Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/10459
Moving in Stereo Stereo back to the farthest point with the screen falling somewhere between the two.” McNally views How to Train Your Dragon as “spatial filmmaking” rather than 3D filmmak- ing.“With 3D you tend to think of the gim- micks,” he says. Audiences appreciate the fly- ing sequences in Dragon because “they are hugely spatial by their nature.What could be better than having a technique which in- creases the ability to sense the space?” McNally recalls the first time the film’s di- rectors, Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, saw the flying sequence, in a 3D rough-layout re- view, where the titular dragon and his young master begin to fall to earth from a great height.“They were like,‘Wow! This is so cool!’ The level of intensity had gone up beyond what they’d been seeing up to that point.” and curiosity about converting it to 3D. As- cent does not currently offer 3D conversion but the company does have a “soup-to-nuts finishing process for 3D films,” Sterling says. Alice was shot single-camera using 35mm for the traditional-looking sequences above ground and Genesis HD for the green- screen fantasy that takes place underground. Burton fell among the directors who found the current double-camera rig too restric- tive for acquisition. Rather, Sterling says, Bur- ton and company planned early on to do subsequent 3D conversion. “I think the way they used it was quite creative.Three-D is about immersion, not gags or gimmicks. Alice is a very comfortable movie to watch.” Almost every shot was greenscreen; Sony Pictures Imageworks was the lead house with Ken Ralston in charge of VFX. Co3 scanned Burton’s film ele- ments at 2K using Arriscan. Alice’s 3D DI was done at 1920/1080 res- olution. Co3 performed the DI from 10-bit log DPX source files. IMAX versions were also called for. IMAX mostly uses film deliver- ables, but even their large format is beginning to rely on digital display. “There’s a lot going on,” Sterling says.“We’re on the cusp of some- thing new.” Director Tim Burton balances his wildly creative eye for design with a decisive nature and, some- times, a refreshing disregard for “the small stuff,” Sterling says. And Alice in Wonderland: Co3’s Stefan Sonnenfeld called on Resolve during the color grading process. CHASING RABBITS Stefan Sonnenfeld and Company 3, based in Santa Monica and New York, got involved early in 3D motion-picture mastering. Son- nenfeld uses a Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve system to grade stereo films in Co3’s Dolby/RealD-equipped theater.Tim Burton was a recent inhabitant of the theater with his Alice in Wonderland. Co3 executive producer for feature film, Devin Sterling, manages the DI grading the- ater in Santa Monica (Co3, www.com- pany3.com, is an Ascent Media company) where the focus is shifting to 3D films. In the past year Co3 did G Force and Alice here, as well as the films’ numerous market- ing campaigns, including trailers and special press pieces. “We have what looks like a very big 2011, with lots of 3D releases,” Sterling says, adding that by next year this theater may be exclusively 3D. “There are plenty of films that are gearing to do [3D] production in the very near future.” One path to 3D starts with your 2D film 24 Post • May 2010 Burton had Stefan Sonnenfeld at the con- trols of the Resolve. “Detail-wise, you need to see a little more into the 3D than the 2D [standard color grade],” Sonnenfeld says.“We felt we needed different contrast ratios in the 3D because you’re seeing deeper into the three-dimen- sional image, although the base of the 3D correction [is the initial] 2D correction.” That said, Sonnenfeld suggests that Alice, with all its CG backgrounds, actually gave him somewhat less color work to perform. But the work involved in matching his color grade with the CG work done at Sony began very early on.“Obviously [CG images] have to have a style and color and contrast and balance, but the translation between Sony and Company 3 was very tight so, when Tim would go from Sony to Company 3, it would look pretty much the same.” Sonnenfeld and Burton, along with editor Chris Lebenzon, focused on the challenge of maintaining color uniformity between the movie’s four different displays — 2D, 3D, IMAX and IMAX digital. (This required nu- www.postmagazine.com merous visits to the IMAX facility.) Simply put, Sonnenfeld says, their color manage- ment effort was “to make sure what we do in digital gets emulated as accurately as pos- sible to film. In that process you have these 3D look-up tables where you manage the color for whatever deliverable is required — consistent to the original intent.” There were occasions when Sonnenfeld had to “majorly color” certain scenes when Burton wanted to achieve a moody, de-satu- rated “look.” In one memorable scene, Johnny Depp’s Hatter walks through a forest lit in moody, contrasting darks and light with Alice on his shoulder (when she was just small). In this case, Imageworks did not have time to impart a unique color look and feel, and Burton tapped Sonnenfeld for his ex- pertise.“We used many multiple [Resolve] windows and shapes, and tried to give the feel. Our system has infinite windows capa- bility — with all the different twists and shapes we were able to do, we finessed it with Tim and it all came out looking great.” Burton takes the color red seriously and Co3’s use of 3D LUTs helped.“When you get into a three-dimensional look-up table, that allows you to mix the colors,” says Mike Chiado, Co3’s director of engineering.“So a red color can actually translate in the red- green-blue color space to any other space, not just along the red vector.” Alice’s croquet sequence required con- centrated color work, as did scenes in the Red Queen’s castle, including shading her oversized face and keeping its paleness con- sistent. Sometimes Depp’s remarkable makeup needed tweaking at Co3, again for a consistent look. Since so much of the movie is green- screen, Sonnenfeld says, “the CG people, the matte painters, the supervisors, in that sense are just as important as the real set designers, makeup people and lighting peo- ple — it’s a whole new environment. It’s teamwork at its best.” STEREO COUNTRY Country music star Kenny Chesney’s hit songs deal with fun subjects like “Summer- time,” “Beer in Mexico” and a “Keg in the Closet” to name a few. His next project also deals with the hot season, but this time in stereo. 3D: Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D was directed by Joe Thomas and edited by Skip Masters and Mark Pruett. Milton Amadou, a longtime Quantel iQ user, was the film’s Pablo 3D artist. Compiled from six different open-air sta- dium shows, the concert film was shot last summer by 3ality Digital using as many as S T E R E O 3 D