Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/22819
would have been the only choice in the past. Thus, indie-based technology has been a con- siderable factor for increased speeds through the production process. That’s not to say there are no shortcomings to indie-based technology, but with proficient shooting and image adaptation such elements can fit seam- lessly mixed into any shot without apparent image loss or compression. At the end, it comes down to digital ones and zeros. Recent technology shifts have had tremendous cultural impact on the film busi- ness for shocks that have made things more difficult in some regards. As an example, QuickTime technology has become a vital tool at the production office end of editorial and review for VFX post (usually out of Final Cut Studio or Avids). But with current film production pipelines, visual effects companies spend countless hours matching color from final- ized 2K VFX shots to be put back into HD editorial. Said color-matching work can actu- ally take longer to do than performing VFX work for the actual 2K client shot. Why is production more particular with this than before? Because edits are now done at HD and often screened for projec- tion.This means executives will be watching screenings more regularly in a quality film- like format. If color changes shot to shot, the inconsistency will pull decision makers out of the picture. In this case the technology has changed the culture to an expectation of having in- progress work resemble the final product.A few years ago, production people watched temp SD imagery and made do with it.This is no longer acceptable to most produc- tions.Now the film production culture is not trained to see past things in progress. People get nervous when things look half finished, even if they are only half finished. So the biggest change in pipeline is qual- ity of QuickTime imagery given back to edi- torial. An old standard definition visual model has now gone to a QuickTime-based HD — one that takes more space and more processing power. As a plus, imperfections in temp work are much easier to correct at the HD stage. For service providers, a non- stop tech makeover can be a double-edged sword. Independent filmmakers have bene- fited, however. Fresh technology lowers the price of entry significantly and the image quality is closer yet to A-list cinema quality. One revealing trend under the new para- rapid and more photogrametry style fin- ished composites.The entire Imagineer bun- dle for tracking, rotoscoping and background creation was recently enhanced into a single unit that is Mocha Pro.With the Adobe CS5 production tools suite, Mocha Pro made for a long-awaited upgrade to an already indis- pensable VFX core. On that score, the sub- stantial 64-bit upgrade path to Adobe CS5 was key for boosting rendering power and speed across the board. As an example, for the Date Night scene, raw footage was hand rotoscoped using Adobe After Effects.The street the police offi- cers were on, as well as the police cars were kept.The footage was tracked using Mocha. All transform data, such as scaling, position and rotation, are copied to a clipboard and then pasted onto a solid layer in After Effects. While the roto was in progress, on-set digm is that visual effects companies are be- coming production companies and produc- tion partners.This is simply because many vi- sual effects people happen to be filmmakers at work under profit margins so low and at competition so high that the choice to cre- ate content is about survival. photography was separated in Photoshop so layers could have tracking data applied to them separately for recreated parallax shifts. The process involved radical manipulation of areas in repainting of missing background sections obscured by foreground objects. Once the roto was finished, color matching on the background plate was done to match the foreground.Then, all tracking data was linked to the layered background and thus LA became New York. One little tidbit — right next to a police officer is a large black VFX PIPELINE — DATE NIGHT CosFX founder Paul Bolger,VFX supervi- sor for shots on Fox’s Date Night , used Canon DSLR cameras to capture thousands of reference footage of New York. Much of the photography was filmed in Los Angeles but had to look as though it took place in New York. If it was completely done in CG it would have taken months to complete and would have been extremely expensive. Using Pla- nar tracking techniques in Imagineer’s Mocha and Mokey, we were able to create continued on page 45 www.postmagazine.com January 2011 • Post 21 Phase One: The studio used an HP/Nvidia/Maya workflow on this visual effects scene, featuring digital cockroaches. box that is actually a crash camera. Rather than taking out the crash camera, a NYPD logo was tracked onto it. Five years ago this shot would have taken considerable effort at far greater cost. Now such work can now be done on a weekend at reduced rates.