DCPs

10+ years ago, when I was preparing Sita Sings the Blues for film festivals, I had to make heavy, unwieldy, and expensive 35mm film prints. Thankfully I don’t have to do that any more. Instead, today’s cinemas use DCP (for Digital Cinema Package) hard drives. These take advantage of advances in digital technology, as fucked up by a film industry that can’t cope with advances in digital technology. Thanks to the insane and byzantine encoding protocols designed by Hollywood to thwart what computers are inherently best at – copying – making DCPs has long been shrouded in mystery and prohibitive costs.

Since I’m cheap and have practically no income these days, I didn’t want to use a DCP-making service (called a “lab,” as if). Instead, after begging around for favors, and doing much research online, I made them myself.
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I used DCP-o-matic. It’s Free Software, created and maintained by Carl Hetherington, to whom I and many other small filmmakers owe a debt of gratitude. I can’t recommend it enough. Apparently many screening venues now use it themselves. I used it to make 2K and 4K DCP files, and English and French “version files” for subtitles. I also burned in English subtitles over “Paroles, Paroles.”

New-DCP-Verify-05

Once I made the DCPs, I had to get them onto portable hard drives, which is no small task. You can’t just drag-and-drop copy them like normal files. Fortunately I found DCP Transfer. It’s not Free, but it is affordable – $25 a month (ugh, subscriptions) plus a $25 initial charge. Today my subscription auto-renewed, just in time for me to be gone for a month, so I contacted the company to cancel and they refunded it. That’s good service! The software works great, too. I had no problem formatting and copying DCPs onto most external hard drives. The exception was flash drives, aka thumb drives; these overheated and usually failed. It’s a pity, since flash drives are so small and convenient. But I found some relatively inexpensive 320GB USB3 portable hard drives, and made enough DCPs to satisfy film festivals.

Whatever my complaints about DCP, it sure beats making (and distributing!) film.

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October 14 event with Zsuzsanna Budapest

I’ll be returning to my old stomping grounds of Santa Cruz, CA in October (actually part of a longer North American film festival tour with Seder-Masochism, which I’ll announce soon).

Animated poster! Please share.
Animated poster! Please share.

The Goddess Animated: Nina Paley and Zsuzsanna Budapest

Double feature of Nina Paley animation! Each screening followed by dialog with Zsuzsanna Budapest and question-and-answer with audience.

1pm: Sita Sings the Blues
2009 Dir. Nina Paley
Paley’s award-winning 2009 animated musical interpretation of the Hindu epic Ramayana has earned widespread critical praise, a 100% rating on RottenTomatoes, and continued places on best-of lists. Roger Ebert wrote of it, “I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other.”

4pm: Seder-Masochism
2018 Dir. Nina Paley
Loosely following a traditional Passover Seder, events from the Book of Exodus are retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus, and the director’s own father. But there’s another side to this story: that of the Goddess, humankind’s original deity. Seder-Masochism resurrects the Great Mother in a tragic struggle against the forces of Patriarchy.

Suggested donation: $20 to support the Women’s Spirituality Forum.
Tickets at the door.

AMAZONS ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND!

Sunday October 14, 2018

Click image for high resolution poster to print out
Click image for high resolution poster to print out

Brookdale Terrace Club House
300 Plum St., Capitola, CA
Please carpool; parking is limited.

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Where is Seder-Masochism?

Seder-Masochism is currently doing its film festival rounds. There are a number of festivals lined up this Fall and Winter, most of which I can’t name until they make their official announcements. I really, REALLY want to free the thing online, like, yesterday, but many festivals will disqualify any film that has an “online platform.” Film festivals are the only theatrical screenings it’s ever likely to have, so I’m not going to publicize an online release – even a Free, peer-to-peer one – until its “regional premieres” (which some festivals insist on) are done. If it’s any consolation, this waiting drives me crazy. But I’m going to wait, so that it may see the light of theater screens.

Love,

–Nina

P.S. If you haven’t seen my first feature, Sita Sings the Blues, now would be a good time to watch it! It’s Free all over the place.

 

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The Sita Sings the Blues Merchandise Empire has MOVED!

It now lives at http://www.palegraylabs.com/sita-store/Screenshot 2018-06-06 14.39.41

This is all the leftover merch our previous order fulfillment service sent us when we closed our account. I’ve been inventorying and organizing and folding and removing cardboard box shreds with a lint roller since they dumped everything on our doorstep. Odd sizes! Everything must go!

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