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Bits & Pieces Finish colors The Makeover B OSTON — Colorist Rob Bessette at Boston's Finish Post (wwwfinishboston. com) recently provided basic color correction and dailies preparation for the TV film The Makeover for Hallmark Hall of Fame. Based on the classic story of Pygmalion, the movie stars Julia Stiles as Ivy League educated Hannah Higgins, who attempts to transform "Southie" native Elliot Doolittle into a potential US congressman. Shooting wrapped up in October, and the 90-minute TV movie is scheduled to air on ABC in early 2013. The team, led by director John Gray and DP James Chressanthis, filmed primarily with two Arri Alexa cameras in ProRes 4:4:4. The shoot spanned 23 days. At the end of each day, footage was transferred to a hard drive and sent to Bessette for color correction within Blackmagic's Resolve 9. Each evening he worked on three hours of footage that had to be sent as DNxHD files to Level 3 Post in LA, where it would be cut using Avid Media Composer. Production had two film breaks each day, and nearly 200GBs of footage was sent to Bessette daily. After receiving footage, he was tasked with preparing the initial footage, ingesting media into usable folders, syncing audio and video in a master timeline and doing basic primary color grades on individual scenes. Also, more detailed in-depth secondary grades were done on specific scenes in which the director and cinematographer requested a more refined look. "We only had several hours to do everything from ingest to delivery each day," he explains. "Before Resolve 9, the audio syncing work alone would have taken several hours, and meeting the daily deadlines would have been very difficult." The process began by bringing all the audio and video clips into the Resolve media pool, organizing the footage and syncing the video clips with the proper broadcast wavelengths. "With Resolve 9, if audio was recorded properly on-set, it really is just a matter of bringing the clips into the media pool, selecting a timeline and then clicking 'Link With Audio From Selected Bin(s).' It couldn't have been simpler, and what used to take two hours I can now do in two clicks." Following audio syncing and basic ingest, Bessette applied primary grades to footage. This included a basic contrast and saturation balancing while maintaining detail in the highlights and shadows. "The footage coming in from the field was shot in Log C, so the raw image appeared very flat," he recalls. "Every day the cinematographer would send me an email with direction and references for the set-ups of that day, and we had to be prepared to balance colors and exposures in a number of different environments." Once he finished grading the day's footage, Bessette exported in DNxHD and sent the files to the editors in LA. "The improved render speed made life easier; it's so much faster. Two-and-a-half hours of footage now takes about two-and-a-half hours, which leads to more time grading and less time worried about the technical aspects of the job." Brickyard VFXchangesseasons S ANTA MONICA — Brickyard VFX (www.brickyardvfx.com) used its visual effects skills to "winterize" a spot for GMC promoting its Sierra truck. The holiday campaign, conceived by Leo Burnett, was originally shot in the summer. The Brickyard team, led by visual effects artist Mandy Sorenson, created a digital matte painting of a snowy environment, using a photoreal CG snow plate created by head of 3D David Blumenfeld using Maya. The studio's artists then tracked the circling camera move and composited the CG snow plate onto the original plate using Flame. The team also used a CG model of the Sierra to digitally replace the reflections on the truck to mirror the new snowy environment. Sorenson completed the composite with a sky replacement and cold-toned color correction. The spot was produced by @radical. media. For more on "VFX for Commercials," turn to our feature on page 28. 10 Post•January2013 Post0113_004,6,8-BitsRAV5FINALREADwithFIX.indd 10 at a glance Jonathan Lia, Brian Welsh and Ryan Heiferman have launched GOODCOMPANY (www.goodco.tv), a new producer-led production company that makes commercials, music videos and films. Based in NYC, the company's directorial roster is comprised of Aaron Platt, Alexandre Moors, Daniel Gomes, Jonathan Lia, Noah Conopask, Scarlett Johansson and Surround. Before forming Goodcompany, Lia and Welsh each had their own companies, producing content for brands including Nike, AMEX, Microsoft, Adidas and Toyota, and for artists such as Madonna, U2, Beyonce, MGMT, Coldplay and Justin Timberlake. Users of THE FOUNDRY's (www.thefoundry. co.uk) 3D digital painting tool Mari can now take advantage AMD FirePro workstation graphics cards. Following a period of development by AMD, The Foundry has certified the company's FirePro W7000, W8000, W9000 and AMD Radeon HD 7850, HD 7950 graphics cards for use with Mari 1.6. Mari is used by texture artists and digital painters to bring 3D models to life. It was designed at Weta Digital during the production of Avatar. Director TIM BURTON teamed up with Th2ng (www.th2ng.com) to produce the video for Here With Me by The Killers.The video was shot in various locations in Blackpool, England, and features performances by The Killers, as well as appearances by Winona Ryder and Craig Roberts. The project reunites the Th1ng group with Burton — Th1ng created title sequences for many of his movies with titles designer Richard Morrison (Frankenweenie, Dark Shadows, Sweeney Todd, Batman). GRASS VALLEY's (www.grassvalley.com) Oregon offices have moved to a new location.The new office is based at 3030 Alocleck Drive, Hillsboro, OR 97214. PULSE, a new docu-short, is one of the first to be shot with Canon's Cinema EOS C100. Directed by Emmy-award-winner Patrick Moreau of Stillmotion, Pulse profiles the making of the BioBeats application, a new technology that uses cameras to generate custom music based on a human heart rate. The video can be viewed at http://vimeo.com/54808760. Toronto-based EYEON SOFTWARE (www. eyeonline.com) is shipping Eyeon Connection Version 1.5, which bridges the gap between the Avid editing and VFX workflow via the Avid AVX2 architecture. The release marks Eyeon's second Connection release in less than six months. Connection was created to allow editors and artists to go beyond an environment specific to the layered-based editing and VFX workflows that are often associated with Media Composer and Symphony. For DS editors, Connection provides an advanced 3D compositing technology that is resolution, frame rate and color independent. Also, Eyeon implemented simple drag and drop methodologies. www.postmagazine.com 12/21/12 2:24 PM