Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/312687
POST: What has changed in conversion technology in the past year? SEAN MCKEE: "Recently, a number of commercial tools have been introduced, which have opened the door to conversion for companies with stereographer talent but not the in-house talent to develop proprie- tary tools. These tools bring efficiencies in the workflow by incorporating 3D camera tracking data (The Pixel Farm's PFDepth) and providing a timeline-based, scene- by-scene, realtime-feedback colorist-style workflow (VEFXi's DiamondBlade, which I was contracted to help develop), speeding up the process and increasing the arsenal of methods to get the job done." TODD COGAN: "The overall process remains very similar but our bag of tricks has increased as we've learned a lot of methods to be faster and more efficient. Repetitive tasks for artists have become more auto- mated; the pipeline [for] file delivery to clients is also more automated. The biggest change is about the economics of scale. It used to be a numbers game with the studios: the number of artists you had under your roof. But carrying a large workforce can put you out of business. Now, the major studio clients are more lenient about outsourcing to approved vendors. That allows us to keep a lean workforce of A-list talent while shopping around for competitive pricing to accomplish heavy-lifting tasks like roto. I don't know anybody who carries a large domestic workforce anymore. One-hundred percent of our work is done in Korea; we can push files around securely without issue and have been vetted by almost every studio." MATT AKEY: "The ease with which vendors consis- tently work within multiple formats on a tight post schedule. Capturing multiple formats and resolutions has become the norm, and 3D conversion companies have to be able to utilize whatever size and type of material captured and integrate them into their pipeline Stereo Conversion 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D 2D to to to to to to 3D 3D 3D 3D 3D 3D The Panel AAron PArry Chief Creative Officer/Executive Vice President Stereo D Burbank, CA www.stereodllc.com Todd CogAn Senior Vice President of Operations/ Lead Stereographer, Venture 3D Culver City, CA www.venture3d.com nAmiT mAlhoTrA Founder and CEO Prime Focus World Hollywood www.primefocusworld.com