What Is a Reel?
The concept of a film reel goes back to the beginning of cinema. A physical 35mm reel of film could hold approximately 20 minutes of footage. A feature film therefore arrived as multiple reels, and projectionists switched between them during the screening. Digital cinema removed the physical constraint but preserved the concept: a DCP is a playlist of reels that play sequentially. For most independent films, that playlist contains a single reel — the entire film from first frame to last. For good technical reasons, this is sometimes not the right approach.
The 20-Minute Caption Device Limit
Certain cinema caption display systems — the hardware that sends caption text to personal devices in the auditorium — have a known limitation: they can only handle caption data for one reel at a time, and some systems fail entirely if a single reel exceeds approximately 20 minutes. The display goes dark. Deaf or hard of hearing audience members using those devices lose their captions for the remainder of the reel.
This is a documented issue at multiple major festivals. SXSW in particular has seen repeated instances with independently submitted films delivered as a single reel. The film plays without a problem. The captions fail. The accessibility promise of the screening is broken.
The fix is straightforward: divide the film into reels of no more than 20 minutes. The audience experiences no difference. The caption system gets a clean reset at each reel boundary. If your film is over 20 minutes and includes closed captions, ask us about reel structure when you commission the DCP.
Hollywood films are still divided into reels of approximately 20 minutes even though the physical necessity no longer exists — partly tradition, partly workflow convenience, partly because it means a problem with reel 4 does not require remastering the whole film.
Adding Logos, Rating Cards and Front Reels
A DCP reel does not have to be a section of your main film. A distributor logo, a production company ident, a ratings certificate, or a festival presentation slate can each be their own reel — sitting before the main content and playing automatically as part of the same DCP package.
This is almost always smarter than burning content into the picture. A film releasing in the UK needs a BBFC certificate. The same film in the USA needs an MPAA rating. Rather than maintaining separate picture masters for each territory, you keep one picture reel and swap the front card reel. If your logo changes, you replace only that reel.
The Rating Tag
For films where the ratings certificate is not confirmed at the time the DCP is made — which happens regularly when certification runs close to a delivery deadline — a Rating Tag is a standalone DCP containing only the ratings certificate card. The cinema receives it separately and playlists it immediately before your main DCP. Your main DCP can be finished, delivered and ingested while the ratings process is ongoing. The moment certification comes through, we make the Rating Tag and send it digitally. No remaking the main DCP, no re-ingesting a large file, no delay.
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