The Digital Intermediate (DI) process–which is the practice of transferring film to data to accomplish tasks such as color correction to create a digital master, before returning to film for distribution–has been gaining wide acceptance in Hollywood and around the world. Advantages, fans of the process say, include a nonlinear workflow, resolution independence and flexibility.
While DI is still a young workflow, it is widely estimated that already more than half of major Hollywood features now go through the process.
More slowly, commercialmakers are beginning to consider iterations of the process for advertising production, particularly for theatrical spots. In Southern California, Company 3, Santa Monica, already has two DI theaters up and running, where it grades major features as well as some commercials.
Now its sister company Encore Hollywood (Encore and Company 3 are both units of Santa Monica-based Ascent Media Group), which also accommodates long and short form projects, has its first DI theater up and running. The suite is equipped with a Grass Valley Spirit 2k film scanner, da Vinci 2K, DVS Clipster, a Barco 2k digital projector and a film projector, set in a small theater with comfortable seating. It is also designed to tie into the facility’s overall digital post workflow. Encore hopes that both feature and commercial projects will find their way into the theater.
Its first project was a feature, Day Watch (Dnevnoy Dozor), a Russian film from director Timur Bekmambetov, and is an excellent example of how a DI workflow can aid a production.
The production was a 142-minute film that involved more than seven terabytes of 2k data and some 500 visual effects shots supplied by visual effects vendors located across Europe. Encore Hollywood handled color grading and final compositing.
The majority of the film was shot on 35mm film and those elements were scanned to 2k data in Russia and shipped to Encore on hard drives. Additional elements were recorded on HDCAM and 16mm film. The 16mm elements were shipped directly to the U.S. and scanned by Encore.
In order to make the delivery date for the film’s premiere in Russia, color grading had to begin before the film was fully edited. Encore’s Dan Aguilar, who conformed the film in the company’s Discreet Fire bay, regularly received updated cuts from the film’s Russian editor, Dmitri Kiselyov, which he had to incorporate into the film’s master and then pass on to the DI theater. Color grading in the DI theater spanned two shifts with colorist Arnold Ramm working days, followed by Laura Jans at night.
“While I was assembling reel two with the assistant editor, Arnold was next door grading reel one,” recalled Aguilar. “As soon as Arnold was done, he’d render out the finished color and I’d send him the next reel.”
To make data management easier, all of the 2K data for the film was stored on Encore’s central server directly accessible to both the Fire and the DI theater.
“It’s such a smooth process,” said Jans. “It’s a nonlinear process, so I can call up any scene I want in a second.”
Day Watch is the second film in a fantasy-action trilogy about forces of light and dark that battle in medieval and contemporary Russia. Fox Searchlight Pictures bought international distribution rights to the trilogy and plans to release the film in the U.S. in ’07.
SHOOT‘s senior editor, technology and postproduction Carolyn Giardina can be reached at (310) 822-0211 or at cgiardina@shootonline.com.
