For Corpse Bride, DI colorist Max Horton reduced the low-color world to almost monochrome (left), and increased the contrast and color in most of the high-color world scenes. Corpse Bride images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

“Creatively it should be used as a very worthwhile tool for the director of photography’s palette — ‘challenging looks’ for the right reasons using artistry is called painting,” comments Lip Sync Post’s Phelan. “In a market-driven world one could easily just ‘go for a known funky look,’ but not all audiences are that naïve, so judgment has to prevail. Would one rather see Van Gogh on a postage stamp or a bigger canvas? Or would you look at Van Gogh through rose-tinted glasses and say, ‘That’s art?’“

As for advancing DI technology, Phelan says, “It would be nice to go 4K and or above, when processors are faster — and in the meantime production to bear that in mind for costs and the time for the scanning, grading, rendering, film-recording timescales, etc. will be longer.”

Growing Pains
DI is becoming an industry standard with the usual growing pains. “It’s an age-old problem. Standards should be encouraged, taught and adhered to, and not become a manufacturer’s licensing or equipment playground,” Phelan adds. “It’s expensive to start off with as a facility, but it will come down in time. Staff need to understand the creative demands and the workflow demands, but in a computer literate world, that shouldn’t be a problem. Still, artistry shouldn’t ever be undermined.”

“It’s getting there, but there’s still a lot of holes in the process,” admits Chapman. “Sometimes it still looks like a 700 shot [visual] effects project.”

“The challenge as we move into a world of DI as the standard is two-fold,” comments Post Logic Studio’s Levinson. “Are we using these technologies and processes wisely and are we getting to an economic model that makes sense? An example of what I mean about wise use — does the negative created through a 2K pipeline represent the ultimate archive, or should time and money be spent cutting negative and archiving that as well?

“While DI is replacing the traditional chemical finish in many instances, the economic models don’t always make sense,” Levinson observes. “One thing a facility has to remember is that DI generally involves the chaos that is film post-production, which may be a different and more intense chaos than what they’ve been used to. Add to that a production company that may have skimped by not having a post supervisor and you have a recipe for nightmares. DI requires an enormous investment in gear and people, a serious learning curve and a long-term commitment to the work.

“Existing ‘mastering’ facilities are evolving to apply what they’ve learned over the years to film resolution images at the same time as a new group of revolutionary facilities are expanding vfx/CGI techniques to feature-length projects,” Levinson says. “The real scramble is to get the work as far upstream into the production process as possible in the hopes of garnering all the downstream work as well.”

Clear DIrection
Doyle certainly has a clear vision of where DI is headed, suggesting that DI will split into four services:

• A facility that is DP friendly, is very film and lab orientated and understands how to work within the director/director of photography relationship.

• A facility that is very director friendly, in the style of a commercial telecine house.

• Stand-alone department set up within the production, outsourcing what ever is not practical e.g., scanning/recording (Doyle’s focus).

• A grading room running with several operators/graders matching colors set by a color designer and director/DP. (“Sometimes, the grades are so complicated they are effectively vfx, and, as such, need the time to craft each shot,” Doyle remarks.)

“The primary reason for any film to go through the DI process will always be the power to control shadows, mids and highlight areas separately, in addition to being able to grade different parts of the frame separately with the help of secondaries acting as the additional lighting tool for the director of photography,” says Prime Focus’ Desai. “The fact that you will end up with a cleaner, joint free, digitally color enhanced negative will excite any director and director of photography conscious enough to achieve that extra with his product.”

“For myself, I think it’s heading toward a film finishing stage,” concludes Chapman. “Perhaps the term DI will fall into disuse… a place where the director can sit and finally bring his project together in a screening theater, with all the tools quickly available to try different approaches.”

Janet Hetherington is a freelance writer and cartoonist based in Ottawa, Canada, where she shares a studio with artist Ronn Sutton and a ginger cat, Heidi.