Last fall, Miami-headquartered startup Assimilate launched Scratch, a software-based system that is being designed to enable data workflows by offering real-time capabilities and supporting everything from standard definition to 4k data, long and short-form film postproduction. Running on high-performance commodity workstations, Scratch is designed with scalable, open-architecture, modular-feature sets to meet a facility’s individual needs.
With datacentric workflows still in the early stages of evolution, there are many ways to use a system as part of a post environment. One method is currently in use at PostWorks, New York. Here, Scratch runs on an HP 9300 workstation and currently has 1¼ TB of storage.
“Scratch is a very versatile system; we are not using it for any one particular use,” explained PostWorks president Billy Baldwin. “We were looking for an open multipurpose system. We do a lot of 2k work [mostly documentaries and long-form], and we needed a system that we could use as a precomformer and prepping station for 2k. It’s a great conform system, and great analytically to measure color. Beyond that, we use it for a digital restoration system.”
At this point, Scratch is often used to preconform and analyze the images in a long-form project in one room, and then the final conform is handled in another room.
Baldwin said this speeds up the pipeline. “We scan and preconform in Scratch, and then we can analyze the image and if there are scratches or dirt, we can use plug-ins to do a fairly good job at dust busting and scratch removal.”
From there, the data goes to Quantel’s iQ for the conform; iQ also serves real-time 2k to the Pandora Pixi for color grading, and then iQ is used to create the deliverables.
Both systems are an important part of PostWorks’ workflow.
“iQ is great for putting together deliverables, and iQ is still the only system serving real-time 2k data to a Pandora Pixi [the color correction system deployed at PostWorks],” explained Baldwin.
“Scratch is really very beneficial and a great cost of entry,” he added, noting that the system came in around $50,000. “The return on investment was critical. It’s not just about dirt or color or conform; you can use Scratch for all or part of these — Assimilate positioned the product in pricing and functionality to meet on a realistic playing field. They didn’t overprice the system to compete with a da Vinci or an Inferno, so you can realistically jump into data.”
PostWorks editor/compositor Scott Ettin reported that the system was easy to learn, and he has already used Scratch on several projects including indie documentary Milarepa, directed by Neten Chokling and produced by Raymond Steiner for Shining Moon Productions; as well as for an NBC pilot titled NY 70.
For these projects, Scratch was used to preconform and clean the images. “[On Milarepa], there were a lot of scratches and hair in the film,” said Ettin. “We were able to use a one-pass dust busting. It did a beautiful job cleaning it up, and then we went frame by frame to repair the rest. Then we output with an EDL, and we had a new, clean digital version.”
Looking ahead, Ettin commented that Assimilate is “very open to our feedback.” And incidentally, Assimilate director of business development Lucas Wilson reported that Assimilate has entered into a development agreement with aforementioned Pandora to improve workflow between their systems.
With Scratch still a very young technology, Baldwin noted, “It shows great promise going forward.” He also believes this system will eventually be used for data-based commercial post. “I see great possibilities for Scratch in that regard,” Baldwin concluded.