FCP - 16:9 conversion to 4:3
 

Hey guys -

I'm going to be shooting a little short film for a competition in a few weeks (when my XL-2 arrives) and there's a little predicament. They want the final product to be on MiniDV, and do not have the ability when they screen thet movies to unstreatch a native 16:9 image. And since it's on MiniDV instead of a DVD I cannot flag it in any way to unstretch itself.

So...

Is there a process I can do in Final Cut Pro to take an anamorphic file and downres it to turn it into a matted 4:3 image?

Look, I don't do FCP, but in PPro, you would just open 4:3 project, import the 16:9 file to it, and make any adjustments necessary to give it the correct aspect/letterbox look.

Just edit in a 16:9 sequence as normal and when you're done nest it into a 4:3 sequence, if it dosen't automatically resize to letterbox open it into the viewer and then open up the distort property and change the aspect ratio slider to either -33.33 or 33.33 I can't remember which one off the top of my head, but that should make it display properly for your print to tape.

Thank you. :) I figured it might be simple, but the XL-2 has not arrived yet so I couldn't test it.

How are they screening the film? Most 16:9 TVs and projectors can unstretch the footage as it is shown.