Film makers may be surprised when they are in the process of obtaining a sales agent for distribution of their movies. Often these agents will ask send a “Deliverables” list, which is a list of all the materials they will need in order to try to sell the movie. Sometimes unscrupulous agents will demand that this long list of work be done at their “approved” facility. Often these agents have deals in place with the biggest and most expensive post facilities so that the agent will get something in return for sending all this post work to their facility, the problem is that these deliverable are often so expensive that the film maker will end up with no money left after the work is done, even though they sold the film. If you are a film maker and you run across a sales agent like this, you might be best to continue looking.

If the sales agent is legitimate he will let the film maker pick his post facility, here at L.A. Post we work with such directors and help them to get the best prices on all the work so that the film can get distribution and not cost a fortune for Post Production.

A typical deliverables list (like the most recent one we are working on) will ask for some of the following.

• A DCP copy of the movie: This is used for digital projection cinema; movie theatres can take a DCP file and use it to project the movie on a theatre sized screen. The DCP file is made from a DPX file which is then converted.
• A Hi-Def Tape Master This will be a broadcast quality tape that can be played for Television / or studio viewing. Most TV networks today broadcast on Hi-Def tape, usually either a HDCAM SR, or HDCAM The master copy will be laid off from a quicktime file which contains the final edited version of the video and audio of the movie.  Often they will want a 16×9 Full Frame master which is what most movies are shot in, but sometimes they will want a different aspect ratio such as 2.35 letterbox which has narrower format from top to bottom but is wider then full frame so that the very edges of the film can be seen on the video.
• Digi Beta Down Conversions: These are standard def tapes, usually done in both NTSC (USA broadcast) and PAL (European Broadcast) Formats,  and will include various aspect ratios such as 4X3 Full Frame (1.33), 1.85 Letterbox, 2.35 Letterbox
• A Quality Control Report, either of the HD Master, or to all tapes created.
• Blu Ray Masters and/or Dubs (Hi-Def)
• DVD Masters and/or Dubs (Standard Def)
• A CCSL Report:  Combined Continuity and Spotting List. This is a List of every action, title, graphic, text and line of dialogue spoken in a movie with In and out time codes for each individual entry.  This is used for various reasons such as dubbing into a new language, subtitling, or captioning.
• Trailers: A theatrical trailer for the movie either at the end of the master tape, or on a separate tape
• Audio Stems:  Stems are the building blocks of the final audio track, they contain Separate DM&E (dialogue, music & effects) audio files which are put together to make the audio mix that will be synced up to the Video  on the timeline before being laid off to Tape.

These are the types of requirements that a sales agent or distributor will require and the things that a post-production facility such as L.A. Post will be capable of providing for you.  These often take a significant amount of time to complete so film makers should keep that in mind when planning on the completion of a delivery list.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 20th, 2013 at 8:29 pm and is filed under All News Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.