Looking Back on 2021

I wanted to take a quick moment to look back on all the great work that the team and I accomplished this year. There were a ton of fantastic projects with amazing filmmakers. Paul Lavoie and I also got the opportunity to take a second crack at some of our earlier work by giving it a 4k HDR makeover. Have we really been at it that long?

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Leo Ferrini and Paul Lavoie for their dedication to our clients and never compromising on quality. They keep me honest. I’m very grateful to have partners like this A-team. Our operation is strong here on the Warner lot. Looking forward to what will come in 2022!

2021 New Theatrical and Remasters

Happy New Year and happy grading everyone!

-JD

How to - VR 180 Video Files

Recently a few VR jobs came across my desk. I had done some equirectangular grading in the past, but it was always for VFX plates, Dome Theaters, or virtual production sets. These recent projects were different because they were purposely shot for 180 VR. Sorry, no looking back over your shoulder. The beauty of this format is that it brings back some of the narrative language that we have cultivated over 100+ years of cinema. We can direct your eye through shadow and light or pull your attention with a sound effect and sudden action. All while not having to worry if you are looking in the right direction.

I thought it would be a good idea to share what I have learned working with this type of immersive content. It’s all out there on the web but hopefully, this pulls it all together in one place and saves all of you a bunch of googling.

It all starts with a stitch

First, you will need to choose a rig. There are many off-the-shelf kits you can buy or you can go the homebrew route and cobble together a few cameras. There are also some interesting standalone devices that save you from having to use/manage multiple cameras. In all cases, there will be some post-processing needed. You will need stitching software like Mistika VR or Cara VR for multiple camera rigs.

Stitching is the process of combining multiple cameras together, color balancing them, and then feathering the overlapping pixels to create one seamless equirectangular image. There are a lot of tutorials on stitching and this post is not that.

6 cameras stitched

The red lines are the edges. The green lines are where the feather starts for the overlap.

Equidistant Fisheye

Extremely wide fisheye setups will need to be converted from equidistant fisheye to equirectangular

Want to avoid stitching all together? Use a very wide-angle lens. There are extremely wide fisheye setups that can capture more than 180 degree field of view. These will need to be converted from equidistant fisheye to equirectangular, but other than that, no stitching or post-processing is needed. Canon has just recently released a fantastic dual fisheye product that further simplifies capture. No matter the setup the end result of the post process will be a 2:1 canvas with each eye being a 1:1 equirectangular image placed side by side. This is probably a good time to talk about what an equirectangular image is.

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Equirectangular Projection

This type of spherical visualization is basically the map of the globe that you had in school. It’s what happens when you take a sphere, map that to a cylinder, and unroll the cylinder to a flat projection. That is a gross oversimplification, but a good way to visualize what is going on nonetheless. Please see the equations below if you are coding something or if you are just a maths fan.

Transform Definition

Spherical to Planar Transform

This is the concept of 360 video. We work with it in a flat plane during post. Same idea for 180 VR video, but just one hemisphere instead. Click to see higher quality.

Ok Cool, I have VR Videos… Now what?

At this point, your videos are ready for post. I would consider everything up to this point dailies. Now it’s time to edit. All the usual editors we use daily can cut together these video files, but some are better suited than others. Premiere would be my first choice, with Mistika Boutique being a close second. In my workflow, I use both since the two tools have different strengths and weaknesses. Premiere has a clever feature that uses Steam VR and feeds your timeline to a headset. This is indispensable, in my opinion, for that instant feedback one needs while cutting and grading. VR is a different beast. Straight cuts, unless carefully planned out, can be very jarring if not nausea-inducing. Fades work well but are sort of the VR equivalent of “if you can’t solve it dissolve it.” Having all of these transitions live for evaluation and audition in the headset is what separates Premiere from the rest of the pack. SGO has recently released the ability for HMD review similar to Premiere, but I have yet to use the new feature. I will update this post once I take it out for a spin.

9/7/2023 Mistika update

So, I finally took Mistika’s HMD monitoring for a spin. It was super easy to set up. First, you download DEO VR player to your headset. Next, you click the HMD icon in Mistika. This will give an HTTP address with the ip of your machine. Type that into the address bar in DEO VR and ta-da. You end up with super steppy streaming VR video of your current environment.

It was OK to check geometry and color, but It would be hard to use for review. There are a couple of advantages to working this way, though. Multiple headsets are able to connect to the same stream. This is great when you have a room full of folks and everybody in their own headset. With Premiere, we pass the HMD around while everyone else views on the projector or stares at whoever is in the headset, patiently waiting for their turn. Another benefit is remote monitoring. You can technically serve out the ip of your local machine (this will probably need some port forwarding on your router and some VPN shenanigans) to the world. This means someone remote can connect, provided they are on the same network.

Pros

• Easy setup

• Multiple viewers at once

• Remote viewing

• Instant HMD feedback

Cons

• Steppy playback

• Needs a network-attached machine

• Low resolution to maintain interactivity

Setting up your project

Premiere has a couple of dependencies to enable VR viewing. First, you need to install Steam VR. This is all you need if you are using a Windows Mixed Reality headset. You will need to install the Oculus software if you plan on using the Facebook offerings via Occulus link.

Now that your HMD is set up. Check out this blog post for step-by-step settings to get Premiere ready to edit VR. The settings are the same for 180VR. Just change the Horizontal Capture settings from 360 to 180.

Change “360” to 180 for VR180 editing.

Who’s Daniel and why do I care?

One downside about Premiere is the dreadfully slow rendering of HEVC files. Not to mention the 60mbps limitation. The Adobe dev team knows my feelings on the matter so hopefully, this will be fixed in a future update, but until then here is a crafty workaround. Cinegy is a company that makes a codec called daniel2. They have their own renderer. We don’t really care about their codec but we do like that their Cinegy HEVC render is way faster than Premiere’s native one. Here’s how to install it.

• download and install

• go to email and copy the license (it’s free but still needs to be licensed)

• open the Cinegy license manager and paste the number

• open a Premiere timeline and, press ctrl m for export, and check to see if Cinegy comes up as an export option.

• set your bitrate and hit go. I would recommend a bitrate around 130mbps. This allows enough headroom for audio and will not have any issue playing back on the Oculus Quest 2.

The compromise of all this speed is what’s missing from the header of the video file. The file will be missing the flag that lets players know that it is a VR180 file. You can also use Resolve or Mistika for fast HEVC renders as an alternative to Daniel2. No matter how you get your HEVC file you will need to ensure the header is correct. More on this after we sync the audio.

Audio is not my world

I’m a picture guy. Some would even say a big picture guy ;) The one thing I know for sure is that when it comes to audio, I know when it sounds good, but I haven’t a clue on what it takes to get it there. But no more excuses! This is the year that I want to dig deeper. Check back in a few and I hope to update this section with the FB 360 Protools integration information. Until then, the audio is best left to the pros.

Spatial sound can come in different orders with better immersion the higher you go. First-order ambisonics has 4 channels. Second-order has 9, while Third-order files contain 16 tracks. Now it may seem that third order is the way to go, but in my experience, the difference between second-order and third-order isn’t that noticeable on the built-in headset speakers. Then again, I’m, a picture guy. Whatever sound you receive from your mix, you will need to sync it to your HEVC file.

We use the FaceBook 360 app to marry the picture to the spatial sound. The app has some dependencies to install before you can use it.

1. Python - if you are like me you may have already had this one!

2. FFMPEG - this link has a tutorial for installing on a Windows machine. Click “code” then “Download Zip.” Uncompress and copy to the FB360 directory

3. GPAC - make sure you use the legacy 0.8.1 version. This stumped me for a bit the first time.

Now we can run FB360 The first step is to point to your video file. Then choose the right order of ambisonic audio and point to the wav file from the mix. There is also an option to load a standard “head locked” stereo audio track. This can be good for narration, music, or other types of audio that do not need to be assigned a spatial location.

Finally, we hit “Encode.”

It’s not a vaccine but it is an injection

Google VR 180 Creator can be downloaded here. You can’t even find this anymore but it’s super important. There are other options including the original source code for this app, but this little gizmo is by far the easiest way to inject the proper metadata into the header of your HEVC file. This lets players know it’s a side-by-side 180 VR file.

VR180 Creator

Click “Prepare for Publishing. Drag your video in. Set it to side by side and hit export. You will have a new video that has been “injected” with the correct metadata.

Download

How do I view the final product?

Plugin your Oculus Quest into your computer and put it on. Click allow file transfer. Now take off the headset and go to your computer. It will show up as a USB drive. Navigate to the movies directory and simply drag your files across. Now you can unplug your Oculus. Go to Oculus TV/ my media and click your video. If everything was done correctly you are now in a stereo 180 world!

You can also upload to Facebook or Youtube for streaming distribution. Here are two links that contain the specs for both. As with all tech, I’m sure these will change as better headsets are released.

Thank you to the experts that have helped me along the way.

Hopefully, this helps navigate the murky waters of VR just a bit. I’m excited to see what you all create. A big thanks to Hugh Hou for making a ton of really informative videos. A tip of the cap to Tom Peligrini for bringing us all together and leading the charge. I also owe a debt of gratitude to David Raines, for not only introducing Hugh to me but also making sure our VR pictures have all the emotion and immersive sound one could ask for. There’s a pretty great team here at Warner PPCS.

As always, thanks for reading.

JD

How to - Convert 29.97i SD to 23.98p in Resolve

29.97i to 23.98p

Have you ever needed to convert older standard-definition footage from 29.97i to 23.98p for use in a new project? Resolve is no Alchemist, but it can get the job done in a pinch. Read below for the best practices approach to converting your footage for use in new films or documentaries.

Setup Your Project

I would recommend creating a new project just for conversions. First up, we will set up the Mastering Settings. Set the timeline resolution to 720x486 NTSC. Are you working in PAL? If so set this to 720x576. All the other steps will be the same, but I will assume you are working with NTSC(North America and Japan) files going forward.

Usually, we work with square pixels with a pixel aspect of 1:1 for HD video and higher. Here we need to change the pixel aspect to conform to the older standard of 0.9:1. Remember when you were young and pushed your face right up against that old Zenith TV set. Perhaps you noticed the RGB rectangles, not squares, that made up the image. The 4:3 standard definition setting accounts for that.

Finally and most importantly, we set the frame rate to 23.976, which is what we want for our output.

At this point simply dragging a clip onto a timeline will result in it being converted to 23.98, but why does it look so steppy and bad? We need to tell Resolve to use high-quality motion estimation. This optical flow setting is the same engine that makes your speed effects look smooth. By setting it on the project page we declare the default method for all time re-mapping to use the highest quality frame interpolation. Including frame rate conversions.

Leveling the Playing Field: 29.97i to 29.97p

Technically 29.97i has a temporal sample rate of 59.94 half resolution(single field) images per second. Before we take 29.97 to 23.98 we need to take the interlaced half-frames and create whole frames. The setting we can engage is the Neural de-interlace. This setting can be found on the Image Scaling page. This will help with aliasing in your final output.

Now that all the project settings have been set, we are ready to create a timeline. A good double-check to make sure everything is behaving as expected is to do a little math.

First we take the frame rate or our source divided by our target frame rate.

29.97 ➗ 23.976 = 1.25

This result is our retime factor

Next we use that factor multiplied by the number of frames in our converted timeline.

1.25 * 1445 = 1818.75

That result will be the original # of frames from the 29.97 source. If everything checks out, then it’s time to render.

Rendering

I prefer to render at source resolution and run any upscaling steps downstream. You can totally skip this step by rendering to HD, 4k, or whatever you need.

I would recommend using Davinci’s Super Scale option if you are uprezing at the same time. This option can be accessed via the Clip Attributes... settings in the contextual menu that pops up when you right-click a source clip.

I hope this helps take your dusty old SD video and prepare it for some new life. This is by no means the “best” conversion out there. Alchemist is still my preferred standards conversion platform. Nvidia has also cooked up some amazing open-source tools for manipulating time via its machine vision toolset. All that said, Resolve does an amazing job, besting the highest quality, very expensive hardware from years past. The best part is it’s free.

Happy Grading,

JD

Colorist PSA - Logarithmic isn't Before

Camera Log is Not Your Before

This is a short service announcement aimed at colorists submitting before and after’s to showcase their work. This post will also be of interest to DPs, Directors, Producers, Facility Managers, or anyone else that is tasked with evaluating or choosing a color professional.

Over the last year, I have received many reels from colorists looking for work. One pet peeve of mine is seeing a clip where there is a “before” that is logarithmic and then “graded” to the display referred “after.”

LogC VS Graded Rec.709

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Although this might seem like a drastic transformation, and a great grade, what this tells me instead, is the colorist has a poor understanding of display spaces. It’s pretty much an instant next for me.

Negative VS Camera Raw

Imagine if anyone did the same with film negative. I started with this and I colored it to look like this!

Negative VS Arri Rec.709

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Did you, or was that 100+ years of Kodak color science? The log images we start with today are positve but the analogy stills holds. The log file could be considered your digital negative. It’s not ready to be shown until you “print” it. Now there are different ways to take it to display space and all of that is important in the development of the images, but every camera manufacturer has a standard display transform. Think of this as the base from which all other creative assessments should be measured.

LogC VS Standard Arri Rec.709

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YouTube is Making Bad Colorists

I often see “tutorials” where an “expert” will start with a log image, then start adding a bunch of nodes, contrast, and curves, and then say ta-dah, here is before and here is after.

The reality is that colorists should be showing, “this is the manufacturer standard math to rec709” and, “here is what I did.” Regardless if that grade is display referred which is another topic, at least it is an apples-to-apples comparison.

Standard Arri Rec.709 VS Graded Rec.709

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Your Before and Afters Shouldn’t be That Drastic

There is always a base look for a project. Whether this is the standard camera curves or something custom from a colorist. This should be considered the stock for the show. Colorists are there to help the DP and Director create a particular feeling or response to a set of images. The best grades are the simplest ones. Sure, there are times when shapes are necessary, but your DP knew this on the day, did the cost-benefit analysis, and knew what they could achieve in the DI bay. Most before and afters should show a subtle hand. One that is repeatable so the Director and DP can get consistent and expected results.

When is Log Viewing Appropriate

Filmmakers often want to see their un-LUT’d images. This is always in a technical capacity. It is not uncommon for a DP to want to see a log feed on set to confirm exposure or a director that wants to see their VFX with the LUT off to feel confident that the vfx work is clean and not hiding under the LUT. That said, there is rarely a time when the log image helps you evaluate the beauty or feeling of an image. This should always be done in a display referred space. There was a period, circa 2010 (right around when the first Alexas came out) where a flat washed-out picture was in vogue. I have a hunch this was caused by a creative seeing an un-LUTed monitor and saying “that’s perfect! exactly like that.” Now that’s fine to find inspiration wherever it comes from, but I think we could have avoided that milky period in grading history.

Know your target

Your before and afters should always be in the same target space. The difference should be the work that went into it. You wouldn’t show your PQ HDR “after” in 709 without a transform, so please don’t do it with the log “before.”

Standard Arri rec.709 VS P3 D65 PQ

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I imagine your starting point was a well-exposed log picture. You would only need to show it to me if it wasn’t, but that would be doing your DP a disservice and He/She is your number 1,2 and 3 most important priority. In conclusion, a good colorist will never kiss and tell.

Thank You

Thanks for ensuring there is no more harm done to our scene-referred log images. Help me fight the fight to end misrepresented pixels. Thanks for reading and happy grading!

Space Jam: A New Legacy - Multiple Worlds, Multiple Deliveries.

Hey Everybody! Space Jam: A New Legacy directed by Malcolm D. Lee is out today. I wanted to take a second to highlight the super slick color workflow which allowed us to work on multiple versions concurrently.

Capture

Space Jam: A New Legacy was masterfully lensed by Salvatore Totino. The two primary capture mediums were 35mm Kodak film and the entire lineup of Arri cameras, mainly the LF. The glass used was Zeiss Supremes and Master Primes. There were also a handful of scans from archival films which were used as plates for animation.

VFX

ILM was running point for the VFXs on this show. Grady Cofer and his team were a dream to work with. There is a reason ILM continues to be the best in class. The knowledge and expertise ILM employs is second to none. Early on Grady connected me with their head of color science, Matthias Scharfenberg. I thought I knew what I was doing when it comes to color science until I saw what Matthias had going on with CTL and Nuke. I learned a lot from our chats. He was super gracious in sending over his Nuke scripts which allowed me to build a Baselight transform that matched ILM’s pipeline. This insured a one-to-one representation of their stellar work.

Two Worlds, One Grade

The show can basically be broken down into two looks. In “Space Jam: A New Legacy” there is the real-world and the Warner Bros Serververse.

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We chose an analog celluloid vibe for the real world. The Serververse has a super clean, very 1s and 0s look to it. Most of the real world is shot on film or is Arri Alexa utilizing film emulation curves paired with a grain treatment. Some sequences have a mix of the two. Let me know if you can tell which ones😉.

The look of the digital world changes depending on where the characters are in the Serververse. The base look of the Serververse is the vanilla ACES ODT with restricted primaries in the mid-tones complimented by exaggerating the saturation for highly saturated colors.

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All the other looks are riffs off this base LMT with the exception of the library classics. These were graded to look like their existing masters and the new footage was matched in.

Multiple Deliverables, One Timeline

The challenge of this show, beyond the sheer number of VFX and moving parts, was the delivery schedule. The Post Supervisor Lisa Dennis asked to have the theatrical version and the HDR video versions delivered days apart. To hit the dates requested, I graded simultaneously in HDR and SDR. I did most of the heavy lifting in HDR PQ 1000nits. Then I trimmed at 14FL to ensure the reel was ready for filmmaker review. Poping back and forth between outputs was made possible by two great tools. Firstly, I used ACES 1.1 color management to normalize all the different sources into one grading space.

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Secondly, I used Baselight’s “Bypass Categories” functionality to if/then the timeline. Basically, I had one timeline that would represent itself differently depending on the output selected. Different layers were toggled for different sources and outputs. The LMTs used often had SDR and HDR versions to further exacerbate the combinations. This was a critical hurdle to overcome and the Baselight gave me the tools to accomplish the organization of a very complicated timeline with ease.

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Bypass Categories

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Multiple Outputs, 1 Timeline

Approvals

The Color sessions were supervised by Malcolm, Sal, and Bob Ducsay. We used Nevion and ClearView for remote sessions, but most of the work was done in-person on the lot here in Burbank. The Animated sequences were supervised by Spike Brandt and Devin Crane. These guys are animation heavyweights, so very cool to be in such good company for an animation nerd like me.

Ignore the gif compression. This one needed to be in motion

Most of the tweaking on the animation was for continuity fixing. A few of the shots we composited for final in the Baselight. This gave Devin and Spike a little extra creative freedom than a baked shot would have.

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Reference for Tweety’s floor

After all the color decisions were made, Malcolm had his final pass and the masters were created. All deliverables from that point were sub-masters from the hero PQ deliverable. These included deliverables such as the Dolby Vision Theatrical version and 709 SDR version derived from the Dolby XML metadata.

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Go See It!

Thanks for reading how the look of this candy-colored revival came together. Working on Space Jam was a wild ride. I had to tap into my background in photochemical film processing and knowledge of the latest digital grading techniques to create unique looks for all the different cinematic worlds visited. The film is a nostalgic love letter to the rich history and legacy of the Warner Bros. Studio. I couldn't be more proud of the Warner Color team, especially Leo Ferrini and Paul Lavoie. A big thanks to you guys! Putting this film together was a monumental task and I am ecstatic with end result. Check it out in theaters and on HBO Max today!

Best Practices: Restoring Classics

2020 - The year of Restorations

Now that we seem to be on the other end of the pandemic, I wanted to take a moment to look back on some of the projects that kept me busy. Restorations were the name of game during covid times. With productions shut down and uncertainty in the theatrical marketplace, I had time in my schedule to breathe new life into some of my favorite classics.

Over the last year, I have restored;

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

• Space Jam

• Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Let’s take a look at a couple of these titles and talk about what it means to remaster a film with our contemporary toolset.

The Process

The process for remastering classic titles is very similar to finishing new theatrical work with a couple of additional steps. The first step is to identify and evaluate the best elements to use. That decision is easy for digitally acquired shows from the early 2000’s. In those instances, the original camera files are all that exist and are obviously the best source. Film shows are where it gets particularly ambiguous. There is a debate whether starting from the IP or original negative yields better results. Do we use the original opticals or recreate them from the elements? Black and white seps vs faded camera neg? These questions all need to be answered before you begin the work. Usually I prefer to start with the OCN when available.

Director Scanner

Arri Scan

Scanning

Scanning is arguably the most critical part of the process. Quality and success will live or die by the execution of great scans. Image breathing, movement, and general sharpness are issues to look for when evaluating. Scans should not be pretty but rather represent a digital copy of the negative.  In a perfect closed-loop system, a scanned piece of film, once shot back out on a calibrated recorder needs to closely match the original negative.

Digital Restoration

The next step in making an old project shiny and new is to repair any damage to the film from aging or that was inherent in production. this includes painting out splice lines, gate hairs, dirt, and scratches. Film processing issues like breathing or turbulence can also be taken care of in this step. I prefer to postpone flicker removal until the grading step since the contrast will have an effect on the amount of flicker to remove. Some common tools used for restoration include MTI and PF Clean. This work is often outsourced because of the high number of man-hours and labor costs associated with cleaning every frame of film. Some companies that do exceptional restoration work are PrimeFocus and Prasad among others.

Grading

Grading restoration titles is a total sub-discipline from grading as a whole. New theatrical grading starts with references and look development to achieve a certain tone for the film. There is a ton of work that goes into this process. Restoration grading differs since the goal is staying true to that original intent. Not reimagining it. Much like new theatrical grading, a good reference will set you up for success. My preferred reference is a filmmaker-approved answer print.  These were the master prints that best represented the filmmakers’ creative intent.

A good practice is to screen the print and immediately set looks for the scans getting as close as possible at 14fl projected. An upgrade to this workflow is to use a projector in the grading suite like a Kinoton. These projectors have remote control and cooling. This allows you to rock and roll the film. You can even freeze-frame and thanks to the built in cooling your film doesn’t burn. Setting up a side-by-side with the film vs digital is the best way to ensure you have a match to the original intent. These corrections need to happen using a good color management system. Aces for example has ODTs for theatrical 48nits which is the equivalent of 14fl. Once you have a match to the original, the enhancement can start.

There would be no point in remastering if it was going to look exactly like the existing master. One great reason to remaster is to take advantage of new advancements in HDR and wide color gamut formats. Film was the original HDR format containing 12 stops of range. The print was the limiting factor, only being able to display 8 of those stops. By switching the ODT to PQ P3D65, we can take advantage of the larger container and let the film display all that it has to offer.

My approach is to let the film land where it was originally shot but tone-mapped for PQ display. This will give you a master that had the original intent of the print but in HDR. I often use an LMT that limits the gamut to that of the emulsion used for original photography. This also ensures that I’m staying true to the film's original pallet. Typically there is some highlight balancing to do since what was white and “clipped” is now visible. Next is to identify and correct any areas where the contrast ratios have been disrupted by the increased dynamic range. For example, if there was a strongly silhouetted shot, the value of the HDR highlight can cause your eye to iris down changing the perception of the deep shadows. In this case, I would roll off the highlights or lift the shadows so the ratio stays consistent with the original. The extra contrast HDR affords is often welcomed but it can cause some unwanted issues too. Grain appearance is another one of those examples.

Grain Management

Film grain is one of those magic ingredients. Just like salt, you miss it when it is not there and too much ruins the dish. Grain needs to be felt but never noticed. It is common for the noise floor to increase once you have stretched the film scan to HDR ranges. Also, the grain in the highlights not previously visible starts to be seen. To mitigate this, a grain management pass needs to be implemented. This can come before the grade, but I like to do this after since any contrast I add will have an effect on the perceived amount of noise. Grain can impart a color cast to your image, especially if there is a very noisy blue channel. Once removed this needs to be compensated for and is a downside of working post grade. It is during this pass that I will also take care of flicker and breathing which the grade also affects. My go-to tool for this is Neat Video. You would think that after a decade of dominance some software company would have knocked Neat off their throne as king of the denoise, but it hasn’t happened yet. I prebake the scans with a Neat pass (since Baselight X doesn’t play nicely with Neat yet.) Next, I stack the Neat’ed scan and the original as layers. This allows me to blend in the amount of grain to taste. The goal of this pass is to keep the grain consistent from shot to shot, regardless of the grade. The other, and most important goal is to make the grain look as it did on the print.

Dolby Trim

After the HDR10 grade is complete, it’s time for the Dolby trim. I use the original 14 FL print match version as a reference for where I want the Dolby trim to clip and crush. Once all the trims have been set, I export out a Dolby XML expecting rec2020 primaries as input. Yes, we graded in P3, but that gamut will be placed into a 2020 container once we export.

Mastering

Once all the work has been completed it’s time to master. Remasters receive the same treatment as new theatrical tiles when it comes to deliverables. The common ones are as follows:

• Graded PQ P3D65 1000nit 16bit Tiff Files or ACES AP0 EXRs

• Un-Graded PQ P3D65 16bit Tiff files or ACES AP0 EXRs

• Graded 2.6 XYZ DCDM 14fl

• Graded PQ XYZ 108nit 16bit Tiff Files or ACES AP0 EXRs for Dolby Vision Theatrical

• Bt1886 QT or DPX files created from a Dolby XMLIMF PQ rec2020 limited to P3D65 1000nit

Case Studies

Perfect worlds do exist but we don’t live in one. Every job is a snowflake with its own unique hurdles. Remastering tests a colorists abilities across many disciplines of the job. Stong skills in composting, paint, film manipulation, and general grading is what is required to achieve and maintain the original artistic intent. Here are two films completed recently and a bit on the challenges faced in each.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

For those of you that don’t know the Ninja Turtles are near and dear to me. Not only was I a child of the 80s, but my Father was in charge of the postproduction on the original cartoons. He also wrote and directed many of them. When this came up for a remaster, I jumped at the chance to get back to my roots.

This film only required an SDR remaster. The output delivery was to be P3 D65 2.6 gamma. I set up the job using Baselight’s color management and worked in T-Log E_Gamut. The DRS was performed by Prasad with additional work by yours truly BECAUSE IT HAD TO BE PERFECT!

There were two main color hurdles to jump through. First, some scenes were very dark. I used Baseligt’s boost shadow tool to “dig” out detail from the toe of the curve. This was very successful in many of the night scenes that the film takes place in.

Another trick I used was on the Turtle’s skin. You may or may not know, but all the turtles have different skin colors. Also, most folks think they are green, when in fact there is very little green in their skin. They are more of an olive. To make sure the ratio of green to yellow was correct I converted to LAB and graded their skin in that color space. Once happy, I converted it back to T-Log E-Gamut. LAB is a very useful space for affecting yellow tones. In this space, I was able to tweak their skin and nothing else. Sort of like a key and a hue shift all in one.

The SDR ended up looking so good that the HDR was finished too. The HDR was quick and painless because of Baselight’s built-in color management. Most of the heavy lifting was already done and only a few tweaks needed.

Space Jam

Space Jam was a formative film from my youth. Not only did I have Jordan’s at the time, but I was also becoming a fledgling animation nerd (thanks Dad) when this film was released.

I set up the project for ACES color management with a Kodak LMT that I had used for other films previously. This reigned in the extreme edge of gamut colors utilized in the animation.

The biggest challenge on this project was cleaning up some of the inherent artifacts from 1990’s film recording technology. Cinesite performed all of the original composites, but at the time they were limited to 1k film recording. To mitigate that in a 4k world, I used Baselight’s texture equalizer and convolutional sharpen to give a bit of snap back to the filmed out sections.

Vishal Chathle supervised the restoration for the studio. Vishal and I boosted the looney tunes to have more color and take advantage of the wider gamut. The standard film shots, of which there were few, were pretty straightforward. Corrected mostly with Baselight’s Basegrade. Basegrade is a fantastic tool where the corrections are performed in linear gamma. This yields a consistent result no matter what your working space is.

Joe Pytka came in to approve the grade. This was very cool for me since not only did I grow up watching this film of his, but also all those iconic Superbowl commercials from the 90’s that he did. A true master of camera. He approved the grade but wished there was something more we could do with the main title. The main title sequence was built using many video effects. To recreate it would have cost a fortune. We had the original film out of it, but it looked pretty low res. What I did to remedy this was to run it through an AI up-rezer that I coded a while ago for large format shows.

The results were astounding. The titles regained some of their crisp edges that I can only presume were lost from the multiple generations of opticals that the sequence went through. The AI was also able to fix the aliasing inherent in the low res original. In the end, I was very proud of the result.

The last step was grain management. This show needed special attention because the grain from the Jordan plate was often different from the grain embedded in the animation plate that he was comped into. In order to make it consistent. I ran two de-grain passes on the scan. The first took care of the general grain from the original neg. The second pass was tuned to clean up Jordan’s grain that had the extra layer of optical grain over the top. It was a complicated noise pattern to take care of. Next, I took the two de-grained plates, roto’ed out Jordan, and re-comp-ed him over the cleaned-up plate. This gave consistency to the comps that were not there in the original.

Another area where we helped the comps were in animation error fixing. Some shots had layers that would disappear for a couple of frames, or because it was hand-drawn, a highlight that would disappear and then reappear. I used Baselight’s built-in paint tool to repair the original animation. One great feature of the paint tool is its ability to paint on two’s. An old animation trick is to only animate at 12fps if there isn’t a lot of motion. Then you shoot each frame twice. This halves the number of frames that need to be drawn. When I was fixing animation issues I would make a paint stroke on the frame and Baselight would automatically hold it for the next one. This cut down my work by half just like the original animators!

I was honored to help restore this piece of animation history. A big thanks to Michael Borquez and Chris Gillaspie for the flawless scanning and deep investigation of the best elements to use. Also a tip of the cap to Vishal Chathle for all the hard work and lending me his eagle eye!

Final Thoughts

Restoration Colorist should be a credit on its own. It’s unfortunate that this work rarely gets recognized and even less frequently gets credit. It is hard enough to deliver a director’s artistic vision from scratch. It’s arguably even harder to stay true to it 30 years later. Thanks for reading and check out these projects on HBO Max soon!

Space Jam Trailer 2

All wrapped up. Excited for Space Jam's release on July 16th!

Documentary Color Grading - P!NK: All I Know So Far

P!nk: All I Know So Far is out today on Prime Video

P!nk: All I Know So Far is a documentary that chronicles the artist Pink’s (aka Alecia Moore) 2019s beautiful trama tour. The audience gets an intimate look at what it takes to be a touring global icon while balancing family life. Producer Tom Pellegrini sought out Paul Lavoie and myself to finish this project. I was uniquely qualified having done similar work for Miley Cyrus, Missy Elliott, The Jonas Brothers, and Katy Perry previously. The first step was to get the enormous amount of footage to editor Cindy Mollo and her first assist Mary Chin.

Dailies

There was over 260 TB of footage that needed to be converted to DNX36 for Avid cutting. The footage consisted of multi-camera live shoots for multiple nights of tour performances. There was also behind-the-scenes footage, and archival clips spanning from Pink’s childhood to the present day. The live show was captured using Sony Venice cameras. All behind-the-scenes footage was shot using Blackmagic Pocket Cinema cameras. Dailies colorist Eric de Azevedo created CDLs to balance the footage underneath the show LUTs for the Venice and BMD cameras. The rec709 archival material stayed rec709 and was simply converted to DNX. It was also at this time that we normalized the frame rate for all sources to 23.98.

The Look

I first spoke to Michael Gracey on New Year’s eve 2020 about his vision for the look of the show. I remember this well because since he was in Australia it was already his New Year. He wanted a rock and roll look for the behind-the-scenes material. I presented him with 3 different options. He dug on a riff of 7219 that I created. The main difference from a standard print simulation was a decrease in magenta saturation. We then took that original look and refined it further by introducing a fairly heavy application of LiveGrain. We also developed a Tri-X black and white treatment for when Alicia breaks the fourth wall.

The Venice live show material was pretty straightforward. I used the built-in Baselight T-CAM transform with a couple of small tweaks. First I took the skin tones and hue shifted them away from magenta-red. The second small enhancement was with the blue magentas. I grabbed those vectors and swung them to be more true blue. This made a nice complement of skin tone to blue stage lighting. Other than those two minor corrections it was pretty much stock Venice. The idea there was to have the stage show very vérité. Just as if you were there.

Conversely, I wanted to do the opposite with the behind-the-scenes material. I wanted to show the juxtaposition between Pink the artist and Alicia the mother. To achieve this I removed all the “Pink” from the Blackmagic footage by keying and channel mixing out the magentas.

I wanted to avoid the greens being overpowering with the picture devoid of magenta, so I took the greens and shifted them towards the yellows. In my opinion, this brought back balance to the fairly strong look. This device allowed the story to focus on the two very different sides of Pink’s life.

Pink(literally) when she’s on stage. Alicia when she’s not.

Editorial Conform

As usual, my right-hand man on this project was the always buttoned up, Leo Ferrini. Having done editorial work on shows like this in the past, I have a great appreciation for the effort that goes into documentary editorial finishing. With all the various formats, sources, colorspaces, and effects there were many plates spinning for him. The conform was done natively in Baselight with some opticals being run through the Avid for an exact match.

Finishing

The Color grading work began shortly after the looks were set. At the end of my shift each day Leo would export the reel to Australia as an HDR10 ProresXQ QuickTime. Michael reviewed while we were sleeping and would send back notes for my morning. Michael is a great communicator and would send notes back a couple of different ways. We used project files with markers if the notes were straightforward. This was great because I could jump from mark to mark hitting the notes as I went. Very efficient! The other note tool we used was video. He would send me clips of what he was looking for. This was sort of like an offline CineSync. It was a great way to convey complicated ideas that a standard text note couldn’t.

Towards the end of the process, once a lot of heavy lifting and the Dolby trim was done, we started to use ClearView for interactive remote sessions. We sent hard drives with H.265s and ProresXQs for Pink’s notes and creative input. We then started mastering once all the creative choices had been locked.

Deliverables

The deliverables for Amazon fall under the standard deliverables that I recommend for every show.

• UHD Graded P3D65 PQ 16bit tiff files with textless sections

• Unmatted and ungraded working resolution and colorspace archival export

• Dolby XML

• ProresXQ HDR and SDR

Thanks for reading! As always a big thanks to the entire Warner Bros. Post Production Creative services team. This is one of those projects that benefited greatly from having sound and picture in a one-stop-shop. Now go check it out on Amazon Prime Video and let me know what you think.

P!nk: All I Know So Far

The trailer for the latest documentary I graded dropped yesterday. Check it out on Amazon Prime Video May 21st!

Space Jam: A New Legacy - Trailer 1

Tunes vs. Goons. Watch LeBron James and Bugs Bunny in the new trailer for Space Jam: A New Legacy. In theaters and streaming on HBO Max - July 16. #SpaceJamM...

Recommendations for Home Color System

I have recently had a lot of inquiries about setting up a home color system. Even with the vaccines rolling out, I think coloring at home will stick around. There is no substitute for a full DI bay with best-in-class equipment, but this is some of the gear that I use when at home.

Color Correction Panels

These will vary based on the software used but here are the ones that I think give you the most bang for your buck when using Baselight, Resolve and others.

Filmlight Slate Panel for Baselight

Filmlight Slate

Now I love my BlackBoard 2, but if desk real estate is at a premium the Slate is the next best thing. The great thing about this panel is it can double as a remote option for daylight when on set. The downside is this panel only works with Filmlight software.

BMD Micro Panel for Resolve

Blackmagic Micro

I find that I use the mouse a lot more when working in Resolve. For that reason, I like the Micro panel more than the Mini. The Micro gives you just the basics, but the additional features the Mini has do not justify the premium paid. I think you are better off getting a Stream Deck and mapping the missing buttons to that. Controlling curves in Resolve is still best done with the mouse in my opinion. Just like the Filmlight offering, these panels only work with Resolve.

Tangent Elements Panel. Works with Mistika, Resolve, Flame, Lustre, Premiere, Scratch, Red Cine, Nucoda, Quantel

Tangent Elements

If you are like me then you probably use multiple software packages to complete your work. One great aspect of the Tangent Panels is that they work with many different types of software. An honorable mention goes out to the Ripple, especially if you are looking for a small footprint at an entry-level price.

Tangent Ripple Panel. Works with Mistika, Resolve, Flame, Lustre, Premiere, Scratch, Red Cine, Nucoda, Quantel

Monitoring

Get a Sony X300 if you can find one and afford it. That said not everyone has 30k to invest in their home setup. The LG CX has one of the best price-to-performance ratios out there. You won’t be hitting 1000nits but the color can be calibrated to be extremely close to the x300. Thanks to Dado for making this video that has all manufacture codes to unlock this display’s true potential and a walkthrough on Calman calibration.

LG CX

Sony X300

I’m also excited to test the new displays from LG display. The next-gen LG panels found in the Sony A90j and LG G1 can achieve over 1000 nits. I’m expecting the same colorimetry performance with increased brightness. I will let you know what my real-world measurements are once I get my hands on these.

I don’t do affiliate links and am not paid by any of the manufacturers listed here. I just wanted to let everyone know what I’m using these days in the home office. Let me know what you all are using and if you have any hacks that you find helpful. Thanks for reading!

Tom and Jerry

Tom and Jerry: A global finish during a global pandemic.

“Tom and Jerry” is out today in theaters and on HBO Max! I’m excited to share how we built the color on two continents for these classic characters.

Communication

Arguably, the most crucial aspect of finishing this film is how Warner Bros Post Production Creative Services was able to support and complete this project during some of the most restrictive months of the pandemic. Key to the success of this was the communication between Burbank and London. Paul Lavoie(DI Manager), my long-time partner in crime, headed up the Burbank operations while Ann Lynch(Post Supervisor) and Alan Pritt(Post Production Manager DLL) kept everything moving along in London between editorial and VFX. All of this was over email, teams, and phone calls since travel was prohibited. The challenge here was keeping everyone on the same page between the two different timezones. Later on, we found out that would also be one of the project’s greatest strengths.

VFX

Framestore London did the VFX shots for the show. There were numerous versions of every shot, right up until delivery, and a couple after, you know… the usual. Framestore received ACES AP0 EXRs and returned the same back once work was complete with one key difference. Aside from the plates having beautiful animation when they returned they also acquired a number of matte channel layers in the EXR. Each character had mattes for their body, eyes, drybrush, and any props they were handling. This made for some extra prep prior to color, but it paid off big time when we started the grade.

Putting it Together

Conform and color prep was completed at DeLane Lea by Otto Rodd(DI Editor DLL). While we were sleeping in LA, Otto would cut in the night’s deliveries from VFX and connect all the mattes for use in the grade With the number of characters and the granularity of the mattes, I can’t begin to tell you what a herculean effort this was. At the end of his day, he would send the project files for the reels that were updated back to LA where Leo Ferrini(DI Editor) would then take over while Otto slept. Working in this way, we had a 24-hour work cycle with everyone working a normal day shift. There was a lot to do in those 24 hours. For starters, the organization that Otto and Leo imparted onto the timeline was second to none. Each character had its own layer. This layer stayed consistent throughout the whole film even if the character was not in the shot. Tom was on layer 100, jerry on 200, spike on 400, and so on. We didn’t necessarily use all the layers in between, but this kept the timeline nice and tidy. Simply put, we had a lot of layers with the number of characters and props in the film. In Protools sound speak, we used all 128 tracks.

Plate Grade

Character Grade

Covid Grading

Things were looking pretty bad on the covid front when we started the grade in early December. Numbers were spiking most likely due to thanksgiving gatherings and the situation was looking pretty bleak. Tim Story(Director), Chris DeFaria(Producer), and Peter Elliot(Editor) rotated supervising the grade since I was limited to only 2 creatives in the room at a time. We sent Baselight project files to DeLane Lea so that Alan Stewart(Cinematographer) and Frazer Churchill(VFX Supervisor) could review them in London. Working on hybrid animation is sort of like grading two separate films. We had the initial grade for the live-action plate. The direction for the show was bright, vibrant, and colorful. Next, each character got their pass. The characters had very specific targets. We treated them as if it was a cell animated cartoon. There was minimal interactive lighting on them. The idea was to keep the characters consistent throughout the whole film. To achieve this, I composited the VFX character back over my plate grade so that they were unaffected by the color of the live-action plate. Leo and Otto categorized each character's matte layer so that I could solo them out. In this way, it sort of works like a search in email. I could say “search” for all “Tom” shots and then the Baselight would return a reel of only shots that Tom was in. Then I would make corrections based on the character’s environment to ensure that they were perceived the same taking local color into account. This was a huge help in keeping the characters true to their looks throughout the film.

Theatrical Version

The color pipeline for the theatrical grade was ACES AP0 -> ACEScct (grading space) -> Show LMT -> P3D65. ACES 1.1 was used for the P3D65 ODT. We made a temp DCP once the final grade was approved to screen in a room large enough to have everyone together. The team chose to screen in the Ross theater on the WB lot, which was my first time back in a proper theater in ages. Now I know all theaters aren’t the Ross, but it did remind me how much I missed the theatrical experience. There really isn’t any substitute for best-in-class sound and picture exhibition. Hopefully, we can all be together at the cinema soon.

HDR Grading

HDR grading started immediately after the theatrical was locked. We had a tight turnaround since the picture would be available simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. The 1000nit p3D65 HDR grade was completed in three days. ACES helped in doing some of the heavy lifting regarding the basic tone mapping. I then came up with an additional HDR LMT to add a bit more contrast and rolled off the highlights softer than what the stock ACES curve was doing. The biggest challenge after that was correcting all the characters. Since the animated characters bypassed the show LMT, their values, especially in the eye whites, were very high for HDR. Again, being able to solo the characters was a huge help for this pass. Once completed, The filmmakers came in for trims and approval on two x300’s on opposite sides of the room to ensure proper social distancing. The Sony x300’s have a wide viewing angle, especially when compared to the newer x310s, but a color skew does appear when you sit too far off-axis. I wanted to make sure, that everyone had a straight shot at the display, even though we were spread apart. Having two was a nice luxury and I’m sure went a long way to making everyone feel safe, comfortable, and confident in the viewing setup.

SDR Trim

Next up was taking ten pounds of HDR and fitting it into the 8 pound rec709 bag. The Dolby trim was done with the same dual x300’s. One set up for 1000nit PQ p3D65 and the other setup for 100nit 709. Dolby analysis was calculated for every shot and then a base Dolby trim was applied as a starting point. I used the HDR and Theatrical passes as a reference and trimmed the SDR to best match given the limitations of a smaller gamut. Really the only bump I had here was the sky. In the theatrical P3 version, we had a very strong cyan sky that was meticulously worked on with shapes and keys to get as vibrant of a sky as possible. Once we put those values into 709 they landed out of gamut.

Blues twisting towards magenta as they reach the boundary of the 709 gamut.

Imagine a car headed straight for a brick wall. At some point, the driver needs to turn either left or right. I guess the other option would be to crash into the wall but in this analogy that would be clipping and we don’t want that. If the driver goes left he heads towards the magenta side of blue if he goes right he goes towards the cyan side of blue. Dolby in this case took our cyans and turned left. This resulted in a more magenta sky which didn’t look bad, it was just not as intended. To remedy this, I used the Dolby secondaries to swing the blue/cyan values away from magenta and back towards the original cyan. The trim took about a day and a half. Once completed we had one more approval session with only one note!

Correcting the blue values to twist towards cyan as they reach the boundary of the 709 gamut.

Deliverables

Next, it was time to create the masters. The Theatrical had a p3D65 2.6 gamma DSM created, along with an XYZ 2.6 gamma DCDM. We also archived an ACES master for future remastering, plus an un-graded ACES archival master for preservation. The HDR version was rendered out as 1000nit p3D65 PQ tiffs and then placed into a rec2020 gamut by Julio Meganes(color assistant) in MPI’s Media Ops department. A Dolby XML file containing the metadata recipe to get to the 709 color trims was exported from the Baselight. Julio imported that into the Transkoder and married it to the HDR picture. From there, the final audio was synced up and many sub-masters in various formats were created for servicing and distribution.

Thanks for Reading!

Thanks for taking the time to read about how the sausage was made. It was a truly collaborative effort leveraging the strengths of Warner Bros Post Production Creative Services’ global footprint. I couldn’t be happier with the way the project turned out and am excited to hear what y’all think in the comments below. Now grab the family, and some popcorn and go watch Tom and Jerry destroy the Royal Gate Hotel!.

Baselight Tips and Tricks

Hey everybody! Here is a video that Filmlight just released on their website. It’s a great series and I’m happy to have contributed my little bit. Let me know what you think.

VHS Shader

A show that I’m currently working on was asking about a VHS look. It made me think of a sequence I did a while ago for Keanu shot by Jas Shelton. In This sequence, we needed to add Keegan-Michael Key to the Faith music video by George Michael.

View fullsize

Often, as colorists, we are looking to make the image look the best it can. This was a fun sequence because stepping on an image to fit a creative mood or period is sometimes harder then making it shinny and beautiful. When done correctly (I’m looking at you Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job) it can be a very effective tool for storytelling.

We uprezed the Digibeta of the music video. I then used a custom shader to add the VHS distress to the Arri Alexa footage of Key. I mixed the shader in using opacity until it felt like it was a good match. Jas and I wanted to go farther, but we got some push back from the suits. I think in the end the sequence came out great and is one of my favorite parts of the film… and the gangster kitty of course! Please find the shader used below if you would like to play.

alllll awwwww Keanu!

BAD TV SHADER

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The War With Grandpa

Hey everyone! Here is a project I graded prior to the shutdown. The picture is eyeing an October 9th release. Fingers crossed we are in a better place with COVID by then. Check out the link below.

Finishing Scoob!

“Scoob!” is out today. Check out my work on the latest Warner Animation title. Here are some highlights and examples of how we pushed the envelope of what is possible in color today.

Building the Look

ReelFX was the animation house tasked with bringing “Scoob!” from the boards to the screen. I had previously worked with them on “Rock Dog” so there was a bit of a shorthand already in place. I already had a working understanding of their pipeline and the capabilities of their team. When I came on-board, production was quite far along with the show look. Michael Kurinsky (Production Designer) had already been iterating through versions addressing lighting notes from Tony Cervone (Director) through a LUT that ReelFX had created. This was different from “Smallfoot” where I had been brought on during lighting and helped in the general look creation from a much earlier stage. The color pipeline for “Scoob!” was Linear Arri Wide Gamut EXR files -> Log C Wide Gamut working space ->Show LUT -> sRGB/709. Luckily for me, I would have recommended something very similar. One challenge was the LUT was only a forward transform with no inverse and only built for rec.709 primaries. We needed to recreate this look targeting P3 2.6 and ultimately rec.2020 PQ.

Transform Generation

Those of you that know me, know that I kind of hate LUTs. My preference is to use curves and functional math whenever possible. This is heavier on the GPUs but with today’s crop of ultra-fast processing cards, it hardly matters. So, my first step was to take ReelFX’s LUT and match the transform using curves. I went back and forth with Mike Fortner from ReelFX until we had an acceptable match.

My next task was to take our new functional forward transform and build an inverse. This is achieved by finding the delta from a 1.0 slope and multiplying that value by a -1. Inverse transforms are very necessary for today’s deliverable climate. For starters, you will often receive graphics, logos, and titles in display referred spaces such as P3 2.6 or rec.709. The inverse show LUT allows you to place these into your working space.

Curve and it’s inverse function

After the Inverse was built, I started to work on the additional color spaces I would be asked to deliver. This included the various forward transforms to p3 2.6 for theatrical, rec.2020 limited to P3 with a PQ curve for HDR, and rec.709 for web/marketing needs. I took all of these transforms and baked them into a family DRT. This is a feature in Baselight where the software will automatically use the correct transform based on your output. A lot of work up front, but a huge time saver on the back end; plus less margin for error since it is set programmatically.

Trailers First

The first piece that I colored with the team were the trailers. This was great since it afforded us the opportunity to start developing workflows that we would use on the feature.

My friend in the creative marketing world once said to me “I always feel like the trailer is used as the test.” That’s probably because the trailer is the first picture that anybody will see. You need to make sure it’s right before it’s released to the world.

Conform

Conform is one aspect of the project where we blazed new paths. It’s common to have 50 to 60 versions of a shot as it gets ever more refined and polished through the process. This doesn’t just happen in animation. Live-action shows with lots of VFX (read: photo-real animation) go through this same process.

We worked with Filmlight to develop a workflow where the version tracking was automated. In the past, you would need an editor to be re-conforming or hand dropping in shots as new versions came in. On “Scoob!”, a database was queried and the correct shot if available was automatically placed in the timeline. Otherwise, if not available, the machine would use the latest version delivered to keep us grading until the final arrives. This saves a huge amount of time (read: money).

Grading

Coloring for animation

I often hear, “It’s animation… doesn’t it come to you already correct?” Well, yes and no. What we do in the bay for animation shows is color enhancement; not color correction. Often, we are taking what was rendered and getting it that last mile to where the Director, Production Designer, and Art Director envisioned the image to be.

This includes windows and lighting tricks to direct the eye and enhance the story. Also, the use of secondaries to further stretch the distance between two complementary colors, effectively adding more color contrast. Speaking of contrast, it was very important to Tony, that we never were too crunchy. He always wanted to see into the blacks.

These were the primary considerations when coloring “Scoob!” Take what is there and make it work the best it can to promote the story the director is telling. Which takes me to my next tool and technique that was used extensively.

Deep Pixels and Depth Mattes

I’ve always said, if you want to know what we will be doing in color five years from now, look at what VFX is doing today. Five years ago in VFX deep pixels or voxels as they are sometimes referred, was all the rage. Today they are a standard part of any VFX or Animation pipeline. Often they are thrown away because color correctors either couldn’t use them or it was too cumbersome. Filmlight has recently developed tools that allow me to take color grading to a whole other dimension.

A standard pixel has 5 values R,G,B and XY. A Voxel has 6 values RGB and XYZ. Basically for each pixel in a frame, there is another value that describes where it is in space. This allows me to “select” a slice of the image to change or enhance.

This matte also works with my other 2D qualifiers turning my circles and squares into spheres and cubes. This allows for corrections like “more contrast but only to the foreground” or desaturate the character behind Scooby, but in front of Velma.

Using the depth mattes along with my other traditional qualifiers all but eliminated the need for standard alpha style mattes. This not only saves a ton of time in color since I’m only dealing with one matte but also generates savings in other departments. For example with fewer mattes, your EXR file size is substantially smaller, saving on data management costs. Additionally, on the vendor side, ReelFX only had to render one additional pass for color instead of a matte per character. Again, a huge saving of resources.

I’m super proud of what we were able to accomplish on “Scoob!” using this technique and I can’t wait to see what comes next as this becomes standard for VFX deliveries. A big thank you to ReelFX for being so accommodating to my mad scientist requests.

Corona Time

Luckily, we were done with the theatrical grade before the pandemic hit. Unfortunately, we were far from finished. We were still owed the last stragglers from ReelFX and had yet to start the HDR grade.

Remote Work

We proceeded to set up a series of remote options. First, we set up a calibrated display at Kurinsky’s house. Next, I upgraded my connection to my home color system to allow for faster upload speeds. A streaming session would have been best but we felt that would put too many folks in close contact since it does take a bit of setup. Instead, I rendered out high-quality Prores XQ files. Kurinsky would then give notes on the reels over Zoom or email. I would make changes, rinse and repeat. For HDR, Kurinsky and I worked off a pair of x300s. One monitor was set for 1000nit rec.2020 PQ and the other for the 100nit 709 Dolby trim pass. I also made H.265 files that would play off a thumb drive once plugged into an LG E-series OLED. Finally, Tony approved the 1.78 pan and scan in the same way.

I’m very impressed with how the whole team managed to not only complete this film but finish it to the highest standards under incredibly trying times. An extra big thank you to my right-hand man Leo Ferrini who was nothing but exceptional during this whole project. Also, my partner in crime, Paul Lavoie, whom I have worked with for over 20 years. Even though he was at home, it felt like he was right there with me. Another big thanks.

Check Out the Work

Check out the movie at the link below and tell me what you think.

https://www.scoob.movie/

Thanks for reading!

-John Daro

SCOOB! and Best Friends Animal Society

It's not a mystery, everyone needs a best friend! I couldn’t imagine life without my little man Toshi! Watch Shaggy meet his new friend, rescued dog Scooby Doo, in this new PSA from @BestFriendsAnimalSociety.  And you can enjoy Exclusive Early Access to the new animated movie @SCCOB with Home Premiere! Available to own May 15th.

@scoob #SCOOB @bestfriendsanimalsociety #SaveThemAll #fosteringsaveslives #thelabellefoundation

SCOOB!

Best Friends Animal Society

My Dog Toshi

A Huge thank you to TheLabelleFoundation for bringing us together!

How To - AAF and EDL Export

AAF and EDL Exporting for Colorists

Here is a quick howto on exporting AAFs and EDLs from an Avid bin. Disclaimer - This is for colorists, not editors!

Exporting an AAF:

First, open your project. Be sure to set the frame rate correctly if you are starting a new project or importing a bin from another.

Next, open the bin that contains the sequence you want to export an AAF from.

Select the timeline and right click it. This sequence should already be cleaned for color. Meaning, camera source on v1, opticals on v2, speed fx on v3, vfx on v4, titles and graphics on v5.

After you right click, go “Output” -> “Export to File”

Navigate to the path that you want to export to.. Then, click “Options”

In the “Export As” pulldown select “AAF.” Next, un-check “Include Audio Tracks in Sequence” and make sure “Export Method:” is set to “Link to(Don’t Export) Media.” Then click “Save” to save the settings and return to the file browser.

Give the AAF a name and hit “Save.” That’s it! Your AAF is sitting on the disk now.

Exporting an EDL:

We should all be using AAFs to make our conform lives easier, but if you need an EDL for a particular piece of software or just want something that is easily read by a human, here you go.

Setup the project and import your bin the same as an AAF. Instead of right-clicking on the sequence, go -> “Tools” -> “List Tool” and it will open a new window. I’m probably dating my self, but back in my day, this was called “EDL Manager.” List Tool is a huge improvement since it lets you export multi-track EDLs quickly.

Select “File_129” from the “Output Format:” pull-down. This sets the tape name to 129 characters (128+0 =129) which is the limit for a filename in most operating systems. Next, click the tracks you want to export.

Double-click your sequence in the bin to load your timeline into the record monitor. Then click “Load” in the “List Tool” window. At this point, you can click “Preview” to see your EDL in the “Master EDL” tab. To save, click the “Save List” pull-down and choose “To several files.” This option will make one EDL per video track. Choose your file location in the browser and hit save. That’s it. Your EDLs are ready for conforming or notching.

Alternate Software EDL Export

That’s great John, but what if I’m using something else other than Avid?

Here are the methods for EDL exports in Filmlight’s Baselight, BMD DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere Pro, and SGO Mistika in rapid-fire. If you are using anything else… please stop.

Baselight

Open “Shots” view(Win + H) and click the gear pull-down. Next click “Export EDL.” The exported EDL will respect any filters you may have in “Shots” view, which makes it a very powerful tool, but also something to keep an eye on.

Resolve

In the media manager, right-click your timeline and select “Timelines“ -> “Export“ -> “AAF/XML/EDL“

Premiere Pro

Make sure your “Tape Name” column is populated.

Make sure to have your Timeline selected. Then go, “File“ -> “Export“ -> “EDL“

The most important setting here is “32 character names.” Sometimes this is called “File32” in other software. Checking this insures the file name in it’s entirety(as long as it’s not longer then 32 characters) will be placed into the tape id location of the EDL

Mistika

Set your marks in the Timespace where you want the EDL to begin and end. Then select “Media“ -> “Output“ -> “Export EDL2” -> “Export EDL.“ Once pressed you will see a preview of the EDL on the right.

No matter what the software is, the same rules apply for exporting.

• Clean your timeline of unused tracks and clips.

• Ensure that your program has leader and starts at an hour or ##:59:52:00

• Camera source on v1, Opticals on v2, Speed FX on v3, VFX on v4, Titles and Graphics on v5

Many of us are running lean right now. I hope this helps the folks out there who are working remotely without support and the colorists who don’t fancy editorial or perhaps haven’t touched those tools in a while.

Happy Grading!

JD

Brockmire Season 4 Starts Today

Supervised from pre-production through delivery. A total binge-worthy show. Perfect for these crazy times. A great example of collaboration between Atlanta and Burbank facilities.

3D - A Beginners Guide to Stereoscopic Understanding

Early Days

My interest in Stereoscopic imaging started in 2006. One of my close friends, Trevor Enoch, showed me a stereo-graph that was taken of him while out at Burning Man. I was blown away and immediately hooked. I spent the next four years experimenting with techniques to create the best, most comfortable, and immersive 3D I could. In 2007, I worked on “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” directed by Bruce Hendricks and shot by cameras provided by Pace. Jim Cameron and Vince Pace were already developing the capture systems for the first “Avatar” film. The challenge was that a software package had yet to be created to post stereo footage. To work around this limitation, Bill Schultz and I slaved two Quantel IQ machines to a Bufbox to control the two color correctors simultaneously. This solution was totally inelegant but it was enough to award us the job from Disney. Later during the production, Quantel came out with stereo support eliminating the need to color each eye on independent machines.

We did what we had to in those early days. When I look back at that film, there is a lot that I would do differently now. It was truly the wild west of 3D post and we were writing the rules (and the code for the software) as we went. Over the next few pages I’m going to layout some basics of 3D stereo imaging. The goal is to have a working understanding of the process and technical jargon by the end . Hopefully I can help some other post professionals avoid a lot the pitfalls and mistakes I made as we blazed the trail all those years ago.

Camera 1, Camera 2

Stereopsis is the term that describes how we collect depth information from our surroundings using our sight. Most everyone is familiar with stereo sound; when two separate audio tracks are played simultaneously out of two different speakers. We can take that information in using both of our ears (binaural hearing) and create a reasonable approximation from the direction of where that sound is coming from in space. This approximation is calculated by the offset in time of the sound hitting one ear vs the other.

Stereoscopic vision works much in the same way. Our eyes have a point of interest. When that point of interest is very far away our eyes are parallel to one another. As we focus on objects that are closer to us, our eyes converge. Do this simple experiment right now. Hold up your finger as far away from your face as you can. Now slowly bring that finger towards your nose, noting the angle of your eyes as you get closer to your face. Once your finger is about 3 inches away from your face, alternately close one eye and then the other. Notice the view as you alternate between your eyes, camera 1, camera 2, camera 1, camera 2. Your finger moves position from left to right. You also see “around” your finger more in one eye vs the other. This offset between your two eyes is how your brain makes sense of the 3D world around you. To capture this depth for films we need to recreate this system by utilizing two cameras roughly the same distance as your eyes.

Camera Rigs

The average interpupillary distance is 64mm. Since most feature grade cinema cameras are rather large, special rigs for aligning them together need to be employed. Side by side rigs are an option when your cameras are small, but when they are not you need to use a beam splitter configuration.

Beam splitter rig in an “over” configuration.

Essentially, a beam splitter rig uses a half silvered mirror to “split” the view into two. This allows the cameras to shoot at a much closer inter-axial distance than they would otherwise be able to using a parallel side by side rig. Both of these capture systems are for the practical shooting of 3D films . Fortunately or unfortunately most 3D films today use a technique called Stereo Conversion.

Image comes in from position 1. Passes through to camera at position 2. It is also reflected to the camera at position 3. You will need to flip it in post since the image is mirrored.

Conversion

There are three main techniques for Stereo Conversion.

Roto and Shift

In this technique, characters and objects in the frame are roto’d out and placed in a 3D composite in virtual space. The scene is then re-photographed using a pair of virtual cameras. The down side to this is that the layers often lack volume and the overall effect feels like a grade school diorama.

Projection

For this method, the 2D shot is modeled in 3D space. Then, the original 2D video is projected onto the 3D models and re-photographed using a pair of virtual cameras. This yields very convincing stereo and looks great, but can be expensive to generate the assets needed to create complex scenes.

Virtual World

Stupid name, but I can’t really think of anything better. In this technique, scenes are created entirely in 3D programs like Maya or 3DS Max. As this is how most high end VFX are created for larger films,some of this work is already done. This is the best way to “create” Stereo images since the volumes, depth and occlusions are mimicking the real world. The downside to this is that if your 2D VFX shot took a week to render in all of its ray traced glory, your extra “eye” will take the same.

Cartesian Plane

No matter how you acquire your stereo images eventually you are going to take them into post production. In Post, I make sure the eyes are balanced for color between one another. I also “set depth” for comfort and to creatively promote the narrative.

In order to set depth we will have to offset one eye against the other. Objects in space gain their depth from the relative offset in the other eye/view. In order to have a consistent language, we speak in number of pixels offset to describe this depth.

When we discus 2D images we use pixel values that are parrell with the screen. A given cordinate pair locates the pixel along the screens surface.

Once we add the 3rd axis we need to think of a Cartesian plane laying down perpendicular to the screen. Positive numbers are receding away from the viewer into the screen. Negative numbers come off the screen towards the viewer.

The two views are combined for the viewing system. The three major systems are Dolby, RealD, and Expand. There are others, but these are the most prevalent in theatrical exhibition.

In Post we control the relative offset between the two views using a “HIT” or horizontal image transform. A very complicated way for saying we move one eye right or left along the X axis

The value of the offset dictates where in space the object will appear. This rectangle is traveling from +3 pixels offset to -6 pixels offset.

Often we will apply this move symmetrically to both eyes. In other words to achieve a -6 pixels offset, we may move both views -3 instead of one view moving -6.

Using this offset we can begin to move comped elements or the entire “world” in Z space. This is called depth grading. Much like color, our goal is to try and make the picture feel consistent without big jumps in depth. Too many large jumps can cause eye strain and headaches. My First rule of depth grading is “do no harm.” Pain should be avoided at all costs. However, there is another aspect of depth grading beyond the technical side. Often we use depth to promote the narrative. For example, you may pull action forward to be more immersed in the chaos, or you can play quite drama scenes at screen plane so that you don’t take away from performance. Establishing shots are best played deep for a sense of scale. Now all of these examples are just suggestions and not rules. Just my approach.

Once you know the rules, you are allowed to break them as long as it’s motivated by what’s on screen. I remember one particular shot in Jackass 3D where Bam gets his junk whacked. I pop’ed the offset towards the audience just for that frame. I doubt anybody noticed other then a select circle of 3D nerds (I’m looking at you Captain 3D) but I felt it was effective to make the pain on screen “felt” by the viewer.

Floating Windows

Floating Windows are another tool that we have at our disposal while working on the depth grade. When we “Float the Window” what we are actually doing is controlling the proscenium in depth just like we were moving the “world” while depth grading. Much like depth offsets, floating windows can be used for technical and creative reasons. Firstly, they are most commonly used for edge violations. An edge violation is where there is an object that is “in front” of the screen in Z space, but is being occluded by the screen. Now our brains are smarter than our eyeballs and kick into over-ride mode. The edge of the broken picture feels uncomfortable and all sense of depth is lost. What we do to fix this situation is move the edge of the screen forward into the theater using a negative offset. This floats the “window” we are looking through in front of the offending object and our eyes and brain are happy again.

We achieve a floating window through a crop or by using the software’s “window” tool.

The fish is at +1 behind screen, but in front of the +3 proscenium. The fish will have the feeling of being off screen even though it’s behind.

Another use for controlling the depth of the proscenium is to creatively enhance the perceived depth. Often, you need to keep a shot at a certain depth due to what is on either side of the cut but creatively want it to feel more forward. A great work around is to keep your subject at the depth that feels comfortable to the surrounding shots and move the “screen” back into positive space. This can have the effect of feeling as if the subject is in negative space without actually having to place them there. Conversely you can float the window into negative space on both sides to create the feeling of distance even if your character or scene is at screen plane with a zero offset.

Stereo Color Grading

Stereo color grading is an additional step, when compared to standard 2D finishing, which needs to be accomplished after the depth grade is complete. Native shot 3D footage is much more challenging to match color from one eye to another. Reflections or flares may appear in one and not the other. We call this retinal conflict. One fix for such problems is to the steal the “clean” information from one eye and comp it over the offending one paying mind to offset for the correct depth.

Additionally, any shapes that were used in the 2D grade will have to be offset for depth. Most professional color grading software has automated ways to do this. In rare instances, an overall color correction is not enough to balance the eyes. When this occurs, you may need a localized block based color match like the one found in the Foundry’s Ocula plugin for Nuke.

Typically a 4.5FL and a 7FL master are created with different trim values. In recent years, a 14FL version is also created for stereo laser projection and Dolby’s HDR projector. In most cases this is as simple a gamma curve and a sat boost.

The Future of Stereo Exibihition

The future for 3D resides in even deeper immersive experiences. VR screens are becoming higher in resolution and, paired with accelerometers, are providing a true be “there” experience. I feel that the glasses and apparatus that are required for stereo viewing also contributed to it’s falling out of vogue in recent years. I’m hopeful that new technological enhancements and a better, more easily accessible user experience will lead to another resurgence in the coming years. Ultimately, creating the most immersive content is a worthy goal. Thanks for reading and please leave a comment with any questions or differing views. They are always welcome.

WRITTEN BY

John Daro