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Combining 16mm & 35mm Materials
in the Same Avid Project

Topic: Cutting a 16mm and 35mm Multi cam Feature
Conference: Technology & Aesthetics
From: Anne Erikson
Date: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 02:08 PM

I’m going to edit a documentary feature that is shooting both 16mm and 35. The 35 will mostly be music performances shot with 4 cameras. Some 35 footage will be single cam. I have many questions about the best way to set up these projects. The best system I can probably hope to work on will be a multi-cam PCI Avid. I plan to set the project up as 35mm multicam and telecine the time-of-day, Nagra code to my 3/4" tapes’ address track. If I’m unable to get a multicam system, will this mess me up if I can only use the ‘group’ function? Also, what has anyone found to be the best way to integrate the two projects, 16 and 35?

Thanks in advance for any info.

From: Steve Cohen
Date: Thursday, November 30, 2000 09:49 AM

I can’t answer all your questions, but the issue of groups vs multicam is fairly straightforward. The hardware multicam features let you see multiple cameras in a quad split and they’ll PLAY there. Groups let you put all cameras together in sync and cut between them, but you can’t see them playing together. Obviously, seeing is believing and hardware multicam is better. But I’ve cut multicam material without this feature (and so has anyone who has ever used a Moviola to cut a musical) and it’s very do-able. The key is the grouping feature, which allows all the cameras to be locked together.

As of Version 7, Avid has done an incomplete job of allowing productions to integrate multiple format materials (especially with regard to combining material originated on video and film). These days, most shows use multiple formats – and workarounds are often required to help you deal with them.

Good luck,
Steve

From: Anne Erikson
Date: Thursday, November 30, 2000 06:44 PM

Thanks very much for your reply. The two workarounds I’ve been told for integrating the two projects are:

  1. Output the 16 cut to tape, digitize into the 35 project. Eventually the chosen 16 material will be blown up to 35, re-input and cut over, then it’s all 35 for the neg cut. A simple, straightforward way of dealing with it. Are there pitfalls to this?
  2. A procedure (I don’t know all the steps) of copying the 16 key code into the aux keycode column of the 16 source bins, then importing the source bins into the 35 proj. and eventually using the aux ink list, being careful to not use the key code start numbers. Are you familiar with this, any pluses or minuses?

Thanks again for your time,
Anne

From: Alan Z. McCurdy
Date: Friday, December 01, 2000 02:32 AM

Try this work-a-round that my grandmother told me many years ago, but I never got a chance to try:

Your main project is 35mm. Make another project that is 16mm, 20-frame keycode. Digitize your 16mm footage to this project and check your keycode database to make sure it’s correct. Make sure it counts correctly and has the "&" for the keycode frame.

In your main project (35), open up your 16mm bins and cut a test sequence. Make a cut list and see if you get proper 16 frame counts on your sources. If it works, you can send a pull list to the people who are doing your 16 blow-up. FYI: last time I blew up 16 to 35, I had to have a lot of frames on each side for the handle. And since we were cutting the 16 neg. to make blow-up reels, the editor had to watch out for dupe frames. Be sure to check what your lab will want.

Let me know if this works, since I’m not in a position to try this.

From: Alan Z. McCurdy
Date: Monday, January 15, 2001 12:56 AM

I was able to do another test on an Avid (this time using version 7.1) bringing in 35mm clips into a 16mm project, intercutting them and making correct assemble & pull lists. I have attached those lists so you can see the results. Both my cut list and my pull list showed correct first & last keycode frames on the "source" side, on both the 16mm (as 20-frame key code) and 35mm(as 16-frame keycode). The footage and duration were still in 35mm, 16-frame-per-foot format. For a 16mm pull list, I don’t think this would be a problem.

I was also successful in doing the opposite and brought 16mm clips into a 35mm project, but I didn’t make lists for that test. BTW, this procedure was passed on to me by the tech support dept. at New Edit.

The procedure:

  1. Either 35mm or 16mm will be your main project format that you will be getting the majority of your dailies in. Make this project and name it what you will. Make another project that will be your secondary format.
  2. When dailies come in, digitize them into the proper format project, checking all data as you normally would.
  3. Depending on how much material is in the secondary project, the editor can then cut the 16mm footage in that project and then open the cut sequence in the 35mm project, or bring the 16mm dailies into the 35mm project and then start cutting in that project.
  4. Bringing in bins from another project will place these 16mm bins in a folder called "Other Bins" at the bottom of your project window.

Once the cut is locked, lists can be made, such as the ones that I have attached: an assemble list, pull list, scene pull list, optical list and optical scene pull list. The optical list is for a dissolve from 35 to 16mm materials (see below).

Durations are listed in 35mm, 16-frame counts but could be displayed as total frames. 16mm materials are listed with standard Avid key number notation using the ampersand for frame counts (KA 16 5000-5500&17). 35mm materials use a plus sign for key number frame counts (KZ 35 1111-1668+06). I also distinguished between 16 and 35mm materials by adding a ‘16’ or ‘35’ prefix to the lab roll.

Since every film has different requirements and different software, I recommend a complete test on the system you’ll be using before you start.


 
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine
Vol. 22, No. 1 - March/April 2001

 
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