Blackmagic Design announced that DaVinci Resolve Studio has been used throughout production and post roduction on 20th Century Fox’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” including SDR and HDR delivery. Joshua Callis-Smith was responsible for the onset dailies while the online edit and final DI were completed by Goldcrest Post.
“Building on our use of Resolve on the first ‘Kingsman’ film,” said Callis-Smith, “I ran all of the images into 25 inch OLED monitors which were calibrated to match the DI suite at Goldcrest, and used a Smart Videohub to route pictures to the video operator, who would in turn distribute those images to everyone else.”
The onset DIT cart also incorporated a Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K capture and playback device along with multiple SmartScope Duo 4K preview monitors. The first grading pass was subsequently completed in DaVinci Resolve with the help of look up tables (LUT) created ahead of time by the colorist, Rob Pizzey.
“‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ was a much bigger proposition than ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service,’ with more ambitious VFX shots as well as an HDR deliverable to consider,“ Pizzey explained. “Along with the fact that we were delivering multiple HDR versions including Dolby Vision for theatrical and HDR10 for domestic viewing, we also had a larger number of VFX set pieces, all of which Resolve handled smoothly.”
The second installment of the Kingsman comic book adaption saw cinematographer George Richmond reunite with DIT Callis-Smith and Goldcrest’s Pizzey following their work together on “Kingsman: The Secret Service” in 2014.
“Our goal with ‘The Golden Circle’ was to maintain the same slick, rich overall aesthetic as the first film, while also ensuring we gave the sequel its own unique look,” said Callis‑Smith.
The conform and online edit were also completed in Resolve Studio by Goldcrest’s Daniel Tomlinson, which allowed the in-house team to turn around any edit changes and visual effects updates that took place quickly and efficiently.
“Working from the RAW rushes gave us maximum flexibility. As for all our deliveries, the HDR grade would originate from the live DI timeline, so we could access any part of the original grade and finesse to achieve the best results in HDR,” added Pizzey. “Grading the HDR is not just about reproducing the REC 709 version on a HDR monitor. It all boils down to how the original material was shot in the first place. On ‘The Golden Circle’ we could justify sensitively opening up the contrast ratio as we had the dynamic range to work with. Used in a controlled approach, the results can be stunning.”
He concluded: “Our color pipeline has certainly evolved since the first ‘Kingsman,’ we all worked on together, but one piece of the puzzle has remained the same: DaVinci Resolve. Resolve was central to the successful delivery of postproduction on ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle.’ Using it ensured color management remained consistent throughout the entire editorial pipeline, from DIT through to the final results.”
Raoul Peck Resurrects A Once-Forgotten Anti-Apartheid Photographer In “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”
When the photographer Ernest Cole died in 1990 at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer at a Manhattan hospital, his death was little noted.
Cole, one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid-era South Africa, was by then mostly forgotten and penniless. Banned by his native country after the publication of his pioneering photography book "House of Bondage," Cole had emigrated in 1966 to the United States. But his life in exile gradually disintegrated into intermittent homelessness. A six-paragraph obituary in The New York Times ran alongside a list of death notices.
But Cole receives a vibrant and stirring resurrection in Raoul Peck's new film "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found," narrated in Cole's own words and voiced by LaKeith Stanfield. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, is laced throughout with Cole's photographs, many of them not before seen publicly.
As he did in his Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," the Haitian-born Peck shares screenwriting credit with his subject. "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is drawn from Cole's own writings. In words and images, Peck brings the tragic story of Cole to vivid life, reopening the lens through which Cole so perceptively saw injustice and humanity.
"Film is a political tool for me," Peck said in a recent interview over lunch in Manhattan. "My job is to go to the widest audience possible and try to give them something to help them understand where they are, what they are doing, what role they are playing. It's about my fight today. I don't care about the past."
"Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is a movie layered with meaning that goes beyond Cole's work. It asks questions not just about the societies Cole documented but of how he was treated as an artist,... Read More