The last two days of the IBC 2013 conference have seen two interesting sessions on movie post-production, pipeline, standards and more important than everything else: color (or colour (ou couleur (oder Farbe))).
The session "Movie Making Colour Management, best Practice" was on many aspects my favorite. The panel discussion was covering all the movie pipeline steps: from real acquisition people (camera system with ARRI), to display people (Dolby), to big studio (Walt Disney) and post-production (Fluent Image Ltd). Comparing to a few years ago - when the full digital wave was hitting the cinema world, first scanning then editing, filming and now displaying (?) - it seems that people are getting familiar with the new equipment, digital cameras do not appear as magic devices being able of technological feats only... but cameras with their given properties (how they capture light and color). On that aspect, the ARRI person as well as the Fluent Image person were saying the same (it was two months ago so I may not be completely accurate): try the camera before starting shooting your movie, once on schedule for shooting you do not have the time for experimentation (this is what reasonable post-production companies do, I have seen that in Berlin by ARRI post-production people). In the past you were choosing this or this film-roll (i.e. fuji or something else) and your lab was then processing the film, now you choose a camera and its captor/sensor properties.
What is interesting when a new technology is introduced in an established pipeline is how the cards are redistributed (i.e. power, influence). Before the director of photography (DP and not TP which is a French basketball player) was deciding the light, the film-roll for the next production and in a way fixing the color "limit" of the production and kind of imposing its choice, vision. Now it is a bit different: the color can be modified anywhere along the movie production pipeline (which doesn't mean it should be done that way!). And this give a nice transition regarding the input to the discussion from the Big Studio person who was talking about standard and ACES and simplifying the workflow. Starting from color consideration (extremely important considerations say the color scientist) with ACES, it is more guidelines than absolute recipe that are introduced to the pipeline.
Of course the importance of display calibration was mentioning. All and all pretty standard comments but reasonable comments on what people should do or not do: be prepared in advance, know your tools. Danger of processing the dailies too much for the important people, it means you need a grading team on set and you take the risk to fix the color "mood" of the film to early.
I also do remember, or I think I remember that this panel of professional said they need color scientists, good for me, or I dreamed it? In any cases they need color scientists.
During the last day and maybe the last session it was about compression (for the Hobbit movie), especially jpg2000, and color artifacts that can occur. The problem of archiving was tackled by people from the EYE center in Amsterdam: what do you do when you have to scan old film material with very different fps.
And more political, how the standards are pushed from each side of the Atlantic and which company, studio, government, open-source project and so are the main players in these battle/discussion.
22/10/2013
15/10/2013
Kimchi-Princess by SpottedByLocals Berlin
My other latest link of the day for spottedbylocals Berlin, this time it is a Korean restaurant: http://www.spottedbylocals.com/berlin/kimchi-princess/
12/10/2013
A night at the planetarium
September is over and October took over ten days ago. As usual the trees, but not only, some buildings in Berlin as well are getting new colors. For the trees it's easy, we call it Autumn, for the buildings it's the light festival or festival of light.
Passed 9:00pm you may find a lot of night photographers in the streets of Berlin, all equipped with tripod and waiting on the side as fishermen with their fishing rod waiting for the chosen monument to change appearance. This year I'm following a bit more seriously the program who offers interesting combos: free shows outdoor with light and music and payed performances indoor with music and light.
Last Sunday we attended two shows: one outside the Elisabeth Kirche in Invalidestrasse and a second inside the church building. First show used the front side of the building as projection surface as well as its shape to create nice visuals. Therefore you had the impression that the whole building was changing color and not only simply colored with a laser pointer. Indoor only the back wall served as projection surface, a huge surface, the small baroque ensemble was a delight for ears and the visuals created could have been better. I mean technically it was superb, but the content was not really synchronized with the music.
Tonight it was the opposite, the projection outdoor on the Gross Planetarium roof in Prenzlauer Allee was fine but not exceptional, only a simple slide show and sadly rain. This event took place during the week. Nice to see this place full of people during the evening and people of bit younger than the an average planetarium visitor.
But really tonight it is in the planetarium that the a full dome show is taking place. Live electronic music and projection on the whole indoor dome surface. The projection surface was ok, not a perfect blending but it did the job as some people may say. The rest was completely hypnotic :-) The visuals - rather simple - were completely matching with the electronic live performance creating a strange atmosphere, truly immersive experience, giving you the feeling to be in the center of the dome, floating in space and no I did not take drugs before.
Passed 9:00pm you may find a lot of night photographers in the streets of Berlin, all equipped with tripod and waiting on the side as fishermen with their fishing rod waiting for the chosen monument to change appearance. This year I'm following a bit more seriously the program who offers interesting combos: free shows outdoor with light and music and payed performances indoor with music and light.
Last Sunday we attended two shows: one outside the Elisabeth Kirche in Invalidestrasse and a second inside the church building. First show used the front side of the building as projection surface as well as its shape to create nice visuals. Therefore you had the impression that the whole building was changing color and not only simply colored with a laser pointer. Indoor only the back wall served as projection surface, a huge surface, the small baroque ensemble was a delight for ears and the visuals created could have been better. I mean technically it was superb, but the content was not really synchronized with the music.
Tonight it was the opposite, the projection outdoor on the Gross Planetarium roof in Prenzlauer Allee was fine but not exceptional, only a simple slide show and sadly rain. This event took place during the week. Nice to see this place full of people during the evening and people of bit younger than the an average planetarium visitor.
But really tonight it is in the planetarium that the a full dome show is taking place. Live electronic music and projection on the whole indoor dome surface. The projection surface was ok, not a perfect blending but it did the job as some people may say. The rest was completely hypnotic :-) The visuals - rather simple - were completely matching with the electronic live performance creating a strange atmosphere, truly immersive experience, giving you the feeling to be in the center of the dome, floating in space and no I did not take drugs before.
30/09/2013
Music in my head
4:40 Il est tôt, beaucoup trop tôt et mon avion décolle dans deux heures et demi. Je me lève en mode chauve-souris, comprendre au radar et réussi à atteindre la gare de RER de Denfert-Rochereau sans trop de problème, comprendre le taxi ne s'est pas perdu entre Tolbiac et Denfert.
5:18 je rentre dans le train, peu de gens, quelques voyageurs direction Charles De Gaulle. L'ipod sur les oreilles, c'est Patrice Baumel qui mixe ce matin et on le remercie bien.
Ça commence doucement, le train aussi, les sonneries des portes du RER s'accordent parfaitement avec la douce introduction du mix enregistré en live à SF. Le train redémarre. Jusqu'à Châtelet je reste éveillé, les vibrations et quelques arrêts se superposant parfaitement avec la musique, période de chauffe pour mettre le cluber doucement en transe. Et je me dis chouette, pas la peine d'être défoncé pour apprécier la musique électronique, juste besoin d'être décalqué en se levant avant l'aube, il n'est pas tard dans la nuit ou tôt le matin, il est ailleurs.
La somnolence me plonge dans mes rêves, m'en sort et m'en replonge. Je suis bien rentré dans le mix du Baumel, porté par la musique, commencé sous terre et maintenant dehors après Gare du Nord, le jour se lève. La musique m'accompagne, je lévite, il est temps de changer de mode de transport. L'intensité du mix redescend un peu, histoire de faire souffler l'audiophile, mais c'est juste pour en rajouter une couche derrière et me remettre dans mon rêve éveillé.
6:44 heureusement le contrôle sécurité est rapide, la coupure musicale en est plus courte. Je m'envole pour de vrai et m'endort dans les airs. Erlangen j'arrive.
5:18 je rentre dans le train, peu de gens, quelques voyageurs direction Charles De Gaulle. L'ipod sur les oreilles, c'est Patrice Baumel qui mixe ce matin et on le remercie bien.
Ça commence doucement, le train aussi, les sonneries des portes du RER s'accordent parfaitement avec la douce introduction du mix enregistré en live à SF. Le train redémarre. Jusqu'à Châtelet je reste éveillé, les vibrations et quelques arrêts se superposant parfaitement avec la musique, période de chauffe pour mettre le cluber doucement en transe. Et je me dis chouette, pas la peine d'être défoncé pour apprécier la musique électronique, juste besoin d'être décalqué en se levant avant l'aube, il n'est pas tard dans la nuit ou tôt le matin, il est ailleurs.
La somnolence me plonge dans mes rêves, m'en sort et m'en replonge. Je suis bien rentré dans le mix du Baumel, porté par la musique, commencé sous terre et maintenant dehors après Gare du Nord, le jour se lève. La musique m'accompagne, je lévite, il est temps de changer de mode de transport. L'intensité du mix redescend un peu, histoire de faire souffler l'audiophile, mais c'est juste pour en rajouter une couche derrière et me remettre dans mon rêve éveillé.
6:44 heureusement le contrôle sécurité est rapide, la coupure musicale en est plus courte. Je m'envole pour de vrai et m'endort dans les airs. Erlangen j'arrive.
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