Evolving DI By David Bush, Digital Post Production In the early days of DI there were many discussions about how effective colour correction could be best achieved in terms of the professionals, technology, and interfaces available, quite apart from all of the discussions as to whether it cost more or less to use DI than traditional techniques. To my knowledge, and judging on market response, ignoring whether it costs more or less, certainly so-called DI has become the fastest growing industry within the film world that I have ever seen. Personally, and for the record, I am convinced that DI is effectively less expensive – if you include all of the probable deliverables, and yet I am convinced that it also offers many more creative and technical opportunities than traditional post techniques. I don’t necessarily agree with those who believe that they can see a specific, flatter, look with films that have been graded in DI – at least, maybe, more than the technology, it’s the people involved that can give it a 'certain' look. I have also always felt that experienced lab colour timers have the 'eyes', and importantly, the experience to do a better job on colour correction for feature films, and I have remained skeptical that advertising colourists could give good results to film grading – especially having got to know intimately the skills and abilities of very talented 'traditional' colour timers. Many manufacturers, however, concluded that what had worked for the advertising industry could be applied directly to the film industry – considering, in their view, that one only needed to scale the technologies up from video to film resolution, and that what had worked for the advertising industry must also work for the film industry (the 'hero' centric, and, might I add, very highly paid colourist being an essential part of this, for example). Incidentally, I have seen this simple and meager 'scaling-up' approach as being rather flawed in general – look at first generation digital cameras, for example – they were certainly more adapted to high definition television than film-making (I do love the latest serious digital cameras, however). I wasn’t convinced myself, and it seemed to me a bit like assuming that Soho in London (with it’s associated premium real estate costs) was as sensible a venue for film post production as somewhere less expensive and out in the countryside (or in Italy, where I actually live, for that matter). A bit like contemplating Wall Street in New York for film post production, rather than Los Angeles. Why pay for real estate in post production? Having tried to convince, I must admit, without success, major colour correction manufacturers such as Da Vinci and Pandora that the film world would have been happy to have an interface that allowed 'traditional' colour timers to work in the new digital intermediate environment, I did see a strong attempt in this direction from Quantel (first with Q-colour, and, more recently, with their Pablo colour corrector for iQ). Good on them – perhaps this is one of the reasons for the success of their comprehensive and all-purpose workhorse DI suite. When I was at Cinecitta (some years ago) I went to the degree of wanting to create a specific interface so that colour timers could feel at home with digital colour grading technology. Basically, I wanted them to be able to take control of the knobs (if there were any), and govern the grading system themselves – using, obviously, their eyes. This too proved a virtually impossible task, or, at least, we were not capable of creating it, even with Italy’s major research centres. I had started out with the idea that it would be nice to be able to see the end result in projection (which is, I believe, a must for any serious DI system), and that the ideal scenario would be the ability to interact with the projected image with one’s hands – a bit like the way that I used to operate myself with the enlarger when I learnt how to print photographs at home – using dynamically my hands to make the image darker or lighter in specific areas, for example. Basically, I like the idea that a colour timer could use their manual skills much like the director of an orchestra – a little bit here, a little bit there etc. I may be a dreamer, but I would love to see the accumulated talent of 'traditional' colour timers put to good use for tomorrow’s films.

David Bush, Digital production, post production, and visual effects supervisor.

Top search terms

Sony f35 | Free Sat HD | 2560 x 1440 | Fringing effect | AVC HD | Red Monstro | SRW1 | Genesis HD | Sony V1 | Ikonoskop