Screencapping

A few days back an interested participant asked me this question...

Q. Is it compulsory to submit the stills from the film? Will my film be disqualified if I don't submit them?

A. Well, no. the film will not be disqualified, I said. But there is a possibility that selection committee might not give preference to a film without an accompanying picture. The committee will be given a catalogue with the pictures that will aid them to decide upon the final selection. So, yes, it will be profitable for all participants to submit pictures from their film.

I then went on to tell him that all he had to do was send us some high quality screencaps and the problem will be solved.

Q. But what IS a screen cap?

A. A screen shot (sometimes called a screen capture) is a copy of the screen's contents that can be saved as a graphics file or copied into a document or graphics editor. Various programs are available for creating screen shots, but it is easy to do without any special program.

To take a screen shot on a Windows platform, you press the Print Screen button (usually on the top row of the keyboard) to get a shot of the entire screen. To get a shot of the active window only, you press the Alt key and the Print Screen key at the same time. The screen shot is copied to the clipboard (the memory area that temporarily stores information to be copied to another location ) and can then be pasted into a document in a word processing program such as Word or WordPerfect, or into an image editor, such as Adobe Photo Shop, Paint Shop Pro, or Microsoft Paint if you want to alter the image.

On a Macintosh platform, you press the Command, Shift, and 3 keys to create an image file (called a PICT file). If you press 4 instead of 3, the cursor changes to allow you to select an area of the screen to save. Command, Shift, and 4 with the Caps Lock pressed allows you to create a circular image. Any of the commands with the Control key pressed copies the image to the clipboard.

On a Unix platform, there are different methods for the various interfaces. A common one is the command xwd -out filename.xwd, which allows you to click a screen to make an image file.


Try these links for more info about how to make screen caps:

http://irreproachable.livejournal.com/738.html
http://www.any-capture.com/
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-14607-dvd-screencaps-how-do-you-make-them.html
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=464148


For the purposes of the Festival, we request the participants to send a soft copy as well as a hard copy of the screen caps.
1. A generation of quality will not be lost if you send soft copies and not printouts of the pics.
2. It's obviously easier to get soft copies printed.
3. A hardcopy along with your entry will ensure there is no mix up and confusion regarding the pictures.


Cheers
Madhura