Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524965
www.postmagazine.com 5 POST JULY/AUG 2024 BITS & PIECES PLATE PROS OFFERING CGI CAR PLATES LOS ANGELES — At the recent Cine Gear Expo, production services compa- ny Plate Pros (www.platepros.com) showcased their library of pre-stitched car process plates, as well as Sim-Plate, a line of simulated car process plates created entirely in procedurally-generated CGI. Sim-Plate was developed in partnership with Light Sail VR. The addition of Sim-Plate to the Plate Pros library allows the company to offer both photographic and fully-CGI process plates to suit a wide range of needs. Sim-Plates perform exactly as the company's pre-stitched array plates and can be used interchangeably on any virtual production or VFX workflow. They are available as 12K or 16K pre-stitched, equi-rectangular 360-degree video files (ProRes and NotchLC), and the plates have the ability to be cus- tomized for any season, weather or time of day. Pre-rendered plates from the library will have a price comparable to photographed plates. Plate Pros also announced the availability of its proprietary translational stabilization system, designed specifically for stabilizing 360-stitched driving process plates. This is a service offered for all of its stitched library plates. The company also introduced specs for its next round of library footage, which will feature everything that the current plates offer, in addition to 16K stitched resolution, 12-bit RAW origination and improved flare control. At this year's CineGear, Plate Pros joined forces with ROE Visual, a provider of LED creative display products, to demonstrate their new line of RGBW LED panels, which incorporate full-spectrum white diodes for improved color repre- sentation for in-camera VFX. They also partnered with Fuse Technical Group to demonstrate their Show Control system and customized playback technology. NIGHTWATCH: DEMONS ARE FOREVER COMPOSER CEIRI TORJUSSEN LOS ANGELES — Composer Ceiri Torjussen (https://ceiri.com/) recently scored the Shudder Original film Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever. Directed by Danish filmmaker Ole Bornedal, the feature stars Fanny Leander Bornedal, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Ulf Pilgaard and Sonja Richter, among others. In it, Emma (Bornedal) takes a night job that leads to her facing the psychopathic killer who targeted her family 30 years earlier. Torjussen co-scored Bornedal previous film, The Bombardment for Netflix, along with friends and colleagues Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders. "Ole liked what I'd done on The Bombardment and so (he) asked me to score Nightwatch: Demons are Forever. It was an exciting opportunity for me and I had a lot of fun working on it." Torjussen was tasked with coming up with a full, original score for the film. His work spans more than an hour in the 110-minute feature. "Ole wanted me to enhance the drama in an original and non-clichéd way," he explains. "We were on a tight budget, so I wasn't able to hire an orchestra, or, in fact, any live players." "There's around 40 separate cues in the film. I probably wrote half a dozen original themes that weave their way in and out of my cues, depending on the action on-screen. Like in many film scores, I use the themes in a 'leitmotivic' way to represent certain characters or story points in the film." Torjussen works in Digital Performer and Ableton Live. "I use tons of sample libraries and audio plug-ins, some of my favorites being Soundtoys, FabFilter, Izotope and Audio Damage. My tools on this score were my studio, a piano, synths, a moth, and, for one strange cue, some plastic toy instruments, assisted by my seven-year-old daughter, Anwen." For the creepy character of Bent, the idea was to represent him as some kind of insect. "Since moths make an appearance in both this and the original Nightwatch film from 1994, I decided to use moth wings and buzzes as the basis for a new, unique sound to represent Bent." Torjussen recorded a local moth near his house in Topanga Canyon and was able to manipulate the source sound by pitching it down several octaves and varying the speed. "It turns out that moth wings end up having a cool, sinister rhythm if pitched and slowed-down intensely. This became one of the signature sounds in the score." Composer Torjussen in his studio.