Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/121914
Instant Gratification Oz The Great and Powerful used Fotokem's own NextLab solution. all our computers are linked to the ISIS via Ethernet, making moving dailies files around simpler and straightforward. No more shuttling around external hard drives." Arthur Ditner is Bling's dailies supervisor. Garrett hails the green aspects of the process. "Our connection to Bling is bi-directional, so if someone from production in Wilmington wants a DVD, editorial can transfer an ISO-DVD file to Bling, which can burn the disc and get it to whomever needs it in North Carolina without having to ship a disc across the country. That's a time saver and good for the environment too. I've gotten DVDs to set thousands of miles away faster than to Santa Monica," Garret says laughing. THE CREATIVE-CARTEL Craig Mumma's history with on-set dailies "goes back to the Dalsa camera days. I've been at it at least since 2005 with the digital pipeline for Where The Wild Things Are in Australia. I can recall every meeting I had trying to convince people to do this. They looked at me like I was crazy. Even three or four years ago it was a difficult sell. Now, it's a new world." Mumma is CTO at Culver City's The Creative-Car tel (www.the-car tel.com), which offers a near-set dailies solution with FilmLight's Baselight as its main engine. "My philosophy is that on-set dailies are more problematic than helpful, so we set up near editorial or the production office, or in a mobile truck," he explains. The CreativeCartel does near-set dailies mostly for feature films, including the upcoming After Earth and Grown Ups 2, and next year's remake of About Last Night. In addition to Baselight, the system has 50-100TBs of JMR Linux-based storage and a Mac Tower for transferring footage to The Creative-Cartel's software, Joust. Joust is a cloud-based service for uploading, downloading and viewing dailies and performing online transfers. 24 Post • April 2013 Post0413_022-24,26-27-On setRAV4FINALREAD.indd 24 "The Creative-Cartel customizes the workflow for each show depending upon how the filmmakers prefer to work. For example, how each client wants their color and sets of dailies," says Mumma. "Do they want only circle takes uploaded to Joust? Do they specify LUTs for each shot? Do they want secondaries? Some DPs have a standard repertoire of looks for us to apply; another wants a Rec.709 transfer so he can deal with color later. What's great about shooting in raw is that the sensor captures everything: It's like shooting film — you don't have to make decisions on-set." The Creative-Cartel can also provide more than a near-set dailies solution, he notes. "We specialize in engineering the whole show from camera to DI." The generic workflow for a feature begins with engineering the camera to be in a certain color space. "We work with the camera department to make sure the settings are correct and that they understand them. The goal is that what the DP sees on-set, he sees in the dailies," says Mumma. "If there's going to be on-set color we calibrate all the monitors on-set to match those in editorial and at the top of the food chain. If there are on-set looks to be applied we discuss how to manage that: Do we deal with metadata sent into the camera or will they provide it on a thumb drive for us to apply at the end of the day?" When shooting begins, the camera cards are taken out of the camera and dispatched to the near-set system, where all material is verified, a back-up copy is made, the cards refreshed and ferried back to the set. "Then we take the material and sync the sound, apply the color as needed and output the deliverables: we back up on LTO or other media, and prepare H.264 files for QuickTimes for Joust or another system and files for DVDs," says Mumma. The Creative-Cartel wrote Joust "to retain the brain trust from the set," he explains. "It takes all the metadata from the script, VFX wrangling and other departments and attaches it to each shot so it's a part of the viewing dailies process that people are accustomed to. Up to the final DI you can see any information from that day on-set." Joust also acts as a transcoder for editorial and finishing. "You can put the EDL in it and transcode all the high-resolution material, too," he notes. "Joust keeps the same final-naming conventions throughout the process." He sees near-set dailies moving forward rapidly now that many DPs are shooting digitally and producers have experienced the speed, savings and efficiencies of preloading post. OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL During the Pontiac, MI, shoot for the 3D feature Oz the Great and Powerful, FotoKem went above and beyond on-set dailies and color with its NextLab on-set solution. Data management supervisor Kyle Spicer handled all the initial media management and associated prep work, including fine-tuning the color with DP Peter Deming, ASC and collaborating with stereographer Ed Marsh on 3D quality control. "We had never used NextLab before, so FotoKem worked with us to make sure the system fit the workflow we envisioned," says Todd Livdahl, director of production technology at The Walt Disney Studios. "NextLab became the on-set nucleus of our data center." Working in a tent about 40 feet from the set, Spicer loaded all the data from multiple Red Epic 3D rigs into NextLab, which featured a 60TB RAID, Avid Euphonix control surface for color, and multiple card readers. Once the data was in the NextLab software, the system became a kind of QC station for the stereo 3D. The software combined the left and right eyes to create 3D clips to which HIT and VIT were applied. Spicer teamed with Marsh to ensure that all the settings were correct and balanced the color between the eyes. Smaller carts with NextLab software were also on stages with 2nd units. The software was networked with the DIT cart manned by Ryan Nguyen for passing off CDL data. In prepro, Deming asked for an elegant live color solution that would enable him to take the live feed from the Red Epic cameras, set the look for every scene and have those looks follow through in post. FotoKem wrote on the spot NextLab Live, which took multiple feeds from multiple cameras into Blackmagic HD Link boxes, fed them into Deming's laptop running NextLab Live and applied the agreed upon LUTs with CDL balancing. "Peter wanted to do live color on-set to establish the look for the dailies. The color he applied on-set was then imported to the NextLab carts in the near-set editorial offices," Livdahl says. The dailies process began when the Red camera cards were dispatched to the editorial offices, where two NextLab stations, connected to a general NAS, were set up. All the cards from the set and all the project files www.postmagazine.com 3/27/13 2:04 PM