Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/4585
restoration Backlot the Midwest RESTORATION M ILWAUKEE — Milwaukee may be one of the last places one would expect to find a digital film restoration facility, but Backlot Imaging (www.backlotimag- ing.com) is thriving at what president Steve Muckerheide calls "a near-shore solution" companies seeking high-quality, economical restoration services in the US. Backlot titles for 20th Century Fox, Universal and Disney to its credit. "While we have an extremely skilled staff that works to Hollywood expectations, able to run an operation in Milwaukee that's more than competitive with India, titles secure and encourages clients to spend valuable labor dollars right here in US," says Muckerheide. Backlot was founded six years ago as a visual effects house that was often subcon- by LA-based VFX studios to do primarily "journeyman" work for feature films wire and rig removal, blue- and greenscreen compositing, rotoscoping, digital set extensions, digital compositing, digital opticals, monitor compositing, continuity error removals, and dealing with unwanted crew and light reflections. solid skill set that Backlot developed acted as a catalyst for expanding into dig- restoration."Our wire and rig removal, rotoscoping and compositing work, with our eye for detail, lent themselves very well to the restoration process," Muckerheide notes."Everything was transferrable to this cost-, timeline- and resolu- tion-driven need." teamed with Jon Guess of Burbank's Alt Systems to build a turnkey restoration based on Pixel Farm's PF Clean while da Vinci's Bob Caniglia assembled a Re- system."They are terrific rigs, and we're glad to have both systems in-house," Muckerheide."They are intuitively designed and have tremendous strengths with respective tools.They have made us extremely cost competitive operationally every bit as technically proficient as any shop in Hollywood." Sometimes Backlot's core VFX skills come to the forefront.A recent 40-year-old under restoration was plagued by a stubborn gate hair in one of the corners of a long tracking shot."As the foreground actor and background tracked, the hair vi- back and forth," Muckerheide explains."This was where our substantial VFX experience came in handy.We could have figured a way to sort it out with our restoration tools, but the more we looked at it the more we thought it was like a long wire-removal shot where you're often tracking an actor or background fea- So we used Combustion and our VFX skill set to remedy it." With FedEx typically delivering large volumes of work on FireWire drives and with individual shots easily sent back and forth via FTP, Backlot's Midwestern location is a non-issue for clients — except for the lower cost of doing business."Our workflow is same as if we were in LA," reports Muckerheide."And we understand the quality the client requires to deliver content for film-out, digital cinema, HD broadcast and Blu-ray release." — Christine Bunish