Toolbox

Maintaining a competitive edge in video production not only demands delivery of high-quality, creative content but also innovative and affordable new ways to serve client needs. Creative director Michael Ori and his team at Salt Lake City-based Ori Media and Studio Elevn [sic] provided a vivid example in TV spots they recently produced for the Utah Dept. of Health. A series of three 30-second cinéma vérité-style videos designed to encourage people to quit smoking, Ori obtained the 4K image quality and unique looks he sought by using the Canon EOS-1D C Digital SLR Cinema camera from Canon U.S.A., Inc. Ori won the assignment by also being able to produce still images from his Canon EOS-1D C camera’s 4K video for giant 48 ft. billboards.

“Usually when both video and stills are needed for a campaign the agency sends a second photography unit to shoot the print ads,” Ori explained. “Part of the reason we got the assignment, however, was that I told the client, ‘You’re going to save money because you don’t have to hire a photographer. You can take stills right from our video.’ This capability of the Canon EOS-1D C camera also helped us develop the look of the campaign. The TV spots showed different people on specific days during their quit-smoking experience. Each spot ends with an animated graphic box that drops down in the top left corner showing the number of days that person has quit smoking. That last still of the person with the graphic box is what appears on the billboards.”

Ori added that those images could also be scaled down or up for everything from magazine ads to giant decals wrapped around a city bus or trolley car. Starting off with the 18.1-megapixel full-frame (24mm x 36mm) CMOS sensor of the Canon EOS-1D C camera, the 4K (4096 x 2160-pixel) crop has ample resolution to help ensure sufficient detail for giant blow-ups. “The dynamic range you can get with this camera – especially when you’re shooting in Canon Log – is amazing,” Ori noted. “The billboards look great. They are crisp, clean, virtually without distortion, – and they are 48-ft. wide images.”

Post perfection
“The details, depth-of-field, and dynamic range you can achieve with the EOS-1D C Cinema SLR camera in Canon Log mode are amazing,” Ori declared. “We shot everything in Canon Log. Of course making great images has to do with the way you light and many other tricks of the trade, but the dynamic range of Canon Log – and the camera’s low-light capabilities – were two vital, extremely important things enabling us to do our work.”

The Canon EOS-1D C camera records 8-bit 4:2:2 4K and 8-bit 4:2:0 full HD video to internal CF cards. In Canon Log Gamma mode, this camera records high-quality 4K, 2K, or HD with rich gradations, maximizing both highlight and shadow detail retention while also providing the high level of color-grading freedom needed for motion picture and television delivery.

As examples Ori cites specific challenges his team faced in capturing the footage for the anti-smoking spots, all of which were filmed in actual locations, and not on movie sets. One depicts an overworked waitress resisting the temptation to smoke a cigarette in the alley behind her diner. Another shows a wary ex-smoker on a street corner observing a fellow pedestrian about to light up. The third features a woodworker finding a pack of cigarettes in his toolbox and discarding it without hesitation.

“We did the exterior alley shot in the middle of the day, and Canon Log mode let us crank the colors in post to get the look of nighttime,” Ori recalled. “The sidewalk spot was shot in winter but the client wanted it to look like spring. We shoveled snow, the sun came out, and with an ND filter on my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM standard zoom lens we got great cloud detail and maintained the depth-of-field that we wanted. With Canon Log in post we took out all of the grays of winter and boosted the greens up enough to look like spring. The woodworker’s shop was a very dark garage attic. We set up just a few lights and in post were able to bring up the colors and detail without blowing anything out. It was phenomenal.”

Tight spaces
Also essential to shooting the quit-smoking spots in actual locations was the compact size and 4lb. body weight of the Canon EOS-1D C Digital SLR Cinema camera, Ori noted.

“No other 4K camera we tested could fit into the tight spaces we needed to shoot from, or was light enough, so it was perfect,” he said. “For the workbench video we had the Canon EOS-1D C camera on a dolly-slider in the corner behind the toolbox. The ‘reveal’ is actually coming through the lid of the toolbox but since there wasn’t enough room for me to get in behind the camera, I turned the external monitor we had hooked up toward the front of the camera, set my shot, then set the timer on the dolly to make the move so that I wasn’t in the shot, hit RECORD, and directed the actor from off to the side.”

The Canon EOS-1D C camera also features a Live View capability, enabling users to frame and compose images using either the camera’s viewfinder or a rear-panel 3.2-inch ultra-sharp 1.04 million-dot Clear View LCD II panel. “There is just something so great about being able to see your images in live time and then being able to take a still from what you’re shooting and using it somewhere else,” Ori confided. He also appreciates how the compact size of the camera package puts his “actors” at ease.

“This camera is really unobtrusive,” Ori observed. “Its low-light capabilities are amazing. You could shoot with a candle. We don’t always work with professional actors. Many of the videos we do are vignettes using people that aren’t used to being in front of a camera. If you put a giant camera and big lights on them they’ll clam-up. I want people to be comfortable, and the Canon EOS-1D C really helps with that. The camera is small; it’s not ‘in their face.’ It’s really organic and I love it. It’s like the ‘fourth wall’ has been removed and the talent is just able to do its own thing.”

Organic production
In addition to its DSLR form factor, low-light imaging advantages, and 4K/2K/HD resolution recording, the Canon EOS-1D C Digital SLR Cinema camera also provides users with a wide range of lens choices for maximum creative flexibility. The camera can be outfitted with any of the more than 103 interchangeable Canon EF and EF-S series lenses (including primes, zooms, telephoto, and specialty lenses such as macro, tilt/shift, and fisheye). Canon’s line of CN-E series Cinema lenses includes six primes and four zooms.
“That was another giant factor in purchasing the Canon EOS-1D C camera,” Ori noted. “All of the lenses I already owned for my Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EOS 7D cameras are EF mounts, which means I could also put them on the EOS-1D C without an adapter to become part of that camera’s lens arsenal as well.”

Ori used the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM standard zoom and the Canon CN-E85mm T1.3 LF Cinema prime lenses for the anti-smoking spots. “The Canon Cinema primes are also amazing for still images when you can take your time to set up a really nice head shot,” he added.

“The anti-smoking spots turned out really well and everybody seems to be very happy with them,” Ori related. “I have shot on every camera you could imagine, and for the price point of the Canon EOS-1D C Digital SLR Cinema camera – and what you actually get out of it in terms of versatility form factor, and size – I have never seen anything like it. The camera is easy to learn and it lets me make things the way I have always wanted to make them, which is really organic. I think that’s the best way to describe it.”

Deluxe and Technicolor have entered into a binding agreement to create a new digital cinema joint venture, Deluxe Technicolor Digital Cinema, which will specialize in theatrical digital cinema mastering, distribution and key management services.

This joint venture in digital cinema will bring together best-in-class technologies, personnel, work processes and facilities to provide seamless and exceptional services to its customers on a greater global scale.

Both Technicolor and Deluxe will be committed to the operational and financial success of the new business which will be managed by Deluxe and based in Burbank, California. All other lines of business will continue to operate independently of one another.

“As the global entertainment industry continues its transition to 100 percent digital distribution and delivery, this transformational partnership will be optimally positioned to offer our companies’ existing and future customers industry-leading digital cinema services with greater efficiencies,” said David Kassler, CEO of Deluxe Entertainment Services. “This is yet another example of Deluxe expanding our partnerships to deliver a suite of next generation digital cinema services to our industry customers.”

“This partnership puts us in a stronger position to offer industry-leading digital cinema services around the world,” stated Tim Sarnoff, president of Production Services at Technicolor.  “At Technicolor we have committed ourselves to services that are driven by creative talent and technology, creating the next generation immersive media experiences our customers have come to expect from us.”

This joint venture is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2015.

Silverdraft LLC plans to create a unique supercomputing lab in the heart of Hollywood, slated to open in the fall of 2015. Located at the historic Jim Henson Studios, The Silverdraft Center For Content Creation (SC3) will enable freelance artists, and creators of content, such as games, Virtual Reality (VR) and immersive cinema, to post-produce and render their projects using the fastest, most highly-optimized technology in the industry. It will offer a 4K screening theater, as well as multiple creative bays running professional systems for postproduction and rendering workflows for 3D animation, VFX, Digital Intermediate (DI) and finishing, as well as VR content creation for platforms such as Oculus Rift.

The SC3 will give content creators first-hand experience with state-of-the-art workflow tools typically associated with high-end facilities, while enhancing the quality and production value of their projects and decreasing turnaround times.

The SC3 will also serve as a showcase for Silverdraft technologies, where artist feedback will go directly into the pipeline for future product development. Each of SC3’s creative bays will contain a combination of Silverdraft Devil & Demon supercomputers and workstations featuring, high-performance Micron components, to power their workflows. Meanwhile, all artists will have access to a shared 4K screening room. The Silverdraft team will collaborate with artists as they create their projects to deepen the understanding of workflow bottlenecks and challenges, and to deliver new solutions.

“As a freelance artist, I’m always pushed to deliver more, but with less time and for less money,” said editor and digital artist Brian Fox. “I’m really excited to take my project to the new SC3 lab to see firsthand how supercomputing technology can help me break that cycle. Real-time client attended sessions, with dramatically faster render times, will allow me to finally meet both the creativity and productivity requirements at the same time.”

Powered by leading-edge memory and flash storage developed by Micron, Silverdraft Devil & Demon supercomputers and workstations are highly application-optimized and are claimed to deliver significantly faster performance at lower prices than off the shelf systems. This optimized performance significantly accelerates the postproduction process by decreasing render times and powering real-time client-attended VFX and DI review sessions.

“Silverdraft’s Devil & Demon supercomputers and workstations have built a strong reputation by delivering scalable performance and flexibility that is unmatched by off-the-shelf PCs, but at a lower price,” said Ted Schilowitz, president of Silverdraft. “Independent content creators love our products because they need a never-ending supply of faster performance, but their budgets are always very constrained. The SC3 puts our technology to use and creates a blueprint for how supercomputing can change the way we design workflows. Our deeper understanding of the way artists work will help us to develop even better products in the future. We believe the SC3 will inspire and empower many up-and-coming content creators as they help to deliver the next generation of great stories.”

At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show 2015 in Las Vegas, Shotgun Software unveiled Shotgun 6 and RV 6 which now work together without any required end-user configuration. Shotgun is the cloud-based production tracking, review and asset management software for film, TV and games, recently expanded via acquisition with RV, the widely adopted desktop image and sequence player. Shotgun 6 will now include direct access to RV 6 at no extra cost to users, with the latest releases of both Shotgun 6 and RV 6 also offering new features to boost production efficiency.

“Just months after bringing our friends from Tweak on board and announcing a new pricing model, we’ve built some really great new functionality into both Shotgun and RV that helps artists and supervisors collaborate around their work much faster,” said Don Parker, co-founder of Shotgun and Autodesk senior director. “Including RV as part of Shotgun and adding RVX and RVIO at no additional cost is a win-win for all of our customers.”

New Features in Shotgun 6:
-- RV in Shotgun: Download, install and start using RV with your existing Shotgun login. No extra fees, no need for a separate license, and accessible in a single click with no configuration.
-- New Project Templates: Templates help you manage different workflows for different projects, such as films, episodic TV series, or games.
-- Enhanced Navigation and Browsing: Choose how you organize the items you’re tracking (i.e. Shots by Sequence, or Asset by Type), then navigate between them using Shotgun’s new navigation widget.
-- Improved Flame Integration: Transfer content from Flame into Shotgun faster and more reliably.
-- Updated Loader: Artists can now find and load files faster directly from inside of their creative tools, such as Maya, 3ds Max and Nuke, using the new list view in the Toolkit Loader app.

New in RV 6:
-- Shotgun Login: A new licensing option allows users to access RV using their Shotgun username and password.
-- Built-in RVX Functionality: RV now includes features previously only available in RVX such as the ability to author image-processing operations - everything from simple color transforms to multi-input compositions and editorial transitions.
-- Export using RVIO: Users can now export movies or frame sequences with RVIO while running RV. No need for a separate RVIO license.

Both Shotgun 6 and RV 6 are beomg demonstrated at NAB 2015 in the Autodesk Booth (SL 3317). Shotgun 6 with RV 6 integration is expected to be available by the end of April. Shotgun Software is an Autodesk company.