Archive of the Case Studies Category

MIAMI, Florida – HARMAN’s Soundcraft today announced that audio engineer and production manager Kenneth Williams will appear at Soundcraft’s “Mixing With Professionals” seminar on December 6 in Miami. Kenneth Williams is the front of house engineer and production manager for Erykah Badu on her current world tour, and has worked with artists including Estelle, Raheem DeVaughn, Corbin Bleu, LL Cool J, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, the Goo Goo Dolls and many others.

Williams is a longtime user of the Soundcraft Vi6™ digital console and will present two half-day seminars on how to get the most out of using the Vi6 for concert sound mixing, while offering advice about live sound mixing in general, and meeting the demands of being a being an audio engineer and production manager for some of the world’s top R & B, hip hop, rock and pop artists. The half-day seminars will take place at the Gibson Guitars Miami Showroom.

“We’re proud to have Kenneth Williams join our team for our upcoming ‘Mixing with Professionals’ sessions,” said Katy Templeman-Holmes of Soundcraft Studer. “Kenneth has received numerous accolades for the clarity and presence of his mixes and has proven himself time and again on the front line of working with some of the most successful artists in music history.”

The seminars will take place from 9:30 AM-1:30 PM for the early session and 2:00 PM-6:00 PM for the later session. The seminars are free, and attendees can sign up online at http://usa.soundcraft.com/mwp/events.aspx. The event is open to professionals wanting to learn more about the Soundcraft Vi Series digital consoles, those making the transition from analog to digital consoles, new engineers and others.

Gibson Guitars Miami Showroom is located at 2751 North Miami Avenue, Suite 2, Miami, FL 33127.

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets — supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 12,500 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported net sales of $4.0 billion for twelve months ending September 30, 2011.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – November 7, 2011 – Independent design and visual-effects company Phosphene announced today that it created elaborate CG environments for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment’s new action-comedy starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, “Tower Heist.” Building an elegant swimming pool and deck on the roof of an opulent Manhattan condo tower or the interior of a three-cab, 60-story elevator shaft is all in a day’s work for the company.

The Phosphene visual-effects team, under the direction of Creative Director/VFX Supervisor John Bair, augmented and manipulated the physical environment in approximately 70 very complex 3D CG set extensions for Universal Pictures’ new action-comedy, “Tower Heist”, probably the biggest film effects project ever completed in NYC. The film, directed by Brett Ratner, was released nationally on November 4, 2011.

Explained Phosphene co-founder and VFX executive producer Vivian Connolly: “New York’s VFX infrastructure and community is growing at a very fast pace, and it has been amazing to be able to take on a film this size and show the worldwide film community how capable the New York visual-effects talent pool is. We are experiencing a trend of wonderful directors finishing their films here and feel incredibly fortunate to be part of the growth of the visual-effects community in the city.”

Said Ratner of the collaboration: “John Bair and his company, Phosphene, with a very small group of artists, were able to deliver shots for ‘Tower Heist’ with absolutely no compromises and perfect execution. It would have taken any other huge VFX company months to pull off what Phosphene did in a matter of weeks with perfection…there were no CBB’s [could be betters] when it came to Phosphene’s shots!“

For the exterior of The Tower (in real life, Trump International Hotel & Tower at Columbus Circle on Manhattan’s Westside), Phosphene created a luxurious outdoor environment for the film’s Wall Street billionaire, Arthur Shaw. Removing the array of satellite dishes and technological equipment on the existing building, Phosphene replaced the roof with an expansive swimming pool—with a floor that sports a painted $100 bill—and a roof deck. These digital replacements were vital for the numerous aerial shots, as well as shots that required the addition of city vistas behind the film’s actors.

Phosphene’s Bair explained the scope of the company’s CG work: “The trickiest shot is the film’s opening, a sweeping tracking shot which begins with a tight shot on the $100 dollar bill. As the camera pulls up we hear a splash, the edges of a pool come into view, a swimmer moves through the frame and water ripples over the bill on the pool’s bottom. As the camera continues to pull up, it is revealed that the pool is on top of a residential tower. Pulling back still further, the rooftop disappears into a vast aerial view of Manhattan at night. We shot the swimmer on set; the building rooftop was filmed from a helicopter. Then we built a CG pool and CG water and married the elements, making sure they flowed seamlessly together. It is a powerful opening.”

The largest number of scenes that required Phosphene’s work were those in which the characters traveled into the tower’s elevator shaft. Three floors of shaft were constructed on the set. The actors traveled up and down the length of the 60-story shaft riding atop an elevator cab. Additionally, they climbed ladders and over the grid work in the shaft, all of which required either a complete CG environment or a massive extension of the environment to make it look as if it is actually a 60-story building and a three-unit-wide shaft. “The challenge was making sure that all the shots were completely integrated, that they were consistent from all angles and that the space feels cohesive,” Bair continued.

Phosphene VFX producer Renuka Ballal added: “We worked closely with the edit as the cut developed because the speed at which the characters and elevator cab travel through the elevator shaft is the core of the scene’s tension. There were so many moving parts—literally, moving cables, wheels and additional elevator cabs—that we had to be mindful to ensure we were accurately conveying the velocity of the set piece. These are specifics that may not be strictly evident to the typical viewer, but which completely sell the shots and make a huge emotional impact when watching the film.”

Heist Productions’ VFX Supervisor Mark Russell said: “John, Vivian and the team at Phosphene amaze me with their ability to perfectly execute the most complicated work, on time and with absolute professionalism. It was my pleasure working with them on ‘Tower Heist’.”

The Phosphene creative team, led by company Creative Director/VFX Supervisor John Bair, Visual Effects Executive Producer Vivian Connolly and Visual Effects Producer Renuka Ballal, included Visual Effects Associate Producer Lea Prainsack, Lead CG Artist Vance Miller, and Lead Compositors Thomas Panayiotou and JD Yepes.

Representing Heist Productions, LLC were Director Brett Ratner, VFX Supervisor Mark Russell, VFX Producer Ginger Theisen, and VFX Coordinators Jessica Wilson-Silas and Bryan Wengroff.

Phosphene utilized Nuke, 3ds Max with a V-ray rendering engine and After Effects CS5 and PCs running Windows 7 64-bit in the execution of this project.

Company 3 (New York, NY) was responsible for the digital intermediate and Deluxe (New York, NY) handled the lab processing.

The film’s exteriors were shot at Trump International Hotel & Tower in Manhattan and in Queens, while most of the interiors were shot with green screens at Cine Magic Riverfront Studios (Brooklyn, NY).

ABOUT “TOWER HEIST”

Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy lead an all-star cast in “Tower Heist,” an action-comedy about working stiffs who seek revenge on the Wall Street swindler who stiffed them. After the workers at a luxury Central Park condominium discover the penthouse billionaire has stolen their retirement, they plot the ultimate revenge: a heist to reclaim what he took from them. www.towerheist.net

ABOUT PHOSPHENE

Phosphene is an independent design and visual effects house led by founders/co-owners John Bair and Vivian Connolly who have collaborated on projects since 2005. In 2010, the duo launched Phosphene and immediately hit the ground running with visual effects and title design for Barry Levinson’s “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO), Phillip Noyce’s “Salt,” George Nolfi’s “The Adjustment Bureau,” Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver” and Brad Anderson’s “Vanishing on 7th Street.”

Currently, Phosphene is working on Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock and has recently wrapped Jason Reitman’s second collaboration with Diablo Cody, “Young Adult,” starring Charlize Theron.

For the company’s television clients, in addition to their Emmy-nominated work for Todd Haynes’ HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce,” Phosphene is busy on season two of CBS’s “Blue Bloods,” ABC’s “Pan Am,” and, having recently completed season five of NBC’s “30 Rock,” is currently working on season six. In addition, Phosphene has teamed with HBO to create all visual effects for seasons one and two, and is about to begin work on season three of “Treme.”

Phosphene is located at 180 Varick Street, Suite 1621, New York, NY 10014. For further information contact vivian@phosheneFX.com; Phone (646) 350-3370; Fax 212) 671-1734; or visit www.phosphenefx.com.

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Recently, we were introduced to Digieffects customer, Julian Bleecker; photographer, digital media artist and founder of Hello, Skater Girl. We were so mesmerized by the imagery he created, capturing women skaters competing in the gritty backdrop of skate parks all over the US; we wanted to meet him and learn more about him and how he creates his art.

Digieffects (DE): Can you tell us a little about HelloSkaterGirl, and about yourself?

Julian Bleecker (JB): I moved to Venice Beach California awhile ago and wanted to get to know the history and culture of where I was living. I’m an over-enthusiastic amateur photographer. A camera and a lens provides a decent way for me to ask questions about where I am and who I’m around in an indirect way, which is comfortable for me. I stared shooting in the Venice Beach Skatepark because I knew that place was a dog-eared page of the story that is this beach town — the history of this place passes straight through surf-skate life and culture. It was an amazing visual-anthropology to shoot there and get to know all the wonderful and curious people and their stories about skating and the Westside — Dogtown, Santa Monica, Venice, Mar Vista, Marina del Rey. I became a bit obsessed with capturing as many facets of the life as possible. Almost by accident, I found myself traveling to shoot with skaters and at competitions all around the country.

I got to shoot at X-Games 16, which was amazing and daunting to be up close to incredible skaters. Towards the end of a long, hot, sweaty day of shooting and lugging around gear and being humbled by the other professional photographers, I went into the air conditioned Nokia Theater to cool down. The Women’s Vert Ramp Competition was on. I hadn’t even thought once about shooting any of the women’s events. Why not? It’s not an excuse, but I can only surmise that the bias of a year of shooting men unconsciously led me to ignore women skaters. Not shooting with women wasn’t a choice so much as a result of the familiar systemic issue that skateboarding is for guys.

That day was an eye opener. The women were bringing heat. This was real competition. Plenty of thrills. Lots of air. They were 110% sporty. Competitive while also encouraging and supporting one another.

That event was the start of this project. Through the Hello, Skater Girl project I hoped to distinguish what these sportswomen are doing without fetishizing the fact that they are women in a sportsman’s game. Rather that they are women skating like women. I hope that these images in the book show a bit of that and their spirit and personalities.

But, I don’t do this full-time, although sometimes it seems so. I’m normally a designer and technology guy. I work in the Advanced Design studio for Nokia here in Los Angeles and I run a design and innovation studio called The Near Future Laboratory where we figure out what could be, even if it’s really weird.

DE: What camera equipment and software was used?

JB: I’m a Nikon boy by birth. I have a bunch of bodies from a D3S to an N90S. The lenses run the gamut, but mostly I shoot with the wider ones — 14mm/2.8, 16mm/2.8, 20mm/2.8, 24mm/1.4, but I usually keep my old trusty 85mm/1.8 handy. My go-to lens for the skateboard work has been the 24mm/1.4. I’ve been trying to perfect shooting it nearly wide open with an nearly black-out neutral density filter to let me keep it open in bright sun. The bokeh you can get with these conditions and a bit of luck makes the photography more portrait-like, which is an aesthetic I’ve been going for. The hyperfocal on wider lenses or slower lenses makes the images lack depth and look quite flat, in my opinion.

On the software side, I use ImageIngester and Photo Mechanic for the ingestion and pre-processing and then Adobe Lightroom and a big RAID array for cataloging and managing photos. The workflow feels medieval. Someone is really going to put sort this digital asset management thing and make it all work nicely. Right now it’s harder than it needs to be. All the VFX work is done in AfterEffects and Final Cut.

DE: How much time is spent in post and VFX?

JB: I tend not to fuss too much with the images, although the spontaneity of the subject and the fact that its not studio photography means that the light isn’t always spot-on. You’re basically trying to take photos of very excited squirrels running all over the place and so you never really know what the light is going to do to you — clouds move, the sun moves, sometimes you shoot into it, sometimes its oblique to you. So it helps to capture images with lots of latitude for some corrections between very dark darks and very bright brights.

I use Nik Software’s tools to help with that sort of thing, especially their Viveza tool. When I find an image I want to use, I tend to spend a bit of time with it. And, if I’m using it for one of still life with motion animations, I’ll spend anywhere from an hour to a couple of days working with it. Mechanically the DigiEffects Camera Mapper effect makes it easy to setup the animation. Actually getting an animation and camera move that’s satisfying can take as long as you want.

DE: There are some really nice color and VFX treatments to your work. Which Digieffects products do you use and how did they assist the process?

JB: I used Camera Mapper for all the animations. That was the core tool for the animations. The Buena Depth Cue suite is great to work with. Although most of the depth effects I created in camera, things like the Depth tool allowed me to enhance the aesthetic I was looking in a couple of the animations with very few hassles.

DE: What features of the products did you most take advantage of?

JB: Camera Mapper makes it relatively easy to get a great alternative to the tired Ken Burns pan-and-zoom for still images. I mean — I’m trying to use still images in a very time-based media world. It was a challenge to figure out what to do and once I saw that sort of effect in films like The Kid Stays in the Picture and Riding Giants. Camera Mapper and animating camera moves that reveal parallax is a really exciting alternative to 3D that is more authentic to photography in a video format.

DE: Can you talk about any particular challenge or frustration that Digieffects helped with?

JB: It took me several tries to figure out how to make Camera Mapper work. I think I wasn’t thinking visually and just following the steps as I understood them in the tutorials. I think I’ll do my own tutorial. The moves I’m doing are quite simple visually so I think a tutorial would explain the basic principles simply. Camera Mapper set me up to focus on what and how I wanted to animate stills. After doing it many, many times I can imagine how I could do it without the plug-in — but it greatly simplifies the workflow.

You can see more of Julian’s work on his web site here: http://helloskatergirl.com Or check out his Vimeo page here to see more stunning videos created with Digieffects: http://vimeo.com/helloskatergirl

Julian is also working on a new book; a limited edition collection of photography and the stories behind the Hello, Skatergirl photos. He’s using Kickstarter as a way to get the book into people’s hands. To support this effort, please visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/221647184/hello-skater-girl.

Jack Tunnicliffe of Java Post understands the inherent difficulties at just about every level of production. Having worked in television as a cameraman, director, producer, and ultimately parlaying all of his production and post production experiences into the company he founded, Jack brings a solve-anything approach to his work. In fact, Java Post is often praised by its clients as a shop that “takes the pain out of production!”

Java Post, a leading editing and visual effects facilities based in western Canada, boasts an impressive roster of post-production credits that includes hit Canadian TV sitcoms such as Corner Gas and InSecurity, and the critically acclaimed film, Hungry Hills featured at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.??Jack has been described as a technical wizard with an artist’s eye and a philosophy of surrounding himself with the very best, whether it’s cutting edge technology or the people behind the controls.  From post-production coordinators to the editors, animators and visual FX artists, Java Post prides itself in the fact that every one of his team brings their special brand of craft, creativity, experience and enthusiasm to every project.??Imagineer Systems spoke with Jack recently where he shared some details on the workflow issues he’s facing now on the popular CBC Network television series, InSecurity.

“Right now, we’re working on a television series that’s turned out to be a real workhorse show for us – it’s the kind of show that’s laden with invisible VFX, the sort that could take hours and hours of tedious work. I’m talking about clean up. This show in particular has a tremendous amount of clean up, tons of boom shadows and reflections throughout each scene that need to be removed. And, since the show is constantly growing, there are now twice as many people, shadows and lines that need to be removed from each scene.”

“Adobe After Effects is a big part of our workflow here at Java, we do a lot of our VFX and clean up in After Effects. The problem arises when we’re removing a shadow that’s either on corrugated surface, or worse, goes off screen and then comes back in to the shot. There’s just not enough information for point trackers to handle that. That’s where mocha Pro comes in for us. mocha AE actually comes bundled with After Effects, so that’s a tremendous bonus. It’s so well integrated. Whenever we have a shot that needs Planar Tracking, we simply drag the clip from AE and drop it into mocha and it opens instantly. We ended up migrating from mocha AE to full mocha Pro as we found all the added capabilities, such as the remove tool, to be invaluable to us. Just that one feature had a huge impact on my workflow and saved tons of time on clean up projects.”

“In one example (see before and after clip), we had a shadow before, to the right of the couple approaching. As you can see it, runs across the curb and then across a highly textured ground surface, so not the easiest thing to remove. In the second shot of the couple the shadow moves right up the brick wall at an angle, again not an easy fix.”

“With mocha Pro, I tracked the background planes beneath the shadow on the ground and then tracked the planes of the brick wall, then tracked the actual shadow and used the remove tool. The results were quite outstanding and would have taken considerably longer using traditional methods of removal, clean plates and painting.”

“Another scene in the series is shot inside an office with big windows throughout the background. The directors wanted a view from the windows of downtown Ottawa – every show we needed this view. So we turned to greenscreen and mocha Pro. mocha Pro is so powerful, all we had to do was track in the windows and now those windows are locked to this virtual outside world. For more realism, we even threw in some 3D animated birds to fly by the windows occasionally. Again, an example of massive time savings that allows us to focus on the creative and getting the job done quickly, on time and on budget!”

“When a tool saves you the kind of time like mocha Pro does for our team, it pays for itself in a matter of days. And especially for After Effects users, when you discover the power of mocha AE and the value you get from migrating to full mocha Pro, you wonder why you didn’t do it sooner!

And who knows, my love for coffee also inspired my company name and logo. Clearly mocha Pro just fits right in! Coincidence?”

By combining innovative architecture and audiovisual technology with the growing needs of one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities; Vaughan’s new 180,000-square-foot City Hall easily meets the needs of Vaughan’s growing population and enhances the delivery of municipal services. Vaddio cameras are buried throughout the city council chamber and committee rooms, in walls, above ceilings and in half-walls so they are unobtrusive – all part of the architect’s aesthetic that Canadian-based systems integrator, Duocom, had to work with.

Why a New building??
Because the original City Hall building wasn’t large enough to house everyone, committee members were meeting all over the city. Nobody was under the same roof and there was no centralized place for people to meet. Old touch-to-talk microphones were daisy-chained along the table; the request-to-queue and voting system never worked. An analog recorder was used to record audio, but there were no cameras. It was a legacy system in use for 15 – 20 years.

“It was almost as if they were using what they had to get by,” explained Omar Prashad of Duocom. “It’s my assumption from the city that there’s no point in spending a bunch of money upgrading systems when you know down the line a few years you’re going to have a new building.”

According to the City of Vaughan, the previous Civic Centre was renovated in 1982 when Vaughan’s population was 36,815. Today, Vaughan’s population is 295,000, and is expected to increase to 418,000 by 2031. The old system just couldn’t withstand the rapid growth.
So through a month-long Needs Analysis process and a lot of input from different users and user groups, Duocom came up with a solution.

The Council Chamber?
From an AV perspective there are five or six significant areas – the most significant being the council chamber where regional counselors meet. ??“Walk into the Council Chamber and you feel like you’re walking into a very contemporary architectural space,” says Prashad. “The tiered seating, custom wood walls and ceilings, flown in from Denmark, and the circular council desk definitely add to the ‘modern’ appeal.” The mayor sits in the middle of the circular table with the counselors on one side and senior management on the other. The AV system for the entire facility is controlled and routed through the council chamber with a centralized architecture for control and signal distribution.

The AV system, in this room alone, cost just under $900,000. Two Christie High Lumens 1080p 3-chip projectors sit on opposite sides of the council chamber so everyone in the room has a direct view at all times. All signal routing is digital, utilizing Crestron’s Digital Media platform and control from numerous Crestron Touch Panel Displays. One sits at every desk allowing the counselors to vote, see results and make tabulations.

“Aside from the mayor, the counselors never sit in the same place,” explained Prashad. “And because during a six-hour council meeting any of the counselors could potentially be the chair of that meeting, a discrete login system for each touch panel had to be put into place.”

Each person has his/her own code. Unless you’re the designated chairperson, none are for control – just for voting and confidence monitors for whatever is on the projection screen. As opposed to the typical touch-to-talk mics, the chairperson has control over all of the mics and cameras, and is able to view the request-to-speak lists and queue on the panel in front of them.

The Vaddio Solution
?Vaddio WallVIEW HD-19 and HE-100 cameras are distinct inputs to the AV system, allowing their image to be broadcast throughout the facility or to be used in conjunction with the Polycom HD videoconferencing system, each picking up a different quadrant of the council table. One sits in the back picking up a full shot of the room. Another two sit back-right and back-left picking up opposite quadrants. The camera directly behind the mayor, faces the audience picking up the senior management team, anybody who’s addressing the council from the podium and anyone in the audience should it be required.

“The Vaddio cameras can be used with and without an operator,” added Prashad. “You can either have full pan/tilt/zoom control or you can recall presets through the Crestron control system. Our programmer had to basically create a revolutionary program that linked the Sennheiser microphone system and Biamp audio DSP system so that when a particular microphone was active, the information sends a signal to the camera to trigger the preset.”
Because the AV system as a whole was very high-end – with digital switching at 1080p/60 and 3-chip DLP projectors at 8,000 Lumens, Vaddio cameras were a necessity, explained Prashad. “If we didn’t use Vaddio cameras, the cameras would have been the weakest link in the chain. The quality in the projectors would have been negated; the switching infrastructure would have been negated. We wanted to pick out the highest quality camera that we could to take advantage of the rest of the design infrastructure.”

The video can be broadcast from the council chamber to anywhere else in the building. If there is a high-interest council meeting, the public can view the event internally – or listen externally via Vaughan Radio. While only audio is exported to the residents of Vaughan, Vaughan TV is in development stages. “We’re probably going to incorporate a capture station with a media management server and stream the video,” explained Prashad. “That’s the next generation of this system so residents can log on to the media server and see what’s happening in the council chamber from anywhere at any time.”

“The Vaddio cameras give us a lot of control over color, color temperature, brightness – so when someone looks at the mayor who’s raising taxes for the three year in a row, you see the facial expressions like you’re watching a Blu-ray. There is no point in trying to save $2,000 on cameras if the experience is going to be substandard and sub quality.”

Future Plans
?No matter how much planning goes into a large installation, down the road there are going to be changes. Phase 1 is completed and Phase 2 and 3 are on the way, with an additional building and tunnel to connect them. “Over the course of 5 to 10 years this AV system will be three times the size it is today,” Prashad predicts. “These are the fun projects because the applications allow us to use cutting-edge technology to solve user problems. That’s fun for us because we can really push the limits on the latest technology and what our team can do with it.”

Colorist Dado Valentic of MyTherapy Talks about his Work and his Technology


London: Nov 1, 2011 … Soho-based Dado Valentic is a colorist and digital image workflow expert. His facility, MyTherapy, provides clients with on-set supervision, including look development, color grading and finishing, and digital distribution, with a specialization in stereo 3D.


While much of Valentic’s work is on independent feature films, such as Inbred – the latest work by director Alex Chandon – the facility also delivers commercials projects, music videos and television shows.


Traditionally colorists have not been involved in distribution, but Valentic takes a larger view. “I believe that it is our responsibility as colorists and post artists to push digital technologies forward. While camera manufacturers are creating better sensors and more refined tools, our mission is to learn how to process these images to ensure they look their very best once they reach the viewer.”

We spoke recently with Valentic at his facility in London.


Tell us about your most recent project, Inbred.



I think this is, so far, my best work. Things just came together really nicely for this project. I had just got an upgrade for my DaVinci Resolve system. It was shot in 4K, so I had these beautiful images to work with. I had an amazing director, Alex Chandon. This was his comeback project after 10 years away and he was so passionate about the film. We had a great time and everything just came together: my equipment was working great and the film was great, and when I look at it, I am very proud. I think it’s the nicest job I’ve done so far.



Did you do digital cinema mastering for Inbred?


Yes, because that is the way I work. I never just grade something and then hand over the hard drive. My job is make sure that when the film is out there in the cinema, it looks exactly the way we wanted it to look. I never take a project on without delivering it in the format that they require. I make a version for digital cinema, and then I make a one for DVD, and another for BluRay and for the internet as well.


What are some of the differences to watch for with different deliverable formats?


Cinema is different from watching a movie at home. A movie theater is much darker. The images are bigger, so my vignettes are a different size in a cinema than they are in a DVD. I make my blacks different for the cinema than for a DVD. The same thing applies for iPads. The iPad looks too dark if you put a normal cinema grade onto it, so you have to really embrace the medium you are delivering to get the best possible picture.


How much of your work is in production, or near the set?


I am getting more and more involved in set work. Postproduction is starting earlier and earlier now. I am often consulted on jobs when they are in the planning stage. My clients come to me with the script and talk about how they can make it happen best.


How did you get into digital cinema mastering?


When I was working for Sony I saw one of the very first prototypes of a DLP projector and the moment I saw those images, I knew that this is going to be the future – the images were so stunning. So even before digital cinema had become a standard, I had already started looking into ways to do it. I did a lot of research on how to get into digital cinema. That’s when I discovered this company called Qube.


I found that their approach was actually the best of all, in terms of the architecture. In 2006 I bought one of the very first mastering systems in the UK from Qube. And I became just the second or third facility in the UK to provide digital cinema mastering services. I’ve been making DCPs ever since.


What makes Qube’s DCP mastering architecture different?


The early specifications for how DCPs should be made were written by people who worked with films, so they basically took the 35mm processes of filmmaking and transferred those processes into the digital world. But digital is different. I never agreed entirely with the process that was being advocated. I felt that they were complicating things too much and that there were too many conversions. There had to be a better way to approach this process, especially when it comes to what source material to use, and how to manage color and the image size, etc. This is exactly what Qube had already figured out.


What is your approach to making DCPs?


Even today other companies force you to use specific image files as your source material for mastering DCPs, but it is much better if you can take your RAW master image, buffer it in the computer memory and do the conversions on the fly, reading the buffer and encoding into a JPEG 2000. This is what QubeMaster does. They wrote the software to be more flexible, and along with that, they introduced color management right in the beginning, which is actually the key.


You really can’t encode something without having total control over the image and color, especially if we are talking about a larger color space like P3.


You do a lot of work in stereo 3D. How is that different?


I’ve done four feature films and lots of commercials in stereo, but I still think that I have a lot to learn about stereo. We all do. It is so interesting what you can do with depth if you apply different amounts of brightness or saturation. It’s amazing how sensitive we are to even 2D clues about depth.


I’ve done a lot of 3D work in terms of brightness, which, as we all know, can be an issue with stereo projection. There is only so much light you can use in the projector, but what we can do is change the perception of brightness in the image.


How do you change the “perception of brightness?”


I found an incredible theory about light from Helmholtz, who describes the importance of local contrast for the perception of brightness. For example, if I put a black box next to white box, I would have a certain perception of brightness. If I put the same white box next to a gray box, the perception of the white will be different. Perception is subjective, but we can get so focused on the measurable aspects of light and color, we can overlook the importance of the subjective experience.


I’ve been working with a developer to write an algorithm, which we are deploying now, to apply a better perception of brightness in films. There are eight or nine color anomalies that humans have which we always need to consider during grading. We need to stop trying to measure the image and start just looking at it to see how we feel about it.


What are the challenges of mastering stereo 3D for digital cinema?


I did the very first stereo feature film in the UK called Streetdance 3D (released in 2010). Those were the early days and the biggest challenge we had then was the compatibility of servers. There are some servers out there that are so old that their hardware and software struggle with 3D content. Because you have double the frame rate in stereo, you need to reduce the bandwidth of the encoding without maxing out the server, or it starts dropping frames.


You have to be really clever with your compression to make sure you still get a good image without compression artifacts. I have seen some masters out there made by big facilities that suffer from the problem of artifacts, simply because they had to produce the DCPs quickly, or just because of carelessness. 3D mastering is tricky and it takes a lot of testing.


How does QubeMaster Pro help with stereo 3D?


QubeMaster allows you to really dig deep into your files and adjust them exactly. You can go as far as you want to distribute the bandwidth exactly the way you want to. You can actually tell the encoder what detail level you want. You can also tell it to ignore certain parts of the image because they are only noise. All these little things are important.


On the surface, all of the DCP mastering systems may look the same, but when you really need precision, when you really need access to specific parts, it is so important that you can get in there. And that’s what QubeMaster gives you.


What do your clients like best about your work?


I think they like my passion the best. I love what I do, and even if it’s just a short movie, I’m still going to try to get the best out of it. And that’s why people like to work with me, because I am totally engaged in a project.




Dado Valentic’s facility, MyTherapy is based in London. QubeMaster Pro is part of the QubeMaster family of digital cinema applications, which also include QubeMaster Xpress 2.0, (which offers easy DCP mastering on Windows); QubeMaster Xport, (a plugin for mastering DCP with Apple Compressor on Mac OSX), and QubeMaster Packager for creating new versions of DCPs without having to re-encode the entire file.

About Qube Cinema, Inc.
Qube Cinema, based in North Hollywood, CA, is an international manufacturer and provider of end-to-end Digital Cinema technology and mastering solutions. A subsidiary of Real Image Media Technologies, Qube Cinema draws on decades of experience in cinema and a leadership position in the transition from analog to digital technology. The company is committed to creating a seamless Digital Cinema environment for exhibitors, filmmakers and postproduction companies with DCI-compliant products that are flexible, reliable and highly cost-effective. Qube Cinema’s product lines include the Qube XP-D and Qube XP-E servers, QubeMaster software solutions, Qube Keysmith KDM generation, and the new Qube Xi Integrated Media Block. For more information, visit Qube Cinema at www.qubecinema.com.

Crystal Vision has been chosen as the exclusive modular interface supplier for a multi-million pound development by the University of York. This major investment by one of the UK’s top ten universities includes 104 Crystal Vision boards for distributing, down converting, synchronizing, switching, embedding and de-embedding the signals for two HD television studios in a brand new building designed for the Theatre, Film and Television department, with the boards selected and installed by Leeds-based systems integrator AVC.

The department was previously limited to single camera shooting and some post production. The brand new facility allows an increase in student numbers and is equipped to full HD broadcast standards to provide a teaching environment that is representative of broadcast industry practice, as well as a facility capable of being hired out to external clients. Alongside the impressively-equipped 176m2 and 89m2 studios with associated galleries, there in an apparatus room, more

KIRCHBERG, Luxembourg — There were only smiling faces to be seen at Radio Télévision Luxembourg (RTL) when on July 28, Studer’s new Vista 9 digital console was used for the first time in the live production of the 7 o’clock news.

Only three days earlier, the former console had been removed and connections routed to a spare desk. At that moment, the engineering team from specialist installation company, BCE, zipped into action. BCE carried out a well-prepared operation to reconnect everything and network to the video embedders/de-embedders, the new digital lines and the monitoring in several rooms.

At the same time, Studer support engineer Rudolf Boltshauser was carrying out the programming and testing of the console, the labeling and the I/O.

RTL chose the Vista 9 more

See Dataton at prolight+sound, Shanghai, Stand W5A22, 11-14 October 2011, New Expo Center, Shanghai, China

Stereoscopic playback, 3D effects, and iPad control shown for first time in Shanghai

Dataton and Audio Visual Technique will be launching the brand new version 5 of WATCHOUT multi-display production and playback system at prolight+sound, Shanghai.

Kenneth Cheung of Audio Visual Technique says: “We’re delighted to showcase our technology at prolight+sound and expect it to receive a tremendous reception. WATCHOUT is extremely popular with our partners and, after our success at the Shanghai EXPO, we have supplied it to new installations and special events.”

As well as exhibiting at the show, AVT and Dataton will be hosting seminars throughout the show for partners in China to give them the latest, hands on product information.

Dataton WATCHOUT™ version 5 is already making waves in the international audio-visual more

LONDON, United Kingdom — Students attending Rose Bruford College’s Performance Sound BA (Hons) course will now be able to hone their mixing and recording skills in live theatre, concert and broadcast more easily, thanks to the acquisition of a Soundcraft Vi1 digital console.

The course’s Programme Director Ben Davies, himself an experienced musician, studio and live sound engineer, said his search for an intuitive digital platform to accelerate cross-discipline learning had taken on a new momentum when one of the students contacted Soundcraft directly.

“We were invited to Potters Bar to look at the various Si and Vi digital options—and it was clear the Vi1, with its compact footprint, was the most appropriate console for our needs,” said Davies.

“I believe we should be supporting British manufacturers. Soundcraft has always had a big presence in the colleges I have more