Episode #31 - WARNING: This episode is a workflow episode.  It is made for people with extensive knowledge in post-production and can be confusing if you do not have that background.  If you do not have that background skip to another one of our episodes.

Welcome to another COVID Feature & a Short episode: Mastering File Differences. In this workflow process share, Director/Editor Justin Joseph Hall explains how to export the proper master file for your archives or for delivery.

This is important in order to future-proof your final file and what you’ve invested all of your time and your money into. Justin shares how to preserve the best possible quality for your project’s posterity by covering:

• Equipment

• Creating a master file for a short film versus for a feature

• High resolution

• Why you should avoid letterboxing & pillarboxing (black mattes — black bars — above, below, and around the moving picture)

• Suggestions for finishing codec (not H.264!)

• JPEGS, for example, JPEG 200 files or Targa files for animation 

• Incorporating audio and graphics into your master file

• Subtitles (don’t include them)

• File labeling

  If you have any post-production questions, email Justin directly at justin.joseph.hall@fourwindfilms.com or check out Fourwind’s blog page for helpful tips in creating media.

Thanks for listening! For more content like this check out other podcast episodes as well as our blog posts, where a wide variety of film and multimedia professionals share what they’ve learned.

Production Company - Fourwind Films

Host - Justin Joseph Hall

Audio Mixer & Additional Music - Brian Trahan

The theme song of Season 5 is This Monster by Sun Nectar