Cinema Canada (Oct 1979)

TEA NEWS Preparing Films for Transfer in Telecine no. 6 in a series of 10 For many years, a common practice in television stations has been to mount 16mm. films on 1200-ft. reels, with leaders attached and cue marks in the picture frames to initiate projector starting, and multiplexer switching operations at half-hour intervals. In some stations holes were punched in the film frames near the end of each reel to serve as cue marks. Many Canadian stations adopted the practice of attaching small strips of black sticky tape near the edges of film frames to avoid permanently defacing the films. In preparing a feature film for telecine, it was often necessary to remove entire scenes so as to fit the film’s running time into a scheduled television time slot. This was done by cutting and splicing the film at appropriate points in the story. At the same time space had to be allowed for perhaps 15 or 20 commercials — usually these were spliced into the feature film to make up complete reels that could be run continuously for the entire program period. These unsightly cuts and cue marks are not seen as often these days. A much more sophisticated film programming technology is being developed as films are transferred to videotape prior to onair release, and electronically assembled into program packages. Sometimes computer controlled playback machines are used, minimizing operator require ments and giving the viewing public smoother program presentations. This Long time Supervisor of Technical Film Operations at the programming centre of CBC, Mr. Ross is the author of two books, Television Film Engineering and Color Film for Color Television, has won the Agfa-Gevaert Gold Medal awarded by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and _ is presently Chairman of the SMPTE Board of Editors. 30/October-November by rodger j. ross method has the additional, important advantage of eliminating the need to man both telecine and videotape facilities during the entire station programming periods. Some stations transfer films to videotape and make the program assemblies during night-time hours when equipment is idle. Independent film postproduction companies are now springing up in increasing numbers to do this kind of work — a trend that is likely to continue expanding in the future. Film Transfer Procedures When film programs are being assembled on videotape many different methods may be employed, depending, toa great extent on available facilities. Television-oriented organizations would most likely take what appears to be the obvious course — transfer all of the film footage to tape, and then electronically edit the film segments into complete program packages. During the transfer of a feature film — to use a familiar example — the producer, or a production assistant might make notes of scenes that could be eliminated, from the film pictures displayed on a picture monitor. The location of these scenes in the film, and their length, could__ be shown on a work sheet by noting the running times, taken from the control room clock. Alternatively, film frame counts generated by an attachment on the telecine projector might be used for scene identification. At the same time, points in the story where commercials could be inserted might be similarly identified. In some situations it might be useful to splice a leader counting in seconds at the head end of each film reel: this would give the videotape operator the cues needed for machine switching. But in most cases only a projector threading leader would be needed, consisting of a suitable length of waste film. Each reel should be iden tified by program title and reel number for subsequent easy recovery on the tape. Identification should be made in such a way that the information can be easily seen when the videotape is being played back. The easiest way to make the transfers is to run each reel of film through the telecine in a separate operation: this avoids the need for changeover and switching cues on the films. All of the film commercials could be spliced together on another reel, with short lengths of leader between each one, and then transferred to tape in a single uninterrupted run. Program Assembly from Cue Sheets. With all the film materials for a program on videotape, program assembly can be started. This can be done with two videotape machines, one playing back the transferred films and the other recording the selected scenes, electronically edited in the proper sequence as shown on the production cue sheet. When the scenes are identified on the cue sheet by elapsed times from a clock, the videotape operator could locate the start and end of each scene without too much difficulty. But frequently the exact points to make the electronic edits can be arrived at only by repeatedly playing back the transfer tape. Besides, approximate times for in and out edits on the cue sheet can easily create a serious problem as the assembly operation nears completion: then, it may be found to the dismay of everyone involved, that the running time is a minute or so too long, or too short for the scheduled television time slot. If on the other hand scene identification is by film frame counts, these numbers would have to be translated into elapsed clock times on the cue sheet for the electronic editor since, in the process of making the transfers, 24 film frames in