Information for Students and Professors

Our goal is to provide excellent service to students, faculty and their universities. We work closely with schools all over the United States to ensure the unique requirements of film students and faculty are met. Cinelab is here to provide high quality, economical, and speedy service to suit the needs of your student film production.

Here you will find student pricing information, shipping cost estimates based upon where you are in the USA,  tips on how to save money on your lab costs if you are an individual student, and the answers to some general questions you may have about the process of sending your film to the lab.


We Provide Student Discount Pricing:
At Cinelab students receive discount pricing on film processing, and telecine services when you provide a copy of your student ID.

Cinelab also offers video prep, leader, packaging, and telecine reel changes absolutely free.

Below is a cost breakdown of the most common film processing with video transfer packages:


Save Money With Group Orders:

Many university film programs have school accounts with Cinelab where we receive batches of film from your professor or a designated film program coordinator. Usually in these cases Cinelab will bill your school for the work done on your film and any lab fee you pay is between you and your school.

In other cases you may be filling out your own order form with your film and paying for it as an individual student, but you will be handing it in to your school to be shipped to us with a group shipment of other students in your class. Most other schools give the student the responsibility of finding your own lab and paying for the work you have done on your film on your own. If you are one of these students, here are a couple tips for you to save some money over the course of your semester:

1. There is a $75 minimum charge on any video transfer. This equals about 500 feet of film. If you have less film than that we have to bill you for a full $75 video transfer. BUT, if other students in your class are sending in their film at the same time, we allow you to avoid the minimum charge by grouping your orders together in one batch shipment with other students. We call this “piggybacking”. Your order is loaded onto one large flat with your group and leader is spliced in between each student’s film. This way we treat the film as one big order going through the lab, but we bill each student ONLY for the amount of footage you each have, and your group receives one tape back with each film on it.

2. We are located in New Bedford MA. Anyone anywhere in New England and most of New York (including New York City) can ship a package to us UPS Ground (the cheapest way to ship a package), and it will get to us by the next business day. This means you do not have to waste $30-60 shipping your package to us with overnight express shipping. The same thing goes for when we ship your film back to you.

3. If your order totals over $200, we will give you FREE 2-day shipping.