During post production, you will be spending quite a bit of time and money with a film laboratory. Locating the right lab is extremely important. Ideally, you should have some feeling for a lead early in the production phase, before you have many hours worth of exposed film on your hands and are wondering what to do with it. How do you find that lab? The purpose of this section is to explain how laboratory operations fit into your total production. First come some tips on selecting a lab. Next is a walk-through of laboratory operations during a typical production. The next section deals with processing and printing operations and equipment so that you can appreciate what can be done with your film once you've exposed it.

Tips on Selecting a Laboratory
Generally, the laboratory that gets your business will be the one whose capabilities best match the requirements for your particularjob. Laboratories differ in terms of the technical services they offer, personnel, track record on similar projects, size and location, prices, and so on. Weight all of these factors in selecting the right laboratory for the job at hand.

Every production has different requirements. The laboratory selected to do a production filmed in 35 mm for television distribution will probably be different from the one chosen to handle a job shot in 16 mm for reduction to super 8 to be used in point-of-purchase advertising. The challenge is to find the lab that can satisfy the greatest number of your needs on schedule and within budget. There are a number of trade-offs.

Consider the question of size. The big lab can usually offer lower prices due to their large-volume operation, more complete in-house services, and excellent quality control. The small laboratory usually offers custom handling and easy access to the right people for advice and counsel. But they may have to charge more to support their custom operation or subcontract more of the job.

Consider the location. If a laboratory is a significant distance from your place of business, you will be faced with the potential hazards and increased costs of shipping valuable footage to and from the lab. Daily communications with the lab may also be more difficult.

Consider your confidence in the laboratory. The selected laboratory should be looked upon as a silent partner in the production of a motion picture. The laboratory should be taken into the producer's confidence, kept informed about the films and photographic techniques being used, advised of the specific objectives, and alerted to any problems that might develop. Given this relationship, the laboratory can assist and simplify your endeavors. You should select a laboratory you feel takes your interests seriously.

These important steps in your production can be smoothed considerably if adequate communications are established right from the start. Both you and your laboratory should know what is expected-and when to expect it.

• Know your needs. Have a good idea of what you want from a laboratory and then talk about those needs with several laboratories before you make a choice. In your discussions, be sure to relay your ideas about such things as editing, dubbing, special effects, animation, etc, so the lab can help you accomplish these tasks in the best way possible.
• Get acquainted. Once you have made your choice of laboratories, get to know, as well as possible, the people who will do your work. Tell them as much as you can about yourself, your needs, and your style. The more you communicate with them about yourself and your production, the better they can serve you.
• Get it in writing. Face-to-face discussions and telephone calls are necessary for efficient work flow; but when it comes to specifying what you want, when you want it, and how much it will cost, a carefully written document-the purchase order-is a must.

Listed below are some of the principal services offered by commercial motion picture laboratories. Few laboratories will offer all the services listed but most of them will provide a major portion.

• Processing camera film. (Special overnight pickup and delivery, or weekend service is available in some places by prearrangement) Find out what processes are available, including special techniques (e.g. flashing or force processing).
• Furnishing advice to help with technical or even aesthetic problems.
• Printing and duplicating from camera films for workprints or releaseprints. Most laboratories will print or duplicate the camera film after it is processed. They may also hold the original in their vault and forward the print for use as a workprint. Thus the original is protected from damage in handling until it is needed for final conforming.
• Black-and-white printing from a color original to produce a workprint for sound editing.
• Edge numbering of originals and workprints to facilitate editing.
• Editing, cutting, splicing, and assembling as directed by the producer.
• Conforming by matching the original camera film to the workprint as edited by the producer.
• Optical effects which these include dissolves, wipes, fades, freeze frames, etc.

Laboratory Services: A Walk-Through
To help you visualize the way a laboratory's operations interact with you and your production, this walk-through gives you three views of scheduling. First is a flowchart of operations from preproduction through various laboratory operations to delivery of the edited, printed film. The chart shows a graphic description of the close communication between lab and cinematographer that produces a satisfactory final print. Next is a narrative about the production of a film for television that demonstrates the behind the scenes laboratory work that keeps a production on schedule. Last is a day- to-day schedule, from shooting to release print, of this production.

Services and Work Flow Through the Film Laboratory

Now, let's describe our show. This weekly one-hour series is produced by a major studio that has a network contract requiring the production of 24 episodes. The show routinely includes practical location photography (day and night). Six to seven days of filming are common for each show.

Here's how the laboratory fits into the production. On most days, the production company's exposed 35 mm negative is at the studio's camera department by 7:00 p.m. A truck from the laboratory picks up the negative along with those of several other production. Often, the truck makes several trips throughout the evening.

The first batch of negatives arrives by lab truck, is sorted by the directions on the film cans (flashing, forcing, priorities, etc.), and prepared for processing. The rolls are processed and sent to negative assembly where the out-take negative is removed and stored for safekeeping. Rolls (approximately 1,000 ft) of print-take negative are assembled and spliced. The roll is ultrasonically cleaned and printed at exposure values that had been derived through a "fine-tuning" of timing information obtained early in the production season on the laboratory's electronic color analyzer. The daily print is developed and screened by the laboratory customer representative usually between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. The print is projected full aperture at approximately 120 ft/min (32 frames per second) so any film, camera, or laboratory problems can be seen. The daily prints are delivered to the production company's editors by 9:00 am. for syncing with the sound track that has been transfered from 1/4-inch magnetic tape to 35 mm magnetic film. At 1:00 p.m. the director and other production personnel screen the synced dailies on double-system projectors.

The laboratory won't be involved in this particular episode in the series for about two weeks (in some cases for two months, depending on the activities of the production company). During this time, the studio is editing, dubbing and mixing sound, and preparing optical effects.

The laboratory's next job is to assemble these elements and generate the final composite prints for this episode. The network usually requires two 35 mm prints (for New York and Los Angeles) and three to fifteen 16 mm prints. Two of the 16 mm prints are backup prints for the 35's, one is for Canadian television (which usually is broadcast 3 to 4 days before the U.S. air date), and the remainder are split regionally within the network system.

This phase begins with close communications between the production company's negative cutter and the laboratory. As reels near completion, the negative cutter delivers the cut negative with instructions to the lab. The reel may be only 90 percent complete, but the lab can begin to splice and notch the negative, leaving leader in the areas that are not firm or are awaiting inclusion of laboratory-created segments (dissolves, fades, and titles) primarily on color reversal intermediate (CRI) or color intermediate film stock. The optical effects elements are usually created by an independent optical house rather than the laboratory.

When the negative has been spliced and notched, it is timed on an electronic analyzer to determine the exposure values to be used in the printer. The timing information is used on a proof printer which prints only a few frames of each scene. This proof print is screened (single-frame projection) to identify any further color or density corrections required. A complete composite print (answer print) is then made and evaluated on the analyzer. Once the answer print has been accepted by the producer, a second 35 mm print is made. A 16 mm wet-gate reduction CRI is made, using the final timing derived for the 35 mm answer print. From this 16 mm reduction, the required 16 mm prints are contact printed.

On the fourth day after the laboratory received the cut negative, the answer print is screened at the laboratory for representatives of the production company and the network, and the print is approved.

Day-to-day Schedule of the Production

Starting on Day	Event	Duration
	Preproduction	1-6 weeks. Depends on how many locations to be scouted and/or how many sets to be constructed.
Days 0-6	Production	Photography-6 days.
Day 2	Postproduction	2-8 weeks Laboratory opertations begin during shooting and include processing the negative, daily workprint printing, cutting the workprint into sequences, making optical effects, adding stock footage and sound effects, making titles, and dubbing (voice, sound effects, and music). Optical effects are scheduled whenever the individual scene elements are available. Several labs may be involved in some phase of these operations.
Day 12	1. First Cut	Includes action and voice only, in rough sequences. No opticals, titles, sound effects, although some opticals and titles are being made.
Day 24	2. Final Cut	Workprint. More precisely edited into final form. Some opticals but no titles or sound effects.
Days 25-31	3. Negative Cut	Music composed and scored, sound effects made, opticals and titles prepared, editing finished. Camera negative physically cut to conform to final cut of the workprint. Dupe negatives spliced in where there are opticals and title negative footage added. Actual splicing is done at the laboratory.
Day 32	4. Dubbing	1-3 days. All sound materials (live music, recorded music, voice, sound effects such as gunshots, footsteps, etc) combined into a composite magnetic sound track. Magnetic track transferred to optical track.
Days 34, 35 & 36	5. First Trial	Film shows aesthetic defects in some areas. Needs tightening up and polishing, slight recutting. Some elements missing in titles.
Day 37	6. First Answer Print 35 mm	Contains everything; becomes New York air print.
Day 38	Second Answer Print	Slight color corrections; becomes Los Angeles air print.
Day 39	7. 16 mm Prints	Reduction CRI and ten 16 mm prints.