Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/9707
overexposures, underexposures, mid-tones, vibrant colors. Muted colors, densities, etc.” From a post standpoint, Sidell loves shooting digi- tally because the workflow becomes painless, he says. “Our images come right off our OB1 mags and get downloaded straight into the SAN at Encore and there they stay.” Encore stores the camera’s original material as 10-bit RGB DPX files with all image detail intact.“Once the images are in the Encore system, they sit for dailies and then I can directly deal with them for my final color sessions.” Sidell’s style for Lie To Me has a film noir feel says Bajpai, who uses Autodesk Lustre for color grading. “The magic lies in fine-tuning the shadows.That’s the beauty of film noir.What we see is just as important as what we don’t. It comes from the lighting, of course, but then we can polish that look during the final color sessions.” Bajpai believes his work on Lie To Me is most effec- tive by being subtle.With Lustre he creates irregular hand drawn masks that emulate “burning and dodging” techniques used in making traditional photo prints. Using an assortment of custom plug-ins he adds sheen, blur and tints within specific tonalities in a shot. “In the end, though, I want it all to be seamless,” he says.“I don’t want the work to call attention to itself.” Working digitally ripples throughout the entire process, and another benefit of working this way is that the dailies grader, Dan Booth, on Lie To Me, has more flexibility because he isn’t limited to primaries. “He has almost as much control as final colorist Pankaj would have,” explains Sidell.“Obviously, dailies are not done to be a final grading and the dailies col- orist is coloring based on that day’s photography, color charts and based on the notes that I give him, but he still has his full range of color and density choices.” I don’t like the extra person and the on-set discussions the process goes through with a DIT. I don’t need a DIT to tell me where my over- and underexposure is. I also knew I was doing more of a traditional telecine, a proper post process where it was a colorist and my- self. I don’t need to do onset color corrections.” JONATHAN SMILES In this new and expanding world of datacentric workflows, Jonathan Smiles is the face of reassurance. While his specific title may change depending on the project — Red camera supervisor, HD supervi- sor, consultant, DIT — Smiles’ main role as digital production supervisor is to ensure that digital cam- eras work, data is captured cleanly, backed up safely, ready for the DI and safely transported to the post production supervisor. He is literally the link be- tween production and post. For just over two years, London-based Smiles has been lending his eyes and experience to productions shooting with digital cameras.“I came from a post/DI background and started going on set; that grew be- cause with data cameras you needed people with DI- quality eyes on set to make quality judgments and keep the workflow holistically focused whilst having good set etiquette.” Smiles is quick to point out that he is not part of Jonathan Smiles: Bringing a DI/post eye to digital shoots. The dailies colorist applies a full grade to the mate- rial to log space, making use of all the picture informa- tion Sidell captured on set. And, because nothing is “baked in,” the dailies grade can make use of secon- daries, windows and keys to put in fairly elaborate looks based on Sidell’s notes. During the final color sessions, the colorist and cinematographer can build on the dailies grade or start from scratch, since the original DPX files remain unaltered. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Sidell went DIT-less for Lie to Me.“Especially in digital for television, the traditional camera department hierarchy.“What you see at the moment is a lot of DITs come from the camera department, and that is very vertically inte- grated.They know about cameras but they don’t know the fine detail about data, editing or DI. My thing is to look across the whole process from when light hits the sensor of the camera through to the DI suite, handing over to the post supervisor ensuring what we shot is in the DI suite. So now we have this chain.” He works closely with the DP, and likens that relationship to the one between the DP and gaffer.“I am not trying to be a DoP, but I help them achieve what they want to with the camera and then into the DI.A big part of what we do now is shoot for DI.We want a nice fat negative for the DI suite, which with digital cameras basically means we don’t clip the highlights, crush or push the shadow detail down into the noise of the sensor, and that is something that really has improved in the last few months with Red’s new Mysterium-X sensor.” When working on a Red production, Smiles also acts as a camera technician on set, including making sure the sensors are ready to shoot “because that is the first link in the data chain,” he says.“I need to make sure there is no dust or scratches.” On set Smiles copies the data to a RAID-5/6 array (he likes G-Tech and Infotrend) and QCs the images using a 30-inch 2560x1600 resolution monitor in a blacked-out vehicle.“With digital cameras you are al- ways looking for something you aren’t expecting, es- pecially when working with cameras early in their de- velopment cycle.” He then makes two copies onto separate trans- port drives, one for editorial/post house and the other for DP viewing or as a production copy. He Chainsaw rocks out in color HOLLYWOOD— The 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert, a four-hour HBO spe- cial, documented a two-night event at New York’s Madison Square Garden featuring some of the biggest stars in rock history. Cross-gener- ational performances by Bono, Mick Jagger and Fergie; Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith; Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others, made for a magical evening of music. Post work was completed at Chainsaw, Hol- lywood (www.chainsawedit.com). Presented with more than 100 hours of HD source mater- ial, the company leveraged its file-based work- flow to complete the show in just two weeks while delivering a product whose style and cine- matic look emulates concert feature films. At Chainsaw,Avid Media Composer,Adrena- line, Symphony Nitris and DS Nitris systems, as well as Final Cut Pro offline and HD online fin- ishing systems are connected to an Avid Unity server.The company’s recently-acquired Film- Light Baselight color grading system is also inte- grated into the workflow (via FilmLight’s Kom- pressor technology), allowing colorists to share access to data with the facility’s editorial team. Original HD source material was ingested into Chainsaw’s Unity SAN.Although the editor- ial team, led by Chainsaw founder/Emmy-win- ning editor Bill DeRonde, had just 10 days to cut the equivalent of two feature films, they were able to work quickly and creatively, as the work- flow gave them instant access to data. Color grading, by Andy Lichtstein in Baselight, and editorial finishing, by John Zimmer in a Sym- phony Nitris, proceeded simultaneously.To make the project manageable, Lichtstein and Zimmer divided the show into seven acts.As Zimmer conformed each act, Lichtstein graded it. Graded sequences became immediately available to Zim- mer for titling and other final finishing tasks. “Because both processes were ongoing si- multaneously, the producer could walk into the grading suite to view a sequence and make a de- cision, based on what he saw, to change some- thing in the online process,” explains Lichtstein. “He was able to work interactively in online and color with the same media. Previously, that