Two postproduction and visual effects houses on opposite coasts—Western Images, San Francisco, and Rhinoceros Editorial and Post, New York—are banking on the latest telecine technology to give them a leg up in the competitive digital business.
The two facilities were among the first to take delivery of Sony’s new FVS-1000 Vialta 24-frame telecine earlier this year. And both firms contend that the unit, paired with a da Vinci 2K color enhancement system, is more than just an incremental advance in the art of converting film to video—it puts them ahead of the pack.
Both Western and Rhinoceros have long histories in film and video, and both have evolved in recent years into full-service visual effects, CGI, design and digital postproduction facilities. Rhinoceros is part of the Multi-Video Group, Ltd., New York. Other companies under the Multi-Video banner include the New York-based firms Rhinoceros Visual Effects and Design (which the company owns in association with Gravity, Tel Aviv); Cool Beans Digital Audio; Wall to Wall Films; and Wax Music and Sound Design.
The Vialta solidifies Western Image’s position as a leader in the Bay Area by upgrading its telecine capability; while on the East Coast it makes Rhinoceros a full-service design, editorial and completion house by adding telecine to its high-definition suite, executives from the companies say.
The decisions to go with Vialta were relatively easy for each shop. "We believe the Vialta has superior image acquisition technology," states Ken Solomon, executive producer/director of business development at Western Images.
"We’ve looked at all the other systems out there," he continues. "The image acquisition is state-of-the-art technology that gives the art directors, the creatives and everyone more information."
David Binstock, founder/CEO of the Multi-Video Group, says image steadiness was a big factor in choosing the Vialta. "We thought it would be awesome, offering very high resolution, and better steadiness than many of the others," he explains. "Some of the other telecines use line array. They scan one line at a time as the picture is in motion. The Vialta pulls down a frame, registers the frame and takes a picture of the full frame, so you’re getting a rock-steady image."
On The Job
Both companies are just putting the Vialta into everyday service after a period of beta testing, but the editors and colorists that work with the unit say its promise is already being fulfilled. Gary Coates, senior telecine colorist at Western Images, recently transferred film for an as-yet-to-air international spot for the Sony Wega that required an elegant rendering of underwater images. "We were working with a great photographer named Howard Schatz [from Gotham Central, New York], who has these wonderful looks in underwater photography," Coates says. (In addition to directing the spot, Schatz also photographed print executions for the Sony Wega.) "There are these silk fabrics underwater that are very lyrical and elegant looking. The Vialta was really capable of making naturalistic capture of skin tones and fabrics. That was difficult with my previous telecine. It was more difficult to get a smooth texture out of skin tones. They looked a bit blotchy."
In another ad, "Jewelry," a client-direct spot for Macy’s, New York, helmed by Lisbon Okafor of San Francisco-based Arthur J. Lang Productions, promoting a sale on fine jewelry, the Vialta added sharpness to the highlights of necklaces and other gems. "This was a spot we had transferred previously," explains Coates, "and the jewelry products didn’t look as sparkling and well defined. We were able to retransfer it [with the Vialta] and improve it vastly. The jewelry really sparkled. That’s a case where sharpness made a big difference. I’m delighted with its superior image capture. I’m looking better for having the right tool. This is the great jump ahead." The Vialta was also utilized on Nintendo’s "Gladiator," directed by Steve "Spaz" Williams of Pandemonium, San Francisco, via Leo Burnett Co., Chicago; and Blockbuster’s "Fall Guy," through Doner, Southfield, Mich., and helmed by Mark Dippe, also of Pandemonium.
Coates also cites Vialta’s optical position stabilizer, and its speed of operation. "You get the film looking good much faster, which gives you more time to use the da Vinci to do some creative stuff," he says. "There now are more utilities that we can use to enhance the look in other ways. You get to solving the problem faster."
And, finally, Coates appreciates the unit’s ability to enhance 16mm transfers. "Another reason we went with the Sony is that sixteen millimeter film looks fantastic," he notes. "In my local market there are a lot of 16mm shooters for corporate products, and we’ve got something that really makes our local DPs viable in the market."
Over at Rhinoceros, senior editor Craig Gordon points to the stability of the Vialta system. "The whole process of pin registration is something we don’t have to do anymore," he says. "It’s actually registered so well that we’ve done multiple passes for our Inferno people, color-correcting in different ways, and they’ve literally assembled the scenes without having to track them."
Gordon also has praise for the Vialta’s optical zoom in 35mm and 16mm, and for its primary color correction. "What it does is alter the color of the light passing through the film, as opposed to doing it electronically," he explains. The system showed its stuff recently in transferring a series of dailies for BMW from Publicis/Bloom, New York.
"They shot the entire new-car line over the course of a couple weeks," recalls Gordon. "The big problem everyone has with a car is the grille—[specifically] light dancing on the grille. We didn’t have any. Also, we actually had a car that was supposed to be silver in the production model, but it came out more of a beige color on the pre-production model. We were able to take that beige and tweak it to the silver it was supposed to be, very easily, without having to go into an Inferno and track it. We were able to take the nuances and those differences and adjust them to the new color that the car was actually going to be."
For Rhinoceros, which didn’t previously have telecine capability, the addition of Vialta provides an obvious improvement in work turnaround. "Last week, one of our editors was doing a series of commercials," Gordon reports. "We color-corrected all of it in one day, but they forgot a shot. So they called us up and said, ‘Do us a favor and retransfer it.’ While they were editing in another room, we were able to put the film back up, retransfer it, and they never stopped." Rhinoceros has used the Vialta on spots such as "In the Blood," for General Motors, directed by Lionel Coleman, who at the time was a freelancer, with production support from Jam Productions, New York, out of The Chisholm-Mingo Group, New York (Coleman has since signed with Visitor, Santa Monica.).
Although Sony, as well as execs at both shops, touts Vialta’s high-definition capabilities, neither facility is finishing many spots for television in high definition. Rhinoceros has a full high-definition suite in place, primarily in anticipation of future work. The new suite, which the firm unveiled in July, is equipped with, among other tools, a Sony HDCAM; Panasonic’s HD D-5 and Philip’ s Voodoo D-6, along with the Vialta.
Rhinoceros is currently flexing its HD muscle, onlining a 13-week series for cable television. The series was shot with 24-frame Sony HD cameras, but at the same time the series is taking advantage of the Vialta’s high-definition capabilities to output to 35mm film for theatrical use of spots, and to better capture nuances of color for NTSC output. The work is being done by Gordon. John Binninger, a new senior colorist at Rhinoceros, will also be working with Vialta.
"The fact that you’re starting with high definition allows you to capture color and clarity that’s closer to the actual film," Gordon observes. "If you have multiple shades of a specific color—maybe it’s reds on a strawberry—you can capture the nuances in high definition and then translate them down to standard definition. You could never have captured these nuances in standard definition."
Western Images has yet to build a full high-definition suite, but does have some HD capabilities. Solomon emphasizes Vialta’s advantages of being able to provide clients with a universal digital master that they can use for multiple distribution purposes. "You can go to film, to high-definition television, to standard-definition television, broadband, digital projection, new media," he notes. "We could color-correct hi-def masters and then provide one release on film, one hi-def, one standard video. You can output all these different formats. This system helps us put out a stake in the ground creatively. We can provide this to our clients and say, ‘Whatever you need, whatever your creative vision is, this is a system that really helps us move forward in those arenas."
Binstock of Rhinoceros also is anticipating benefits from the universal digital master produced by the Vialta. "From the twenty-four frame HD master, you can easily go to PAL, which is twenty-five frames; NTSC, which is thirty frames; and you can easily convert to the other formats," he says. "When you convert an NTSC master to PAL, it ends up looking pretty yucky. From this HD version, all your down-converted masters are going to look pretty damn good. You have six times the image resolution in hi-def that you do in D-1."
Rhinoceros is just beginning to phase the Vialta into everyday use, according to Binstock. "We’ve only done a few jobs on it so far that are real jobs, because it was in beta test," he reports. "It’s doing a great job, but we haven’t really put it through every acid test, which is going to start next month. Everything that we’re talking to Sony about is being done. That’s why we took on the beta test with them. We put it through its paces. Right now, it’s at a pivotal point where we’re going to introduce it to our clients." n
