Postproduction was done halfway around the world at
Gigapix Studios in California. It was Clark Graff, Technical,
Production and Post Supervisor at Gigapix, who made the decision
to finish the film with
SpeedGrade DI. "When we were shopping around for this
project we decided that SpeedGrade offered the feature set and
capabilities we needed," he explains. "Plus we liked the
company. If we had a question about an EDL, for example, we just
sent it over to Munich and the guys got right back to us. Open
communications and a vendor that listens to your ideas are very
important to us."
Clark is a hands-on person with a strong background in
electrical engineering and computer technologies. He insists on
building his own systems for any project. The team ran
SpeedGrade DI on an AMD Opteron-powered digital film recorder
and sent the uncompressed HD-SDI signal to a 50" Panasonic
TH-50PF9UK full resolution plasma display. Clark used linear
color space adjustments within SpeedGrade DI to color balance
the monitor for accuracy in grading. "We proofed the images simultaneously on a Sony Cine Alta
BVM-F24 monitor."
Grading was done by Mark Read with support from DI expert
Claudia Meglin who has extensive experience with the ARRI D20
and who helped implement one of the first SpeedGrade pipelines
in 2003.
"SpeedGrade is a key piece of what we call the Director's
Confidence System," says Clark Graff. "Ultimately our goal is to
get the director, DP, and colorist in the same room at the
beginning of the pipeline rather than at the end as is the case
in traditional workflows." This approach aims to provide
directors with a clear idea of their shots which "allows them to
make better choices on set." In the end it means the director
can push the images further in production while greatly reducing
the need for correction in post.
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