The Right Timing

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Can the handful of post facilities offering digital intermediateservices change the future of film finishing?

In theory it's the best of both worlds. Digital mastering allowscinematographers the unmatched flexibility of shooting on film alongwith the creative control of the telecine suite. The result is a 35mmfinal product suitable for projection. The digital result, in the formof 2K (or higher-resolution) data files, might also serve as anall-purpose digital master that can be used to derive video and DVDversions without going through time-consuming and costly remastering.For blow-ups from 16mm or optical squeezes for Super 35, there's littledebate that digital mastering can retain more of the original imagethan can any optical process.

For years filmmakers have hoped to harness the powerful telecinefeatures they've enjoyed on video projects. All electroniccolor-correction options — altering contrast, manipulatingsecondary colors, and isolating parts of an image for differenttreatment — were, until a few years ago, only a dream for featurefilmmakers. Now, a variety of different types of facilities have addedsuch large-scale, high-end services to their rate cards.

The technical barriers — scanning and recording quality,storage and manipulation of enormous files — have essentiallybeen overcome. More and more filmmakers are using digital options.However, early predictions that traditional timing would disappearovernight have not come true. The list of films that have been madeusing this process is still small, and the number of companies thatoffer digital mastering on a regular basis for features worldwideremains in the single digits.

One reason for this slow acceptance is the additional cost. Facilityestimates vary, but the decision to digitally master an entire featurecan add anywhere from $100,000 to five times that to the price oftraditional photochemical timing, depending on where the work is doneand how involved the process is. When a large number of effects shotsis integrated into the show, or when digital dissolves, etc. are lumpedin with the process, or when creatives spend time experimenting withthe look, costs naturally rise. While the control available in postcould offset some other costs — faster shooting and lighting,streamlined remastering procedures — the people who control thebudgets still consider digital mastering a luxury.

Another significant reason for the slow growth in this field comesfrom the facility end. Getting into this business is an enormouscommitment, not just of equipment, but also of creative and technicaltalent. A track record in either the video or the photochemical worlddoes not ensure a smooth transition into the world of this delicatehybrid.

Duboicolor (Boulogne, France) spent years getting to the point whereit could offer mastering services to films like Jean-Pierre Jeunet'sAmélie, shot by Bruno Delbonnel. Like many facilitiesthroughout the world, Dubiocolor scanned, manipulated, and recordedeffects shots for features that were traditionally timed. Within thelast few years, however, the company began to offer digital timingservices for entire features. (For more information on Duboicolor'sfacilities, see page 54.)

More important than the massive amounts of data involved in adigitized feature is the ability to provide perfect color management sothe choices made in the suite by the colorist, DP, or director show upidentically on release prints. “When you want to create color ina digital environment,” says Tommaso Vergallo, production managerof Duboicolor's digital film division, “and have that translateprecisely onto film, you have to manage the work and be very carefulabout how the film stock will react. You can't just work on the imageslike you would for normal telecine designed for video finish or you endup with rubbish. You aren't really taking advantage of all this processcan offer for film finish.”

Other experts agree with Vergallo's assessment. “While thereare very talented colorists who do long form mastering, if you can'tput their creative images accurately onto film you've negated theirtalent,” says Peter Sternlicht, executive vice president ofTechnique, Technicolor's digital mastering facility (see chart on page54). “There are some companies that are trying to get into thisarena but are finding it's more difficult than they thought. Videocompanies are discovering that it's not a plug-and-play business likethe video business is. This is a very sophisticated science.”

Digital film mastering is an outgrowth of both photochemical andvideo technology, and there are sound arguments on both sides as towhich type of company can best migrate into the field. Barry Snyder,president of Hollywood-based facility Post Logic sees digital masteringas the natural progression for his video-based business. “We havea different business model from some of the other people doingthis,” Snyder says. “We transitioned from commercials intolong form [video]. We've been a leader in high-definition mastering, sodigital mastering of feature films is a natural progression. A lot ofour competitors have tried to redefine a new business with digitalintermediate leading the way as a new process. We're using ourexperience mastering into the digital intermediate world. That's how wedefine ourselves.”

Using Philips Spirit DataCine and Cintel C-Reality telecine, as wellas Pogle I PiXi and DaVinci color correction systems (see chart page54), Post Logic has performed digital-mastering services forsignificant parts of films, but not an entire feature. The company hasplans to offer the service for entire features in the future.

Randy Starr, vice president of business development at Cinesite,Hollywood, stresses the massive undertaking that is involved indigitally timing a feature. The Cinesite lab used Philips SpiritDataCine, Pandora MegaDef color corrector, and the Kodak Lightninglaser film recorder (see chart page 54) on features such asFearDotCom and Hart's War. “Pushing video imagesthrough a facility is certainly an expertise,” Starr admits.“But dealing with file sizes of 12 or more MBs per frame over thecourse of 172,000 frames is just an awful lot of computer information.That's just from a technological infrastructure standpoint. Then youget into the color management standpoint and being able to make thosefiles look on a digital display exactly the way they they're going tolook on film through the color management systems you have. You have tofactor in the specifics of the print stock and the specific lab that'sgoing to do the printing. Once you get the film laser-recorded, thenyou've got to develop it. There has to be a nice alliance between the[house doing the color work] and the laboratory.”

Joe Matza, president of the Deluxe and Panavision-owned EFILM,agrees that a company's success at providing this service will rise orfall based on its understanding of the interplay between the digitaland photochemical worlds. “I think there are some great videofacilities doing wonderful work for video that think that going intothis digital intermediate business is a natural evolution of what theydo,” Matza says. “In some ways it is. The backside of thedigital intermediate process is something that video facilities can doquite well. They can derive the video deliverables — home video,DVD and all that — from the high-resolution masters. That's partof what they do day in, day out, but they do it with telecine. What yousee in the monitor is what you get. When you have to put that on film,it's a different story.”

Many filmmakers feel that 2K quality for scanning, manipulating, andrecording out the data on film is too low, even though it has becomethe standard. “There are individual scenes that will benefit from4K,” says EFILM's Matza, challenging this claim, “but youhave to realize that's the maximum amount of resolution you can getonto a 35mm piece of film. And that's the negative, the cameranegative. And even then, that's only under pristine conditions —the best lenses, no filtration, the proper film stock, and very littlecamera motion. So for 90% of most films today, something less than 4Kwill still capture all the resolution there is in thenegative.”

EFILM scans negatives at 4K, but then immediately converts theimages to 2K. Cinesite offers this option but has not used it for afull feature. Several other houses are looking into double overscanningas a future upgrade. According to Matza, this approach can help assurehigher quality 2K scans without causing the storage and I/O obstaclesthat come with working with features scanned at 4K. Like some of hiscompetitors, Matza offers true 4K scans (at a higher cost) for imagesthat benefit from the additional resolution. For example, the MelGibson war drama, We Were Soldiers, digitally timed at EFILM,contained a digital push-in on Mel Gibson's face. “The only wayto push in on the frame and keep the apparent resolution was to scanthe original negative at 4K,” says Matza. “Then when youpush in on the frame, you've still got an image that's at least 2K. Inthose circumstances it works out quite nicely.”

The equipment is only a small part of the digital intermediateequation. “Machines don't make this process work,” saysDuboicolor's Vergallo. “Machines don't give the color to yourmovie. You can't just buy a DataCine and MegaDef and Arrilaser withoutknowing how to digitally reproduce the work on a negative.”

“We're finding more and more that jobs are won and lostbecause of the colorist that you have,” says Cinesite's Starr.“And a lot of what makes someone good has to do with theirunderstanding of how film and chemistry interact. In fact, I'm veryinterested in the idea of bringing some traditional color timers intothe digital environment. That's something I don't think anybody isdoing. There is obviously a translation of learning the digitallanguage and what that means — gamma and other types of digitalcurves — but I just think there's a vast pool of people whoreally know how color works in the unique world of film.”

Technique's Sternlicht explains that while it is possible to comevery close to approximating the look of a final print in the digitalsuite — down to the specific characteristics of the intendedrelease print stock — it is still not an exact science. Onlycolorists skilled in the photochemical world should expect success.“I think that knowing how to color for film is a very differentdiscipline than for video,” Sternlicht says. “The realityis that digital science has not produced a display device that alwaysmatches the color gamut to that of film. There are areas you can bevery close to accurate but, just like with [photochemical] film timing,the colorists, or digital film timers, that are good have becomeextremely familiar with the technology of the film lab they workwith.”

The art and science of digital timing for film is new, and there areas many approaches to the work method as there are shows using theprocess. Peter Doyle, the president of The Posthouse — theWellington, New Zealand facility where The Lord of the Rings: TheTwo Towers is being mastered — explains how Towers isbeing timed in several passes. “We have one colorist who isreally good at traditional grading for fairly straightforward dialogscenes,” says Doyle, who is also the chief colorist on the film.“Then another who does quite technical grades, replacing skiesand working with shadow detail. The overall point is that we wanted toavoid having the ‘look’ of a colorist. This is really[director] Peter Jackson and [cinematographer] Andrew Lesnie's film andall the work we do here was in service of that.”

Video colorists and cinematographers use different terminology, soDoyle set up a system using both interfaces. “For the traditionalkind of grading,” he says, “our system could makeadjustments exactly the way you do it when you talk to a film timerabout timing lights. When we were doing the type of work that can't bedone traditionally, we spoke in the language of telecine.”

Miscommunication between the film and digital world can quicklybecome a problem. “It comes down to something as simple as whatis LAD (Laboratory Aim Density), and what gray patch are we going toput on the head of the neg,” says Doyle. “Until a few yearsago there was a digital protocol that you use 16% gray. That's okay fordigital but labs for years have been using 18% gray. There you have asilly situation where your print might be 2% lighter than you expectedand you don't know why.”

During the complicated work of making a movie, these problems ofcommunication can produce unfortunate results. “If acinematographer wants more contrast in the image,” says Doyle,“does that mean that we should increase the gamma and have moresolid blacks, or do they want [to increase the range of contrast] andactually have more milky blacks. When we started out digitally timingspecific sequences of the first Lord of the Rings, we decidedone day to take twenty minutes and clarify some terms. We all agreedthat ‘more contrast’ means thicker blacks. I think as morepeople do this, the terminology and work method will become moreestablished, but right now it's still a very new way ofworking.”

The number of companies preparing to offer digital mastering isgrowing weekly. Producers and postproduction supervisors are beginningto see the advantages of this service. As the number of projects andfacilities increases, the cost is expected to drop, and that shouldhelp make digital mastering the rule, rather than the exception.

“There are a couple of reasons it's not going as fast aseverybody speculated a while ago,” says Cinesite's Starr.“The established production methodology for feature films is 50years old. That is not going to be broken overnight. It's tried, it'strue, and it's how over 200 studio films and how over 450 titles aredone in the independent market per year. I think the digital processneeds more time to germinate when it comes to a studio and variousdepartments that are in charge of their particular chain. These peopleare just now starting to get together to share ideas and alter theirproduction pipelines. But it's going to take some time.”

“It's an emerging market,” EFILM's Matza says.“There's not an overabundance of films right now that want to becompletely finished digitally. So for a facility to put up the capitalcost to get into the market this early on is risky. As busy as EFILM is— and there are other companies that have done successful films,too — it's not like any of us is bursting at the seams yet.However, I don't think there is any doubt that several years down theroad most films will be finished in this fashion.”