Senior colorist, Post Logic Studios

Q: What's the ideal project for the Digital Intermediate process?
A: Projects that are captured in a number of different ways and not put
together easily, like what [cinematographer] Bob Richardson did with
"JFK and Nixon. He used every
film format from 8mm and up, and that was a complete pain in the rear
to do. Now, scanning and assembling it electronically would be much
easier. Also, turning Super 35 into anamorphic release is cleaner as a
DI than optically. There are also times when having digital tools for
the entire picture is definitely an advantage, as with the use of
multiple layers of windows.
Q: What do you say to cinematographers such as Wally Pfister, ASC, who
chose not to do a DI for Batman Begins because he
didn't want the look of a DI?
A: What that says is that there is still a batch of trained eyes out
there that can pretty much look at something and tell if it's done as a
DI or not. And the goal of a DI is to be transparent. If you have film
capture and film display, the goal is to be transparent to the process.
You shouldn't be able to tell the difference between an answer print
and the result of a DI process. Mostly you still can, although it's
gotten better. With Batman, you're dealing with
someone who didn't want to deal with the compromise he'd have to make.
That's an individual judgment that directors, producers,
cinematographers will have to go through – and every picture will have
a different mix of what drives the decision.
Q: Is there a difference between a DI artist and a telecine artist?
A: I don't know if I believe that there's a whole lot of difference
between someone who's a DI artist and someone proficient at color
correction issues in a non-DI world.
Q: What's the biggest issue around DI that filmmakers need to understand?
A: The capacity issue. If you believe what the various studios say
about how they want to do DI, what level they want to do DI and the
capabilities they want, there isn't enough capacity in town, period. It
doesn't have to do with the lack of talent as much as the sheer
capability of the DI pipelines put together. I don't think they can
handle the amount of work that people want to do. That includes studios
like Sony who say everything they want to do will be in 4K, which
brings some interesting storage issues to the front.
My recommendation would be to make sure you have an in-depth analysis
of the reasons that are driving you to DI before you do it. I don't
know that the economics of actually doing a DI have sorted themselves
out to the real-world level yet, either for the people who consume DI
services or those who want to provide them.