When Rose, the terminally ill female assassin (Helen Mirren) in
Shadowboxer plans out one last final hit, she
enlists the help of her lover/stepson (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Making his
directorial debut, Lee Daniels (producer on Monster's
Ball) turned to Philadelphia-based Shooters Post &
Transfer to handle the visual effects, compositing, title sequence and
digital intermediate process.
Effects work on this thriller involved making the violence more
visceral, and Shooters added blood and smoke to complement the on-set
effects. Using Flame and After Effects they animated blood trickling
down a victim’s head, as well as creating realistic brain matter. The
final touch was adding dripping blood to the scene, for which Shooters
shot fake blood drops against green screen and composited them.
Shooters also added puffs of smoke to gun shots and enhanced the
feeling of cold weather by giving the actors ‘cold breath.’
Additionally, Shooters created a title sequence but culling footage
from the movie and creating a layered montage.
Then Shooters set out to get the most out of the footage in the DI
process, beginning with 'flat scans' of the 35mm film negative on the
Thomson Spirit telecine (1920x1080 resolution, 4:4:4 color space),
which was then output as full-bandwidth log files onto Sony HDCAM SR
videotape. In order to ensure accurate color representation in the
final film, Shooters used Kodak’s Telecine Calibration System 102V in
conjunction with the Spirit.
“Using the TCS box and flat scanning the 35mm footage allowed us to
preserve the dynamic range of the negative and maintain it all the way
through the editorial, effects and color correction without any losing
any color or resolution information,” notes Mark Farkas, director of
post production.
Colorist Janet Falcon, worked with the film’s cinematographer David Mullen to enhance the film’s vibrant, bold look.
The final conform was handled via Discreet Fire and Flame, which are
tied together by Discreet Stone Fibre disk drives. Using Discreet
Backdraft, Shooters was able to play the footage out to the da Vinci 2K
Plus for tape-to-tape color correction.
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