Digital Intermediate, or DI, is the postproduction industry’s buzz word of the year, although that stems largely from the feature arena. In Hollywood, the notion of creating a digital intermediate essentially defines the process of transferring film to a digital form and doing the intermediate work, including color grading and mastering in the digital realm, and then returning the work to film for delivery. Commercialmakers may use a similar setup, where the spots are output to the digital deliverable required by the client.
The digital intermediate process is currently most apparent in the feature world. This past summer, DI was used to complete such high profile films as Spider-Man 2, The Day After Tomorrow and Collateral. Bob Eicholz, VP of corporate development at E-FILM, Hollywood, predicts that by the end of the year, 35 percent of all major features will have used a DI process, and he suggests that that number will rise to 50 percent in 2005. E-FILM, along with Hollywood-based LaserPacific and Technicolor Digital Intermediates, Burbank, Calif., have been among the Southern California companies leading the DI charge in the feature world.
These companies have been working with 2k and 4k data. In commercials, 2k or HD is more the norm. The promise of a high-quality digital master is that it could then be used to create all required deliverables, including NTSC, PAL, HD or film.
The potential for this new process to reach mainstream advertising production is in sight, but is still in its early stages. "I think what will drive DI for commercials is [the point] when the world changes to HD," predicts Larry Chernoff, founder of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based consulting firm Chernoff Touber Associates, and chairman of Santa Monica-headquartered Ascent Media Creative Services. "[DI] will enable them to finish 4:3 and 16:9, and make the lives of producers and directors a lot easier."
Today, standard definition (SD) commercials reach audiences with high definition television in one of two ways: stretched to fit a 16:9 screen, or with black side panels to fill the extra space. SD commercials will likely continue to be broadcast this way until advertisers prompt a change in the model.
Growth in cinema advertising may be another driver to DI. "The market for the commercial business expands to theatricals," says Mark Polyocan, VP of Cineworks Digital Studios, Miami, which is currently building a DI infrastructure. "[Cinema is] a whole other market—you have a captive audience, and if it’s a fun spot, people remember it."
Around the world, some pioneering commercialmakers have recognized the potential of the technology and are working to introduce the DI process—or variations of the process—to advertisers. In the U.S., notable sites include Company 3, Santa Monica; Nice Shoes, New York; Technicolor Creative Services, New York; and Cineworks. Other examples include London-based post house VTR and Copenhagen’s Digital Filmlab. In the Asia Pacific region, the process is used for commercialwork at facilities including Digital Pictures, Sydney and Melbourne; Tokyo’s Imagica; and Oktober, Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, and Sydney.
NICE DI
Nice Shoes has been working tirelessly to promote its nonlinear color correction process in the advertising community. The company’s procedure starts with taking the film and transferring the work to high-resolution 2k data at night. Clients arrive the following day for the actual color correction session. The work is stored in Thomson’s Grass Valley Specter Virtual Datacine as data, which means that the color correction process becomes a nonlinear, random access process, just as when one goes into an editing session. One could also import an edit decision list and color correct the final spot in shot order.
Nice Shoes’ colorist Chris Ryan has completed more than 100 national commercials in this manner since his Specter suite opened in January. "It’s all about finding a more efficient way to work," says Joe Bottazzi, partner/director of engineering at Nice Shoes. "We scan the night before. The scanning rate is a lot less than a daytime supervised session. The clients come in the next day with their edit decision list [and grade only the spot in shot order]. So they are saving [for instance] fifty percent of their time."
If a revision is needed, Bottazzi explains, "a client can come back with a master and re-scan it. We already have the edit decision list. We go right to the scene with the time code number, redo that one scene and output it. Whereas before … if you needed revisions, you’d have to reschedule and come back in. You’d also have to have film, the film has to get cleaned again, and the time has to be booked in advance. That sometimes wastes a lot of time and money. At this end of the business, all those steps are very expensive. You are dealing with high-end companies and the highest end creative talent. It’s busy, so when you make a mistake, it’s really tough to fix it when you need to. It can knock the schedule off by a week at least."
CO3
For colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld, president of Company 3, DI offers expansion into feature work. He has already served as DI colorist for Tony Scott’s Man on Fire. Michael Bay’s Bad Boys 2, and most recently, Michael Mann’s Collateral.
Company 3’s nonlinear workflow involves scanning the original negative to 2k on a Spirit Datacine and grading with the da Vinci 2K color corrector. The Quantel iQ is used to conform and create optical scenes. MTI’s DRS is used for dirt and scratch removal. The system is built on Company 3’s massive fiber channel network with more than 50 terabytes of storage.
At press time, Company 3 was readying to open two color-grading theaters. Sonnenfeld relates that each will have two projectors, a Barco 2k digital projector and a film projector. The goal is to enable clients to see their work in a high-quality theatrical environment, as opposed to on a video monitor. Sonnenfeld adds that the suites are SMPTE compliant in relation to specs such as viewing distance from the screen.
While working with features, Sonnenfeld keeps a busy roster of commercial work and is already introducing the efficiencies of the new process to his spot clients. "I love commercials; I will always do commercials," he says. "I love the shortform aspect of it, and usually work with terrific people. I’m here to stay in the commercial world. I also like doing movies with friends, and it’s really great to diversify and learn from some of the best filmmakers in the business."
Noted feature and commercial director of photography Steven Poster, ASC, was among the first cinematographers to supervise a DI for a feature, Stuart Little 2. Poster is pleased that the technology is developing to a point where people want to use it, but he emphasizes the importance of having the cinematographer involved in the process, and says that he supervises the color correction on his jobs when possible. He also suggests the use of new methods of translating the intended look. "A lot of times, the director of photography on a commercial will send files to the colorist for the dailies timing, sort of a poor man’s look management system," he notes. "But rarely do those files follow the project to the finish. That needs to happen."
Still, Poster is pleased to see a growing interest in image quality. "I think it’s encouraging that they are going in this direction," Poster says of the facilities using DI processes, "because the trend has been to go as low as just doing Avid outputs and doing color correction in Avids and at best tape-to-tape color correction in an edit bay. That’s not the way to get the best quality. Now, if agencies are willing to go into a DI suite for a master, then that makes a lot of sense—but it takes a lot more care."
He adds that it will become easier for a cinematographer to stay involved "because technology is evolving to a point where we will be able to do that remotely."
Company 3, for instance, already has that request in sight. UP Satellite, a new long distance collaborative process developed at Ascent Media—which Company 3 is a part of—is designed so that directors and cinematographers can review color corrected work on a calibrated monitor from across borders. While the notion of working in this manner is not new, perhaps the need is finally catching up with the application.
Tiers Of Service
Technicolor Creative Services’ (TCS) Technicolor Digital Intermediates facility in Burbank has already completed DIs in 2k data for such features as The Terminal. But at TCS’ New York facility, the company is using the process with HD on cinema commercials.
Dana Ross, general manager of Technicolor Digital Intermediates, suggests that the industry must establish a business model for shortform work and low-budget features, perhaps in an environment that offers a CRT monitor instead of a large theater. "One challenge is developing a business model for lower budget [projects]," he said. "Those are very important projects. We are developing a business model … so we are not bidding them away."
"It’s definitely going to be an industry with two or three tiers," predicts Chernoff. "There will be companies focused on DI for video-originated projects, such as [HDCAM] SR. There will be companies more focused on producing very high quality but with mid-range pricing for film-based projects. … The third tier would be boutique environments with high-profile projects, driven by creative forces." This final tier, he suggests, would be the houses that have "alternate sources of income, so they can afford to be picky about the type of work they do."
