Do filmmakers really need to pay for DCPs?

As you know I’ve been prepping for a premiere screening of my new film this Wednesday at a theater I rented out in Los Angeles. (Tickets here if you haven’t gotten them!)

It’s been an interesting experiment: Finding the right venue, finding other films to screen with us, promoting it… It’s taught me a lot about what it’s like to be a film festival.

The financial side is still a big question mark too. I set the tickets at $10 to keep it affordable, while still allowing for the possibility of breaking even – if we sell enough tickets.

The venue rental was $2150, and I spent about $200 on some posters and postcards for the event just for fun…

So right now it’s not looking like I’ll break even based on ticket sales. But I don’t mind spending some money to essentially give our team a wrap party, and satisfy my own desire to see it on the big screen.

The other expense was creating the DCP for the film. If you don’t know what that is, then you probably haven’t submitted to some of the bigger film festivals who require it.

What’s a DCP? Why do we need it? What does it cost?

It’s a “digital cinema package.”

Basically, it’s a specific file format that digital movie theater projectors are programmed to be able to play flawlessly. When a Hollywood studio sends the new Batman movie to your local AMC, it’s as a DCP.

This used to mean they shipped a physical hard drive to every theater, which would get plugged into their computer system, and the DCP would be transferred onto their system. Their DCPs were encrypted, so the studio would have to provide a key that would allow the film to be projected for a certain window of time by that theater.

Many film festivals ask for a DCP so that there are no quality control issues. DCPs are already in the correct color space to play consistently on theater projectors, they have sound levels brought to the correct range, etc.

To ensure this – most festivals recommend you go to a company like SimpleDCP to have your film converted into a DCP, because they check everything to make sure it’s all according to spec as they create it.

They can also deliver the DCP to your festival of choice digitally. Otherwise, you get given a USB stick or physical hard drive you’ll lug over to the festival.

The downside? It costs money – and at a time in the filmmaking process when you’ve already spent more than you wanted to!

They charge by the runtime of your film. Our film is 12.5 minutes long, and to get a DCP created and put on 2 thumb drives (just to have an extra copy) cost us $330.

They do let you do a quality check in their projection room though, which is nice.

What are the alternatives?

Many festivals let you submit a simple file like a MP4 or ProRes of your film over something like Google Drive.

While certainly a lot cheaper than submitting a DCP, it’s a little risky if you’ve put a lot of effort into the polish of your film (color, surround mix, etc). You’re basically at the mercy of how they’re setting up the projector, their gamma settings, their volume levels on the speakers, etc.

In other words, you have no idea how it’s going to look and sound in their theater.

Conversely, if they accept DCP as a format, you know you’re going to get a consistent viewing experience if you give them one.

Free DCPs?

The issue I ran into with this screening is that this is essentially the same as a short film block at a film festival. But unlike a film festival – I’m responsible for these DCPs.

Since I’m screening multiple short films, I need to make a DCP for EACH film I’m screening.

That would be too expensive. So I decided to take a crack at creating DCPs for these other films myself.

This is considered a bit risky… but after a little research, and with the technical knowledge I already have about post stuff, I think it’s fine.

There’s a free program called DCP-O-Matic that makes the DCP creation process mostly painless. Since these shorts are all in stereo and not surround sound, it makes it a little more simple.

The only thing I’m worried about is getting them onto properly formatted thumb drives, and making sure the theater can play them all in order – so I’m reaching out to the venue to see if they’ll let me do a tech preview ahead of time.

(SimpleDCP refused to let me test the DCPs I’d created in their projection room unfortunately)

Why do this?

This is all a big experiment to see if it might be possible to self-distribute a low-budget feature film in a profitable way.

Learning about putting on my own screening in LA with this short film should give me a much better idea of what might be possible if I try to make a feature and want to avoid the film festival and traditional distribution routes.

That’s also why I’ve been creating making-of videos since the beginning of working on this short. Does getting the audience involved from the very beginning make it easier to build an audience who cares about the film?

We’ll find out…

Once again – get your tickets here if you haven’t!​

It’s playing this Wednesday the 25th at 8pm at the Lumiere Cinema in Los Angeles, and we’ll have other films, live Q&A with the filmmakers, and audience prizes.

Here’s the trailer if you haven’t seen it:

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Let’s make some movies.

-Kent