Local Hero Captures a Pitch Perfect DI

Local Hero Post has been working on techniques that filmmakers and digital artists, in particular colourists, can use when collaborating on feature film projects. They are aiming to allow more scope for creative looks and increase efficiency, from inside their ASSIMILATE SCRATCH DI and grading systems. Since opening in 2006, they have completed work on more than 60 movies

The company employs nine SCRATCH systems, scaled to suit laptops for on-set dailies or remote work, up to custom-built PCs with updated graphics and accelerator cards for client  DI sessions. Grading is performed on a 16ft screen in a 2K digital projection theatre that is 2D/3D switchable, and any SCRATCH system on the network can be connected to the theatre.

Recently, the company has extended its services to pre-production workflow design and camera testing, on-set digital dailies, to editorial with its partner company Digital Difference, and creative DI grading, home video and theatrical DCP mastering, plus archival.

Local Hero Post founder and supervising colourist Leandro Marini said, “We can take images shot with digital cinema cameras, put them through the appropriate workflows and then apply levels of polish to bring out the best in those images. Instead of just colour correction we can also carry out image manipulations that previously couldn’t be done in a colour session. It’s an exciting change in post production.”

ALEXA to ProRes Log C
A recent major project for the company was the 2012 musical comedy ‘Pitch Perfect’ The movie was shot on location at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, using ARRI ALEXA cameras recording to ProRes Log C. “The workflow from camera into post was straightforward,” said Leandro. “We designed a LUT to convert the material to linear colour space, and SCRATCH is able to read the original native ARRI ProRes Log C files. We only transcoded to 16-bit TIFF at the end of the DI for final delivery, again in SCRATCH.”

“Although I work on the creative side, I have always been interested in R&D and finding new ways to handle jobs efficiently,” he said. “In the run-up to starting Local Hero Post in 2006, we looked at several different large, mainstream DI systems. They were fast but very expensive and actually pretty basic systems, designed around film negative, log-based colour grading. Also, their capabilities could not be extended beyond colour.”

The first generation of digital cinema cameras were coming onto the market at about the same time, but processing the images in the earlier workflows was not producing ideal results. “But we realized this was the future of movie making, and if you were willing to adopt linear workflows and treated the images with the same care as film, you could achieve spectacular results,” said Leandro.

The facility opted to use SCRATCH, which was more interactive than existing systems, less expensive and employed a file-based workflow from recent digital cameras. They learned from each project how to improve the workflow for the next project.

Budget Jump
During the DI stage for Pitch Perfect, the studio Universal discovered that audience test figures were gathering momentum. Consequently, the project went from a mid-budget production to an anticipated release with a larger marketing budget. “For us, it meant the project escalated from traditional DI to one that needed fast turnarounds on different pre-release versions as well as on-going requests from the marketing department for trailers and other marketing materials – all during the DI,” said Leandro. “Even as a DI team we had to have a solid workflow and hit deadlines, as delays could adversely affect the release of the film and marketing.”

Given a normal schedule and workload, Leandro said that Local Hero Post could have done all of the work for ‘Pitch Perfect’ on one SCRATCH system. In terms of the DI, the movie was not a particularly difficult grading job.  However, with preview screenings and a constant need for marketing materials on top of the main DI, four SCRATCH systems were dedicated to the show – one for editorial changes and reconforming, another for the main colour grade, one for preparing the theatrical and home video masters, and one creating additional invisible VFX, such as lens flares and lighting effects.

“This way we could react quickly to requests that came in overnight from the studio, for preview versions and marketing materials, and could carry a lot of the colour work we did on these versions into the DI,” he explained. “It was beautifully shot and lit, so rather than having to fix anything major, we spent most of our time fine-tuning the look and adding creative flourishes.

“I work a lot with canvas shapes and the variable softness controls in the SCRATCH system to enhance skin and face tones. It’s fast and interactive to draw a shape, adjust it, track it and animate it. The DP Julio Macat was surprised at the speed at which we could work. You can push and pull the tones and hues in different areas of the frame,” he said.

Compositing & FX
For Leandro the addition of lens flares and light effects is a good example of creative DI. “There were shots that had natural lens flares from the original performance on set. Jason, the director, liked the effect but wanted more. He also wanted to extend the light beams cast by spotlights that could not be practically photographed. I showed him how I could create the flare effects inside the DI system with GenArts Sapphire OFX plug-ins, and enhance the spotlight effects with the SCRATCH 3D tools to create and animate light beams.”

Consequently the director wanted so many additional effects that a second, dedicated SCRATCH system was installed in the DI theatre for this purpose. Working with Jason, they would tag the shots per reel that required treatment. Leandro would hand these over to an assistant to handle while he continued the main grade. Within half an hour the effects were ready and they would switch the input on the projector, view the results and fine tune them as required.

Leandro said, “Because we can now do colour timing at the same time  as tasks like slipping an edit, object replacement, beauty work and some VFX – like changing skies, the lens flares and lighting effects – and then output multiple versions all in one system, makes the DI more like a compositing session that you’d typically see on a TV commercial.”  www.assimilateinc.com   www.localheropost.com