breaks between each shot. This is fine, because
it’s critical that the timecode for each retransferred clip match the timecode of the original
offline media. Using these tapes, it’s a simple matter to reingest the new high-quality
media and relink it to your sequence.
For more information, see the Final Cut Pro and Cinema Tools documentation.
Reconforming to DPX or Cineon Film Scans
This method assumes that you’re using a digital intermediate (DI) workflow in order to
color correct and finish your program digitally, at high resolution, in preparation for
printing to film. There are many ways you can do this, but the procedures described in
this section are recommended for digital intermediate workflows using Color. No matter
what kind of media you use during the offline edit, in the end you’ll be reconforming
your project to high-quality DPX or Cineon image sequences that were scanned from the
original camera negative during the finishing stage, using a datacine.
For detailed information about this workflow, see the Color documentation.
77Chapter 5 Finishing