Definition February 2019 - Sampler

NEW MOVES FOR 2019 LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN CAMERA MOTION P50

February 2019

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DOLL FACE MARWEN MOCAP

Leaving the uncanny valley

DIGITAL AND THE QUEENS The Elizabeth and Mary tale

BASICS OF LIDAR CAPTURE CVP’S NEW MEGASTORE ITV’S BANCROFT SERIES 2 THE PANTHER S-TYPE DOLLY

BEYOND POKEMON GO The AR roadmap is unveiled

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W E LC O M E

BRIGHT PUBLISHING LTD, BRIGHT HOUSE, 82 HIGH STREET, SAWSTON, CAMBRIDGESHIRE CB22 3HJ UK

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EDITORIAL Editor Julian Mitchell 01223 492246 julianmitchell@bright-publishing.com Editor in chief Adam Duckworth Features writer Chelsea Fearnley Contributor Phil Rhodes Chief sub editor Beth Fletcher Senior sub editor Siobhan Godwood Sub editor Felicity Evans Junior sub editor Elisha Young ADVERTISING Sales director Matt Snow 01223 499453 mattsnow@bright-publishing.com Sales manager Krishan Parmar 01223 499462 krishanparmar@bright-publishing.com Key accounts Nicki Mills 01223 499457 nickimills@bright-publishing.com DESIGN Design director Andy Jennings Designer Lucy Woolcomb Senior designer & production manager Flo Thomas Ad production Man-Wai Wong PUBLISHING Managing directors Andy Brogden & Matt Pluck SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook @definitionmagazine Twitter @definitionmags Instagram @definitionmags

WELCOME

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lthough we loved the way Robert Zemeckis pushed the technology of motion capture (mocap) in films like The Polar Express and Beowulf, we had to excuse him for the the vacant and sickly faces of those who had been captured. Behind the great narrative of the films, we found the CGI characters unnerving and deserving inhabitants of what has become known as the ‘uncanny valley’.

The subconscious human reaction is to see these computer-generated creatures as disconcerting and, naturally, avoid them. We don’t relate to them in quite the normal way.

This means what VFX supervisor Kevin Baillie and his team have achieved in Welcome to Marwen is quite significant and sets the precedent for the future mocap of human faces.

Producers of sci-fi, fantasy movies and (potentially) TV drama now have a choice when creating a digital human – Method Studios has already done the groundwork.

Welcome to Marwen’s DOP C. Kim Miles and Kevin are now firm friends, managing to meet somewhere in the middle of traditional cinematography language and Unreal Engine code.

MEDIA PARTNERS & SUPPORTERS OF

JULIAN MITCHELL EDITOR

Definition is published monthly by Bright Publishing Ltd, Bright House, 82 High Street, Sawston, Cambridge CB22 3HJ. No part of this magazine can be used without prior written permission of Bright Publishing Ltd. Definition is a registered trademark of Bright Publishing Ltd. The advertisements published in Definition that have been written, designed or produced by employees of Bright Publishing Ltd remain the copyright of Bright Publishing Ltd and may not be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Prices quoted in sterling, euros and US dollars are street prices, without tax, where available or converted using the exchange rate on the day the magazine went to press.

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POSE FOR A SHOT

© 2019 Twentieth Century Fox

Producers Jon Landau and James Cameron with the director, Robert Rodriquez, pose for the classic ‘look yonder at something interesting’ shot on the set of the new 3D Alita: Battle Angel movie. In the background is something you don’t often see on sets these days, which is a 3D camera rig. Being a James Cameron-produced movie, we’re thinking that the cameras are Sony-based and perhaps Sony Venice. This Frankensteinesque story involves a female cyborg who is found in a rubbish dump and given life by a benevolent scientist. Who said Theresa May?

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S E T- U P | P R O V I D E O R E TA I L

THERAPY FOR RETAIL INTERVIEW

CVP – one of the biggest resellers in the UK –has pushed against the tide of failing high street retail stores by opening its own five-storey shopping experience in central London W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L / P I C T U R E S C V P

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f you ask equipment buyers what their thoughts about CVP are, you would probably hear about the hugely successful and lively website with hundreds of different product lines vying for your attention. Why then would CVP invest such large amounts of time and money in a bricks and mortar site when retail trends are against the high street?

Jon Fry, sales director of CVP, explains: “The concept behind the Newman Street facility is to provide visitors with an engaging, personalised experience in an environment designed to connect creative vision and technology. This permanent display of equipment is a playground where people can come to see, handle and test every single bit of kit required to bring their project to life,”

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FITZROVIA The show room is in Newman Street, W1.

The Fitzrovia townhouse offers five floors of production equipment from leading manufacturers, including ARRI, RED, Sony, Canon, Zeiss, Panasonic, Blackmagic and more, presenting an experience that enables visitors to identify a technical solution that will deliver on their creative vision.

“From an HDMI cable to large format cameras and everything else in between, this creative space gives everyone in the industry a place to learn new skills and get their hands on all the latest kit,” says Fry. The launch of another space in Fitzrovia was a catalyst for Newman Street. “Last year, we opened a customised site for ARRI where pros could get hands-on with the range in a soft selling environment,” Fry adds.

ABOVE The Fitzrovia Townhouse offers five floors of production equipment.

The Charlotte Street site is also a meeting place for professionals who need a West End base. It was this low-key approach to showing products that appealed to Fry. “We also wanted to ‘show-off’ our exceptionally knowledgeable team members who are on hand at the new premises to advise visitors about the features, functions and compatibility of the equipment for their unique requirements,” says Fry. CVP also wants to expands people’s perception of what it does. “We’re not a stack them high, sell them cheap company. We are now a main service centre for Red cameras and are taking on more service contracts from other high-end manufacturers.”

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S H O OT S TO RY | M A RY Q U E E N O F S COT S

CLASH OF QUEENS DOP John Mathieson explains the digital route of this traditional royal period drama with two impressive female leads W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L / P I C T U R E S PA R A M O U N T

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e interviewed DOP John Mathieson around the time that the movie The Favourite was released and even though that film and Mary Queen of Scots both come under the banner of ‘period’, they couldn’t be more different. Where The Favourite uses film, unusual angles and lenses and is quite ‘rock’n’roll’ – John’s term – Mary Queen of Scots remains a more traditional piece. John did think it could have ‘rocked’ a bit more.

“I wish it was a bigger movie, it needed to be bigger I felt. It’s the trick of British lowbudget films that you rely on talent to throw you so far.

“I got a sense of Scotland but just never got a sense of England or how wealthy or different it was; why didn’t Elizabeth have more to draw on than Mary? Elizabeth’s future was pretty uncertain, there were all sorts of people trying to do her in, she was surrounded by hostile countries, it was a very uncomfortable time for her. I wish we’d had more resources to get a sense of the countries; it’s very play-like. The queens never actually met, so that scene was fabricated in the movie. Scotland at the time was a real threat to England, you had the Church of Scotland rising at that time.”

A BIT OF KEN RUSSELL? “I could have been a lot more radical with the lighting or the sets,” Mathieson continues. “If you’re going to go modern with those Elizabethan faces and costumes, I could have recalled The Devils: Derek Jarman art directed it, he was one of the people who got me going. Even now it looks really good; you take something and turn it on its head.

Maybe we should have done that more.

“I did come on to the film late, I took over from Seamus McGarvey. So I kind of fell into it a bit and kind of did my thing.

I suppose I did traditional things really and of course there’s nothing wrong with that but I didn’t really have time to go through all the options.

“Shooting on film was talked about before I joined and it would look better on film, undoubtedly, but we didn’t have the time or the budget to do it. Ironically I’ve just shot a film on film, and the budget for the stock went down because you shoot less and you shoot less hours; and less hours mean less overtime. Film is more expensive per frame but if your shooting ratio goes down to about an hour a day, even with multi-cameras it generally costs less. With digital I find people shot about two hours or two and a half hours so that means that during that extra hour or hour and a half you can’t lay track, dress the set, fluff

BELOW DOP John Mathieson with crew members on set.

Shooting on film was talked about but we didn’t have the time or the budget to do it

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LEAVING THE VALLEY The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol paved the way for director Robert Zemeckis’ latest feature, in which life-like dolls bring the story to life W O R D S J U L I A N M I TC H E L L / P I C T U R E S U N I V E R S A L P I C T U R E S

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obert Zemeckis’ track record speaks for itself: a whole host of films in which he has pushed technology to the limits. It’s safe to say he has become the doyen of movie motion capture with films such as The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol and Beowulf. And don’t forget classic and more culturally significant films like the Back to the Future series, Forrest Gump, Contact and Who Framed Roger Rabbit – all VFX-heavy movies, but not totally reliant on motion capture (mocap).

Mocap has taken us close to ‘re-skinning’ someone’s movements, applying the expression and personality of one person to someone or something else.

But there’s a fly in the ointment – recreating the human face, something Robert was determined to nail for his new film Welcome To Marwen. The vacant, expressionless look on some motion-captured faces even has its own moniker: ‘uncanny valley’.

MY HERO Into this world of revolutionary motion capture came DOP C. Kim Miles, whose

IMDB entry is littered with episodics but not so many features. Luckily for Kim, Robert Zemeckis’ children were avid watchers of one of those episodics, The Flash, and Robert soon arranged a meeting to talk about a possible feature film.

“I was doing The Flash in 2017 when my agent called and said that Robert Zemeckis’ office had called and wondered if I was available and interested in doing a movie.

Bob’s been a hero of mine my whole career, I’ve looked up to his work and his shot design, and had always tried to create shots that told stories like his.

“My agent encouraged me not to count on anything and that he would call back if he hadn’t heard anything more. About 90 minutes later he calls me back and says, ‘They want you to look at a script tonight and also take a phone call tonight’. As I was on-set, we arranged a phone call for the following morning when Steve Starkey, Bob’s longtime producer, called and basically pitched me the movie.

“I don’t think there was anything he could have pitched me that would have

IMAGES Robert Zemeckis pushes technological boundaries, breathing life into his inanimate creations.

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resulted in me saying ‘no’ – so I said ‘yes’, and Steve told me that Bob was anxious to meet me and show me some camera tests that had been done. I flew down to have lunch with Bob and talk about the movie.

“Before Steve left the conversation, I did ask how Bob found me and chose me for the movie. He said that Bob’s kids watched The Flash and he had noticed my work.

From that he chased me down to see what I was up to.”

For Kim, this whole episode was a re-affirmation that the Hollywood dream is alive and well – all you have to do is keep working at it and someone will notice.

“I nearly quit The Flash after the second season, but my agent advised me to keep going; ironically it was during the third season that Bob noticed my work.”

TOWARDS THE VALLEY Kim was told upfront that the movie would

What if we do it the other way around? What if we make digital dolls and glue the actors faces on those? So, how do you do that...? use a large element of motion capture for the movie, but not the methodology. “We shot a load of camera tests to decide what that methodology would be, the first that the VFX supervisor Kevin Baillie and Bob tried was the idea of just shooting actors in costume and then turning them into dolls or cladding them as dolls in visual effects.

What they found from that was you couldn’t convincingly create plasticity out of a real human because your body just doesn’t move the same way, with the same restrictions that a plastic doll has with the joints and the sockets.

“Bob didn’t want to motion capture from the start as he had been down that

road with films like The Polar Express and Beowulf, when he just about invented the art.

What they had found was that there was a certain amount of the audience that had an emotional disconnect from the characters because they were fully computer generated, and the subtleties of human emotions created by the many muscles around your mouth and eyes are almost impossible to recreate. Bob wanted to avoid going down the uncanny valley yet again.

“Then someone said, ‘what if we do it the other way around? What if we make digital dolls and glue the actors faces on to those?’. So, how do you do that? Do you do motion capture and then facial arrays,

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F E AT U R E | L I G H T I N G

HAS LED LIGHTING FINALLY COME OF AGE? FOR THE BSC EXPO 2019, WE LOOK AT WHAT’S NEW IN THE EVER-CHANGING WORLD OF LIGHTING WORDS PHIL RHODES

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L I G H T I N G | F E AT U R E

© Horia Dragoi and Ian Murray

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ungsten lights haven’t changed much in nearly a century. Fluorescent tubes good enough for film and television work have been around for decades.

Even LEDs have been a mainstream lighting technology for a good few years, and subject to huge scrutiny. According to both users and manufacturers, the battle to match the colour quality of legacy lighting devices is now largely won and, in 2019, new ideas are likely to centre around advanced control systems and even camera-specific colorimetry to put the final polish on quality white light.

Frieder Hochheim, founder of KinoFlo, compares the situation to one he faced when developing his famous fluorescents.

“Kino-Flo got an Academy Award for solving the fluorescent colour problem. We

did that with the cooperation of Kodak, who gave us its spectral response curves, but now, each electronic camera becomes a new film stock. Compound that with the fact all artificial light is discontinuous spectrum, different cameras are going to see the same source differently [and] none of the camera manufacturers are willing to share their response curves.

“So, where does that leave us,” Hochheim wonders. “Well, we can analyse the cameras. Our fixture, depending on the camera you input, will optimise its performance to the spectral response of that camera.”

At the BSC Expo 2019, Kino-Flo will show LED lights matching the shape of standard fluorescent tubes, built into its seminal four-bank lighting device, but with

all the precision colour capability used in its existing LED panels.

QUASAR SCIENCE Competitors seem to agree. Quasar Science CEO, Steven Strong, feels that “in the digital era, each camera has its own sensor and each lighting company has its own spectrum”. He adds: “It gets tough to capture uniform images across multiple sensor and emitter platforms.”

A hint at possible new lights leaks out when Strong mentions the company’s own colour science. “The great thing is these new technologies can be configured into almost any form factor and we have some exciting ideas for the future,” he enthuses.

Could Quasar have something in the works that isn’t a four-foot tube?

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FILMLIGHT – PROJECT ARCLIGHT

FilmLight shoots for the moon with a prototype scanner that can transfer archive NASA film for First Man, the dramatisation of Armstrong’s legendary leap for mankind

WATCHED IN ADMIRATION by hundreds of millions of people around the world, the televised launch of Apollo 11 is an event that has gone down in history. To capture this, NASA developed a unique, albeit obsolete 10-perf 70mm military stock, using Kodak Ektachrome reversal film. This highresolution film had an extremely dynamic colour range and was used throughout the Apollo era. It enabled all the detail of night launches to be shot, without the highlights of the rocket exhaust burning out the detail of the activity around the launch pad.

Director David Chazelle acquired the Apollo archive for new film, First Man, an epic account of the loss and peril leading up to the Apollo 11 moon landing. Chazelle believed that this footage would give First Man an authentic touch, but the archaic film format – and in particular, the sprocket pitch – would not be compatible with modern scanning techniques.

Visual Effects Producer Kevin Elam found there existed a gate made for a Rank Cintel Telecine at the White Sands Missile Range, and while this could provide a telecine reference, a higher quality film scanner was still required. David Keighley, President at IMAX suggested a prototype scanner at FilmLight might offer a way of transferring the footage.

FilmLight established its reputation in 2002 with the Northlight film scanner and has become a benchmark for quality in the high-end film restoration market.

This scanner, like most modern scanners, was designed for traditional film formats: 16mm, 35mm and 65mm, and has been used in the restoration of motion pictures at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount pictures.

IMAGES FilmLight was given archive footage of Apollo missions by NASA which was then scanned for the producers of the movie First Man.

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“Chris Hall was able to upload the film to the software and define an appropriate format for the dimensions of the film frame and sprockets”

F I L M L I G H T | A DV E R T I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

ARCHIVE PRESERVATION Recognising that archive preservation will be an issue in years to come, FilmLight is guiding a research project – codename Arclight – to develop a scanner that’s capable of scanning any piece of film, regardless of gauge or number and position of perforations. The creation of Arclight hails from CNC, the French National Film Archive. CNC houses a collection of films ranging from 8mm, 90mm and all manner of gauges in between. These unique formats are incompatible with most modern scanning techniques, but the research FilmLight is undertaking hopes to find a solution to this. And fortunately for Kevin, the 70mm film footage he has from NASA fits FilmLight’s preservation research nicely.

Chris Hall, who is leading the project at FilmLight, was given a test film containing shots from the Apollo era, including shots of the Apollo 11 launch itself. He was able to upload the film to the software and define an appropriate format for the dimensions

of the film frame and sprockets. He recalls, “The image area then came out as a square frame of just over 7000 lines: actually 7250x7250 pixels. That gave a very-high resolution scan of the images”.

The process of scanning the film didn’t quite achieve the same instant fulfilment: “It started out opaque, but I was relieved to see the image of a rocket, on a launch stage, at night, clearly visible on the monitor,” says Hall. “Then suddenly, the film became almost as transparent as the rocket’s fire”.

It was to be expected, owing to the nature of what the camera was aiming at, that the Ektachrome would become slightly exposed at this point. However, Hall reassured us that “this range of densities is always a challenge for a film scanner, but we are pleased with the image quality capturing the full, dynamic range. It’s very sharp, you can even zoom in on the rocket and read the words on there.”

FilmLight was able to scan approximately 20 minutes of footage

ABOVE Chris Hall (right) led the project at FilmLight that developed the Arclight scanner.

for the producers of First Man, boosting Chazelle’s mission of achieving authenticity, and evoking the same admiration viewers watching it today would have felt watching it in 1969. For FilmLight, this is just the beginning of its (not so space-themed) odyssey, but this experience has increased the team’s understanding of the challenges surrounding digitising archive footage to the highest possible quality. “It gave us some encouragement that what we’ve got works for large format, high-quality material. It points the way forward for us that what we’ve made is applicable to archive film.”

MORE INFORMATION:

www.filmlight.ltd.uk

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F E AT U R E | R I C H A R D M I L L S I N T E R V I E W

REALITY INTERVIEW NEAL ROMANEK

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V2.0

IMAGINARY PICTURES’ RICHARD MILLS HAS MOVED FROM THE PRO VIDEO ARENA TO INVESTIGATING NEWER SPACES – BUT STILL FOCUSING ON CAPTURE F E B R UA RY 20 1 9 | D E F I N I T I O N

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LIGHTS CAMERA ASSIMILATE ACTION IN SOME PRODUCTIONS IT’S NOT ACCEPTABLE JUST TO SHOOT WHAT YOU SEE, NOW YOU HAVE TO SHOOT ALL THAT’S AVAILABLE TO SEE

WORDS JAMES DIGBY JONES / P I C T U R E S S A D D I N G TO N B AY N E S

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evelopments in VR and AR technology have pushed filmmaking outside of what’s immediately visible in-camera. To maximise creative freedom, you need to capture the entire 360° environment when approaching a shoot, not just what lies in front of you.

The key is to remember that content isn’t just about communicating in a direct, rational way. With the appropriate use of atmosphere, lighting, cinematography and technology, creatives can deliver a compelling message.

Besides the wow-factor of creating a virtual replica of an entire environment, capturing useful data about the location affords more time for cinematic direction and experimentation. Filmmakers have a newfound flexibility to rebuild and optimise assets after a shoot, confident

in the knowledge that the end results will marry up perfectly with the early stages of production.

How do you do this? LIDAR and other 3D scanning techniques capture virtual surfaces to create a copy of real-life objects and spaces, enabling anything from full three-dimensional camera shifts around full digital environments to subtle 2.5D camera moves around a still scene.

To better understand these emerging techniques and the visually disruptive impact of 3D scanning, look no further than the photo-real brand video that’s launching Gaggenau’s Vario cooling 400 series. The full creative production by Saddington Baynes included pre-visualisation, LIDAR scanning and the fusion of live-action shots with 3D renders. (bit.ly/def2019 provides a link to the promo.)

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U S E R R E V I E W | PA N T H E R S -T Y P E D O L LY

PANTHER S-TYPE DOLLY PRICE ON REQUEST

Panther’s new dolly is an engineering marvel with modular underpinnings

SCISSORS-ARM

NEWLY DESIGNED FLIP-FLOP PLATFORMS

You only need one set (consisting of three parts) for the whole dolly.

Whether high or low platform, the S-Type flip-flop platforms cover every position and remain extremely stable.

COMBI-WHEELS

Panther has reinvented and improved the combi-wheels.

You can now choose between pneumatic and studio wheels.

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In order to use the full length of the scissors-arm, Panther developed patented full-range technology. This allows the scissors-arm to move the same way up as down into the negative.

NEW SLIDE-IN BATTERIES In order to realise a compact and lightweight dolly design, Panther developed new slide-in batteries.

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WIRELESS HANDSET OPERATION

A new wireless handset is included in the standard package of the S-Type dolly. You can use it wirelessly and via cable. Charging is also done via cable.

DETACHABLE

To simplify transport, the scissors-arm element of the Panther S-Type is detachable and can be separated 100% from the body.

THE ONE TOOL

Only one integrated tool is needed to operate the entire dolly.

DRIVE UNIT

The S-Type dolly is powered by an electro-mechanical drive system and is the first of its kind in the world.

FOUR STEERING MODES

For maximum flexibility, the Panther S-Type is equipped with four different steering modes: crab, round, conventional front and conventional rear.

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