What to do with a movie?

[RRRivero]

The question may seem naive, but bear in mind that I come from a very different country. I and a group of friends who work for the official animation studios here are trying to do something on our own. We found that we could compete with and even exceed the standards of our country, but I have a strong feeling that may not be enough for the rest of the world. We're currently working on some shorts, but want to go for something bigger.
But I, being the cautious one, would like to know before embarking on a long-term project that will cost me my shirt, if I will ever get it back. For that, I would need to market abroad, in that ruthless world out there.
So, first, Is there any sort of quality standard, like format, resolution, number of colors, sound quality?
And, once with the finished product, what can do?
Any suggestions appreciated.

[Daniel Poeira]

- What country do you live in, by the way?

- Do you mean the final format of the video? If you're aiming DVD release, you can go for:

Video
720x480 pixels / 0.9 pixel aspect ratio (NTSC Widescreen)

Sound
44.100 / 16 Bit / Stereo

Anything else (VCD, SVCD) will be sampled down from this format, do it's OK to aim at it.

- You can send it to all festivals around the world... use it to get financing for your next movie... sell it over the web... everything

[RRRivero]

Curious about, where I'm from? Let me give you a hint: the only country where you can see a 1950's cadillac with the motor of a russian Lada ...and not too far from you.
It's Cuba.
Sorry it took me a bit to reply, but I only have internet access every so often.
Thanks for your advice. Trouble here is that everything made here with very few exceptions, is for domestic consumption, so it's been difficcult to know how we should face the rest of the world.

[Vivekenanda]

Hi
I think u should go ahead with your project. Yes the formats all over the world
is diff. if its for asia europe barring france u have make it PAL. USA uses NTSC.

And i think the best option would b to send it to a fest or a competition. Don't worry about the local content of a story just make sure its a nice story.
anice good story goes well with every one.

money thats no gaurantee it takes time to make it is a independent animator. but you have to take a step and its not too bad. basically try and finace ur self with another job.

but go ahead anyway

[pencil stub]

There's two standards to look at. One will be the standard of what ever country or region you distribute your film in. As mentioned it will be SECAM for the French speaking countries, PAL for England and Europe, NTSC for North America and Japan. For a film festival you will need to check and see what their requirements are for submission. You may have to have your final film in all of these formats.

This will be converted from the second standard which is your production standard. You can work in 8mm film, 16mm film, 35mm film or a computer system, whatever you are comfortable with just so long as it can be converted to one of the above mentioned formats. I'm not sure about what is available in your country so you may need to take a survey to see what can be used. Find out about what cameras, sound recorders, drawing tables, editing equipment you can get access to and use on a regular schedule.

One thing to keep in mind is that for a theatrical release you will need to have a large image size for quality, something like a 16mm or 35mm film. For a computer system you would need to do your artwork in something like a 1080i resolution. This is because it is easier to shrink a large image to a smaller one and have it look good than to take a small image and try to enlarge it and have to make it look good. If you are doing your art on 12 field size or 30cm size paper then you have the option of doing a theatrical release with your film. Also, for production stay with the 24 frames per second rate of filming. This can be used almost for the entire world.

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for so I hope it helps. If you have any other questions let me know.

pencil stub

[RRRivero]

Thanks for the advice. It took me a while to answer, because I don't get the Internet every day, and the last hurricane didn't exactly help... And there's another one (a real monster) coming!
Any recomendations on sound?
And If I want to produce a movie, What should be the proper length to fit in a TV schedule? 20 minutes? 22?