Kevin Phelan of Lip Sync Post has seen a rapid growth in DI use in the U.K. the last three years.

Color My World
Color and visual presentation are areas where DI enjoys key impact. Veteran colorist and DI pioneer Peter Doyle, who worked on providing distinct visual identities to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Matrix and the latest two Harry Potter films, acted as supervising digital colorist on Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

When asked how DI has changed over the years, Doyle replies, “In some ways you should ask what has not changed! There is a lack of understanding of color management and the quality that film print can actually give you, as well as a lack of respect for the director of photography’s creative intent.

“Clearly, more companies are getting into the business. The sales pitches presented by these newer companies tend to confuse producers and directors. Due to lack of experience, these companies are consistently creating unrealistic expectations,” Doyle insists.

Those expectations may stem from all that DI is able to achieve. Doyle notes that a film can now be available for digital cinema or HD even before mechanical prints are made. A director has the opportunity to present the film “live,” and then receive and apply feedback from the presentation. The director can present the film at its absolute best quality and make changes to it within hours — somewhat like a live broadcast. The DI can be compared to a big grading room with the right tools, letting the project evolve with a sense of spontaneity.

Not surprisingly, at London’s Moving Picture Co. (MPC), DI was deemed a natural on Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, the first stop-motion animated feature to be shot digitally. MPC was already committed to undertaking around 460 vfx shots, when DI colorist Max Horton was consulted as to how the material originating from digital stills would look when graded and shot to film. “In the summer of 2004, we set about using a Quantel IQ system to grade test sequences, these were then shot back to film on an Arri laser film recorder and [we] evaluated the results in our cinema,” Horton explains.

Post Logic Studio’s work on Hotel Rwanda is a perfect example of how color correction, Power Windows and frame re-composition enhances image quality and emotional nuance. Courtesy of MGM/UA.

“Later in the summer the cinematographer Pete Kozachik kindly arranged for me to visit the shoot to visually reference the contrast and tone used on the sets and characters. For Corpse Bride, the brief started simple with two distinct worlds, one full of rich color and one with very little, and the sets were painted and lit to reflect this. On reaching the DI the low color world was further reduced to almost monochrome; however, a few set features and scenes had their color enhanced to provide a counterpoint to this look. In the high color world, the contrast and color were increased in most scenes, but, again, when the pace of the action dropped, large areas of more pastel tones were used. Most of the colors used were reflections of those that were there when the film was shot and were the choice of the filmmakers.”

Lip Sync Post’s Phelan further explains, “Now you can see it in realtime and tweak if need be, then commit to film, or some variant of data. For instance, if a sky was looking strange, or out of context with the rest of the image (or vice versa), one could isolate that sky, or that balloon, or eyeball or finite part of that eyeball. This would be harder to do traditionally — and be a lot more time-consuming.

“Adding to a demanding arena of different media, a hectic vfx content on many films, and the fact that the markets for films after the initial theatrical release of a feature film demand (or should demand) stricter control of what the film looks like across the board, then DI assists beyond belief in making sure that the film print, the Digital projection masters, HD masters and so on are absolutely perfect.”

“As ever in film production, given a tool kit, people are pushing what is possible here, combining techniques from digital emulation, tradition lab processes with the full complexity of a special effects compositing system,” says FilmLight’s Chapman. “We’ve certainly seen shots with over a 100 layers in, which still retain the look of a special moment photographed for real.”

“Our DI work flow is pretty flexible in terms of designing for an individual film,” offers Desai of Prime Focus, which provided DI for India’s newest and most expensive film, Mangal Pandey — The Rising. “Our approach for each film will be determined by various factors, like the deliverables, the edit of the film, the time frame scheduled for delivery and the creative experimentation and research required for each project.