Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/115625
The Call got its look at New Hat on a Filmlight Baselight system. Alexa and SI 2K cameras. "The 2Ks were used, in part, to allow the camera to get very close to the actors as well as convey a sense of claustrophobia when Abigail is locked in the trunk of a car," says Delaney. "DP Tom Yatsko could move around the confined space and get some very intimate and kinetic shots. Brad and Tom did camera tests with the Alexa and SI 2K in pre-production, and we then took a look at the footage projected back at New Hat to make sure the feeling was right, the footage would intercut well and we could push the limits of darkness to where they wanted it to go — letting the illumination of a cell phone play as a key." Delaney felt "the grade was really supporting Tom's great photography. This film wasn't about creating a hyper-stylized look but rather developing a feel for each of the locations and helping the time of day transition from day to night during the pursuit of the kidnapper." A recent S16mm project at New Hat was the indie feature Best Friends Forever, which premiered at Slamdance. Director Brea Grant describes the film as combining "two girls, a '76 AMC Pacer, the open road and an impending nuclear apocalypse." Delaney used color correction as a "deliberate narrative device" to create "unreal nuclear skies to convey this post-apocalyptic atmosphere" during the friends' drive from LA to Austin, Texas. "Much of the film takes place on the road with beautiful exterior photography by DP Michelle Lawler," he says. "The goal of the look of the film was to take these never-ending west Texas skies and turn them into menacing nuclear ones that transform the world around Harriet (Brea Grant) and Reba (Vera Miao). They are traveling in a blue Pacer, which represents their bubble — clean and primary — while the burst reveals itself around them as dirty and twisted in terms of color. "Executing a visually ambitious grade on a lower-budget feature can be challenging, but we were able to bring it all together: 3D keying, roto and area tracking of skies and other elements within the frame quickly and cleanly were absolutely crucial. And while the format choice of Super 16mm film was totally appropriate for the film, it also meant paying particular attention to your grade as you can introduce noise or exaggerate what's already there." FILMOSONIDO Art met life when Marcos de Aguirre, CEO of Santiago, Chile's Filmosonido (www. filmosonido.cl) found his post production facility involved with Pablo Larrain's feature No, the story of the advertising tactics used in the historic 1988 plebiscite in which the Chilean people rejected continuing the Pinochet dictatorship. A professional sound recordist and mixer at the time, de Aguirre 20 Post • March 2013 Post0313_018-21_DIRAV7FINALREAD.indd 20 participated in the "vote no" ad campaign and his former facility is pictured in archival footage in the film, which has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Larrain made the unusual choice to shoot the feature on 3/4-inch Sony U-matic format, which was widely used by Chilean TV news crews in the 1980s, so his narrative scenes would blend seamlessly with extensive archival footage of the period. "The option the director chose was risky," says de Aguirre. "It definitely was not standard operating procedure. When he first talked with me about it I said, 'Don't do it!' My proposal was something like the way they did Argo: shoot in HD or 2K or whatever and then combine formats in post. But Pablo is very ingenious and said no, he wanted to try 3/4-inch. He bought vintage Ikegami cameras in the US, but they weren't exactly in good working order — he started with three and finished with one!" While Larrain opted to capture scenes with the old cameras, he had them output directly to AJA Ki Pro mini recorders in SD interlaced mode. "By outputting the video signal from the old cameras to new recorders, the pictures came ready for editing on Final Cut Pro here," says de Aguirre. "The first time we saw footage we said, 'Oh, my God!' We're so used to seeing sharp, high-definition images these days. But this soft look works perfectly to tell the story — after the first five minutes you're fully immersed in the movie." No was cut on Filmosonido's premises, where it was also color corrected and finished. Tasks included compositing archival footage into monitors and screens in more than 100 shots; archival material was collected on 3/4-inch and Beta SP tapes. Colorist Ismael Cabrera performed the color grading in standard definition with Assimilate Scratch, a tool he's been using for several years. "We purchased Scratch for an HBO Latin America show produced by Fabula and directed by Pablo Larrain — 13 one-hour shows with a lot of work and fast delivery. Now we're doing movies on it. It's been the right choice for us; it's a real workhorse," says de Aguirre. Much of the vintage look of No was captured in-camera with help from wardrobe, sets and lighting. But Larrain and Cabrera ensured that the "new" period look matched the archival footage's real period look in color grading. When that was accomplished they still had to resolve the issue of how to make an HD progressive master from the SD conform. "Ismael recalled the kinescope process of shooting a monitor, so we projected the output and captured it with an HD camera direct to DPX in realtime," explains de Agu- irre. "It was an old-school method that worked great in the digital domain!" A second round of color grading followed to tweak and refine scenes. Then Filmosonido prepared all the deliverables. The finished film has the 4x3 aspect ratio of the 1980's with black pillars flanking the image. "That was a combination of a creative decision and the desire to avoid losing more definition," de Aguirre says. De Aguirre's personal connections to the story of No gave a "really strange" but "very exciting" feeling to the project. "The main music for the ad campaign, the jingle, was composed by my brother, and it plays a very important part in the movie," he says. "There's footage of when the jingle was recorded so our old studio is shown in the picture." He calls the film's critical and commercial success around the world "amazing" and hopes that it demonstrates that after 25 years of government sponsorship independent Chilean cinema has finally arrived. "A Chilean movie won an award at Sundance and another one is in the running to win a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival," he reports. "As a small country, we're very proud of our films. We're like Sweden in the 1960s." REDLAB DIGITAL Walt Biljan, one of five partners in Redlab Digital in Toronto (www.redlabdigital.com) and the company's senior colorist, wishes someone would "come up with a better name" than DI for the process he performs today. "People don't even know what to call you in film credits anymore," he says. "I'm simply 'colorist' on my last few films." Although Biljan's background is commercials, he eventually segued into features. At Redlab he does projects for every market Bent Image Lab called on Resolve for this Hallmark Channel Christmas special. segment: TV programming, motion pictures, commercials, music videos, documentaries and shorts. He installed Autodesk Lustre when Redlab opened five years ago; he had previously worked at Technicolor, which had "one of the first versions of Lustre out." Biljan even teamed with the software engineers who were adapting the color grading system for commercials, offering them feedback over www.postmagazine.com 3/4/13 1:30 PM