Posted by Vincent at bg-tc-ppp298.monmouth.com on September 20, 2001 at 13:30:37:
In Reply to: Vincent, question on cost of making a DVD... posted by Evan - on September 20, 2001 at 04:23:06:
First off, there's the film-to-tape transfer. If you're transfering on a Spirit to High-Def (the usual practice these days), expect to pay between $600-800 an hour, and a transfer can take anywhere from 10-20 hours to do all the color correction, etc. Lukcily, A BETTER PLACE only took a total of about 6 hours to transfer, and we got an insanely good deal on a Spirit in Montreal.
Then you gotta factor in creation of screens and authoring. A BETTER PLACE cost around $4000 to do this, and we got a good deal AND the menus were not animated and there was no running sound or music under them. Some of these released with really complex animated menus can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Compiling and editing supplements also costs money- figure to spend like $300 an hour in an on-line editing suite putting together that stuff tape-to-tape...
A release like THE PHANTOM MENACE could easily cost a couple hundred grand to pull off what with all the stuff they're doing. Overall, even a title like A BETTER PLACE is going to run into the tens of thousands. I don't have an exact figure, but the overall cost had to have been somewhere in the 10-20 thousand range when everything was factored in.
Vincent
: Hey Vinnie,
: I was wondering if you could give me an idea on how much it costs to make a DVD? Whether be it 'Mallrats', 'ABP', 'Chasing Amy', etc.
: I heard it sure ain't cheap if you put some effort into it. Lucas said that the Episode 1's DVD was very expensive.
: Always great to hear you respond.
: Thanks!