outputting for projection

Hello all,

So I have a short film cut on FCP with 90% Alexa footage mixed in with a few 5D shots, and we are doing a test screening of our rough cut on a regular movie theater projection screen. I have never output for this format, and there are a few requirements/suggestions they told me to include that I am rather green on. any advice would be great.

-rec.709 colorspace. I know this is a setting in the video processing tab in sequence settings, but should this be set in compressor upon 'send to' export or only applied to my FCP sequence?

-pinknoise/1k ref.



Thanks for the help!!

"test screening of our rough cut on a regular movie theater projection screen"

doesn't sound like it has to be too complicated.
the colour space they are referring to is just simple HD colour space,
what you would be working in in FCP, most likely. (assuming you are working at some form of HD frame size)

i've been doing what you want to do myself lately.

we simply take in a laptop with a BlakcMagic Intensity Shuttle,
and feed our signal into their projector (Cristie 2K or 4K) via HDMI.
very simple in our case.


nick

Normally a theater with digital projection would want a DCP output. Talk to the theater or best the projectionist to find out exactly what they require and ask if you can just plugin to their projector via HDMI as Nick suggests. For a first roughcut screening that would be sufficient/easiest/cheapest. If the theater needs a DCP file, then you'll need an external facility to help you generate those files. It's not something you can do in FCP. I've had the situation with some theaters which are attached to big iron post facilities that can also project image sequences. Sometimes that is also an option if they'll accept a format like .tif which you can generate quite easliy in FCP7.

Regarding Rec 709: is your Alexa footage in Log, or was it converted to Rec 709 either during shoot or ingest? Obvioulsy, if it already is Rec 709 then you need take no further steps. If it's all still in Log, then for a screening you'll need to apply a quick grade prior to export from FCP. Easy enough to do for a short.


Cheers,
Clay

For creating DCP you also can use opendcp which is a free open source app.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

andreas: thanks for the tip to opendcp, freeware alternative to easydcp. (And it's the first strong reason to declare my 32-bit-only MacPro1,1 obsolete.)

Dennis Couzin
Berlin, Germany

I've prepared HD sequence for full-size theater projection by burning the native ProRes 1080 export to Blu-Ray using Toast Platinum 11. A BluRay player was hooked up to whatever they used for projection and the results were terrific. Takes about 2X longer than a DVD encode.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Advance to next/previous keyframes in a clip with Shift/Option-K !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Theaters are able to do tape decks too, and many modern projectors are able to accept an hd Sdi signal. Short of DCP, which requires a 24fps conversion, although that is easily done since your source is 24fps, tape is very robust.



www.strypesinpost.com

Loren Miller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've prepared HD sequence for full-size theater
> projection by burning the native ProRes 1080
> export to Blu-Ray using Toast Platinum 11. A
> BluRay player was hooked up to whatever they used
> for projection and the results were terrific.
> Takes about 2X longer than a DVD encode.
>
> - Loren
>
> Today's FCP 7 keytip:
> Advance to next/previous keyframes in a clip
> with Shift/Option-K !
>
> Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack
> with FCP7 KeyGuide --
> now available at KeyGuide Central.
> www.neotrondesign.com

I know what you are saying. The producers of a movie I directed/DP and edited decided to do a preview for the investors, cast and crew at a Sony 4K theater. The problem was that the producers had no idea how they were going to show it. The theater told them to bring a DVD, so I went down to see what equipment they had. I then found out that they use 2 projectors, one is the Sony 4K and a Blu Ray player that they use to run the commercials before the movie.
They had no idea how to play it out of the 4K so I made a 5.1 BD DVD and did a test with the Blu Ray player. The image was sharp, but too bright and the sound would only play out of the two front speakers. Try it in a bigger theater with a different sound setup but with the same projector used to play commercial. Since it was bigger theater it looked slightly better as far as brightness and the 5.1 was coming out but without the subwoofer.
Ran out of time for more testing so we showed it just like that. It was a Horror movie so it needed to be dark and the subwoofer was equally needed, but we had no choice.
This is the trailer, it was just accepted to Elvira's Horror Hunt film festival to be shown sept 9.
[vimeo.com]

God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]

Congrats, Douglas! I wonder, can't these newfangled projectors can be dimmed? Theater owners used to scam us with dimming the xenon projectors to save money. It got ridiculous in some theaters. But too bright? New problem!

- Loren

Today's FCP keytip:
Set a motion effect keyframe instantly with Control-K!

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Loren Miller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Congrats, Douglas! I wonder, can't these
> newfangled projectors can be dimmed? Theater
> owners used to scam us with dimming the xenon
> projectors to save money. It got ridiculous in
> some theaters. But too bright? New problem!
>
> - Loren
>
> Today's FCP keytip:
> Set a motion effect keyframe instantly with
> Control-K!
>
> Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack.
> Now available at KeyGuide Central.
> www.neotrondesign.com
Thanks Loren
You can do very minor adjustments, but the projectors that they use at this theater for commercials are design for graphics on bright places. They are just too bright when all the lights go off. They are not the same they use to show the movies. Those are real Sony 4K projectors.
If I had know about it i would have ask the producers to pay for a DCP conversion.

God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]