The HD workflow is is not as ominous as people make it out to be, and as with anything else in filmmaking, a little planning goes a long way. Although this article is meant to concentrate on postproduction, there are decisions that must be made in preproduction that will impact your every step along the way. You must take the time to understand and address these points, or you simply are not ready to shoot.This article will prepare you to create an HD workflow for a television series.
Instructions
1. Understand your terminology. Many people make the assumption that 24P is always a HD format, and this is simply not true. The term "high definition" refers to the number of lines of resolution contained in the image you are capturing--which bears no correlation to the frame rate, which is what the "P" in 24P refers to. There are many different types of HD resolutions, the most common of which is 1920x1080, which is also referred to as 1080p or 1080i(interlaced). Simply put, interlaced makes the image look more like " standard" video, whereas 24 progressive is the video equivalent of film and gives the image a softer or " film" look. The reason it gives that " film look" look is because it eliminates the artifacting caused by the interlaced frames. So, again, 24P DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN HD. Please realize that many camera models on the market today are capable of filming in 24P yet are NOT high-definition cameras. These are mostly "prosumer" MiniDV cameras, which shoot at a 720x480 (a.k.a 480p or 480i) resolution.
2. Choose your postproduction facility. It is important to know where you will be posting your project way ahead of time. You will more than likely get a better deal if you make your deal prior to shooting; more importantly, the post house will have someone on board who can cross-check your workflow and make sure it is accurate and within your budget. More than likely, you will be cutting in your own office space, and the post house will have a complete package they can offer you in the way of offline system rental and the online, mix and delivery process. Be very attentive to their specs and requirements, especially if you are cutting your own offline in-house. Not following their guidelines will impact the success of your online and audio mix.
3. If you are cutting your offline in-house, hire your editor(s) Although you will probably go for the full package deal with the rental house, if you want to use an independent editor who owns his own system, make sure that system will work with your 24P material. An editor who really wants the job will undoubtedly say his rig can cut your show without a problem--however, the post house has to agree. To eliminate any speculation, check with the tech at the house, as there are certain programs that do not handle the timecode properly and subsequently cannot be used to cut HD. These include Premiere, versions of Final Cut under 4.0 and Avid Media Composer.
4. Select your frame rate. Remember, HD doesn't always mean 24P. So first check with your post house, because although all HD cameras do have a setting to shoot exactly 24 frames per second, most post houses will request that your camera be set to 23.976 frames per second, a.k.a 23.98.
5. Now select your aspect ratio. The HD spec produces a 16:9 image, which is a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This is almost identical to the traditional aspect ratio of spherical 35mm prints (1.85:1), and is by far the most common aspect ratio of HD material. But what if your story begs a wider picture? To mimic the 2.35:1 aspect ratio produced by anamorphic 35mm, you must crop the top and bottom of your 16:9 HD image. (Camera rental houses can provide viewfinders with these markings.) Realize, however, that this will result in a small resolution loss, which some may consider undesirable for projection. When shooting 2.35, it is still advisable to maintain a "16:9-safe" frame, i.e. to not have any flags, equipment, etc. in the entire viewable area of your monitor.
6. Hire a crew with HD experience. Remember that HD is a totally different medium than film. Although many DPs will elect to light HD the same way as they would film, it is important that they have a thorough technical understanding of the format as well. There are many camera settings and functions that even the most accomplished filmDP cannot simply learn and guess at on the fly. After all, would you hire an expert electrician to repair your computer? In addition, having an AC who is very experienced with HD--and the particular camera you select--is of paramount importance. If both your DP and AC are HD-proficient, you probably do not need to hire a DIT (Digital Imaging Technician), who is good to have around but costs big bucks. I also recommend using a sound recordist who has HD experience and will understand the timecode issues, including your need for a lockit box in order to keep the timecode on yourbackup DATs (a must!) in sync with the timecode on your camera tapes. Last, it is a good idea even for projects on a tight budget to hire a post-production supervisor experienced in HD. Depending on the complexity of the project, you might only need to retain this person on a part-time basis, yet you will still reap the benefit of a smooth and timely post process. As with everything else, be sure to consult your post supervisor in the planning phases in order to foster good communication between all parties involved.
7. Downconvert your camera rolls. The downconversion process in HD is the equivalent to a telecine in film, with the added bonus of having everything already in sync. It will provide you with video dailies of all your footage on a standard-definition format (DigiBeta, Betacam or DVCAM) that you will then digitize into your NLE system for offline editing. Some post houses can even deliver your downconverted footage on a hard drive to be directly imported into your NLE system, thus sparing your editing team the hassle of digitizing all the material. Downconversion is necessary because digitizing directly from an HD source would produce file sizes far too cumbersome to work with, and the boost in image quality is completely unnecessary for an offline edit. Make sure to ask for a burn-in of both your 24- and 30-frame timecodes in the letterbox portion of your downconversions, so that you will always have a visual reference between the two. And be certain your downconverted timecode is "non-drop frame."
8. Now offline edit your project. Once your downconverted footage is loaded into your NLE system, your editor can get to work. When the time comes that you are satisfied with your edit, the picture is locked. Movies shot on film would now have their EDL taken to the negative cutter to conform the neg. Instead, you will take your project file to your post house.And don't forget about sound! Once picture lock occurs, it is your sound designer's turn at bat. He will probably request the OMF file that your NLE system will generate. And he will also need your backup DATs, as there is likely to be room tone and wild lines on them that did not make it onto the camera tapes. (He may also detect a quality difference between the two sources and wish to redigitize some of the tracks.)
9. Now begin your online process. Your post house will import your project file into their system. These days, most Final Cut files can be converted to Avid and vice versa without a problem, but you should have had a discussion with your post house and post supervisor long before this step to be certain everything you are expecting is doable. Their online editor will then recreate your show from your HD camera masters. This assembly, called a VAM (Video Assembly Master), should be performed to D5 stock, which lacks the compression of HDCAM. If you are planning on using a post house that does not have D5 capability, you should be wary, as this is likely a startup operation that may not have the technical expertise and experience for a show like yours. There is no reason for you to be present during your assembly. When your online editor is done, you should have the exact same picture you had in your offline edit, except in uncompressed high definition. REVIEW THE VAM WITH A FINE-TOOTH COMB. Any reputable post facility will fix any problems in the VAM at no cost to you. Are there any black frames? Missed edits? Artifacts or dropouts? Speed adjustments or picture resizings that didn't transfer properly? Any error not spotted now will be difficult, and potentially expensive, to fix later on in the process.
10. Now downconvert your VAM. The length of every shot in your VAM is accurate to the frame, and once approved should now be the only version of the film used by your sound designer and composer for their work. You can make downconversions to whatever stock they request, and be sure to include a timecode window burn.
11. Colo- correct your project. This next step is the prime creative advantage of shooting HD--so much so that many films shot on 35mm are now employing "Digital Intermediates" in order to utilize the limitless possibilities available in digital color timing that are simply unattainable photochemically. But this can be as much of a curse as a blessing. The last thing you want is for your director and DP to be overwhelmed by the options and never be able to make up their minds. Simply stated, time is not cheap in these high end tape-to-tape rooms. Your colorist is the last of your key collaborators, as important a creative contributor as your other crew members but often unheralded as such. His expertise with the tools at his disposal should enable him to achieve (and focus) your director and DP's vision in a reasonable amount of time.For all but the most ambitious of looks, I think 24 hours is a fair amount to allow everyone. But this doesn't mean your director and/or DP will have to supervise the whole time. A good rule of thumb is that as much gets completed in one hour of supervised color correction as in three hours of unsupervised color correction. I feel the best way to plan your timing sessions is the following: Have your director and DP first meet with the colorist for 2 to 3 hours and walk through the film, defining the overall palette and showing in detail what they're looking to achieve in a few key scenes. Then the colorist should work alone for 10 to 12 hours and rough in the whole movie. Your guys then come back for 3 to 4 hours of notes and tweaks, the colorist does his thing for 3 to 4 more hours alone, and after another 2 to 4 hours of fine-tuning as a group you agree upon the final.
12. Create your titles. The above step gives you a completely finished picture on D5, sans text. You will provide your post house with a digital file (usually a Word document) containing all of your credits, and they will lay in HD-resolution titles in whatever font, positioning and dissolve rate you choose. For your end titles, be aware that crawls of HD text are typically a bit slower than those in film, in order to prevent artifacting. This is important to keep in mind if you are composing or selecting end-title music before this step is complete. Titles are done as a separate final step for two reasons. For one, if you add text over an image and then color correct the image, you will alter the color of the text as well. And two, you are hopefully going to sell your film in different foreign markets, so you want to master your film in a manner that will make it easy to add titles later on in whatever languages your distributor chooses. That said, be sure your post house provides you with what is known as a "textless background" of your opening title sequence, usually laid in at the tail of the D5 color-corrected master you just completed.
13. Now marry the sound to the picture. More than likely, your sound will be delivered to you on DA-88 or DA-98 tape. Your post house will then lay that back over your D5 color-corrected master. Ideally, since the format allows eight channels of audio, you will want to include not only your mix, but also the separate music and effects tracks ("M&E") for potential distributors, much the same as your textless background. Once the sound is married to the picture, you are finished and ready for dubs and conversions. This will be determined by the delivery requirements of the company to whom you are delivering your final product.
14. Make your dubs. You should definitely make an HDCAM copy--and preferably a letterboxed DigiBeta, too--in order to have a standard definition source. You can then make as many VHS and DVD screeners from those as you think you'll need to sell your film. Keep in mind, at this point you probably don't want to invest in authoring a DVD with fancy menus, chapter stops, etc. because your distributor will pay for that when the time comes.
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