Digital Intermediate

What are the general steps for Digital Intermediate?

1. Shoot your film as normal, 16mm or 35mm.

2. Transfer the original camera negative to a relatively inexpensive video format such as, Beta SP or 3/4" tape. Make sure your "daily transfer" has a Flex File (meta data) that includes Footage & Frames, time code, and film edge code information transferred onto the tape. The negative cutter will need this information.

3. Input (digitize) the tape into your Avid or other editing system. Make sure your editing system can create an EDL, "Edit Decision List" upon completion of editing.

4. Edit as you normally would, leaving blank sections, exactly to length for the areas you want reserved for titles, visual effects, or other scenes not shot on film. You may want to put up a temporary title in the black areas as a guide for later use, such as, main title, car explosion, composite at Grand Canyon, etc.

5. At the completion of editing, create an EDL (edit decision list) that included the film information for the negative cutter.

6. Have your original negative cut to match the EDL, including "slugging out" the black areas to match your edited video.

Transfer Master

7. Create a Transfer Master by transferring or scanning your film onto one of the following formats:


a. 4K Data File (mostly for visual effects segments) Way too expensive for full features
a. 2K Data File (Expensive but looks great)
b. 1080/24p D5 Hi-Deft (Less expensive and still looks good)
c. Digital Betacam (Least expensive, not too bad looking)
Note: Transfer includes some color correction to make sure over and under exposed scenes are corrected into an acceptable range for use in the final color correction.

8. Create your titles, visual effects, supers, dissolves, etc., onto the same video format used to make the Transfer Master.

9. Add (edit) all the above, newly created scenes into your Transfer Master.

10. Simultaneous to the above you have been working with an audio department to create an Audio Master. That will now need to be "laid back" to the Transfer Master.

11. Do a final scene-to-scene color correction of your completed Transfer Master

12. Your Transfer Master is now complete You can now choose to make video, film or both film and video elements from your completed Transfer Master.

Film Output

1. We create a Digital Intermediate Negative from the the Transfer Master.
From this element you will first make a Check Print to check for color or any technical problems that may have occured in the video to film transfer.
There will be no Answer Print as you normally would expect because there is no scene-to-scene color timing needed since all the scene-to-scene work was done in the video stage of this process.

2. Make a 35mm Optical Negative Sound Track from your Audio Master. This element is used in conjuction with the Digital Intermediate Negative to make a Composite Check Print.

3. All subsequent Release Prints are also made from the Digital Intermediate Negative. Since there is no need to make an Interpositive from the original negative and then an Internegative from the Interpositive, you will be two generations closer to the original.
Expect a suprisingly pretty picture.