By Carolyn Giardina
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) presented a panel discussion titled “The Art and Evolving Science of Hybrid Filmmaking,” which explored the fusion of film and digital tools and techniques in this transitional period, during the recent HD Expo held at the Los Angeles Center Studios.
ASC members examined how digital tools began to find their way into the filmmaking vocabulary through music videos, commercials and television programs, and how today, rapid advancements in digital intermediate technology are bringing these capabilities to the postproduction workflows of films produced for cinema screens.
Daniel Pearl, ASC, was the first speaker, who described how he was introduced to the use of telecine and digital color correction tools through music videos. The discussion then opened up to panelists discussing their experiences, answering questions and sharing their insights into where all of this is heading.
“The word ‘hybrid’ explains that this is a transitional time where we are using both [traditional processes and new digital tools],” explained Lou Levinson, ASC, colorist at bicoastal Post Logic Studios. “We haven’t really eliminated the pitfalls of doing it yet. We’re trying to make the path as easy as possible as we get through this.”
Emphasizing how quickly this change is taking place, he added, “The real world is out in front of standards efforts. We’re at a point in time where what works is going to end up the standards.”
One of the most keenly discussed topics of the session involved an essential technology in the film world, the Hazeltine console, which is an analyzer used in film labs for determining what grade of color and density should be applied to the printing of a negative. Precise levels of these grades are communicated through standard numeric printer light settings, universally recognized by all cinematographers.
“Using the film side’s Hazeltine theory as a model, it is imperative that we develop and implement the equivalent of a digital printer light capability on the electronic side,” declared ASC president Richard Crudo.
“People need to demand this,” an impassioned Crudo told the audience. “This is one of the most important issues today. We need to be able to assign a value to your work, so for once electronic dailies will have a direct correlation to what your print will look like…It is the only way to facilitate precise, consistent, repeatable communication.”
ASC VP Daryn Okada agreed, and enthusiastically reported that there is an answer in sight. Okada and Crudo commended Technicolor Content Services’ new Digital Printer Lights capability and its architect, Joshua Pines, VP of Imaging at Burbank-based Technicolor Digital Intermediates. This newly developed process gives filmmakers the ability to emulate in a digital environment what a negative would look like at a given printer light setting.
“It’s like a Hazeltine on super steroids,” enthused Okada, who used the digital printer lights during dailies and the DI process on his upcoming feature, Stick It. “It’s a doable process,” he emphasized. (See separate story, p. XX, on Digital Printer Lights as well as Okada’s experience with the process during production of Stick It.)
During the session, cinematographers also described their experiences using the digital intermediate process. This discussion included Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC; Kees Van Oostrum, ASC; and commercial and feature director of photography Dion Beebe, ASC, ACS. Beebe, fresh from winning an Oscar, ASC and BAFTA Award during this past awards season for his rendering of Memories of a Geisha, emphasized that the availability of this new palette of tools does not mean one should shoot a film any differently. Legendary cinematographer Zsigmond said that he would “insist” on using the DI process on future projects.
DI work is generally accomplished in 2k data resolution today, although select projects are beginning to go the 4k route, which require four times the amount of data as a 2k DI.
Zsigmond suggested that the industry should aim higher. “I would like to have 6k, he said. “I think it will get to 8k.”
Is this achievable? “We could probably do 6k now,” answered the aforementioned Levinson, who chairs the ASC Technology Committee’s DI subcommittee. “It depends on your requirements and budget.”
A far cry for 6k is the commercial world. The advertising community still finishes much of its work in standard definition, relates renowned feature and commercial director of photography Allen Daviau, ASC. “But they have a chance to put their work on the air in both high definition and standard definition,” he says. “Then those who have high definition sets can see the commercials in HD.
“Agencies need to make up their mind and budget for HD in the beginning,” Daviau asserted. “They still think it costs much more, but it doesn’t.”
Lastly, Daviau raised the archiving issue, questioning if not film, what media will certainly be around in the coming years. Levinson related that the ASC Technology Committee is exploring that question. Presently, there is no answer in sight.
George Spiro Dibie, ASC, and industry veteran Bob Fisher moderated the discussion.
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More