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British Cinematographer Covering International Cinematography www.britishcinematographer.co.uk Issue 050 ––– March 2012
Live & Let DI –––Who’s dialling-in the DI grades
Company 3 London… graded Working Title’s Contraband, lensed by Barry Ackroyd BSC. Egg Post Production... used Nucoda to grade the hauting feature-doc Dreams Of A Life. EFilm Hollywood... responded to the grading challenges in John Carter.
Flying colours
Technicolor UK… pulled out the DI stops for My Brother The Devil, the feature that won DP David Raedecker a best cinematography award at Sundance 2012, plus Aardman’s Pirates.
Egg Post Production Company 3 London
Wrath Of The Titans has dominated the facility recently as it completed the full DI for the latest Titans adventure, lensed by Ben Davis BSC and starring Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson. Adam Glasman graded the feature, directed by Jonathan Liebesman, which is due for theatrical release on March 30th 2012. Company 3 delivered both 2D and 3D stereo digital and analogue versions, together with digital and print conversions for IMAX. Rob Pizzey recently added Contraband, shot by Barry Ackroyd BSC, to his growing list of DI projects. This latest Working Title project for Universal is set in the grimy underworld of New Orleans, and the facility says that Pizzey’s interpretation of Ackroyd’s vision adds an amazing visual dimension to this thriller. Starring Mark Whalberg and Kate Beckinsale, Contraband was directed by Baltasar Kormakur. Shot on S16mm to give an authentic feel to the period of WW1, Private Peaceful, directed by Pat O’Connor has been graded by Rob Pizzey at Company 3. This emotional drama is lensed by Polish DP Jerzy Zielinski, and exec-produced and written by ‘War Horse’ writer Michael Morpurgo.
Technicolor UK
Dan Coles has been busy grading all manner of productions. These include Bentley Productions’ Midsomer Murders and ITV Studios’ Lewis VI, which both got full post production. Coles also graded the HBO drama Veep, Kudos Film and TV’s Eternal Law, starring Ukweli Roach, Samuel West and Orla Brady, and Revolution Film’s Seven Days, directed by Michael Winterbottom, for which the company also completed film, and video deliverables. Paul Ensby graded Austenland, directed by Jerusha Hess, with Larry Smith BSC the cinematographer, starring Keri Russell, JJ Feild and Jennifer Coolidge, and also the Blood Brother Films/ Pascha production My Brother The Devil, directed by Sally El Hosaini, lensed by DP David Raedeker. Both films got the full 2K DI treatment, plus film, video and digital cinema deliverables at Technicolor UK. The Film London Microwave Feature Borrowed Time, was graded at 2K by Lee Twohey. The film was directed by Jules Bishop, produced by Olivier Kaempfer, and was lensed by DP David Rom. Technicolor also completed the film, video and digital cinema deliverables. Meanwhile DI grader Max Horton pulled out the stops for Aardman Animations’s Pirates, directed by Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt, and featuring the voice talents of Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek and Jeremy Piven. Along with the 2K DI, Technicolor also completed the film, video and digital cinema deliverables.
BCine50.indd 18
(which must have one of the best-ever web addresses - www.egg.ie) used its Nucoda Film Master system to grade the haunting documentary feature film Dreams Of A Life. Written and directed by Carol Morley, with grading by Sebastian Guest, the film tells the true story of a 38-year old woman Joyce Vincent, who lay dead in her bedsit above a shopping mall in North London undiscovered for three years. Chillingly, her remains were surrounded by the Christmas presents she’d been wrapping, the gas and electricity supply had never been cut off, and the television was still on. Filmed on location in England and Ireland the shoot, which was overseen by DP Mary Farbrother, involved a number of different formats as the director wanted to keep to the authenticity of the four decades that spanned Joyce’s (Zawe Ashton) life beginning with her childhood in the seventies. The fabric of the film is made up by interviews shot by DP Lynda Hall with people who knew Joyce and imagined scenes from her life (shot by Farbrother). Guest explains, “They used mini DV and S8 for the gritty street scenes, Digi for the rostrum scenes, HDCAM for the interviews, 16mm for Joyce’s earlier life and finally RED for her recent adulthood and the time leading up to her death.” Morley deliberately used each format to keep specific looks for particular purposes and environments. Guest says, “When Joyce was growing up in the seventies for example, there is a certain look that reflects that era created by Mary Farbrother using 16mm with swing and tilt lens and also by the lighting. When we graded the 16mm we gave it a really nice palette that was true to the decade.” He continues, “The multi-format aspect of the film works very well with the toolset on the Nucoda Film Master, particularly the DVO image enhancement and restoration tools. We had to upscale from SD for certain parts of the project and remove artefacts from the film components such as scratches and dust. The DVO Clarity noise and grain reducer was another tool that we used quite frequently as there was a lot of night time material that was slightly too dark. In the scenes where Joyce’s remains are finally found by forensics, Guest wanted to create an uncomfortable and unnatural colour balance to emphasise the morbid and awful nature of the discovery. He says, “We added slightly burnt out highlights and a yellowish green look to those scenes. When they find her they discover a blue dress where the body would have been. This was a device that was used to remind the audience that this was a human life as there’s really nothing left of the remains. It was important to make sure that we didn’t lose the connection between the viewer and this blue dress in the grade.” Dreams Of A Life is still playing in cinemas across the UK and premieres in the US at SXSW in March.
13/03/2012 11:55