M. David Mullen, ASC explains why the most common filmmaking blunder is not planning post-production and deliverables before the first day of shooting.
Among the greatest filmmaking blunders, probably the most common, unfortunately, is to not plan for post-production up to every potential “deliverable” (meaning the final elements that need to be delivered to the distributor, both picture and audio). When I was a film student at CalArts, director Alexander Mackendrick used to tell us that if you don’t know how your story will end, you will not really know how to write the beginning of it. The same is true for the technical aspects of production: before you shoot the first frame of your movie, it is imperative that you understand all the post consequences of your decisions. Coming to some basic conclusions about what you probably need to deliver will help you determine basic things like optimal frame rates, aspect ratios, how to handle titles and visual effects, and how much you need to spend in certain areas to assure adequate technical quality.
Being a cinematographer, I won’t go too far into audio issues except to say that poor sound is one of the elements that will: (1) type your movie as being low-budget; (2) diminish the emotional involvement for the viewer; and (3) make it difficult to simply follow the story. Also, problematic audio recording during production can add up during in post in money and time. Therefore it is the duty of the cinematographer to aid the production recordist in terms of minimizing noise problems on set, helping the boom operator keep mic shadows off-camera, and giving them a chance to make adjustments (like putting a pad down for the actors’ feet or something to quiet a cup or plate being set down, etc.).
Also, in this day and age of digital production, some of the traditional methods for handling sound and picture have changed, so it’s very important to have a meeting in pre-production to discuss issues like frame rates, if the camera is also recording sound, slating, the syncing-up of dailies, and how the offline editing will be handled. The most common example is how most 24P productions are actually shot at 23.98P because offline editing and audio post involve using NTSC tapes; this usually requires that the production audio be recorded at 48 kHz with 29.97 fps NDF time code instead of 30 fps.
If you are shooting feature films, you will have to deal with the fact that all 35mm theatrical projection is widescreen (either 1.85 : 1 or 2.35 : 1) and home video, cable, and broadcast TV are moving towards widescreen as well (16×9 / 1.78 : 1). It is the nature of independent production to make back their costs by any means necessary, often selling the movie piecemeal worldwide to different markets. This means that besides the aspect ratio issue, you will be dealing with delivering NTSC and PAL masters, possibly both in 4×3 and 16×9, both letterboxed and full-frame or pan & scan, plus HDTV masters. For example, if you were planning on shooting your DV movie in 4×3 480/30P for 60i NTSC release, you may find yourself losing out on a sale to a country that requires a good 16×9 50i PAL conversion, whereas if you had shot in 16×9 480/24P, you possibly could have made a better widescreen PAL version. And if for some reason you needed a 35mm print version, again, 16×9 480/24P would transfer better to 35mm for widescreen projection than 4×3 480/30P would. However, if your only intended market is the internet and 60i NTSC / HDTV, you may prefer the smoother motion of 30P over 24P.
If you are shooting in regular 16mm for video distribution, you will have to consider the widescreen deliverables issue and whether you want to be limited to 4×3 markets. You may want to compose the image for potential cropping to allow a decent 16×9 transfer to also be made. If you are shooting 16mm for blow-up to 35mm, you also have a lot of decisions to make about the optimal post route. If you plan on doing an optical printer blow-up and you want to be able to go directly from original negative to 35mm positive (print or IP) – rather than making a 16mm IP and then blowing that up to a 35mm IN – you will not only have to find a lab that offers the service, but your negative will have to be conformed with frame handles (“zero cut”) on each side of every cut, which may affect how you edit the movie creatively. If you plan on doing a digital intermediate to create a 35mm negative for printing, you will have to plan on the most cost-effective route for that approach. It may involve: (1) editing from standard-def video dailies, creating an EDL, and then re-transferring selects from the camera rolls to HD or 2K; or (2) transferring all of your footage to HD, making SD downconversions for offline editing, and then creating an HD master in an online session using the original HD transfers; or (3) transferring and editing in HD, which is becoming more and more possible for desktop editing systems. And no matter which method you choose, you will still have to deal with the fact that most 35mm projection is either 1.85 or 2.35. Plus if you did an optical printer blow-up to a 35mm IN, you will still deal with the need to make final video deliverables. An increasingly common scenario these days is to make two or three 23.98P HD masters: one full-frame 16×9, one letterboxed to the theatrical ratio (this one may be optional, especially if 16×9 full-frame is close enough to 1.85 to satisfy the distributor) and the final one side-matted to 4×3. From these two or three HD masters, one can make all 4×3 and 16×9 NTSC and PAL submasters (usually Digital Betacam), both letterboxed and full-frame.
Therefore you may regret shooting and composing regular 16mm for 4×3 if you end up needing to make a 16×9 video master and widescreen 35mm print. You could compound the mistake by shooting at 30 fps for a smoother-looking NTSC transfer, causing some artifacts in a later PAL conversion (anything can be converted to anything else, mind you, it’s just a question of being able to avoid unacceptable and unpleasant artifacts). And you could really screw up if you didn’t transfer the footage with proper keycode information, nor edited it with 24-frame issues in mind, making it very hard to generate a frame-accurate EDL.
All of this is to say that if you can talk to your potential distributors before you begin shooting to get an idea of their delivery requirements, you can avoid many problems in post. And if you don’t have any likely distributors yet, at least plan for making as many potential types of deliverables as possible. Indie filmmakers often make the assumption that if they just get as far as an offline edit, a distributor will see the movie, buy it, and pay for the rest of post-production. The truth is that a distributor will always be more enticed by finished productions rather than incomplete ones, plus they don’t actually spend their own money for finishing post – they take the costs of finishing the post out of what they planned on paying you. In other words, you’re still paying for it. And ultimately, they may feel cheated if you had shot the film in a manner that cannot be transferred or converted smoothly, without artifacts, to the delivery formats they need because this will limit their ability to sell the movie to certain markets with very specific technical requirements. Even simple questions like, “Should I use a #1/4 ProMist or a #1/2 ProMist filter?”… “Should I use 200T instead of 500T film stock?”… “Is 480P enough resolution?”… “Do I need to reshoot this shot with a slight focus mistake?”… “24 fps or 25 fps?”… “Is this zoom sharp enough?”… These are all easier to answer if you know the final presentation formats.
So know your ending before you figure how to begin.
M. David Mullen, ASC, was an IFP Independent Spirit Award nominee for Best Cinematography for Twin Falls Idaho in 1999 and for Northfork in 2003. His filmography consists of over 30 film titles, including Akeelah and the Bee (2006), The Astronaut Farmer (2006), Solstice (2006), and Shadowboxer (2005).
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