25 to 24 problems..

[olamo]

Hi all,

I have struggled for some time with a short movie and ongoing problems with editors, producers etc.
It turns out that this 35 mm film shot at 24fps was scanned digitally to 25fps for editing. The movie is intended for theatrical release, and it has been targeted towards this all the way. Of course, meaning 24fps out in the end.

My experience with 35 mm is very limited, so it is even more strange that I brought up this 24/25 problem to the producer. Wondering WTF the editor has been thinking!? You create a digital cut for making the EDL that will be reference for the analog post with WRONG FRAMERATE? Anyway, I have reconstructed 13 min of sound (and music) from the ground up - the arrange window looking like an ancient mosaic piece of art (!). It will be a horrible job to sync it up again, but I might have to do it anyway. Or the audio will play 4% slower, right? Not sure how this actually will sound yet, but since this is an expressive "art" movie I figure it could be pretty bad.

Do you have any advice in terms of workflow for this kind of problems. Any tools that can help me in the process, like Virtual Katy? Honestly, I'm not really sure what it actually does though.. :sulkoff:

Cheers,
Ola

[LEX]

hmm, thats a tough one. Seems like anyone with a Final Cut system is an "editor" or a "director", yet they don't even know the basics of film.

So if he telecined the film to play faster, is the timecode and key frame right so when he pulls audio it refers to the same location on the sound roll?

In the days of audio pulldown, I'd often have them to the pulldown on the picture prior to delivering it for audio conform because then I wouldn't need to apply the pulldown. I'd pull up the audio for delivery for AVID's.

Could it be that the sound roll references are the still locating to the same point in time, yet at 25fps?

Otherwise, you'd have to load the show in at 25fps, and cut at 25fps. Probably going to have to do a 4 percent pullup as well. If in the end, you needed to be at 24fps, then you have to pull back down 4 percent.

This editor has screwed the pooch! Virtual Katy, Conformalizer. Start there.

LEX

[olamo]

Thanks for your great insight Lex!
Yeah.. talked to the producer and he tells me that the roll was scanned to 24fps, but when transferred to Final Cut it turned 25 fps(!) Funny though, that the editor has made the final cut in wrong fps. As you say, people claim to be editors just by having the tools.. Nothing good comes out of it; I have a policy to be honest an humble when it comes to areas where I have little or no knowledge/experience. Not evereyone share that philosphy- I'm amazed :eusa_wall:

Need to check out the Virtual Katy thing ;)
I run PTLE Complete, Cubase 5 and Sequoia, but I guess PT supports VK? Or i might upgrade to Nuendo 5 when (if?) it comes.. :wink:

Thanks
Ola

[LEX]

PTLE supports VK. It is expensive though. About 2k. Check out Conformilizer first. it is 1k and might do the same thing. I think there are some things it does that VK doesn't.
Double check on the PTLE support though for both.

LEX

[olamo]

Whoo.. that is a lot of money! But still if it really saves time it mayl be worth spending.
Does it compare the timeline of the DAW with the Final Cut EDL. eg. "compress" and recalculate the timing when going from 24 to 25?
Should have seen a demo of this, at least before spending 2k :-)

Ola

[LEX]

Virtual Katy has a 48 hour demo:
http://virtualkaty.com/

[LEX]

http://www.maggot.co.nz/software/download.shtml

Conformalizer, and there other software has a 6 day demo. The whole kit can be bought for 1k. It now works with System 5 and TC 6000, which is excellent.

Let me know what you find out.

LEX

[olamo]

Thanks for the links!

Now, this is getting really weird.. I had a recorder independent of TC on the set. Wasn't supposed to capture sound there at all (camera sounded like Kraftwerk, go figure .. yet they expect professional sound). Anyway, when I compare one spot of the unaltered real sound from the set with the video footage from the same insident( now at 25 in Final Cut Pro), it is actually in sync!? Maybe I have worked out an audio track for 24 anyway? How can this be? Some pull up/down trick? This is really twisting my head now, must talk to the photographer tomorrow ( BTW he was awarded best photo at the Sundance festival a couple of years ago so he's quite good..) BTW I had a look at Georgias corner at GS forum - not sure what it is: a pissing contest of technical knowledge? Seems to be some useful info but I have to learn the basics first ..lol

Ola

[LEX]

There is no trick. 24 to 25 is a 4 percent speed different where 24 to 29.97 is .01 percent or 48 samples.

Here is the bottom line. You need to find out from the transfer house what was really done. Did the editor just take a 24 fps movie and load it into a 25fps project? Is that even possible.
The fact you are finding sync tells me the editor is completely out of his realm, and should go back to assisting.

If the transfer house is any good, they should be able to tell you exactly how they transferred it.

Keep me in the loop.

LEX

[olamo]

Hi Lex,

Now I'm having a laugh ..lol! Talked to the photographer who told me it was shot in 25 (!) Even though the main target is 35mm and 24( both analog and digital projection).
Wow, so both editor and producer does not have an idea what fps we are actually doing.. Anyway, then it is more understandable what is going on - at least both rolls and sound is now in sync at 25. So instead of resyncing everything I either have to expect a 4.1% drop in pitch or see if they can compensate for the pitch change in the analog surround master. DVD's will be fine though, but this is unfortunate since the main objective is cinematic projection at 24. It will affect the visual timing/pace as well which in this movie is thoroughly perfected ( and at wrong speed..) Not much dialogue, but I suspect my violin will sound like a viola.

Keep learing every day here ;-)
Now back to the final 5.1

Ola

[LEX]

so if it was shot in 25, then the audio should be in 25.

Interesting trick if you have PT, or LE with DVtoolkit. Works better than the way Nuendo does it.

I had a picture come in at 25, and it needed to be 29. I loaded the audio into a 25fps session.
Created a new session, did a SRC with the source SR set for 46052 (whatever the PAL to NTSC setting was) and imported it into a 29 session.

After the conversion, the audio was in sync and the pitch was correct.

MY guess is that doing it this way meant that PT set the SR of the 25 files to 46052, and SRC'ed to 48k. No pitch difference.

If there is a pitch difference, there is a setting in the XForm plug in to correct the pitch. No guessing.

LEX

[olamo]

Hi Lex,

That is interesting since I have the "Complete toolkit" here.. Have to find out what the sr difference will be when going from 48k@25 to 24. And did yo do this src within PT and with full length stems? (or an edit with different clips, that sounds difficult because of the sync reference etc)

Ola

[LEX]

Hi Lex,

That is interesting since I have the "Complete toolkit" here.. Have to find out what the sr difference will be when going from 48k@25 to 24. And did yo do this src within PT and with full length stems? (or an edit with different clips, that sounds difficult because of the sync reference etc)

Ola

Doesn't matter if it is stems or clips. PT has a SRC which tells the incoming file to play at X speed, and the destination is 48k.

So, create a new session at the frame rate you want., ie 24fps
import your session that is different, ie dialog load 25 fps
click on apply SRC
click the box that says "source sample rate" and scroll to the 48k box
in the drop down, there is many different settings.
select pal to film.

Now your pal load plays at film speed without a pitch change.

I did PAL to NTSC and it sync'ed and there was no pitch difference.

Gotta love PT for this.

LEX

[olamo]

Wow, that is cool! Finishing the 5.1 now, but will certainly try it..
Now this is Cubendo forum, but doesn't hurt to cheer what's good in other DAWs ;)


Thanks a lot