The new high end of post digital intermediates - Technology

Post, August, 2003 by Claudia Kienzle

IO Film just added a Panasonic DVCPRO HD 1700 VTR, which now incorporates conversion hardware needed to convert the Panasonic VariCam's variable frame rates, from slow to fast motion, as well as 720p to 1080p HD. This VTR directly feeds IO Film's Avid DS|HD, which can work in 720p, 1080i or 1080p HD formats.

EFILM OFFERS PROPRIETARY TOOLS

Efilm uses a variety of devices, such as Arrilaser film recorders, as part of its digital intermediate service. But Efilm also develops its own proprietary image processing software.

"Since we began seven years ago, we've always had to engineer our own custom solutions--writing our own software and developing techniques wherever they did not exist--to enable us to work at this high level," says Michael Cooper, VP in charge of business development, for Efilm (www.efilm. com) in Hollywood.

With 25 people dedicated to R&D, Efilm regularly employs its own custom software to either optimize the facility's throughput or to solve challenging creative problems for its clients' movie projects. Efilm's custom software also ensures quality control in critical decision-making areas, like its digital timing room.

"We offer the ability to screen digital intermediates using our own optically-modified digital projectors that can simulate the output of many display devices and different types of film stock. And we can operate these display devices interactively and in realtime to adjust the colors and other image attributes so clients can really see how their movies will look in the theaters," says Bill Feightner, Efilm's president of technology.

"We also shoot film and send it for processing at area labs daily to make sure that we're tracking with them," says Coopers. "Based on the results of this test and our video and film expertise, we compensate for photochemical variations when we record locked images to film to ensure a stable, accurate film display. Our clients understand that the digital intermediate is more quality controlled and consistent than a film process in giving them the look they want. And once directors and DPs know what our digital intermediate process can do for them, very often they plan to use those capabilities before the cameras start to roll on their next productions."

Among the movies for which Efilm provided digital intermediate service are Frida, Charlie's Angels 2, Terminator 3 and American Wedding, the sequel to American Pie, coming to theaters this month.

CO3 HOSTS BAD BOYS II

At Company 3, Bad Boys II was finished using the digital intermediate process and images scanned to 2K data files by a Thomson Spirit DataCine telecine/scanner. The summer action movie, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, was brought into Company 3's Quantel iQ finishing system for conforming, compositing, visual effects, color correction and other creative manipulation that was required.

"There were 5,000 cuts in this two-hour movie, and a lot of car chases and action sequences, all of which were shot throughout Miami over several months," explains Stefan Sonnenfeld, president of Company 3 (www.company3.com) in Santa Monica. "As a result, some scenes were shot over many days, with the light changing all over the place. So we needed to get a consistent look over the quality of the lighting and alter the scenes to better fit director Michael Bay's strong, stylized vision,"