Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/9707
Datacentric Workflows Company X cut and colored this Sony XDCAM- shot Ryan Bingham video, Crazy Heart. makes sure these drives always ride in sep- arate cars for safety.“You can’t be too care- ful with data,” says Smiles, who has seen drives get stolen, and even witnessed a DIT vehicle catch fire. Smiles acknowledges that DITs are not DI colorists.“We can use RedCine-X soft- ware with the DoP to do a one-light grade to set the target look the DoP is after with- out tying the hands of the DI artist.That is something I am very aware of,” he explains. “Sometimes things done on set can’t really be reproduced in a DI suite targeting a film print, so we then start looking at tools like Technicolor’s Creative Bridge’s DP Lights or 3CP’s software, which gives you a better way to transfer the intended look into post.” Smiles has extensive credits working on digital shoots, including the Oscar-nomi- nated District 9 (DP Trent Opaloch), where he served as Red camera supervisor. “Part of the thing with District 9 was we had a lim- ited budget — the published budget was $30 million US, which for what the film achieves is fantastic.” He also worked on an Anand Tucker project called Red Riding 1983 (DP David Higgs BSC), which at press time was being shown in US theatres; the upcoming Anony- mous (DP Anna Foerster) by Roland Em- merich; and Green Zone from Paul Green- grass (DP Barry Ackroyd, BSC, 2nd Unit DP Florian Emmerich). For Green Zone, Smiles was Red camera supervisor for the VFX plates and elements shot with the Red One in Spain and Mo- rocco. He says VFX supervisor Peter Chaing from Double Negative was the driving force behind shooting plates on the Reds. “Green Zone was my first feature film with the Red One; we tested in December 2007 and started shooting in January 2007 on Build 12 of the camera firmware.” He says a challenge for this film was shooting synchronized cameras for tiled VFX plates on the double-headed monster rig, “which is very similar to shooting stereo- scopic 3D and had never been done before with the Red One to my knowledge.” COMPANY X New York-based Company X (www. companyx.tv) is a full-service editing and post production company that has been working with datacentric workflows since productions started shooting P2. And while years experience has helped them to streamline the process, it’s still not easy, according to Company X senior editor Bruce Ashley.“There is an large number of formats, which is part of the problem,” he says.“Every manufacturer is coming up with their own formats or derivations of an origi- nal format — there are also numerous reso- lutions and frame rates.” One difficulty is the transcoding, and while Ashley says there is some existing technology, as well as some on the horizon, that will make this process less time con- suming, right now it’s part of the problem. “P2 didn’t require transcoding, especially in Avid because it’s inherently an MXF file,” he explains.“With Final Cut you can import Streamlining color metadata with RedCine-X Definition reference monitor 3 ways to stand out from the crowd For broadcasting professionals who are performing color-criticalwork on a daily basis, Barco nowpres- ents the RHDM-series High-Definition reference monitor. Available in a 23” and a new 17” version, these true Grade-1 LCDs provide the highest level of image quality. Barco’s RHDM-series displays offer threeways to stand out from the crowd: Colors that last Excellent motion handling Accurate colors Visit us at NAB, Booth SL3314 www.barco.com/broadcasting High LOS ANGELES — For Lightiron Digital (www.lightirondigital.com), file- based production and post workflows are commonplace.The company, founded last year by Michael and Peter Cioni, has two divisions, Iron- work, which uses a file-based model to deliver such services as dailies processing for tape and tapeless media, offline and online editorial, data conform and color grading; and Lightwork, which provides consultation, systems integration and workflow design services to production com- panies that seek to leverage emerging file-based technologies. Working with the Martin Agency, Lightiron’s Lightwork collabo- rated with DIT Michelle De Lorimier on a two-day shoot for a new Hanes commercial campaign featuring Michael Jordan. De Lorimier and Lightiron made use of the latest file-based Red technology and Red’s newly developed Mysterium-X sensor. De Lorimier downloaded the 4K media on set, which is standard for file-based projects.Then, using a new set of Red monitoring and metadata tools, she worked with DP David Lanzenberg to create grades and save them on a clip- by-clip basis using the new Red metadata path called RMD.“This is a completely non-destructive process in which the video village gets re- altime grading results on all Red color science parameters, such as lift, gamma, gain, curves and contrast,” explains Michael Cioni. Color corrected files from the shoot were then sent to Ironwork’s facility where they were reopened and read with the unique color cor- rection metadata associated with each clip.The audio mixer’s broadcast wave files (BWFs) were synced with the color corrected R3D files and processed to Avid DNxHD and ProRes — all done in realtime.This happens in RedCine-X, which is available for free from www.red.com. 42 Post • April 2010 www.postmagazine.com