Exploring Timing Technology

Don McAlpine and Matthew Libatique Use DI on Radically Different Budgets

Matthew Libatique (ASC) was putting the final strokes on Never Die Alone during a digital intermediate session with colorist Jill Bogdanowicz at Cinesite. On the same day last November, Don McAlpine (ASC, ACS) was adding painterly touches and timing Peter Pan for continuity with colorist Steve Scott at EFilm. Both cinematographers were catalysts in the decision to utilize digital-intermediate technology as an alternative to optical timing at a film lab. And the two were aiming to get results on very different budgets — Peter Pan is a studio blockbuster that was released on thousands of screens on Christmas Day. Never Die Alone is an independent feature produced in Super 16, slated for a March release in anamorphic format.

The evolution of digital intermediate technology is accelerating in filmmaking, both as a creative tool and as a practical interface for bringing motion pictures to cinema screens. "You have more creative flexibility, because it’s an interactive process," says Libatique (Gothika, Tigerland, Requiem for a Dream, Pi). "The images are projected on a big screen. You can ask the colorist to isolate a face or anything else. You can alter colors, contrast and other details, immediately see the results, and keep going until you’re satisfied. There’s a scene [in Never Die Alone ] that we filmed in a bar in blue fluorescent light. When we were timing, I asked Jill to crank the color saturation and crush the shadows until something in the frame fell into complete darkness."

It wasn’t a new concept for Libatique, who has been shooting commercials that have been converted to digital format for timing in digital suites for years. He also supervised the digital timing of Josie And The Pussycats in 2001 and sequences in Gothika, both at Cinesite.

Libatique explains he was fine-tuning the environment to help set the mood for a dramatic scene, and he decided to briefly conceal an element to enhance the story. Never Die Alone is a dark, contemporary drama based on a novel by Donald Goines. Ernest R. Dickerson, ASC, directed the film. It was produced in Super 16 at practical locations in the Los Angeles area on an ambitious 19-day schedule and for a budget of about $3 million.

Libatique suggested shooting in Super 16, partly to make hand-holding the camera more convenient. "With handheld, there’s a sense of immediacy, and it gets closer to characters," he explains. "There is no way a camera on a dolly or crane can get the same effect. Everything about handheld shots is instinctual and motivated by the characters. I feel connected to them in a different way. There’s something about it that speaks to the audience."

Libatique covered the action with two Arri SR3 cameras, generally with prime lenses, and mainly in available light. The cameras were positioned to cover scenes from different perspectives from 45 to 180 degrees apart. Sometimes artificial light was limited to a handheld China ball operated during a take to mimic different light sources. The filmmakers decided to frame at a 2.4:1 aspect ratio because they felt it was more cinematic, and because the wider frame provided more room to play with composition.

" Ernest [ Dickerson ] really has a good sense of how to use negative space," Libatique observes. "We used it like a character. On close-ups you can see the background on either side of the character’s head, which helps to establish the setting."

The story is set in the present day, as one character’s life is deteriorating. The filmmakers wanted to create a very grainy look. Libatique recorded these scenes on the 500-speed Kodak Vision 7279 film, which he pushed to an exposure index of 1200. That rendered a grainier look with distinctive color separation. Libatique recorded flashback sequences on the new 500-speed Kodak Vision2 7218 film, which resulted in a cleaner look with less disparity in the rendition of color temperatures. He believes audiences intuitively understand these types of visual clues.

The Super 16 negative was scanned with a Thomson Spirit Datacine, and the timed digital files were recorded onto 35mm color intermediate film in anamorphic format. Libatique notes that the digital-intermediate process bypasses the need to make an optical blow-up from the cut Super 16 negative, resulting in higher-quality 35mm prints.

Bigger Scale, Bigger Budget DI

The latest Peter Pan iteration is a co-production involving Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Revolution Studios and Warner Roadshow Studios. The film was produced over a nine-month span on some 40 major sets built on eight soundstages at the Warner Roadshow Complex in Queensland, Australia.

McAlpine says that he and director P.J. Hogan ( My Best Friend’s Wedding, Muriel’s Wedding) made an easy decision to film Peter Pan in 35mm anamorphic format because the story required a cinematic aura. He points out that anamorphic lenses provide more flexibility for controlling layers of focus on different planes. That was no small matter in a story like Peter Pan, which frequently has many characters interacting on large sets.

The cinematographer estimates that he exposed some two million feet of 35mm film, shooting about 90 percent of the time with a single Panaflex Millennium or XR camera. Hundreds of visual-effects shots were created by ILM, ranging from CG backgrounds for scenes filmed on the pirate ship to wire removal when Peter Pan and Wendy are flying and composite shots, including many where the tiny Tinker Bell is inserted into sequences.

The edited film was scanned and converted to digital files at 4K with a Northlight scanner with pin registration, to lock each frame into place. Scott believes that 4K is essential to capture nuances in colors, textures, contrast and other characteristics of the images recorded on the negative.

"We believe this gives you a much truer representation of the images and avoids such artifacts as banding in the blacks or subtly graduated areas, and aliasing that is noticeable at lower resolutions, such as the fine grill work on cars," Scott says.

He notes that 4K scanning gave McAlpine the full scope of colors and luminance recorded on the negative, including subtle details in highlight and shadow areas. Those nuances in the images were retained when the files were downresed to 2K to facilitate interactive timing when the cinematographer was in the suite.

" Steve Scott approached Peter Pan as an artist," McAlpine says. "He contributed considerably to the result seen on the screen. There is a big fight scene on the pirate ship at the end, where Wendy is captured and is about to walk the plank. This sequence stretches over 15 minutes of action with five massive color changes, beginning with a golden sky in late afternoon and blending to shades of red and then blue as it gets later. We blended two colors in each transition. That was something you could never do in a lab."

McAlpine provided the colorist with two visual references. One was a work print of the film, which the cinematographer timed optically at Technicolor. He also had digital stills documenting every lighting setup. McAlpine had used Photoshop to manipulate the stills as a reference for Hogan and a guide for the dailies timer. After about a week, he and Scott were totally in tune.

"The digital projector used for timing doesn’t exactly show you what the final film will look like," McAlpine says. "The highlights are close, but you don’t get real black tones. It wasn’t a problem, because we saw the work print, and recorded film outs of scenes we timed as kind of a proof of concept."

EFilm used Arri Laser film recorders to faithfully fully convert digital image files back out to color intermediate film.

McAlpine describes a scene staged in a teepee with Princess Tiger Lily and Wendy’s brother, John. The boy’s face in the foreground was a little too deep into the shadows, which concealed his expressions as he reacted to Prince Tiger Lily’s antics. He told Scott to put a window around the boy’s face and brighten it up just a bit.

"The shot, dramatically, is far more effective," says McAlpine. "There were many times when I had to compromise lighting while we were shooting, because much of the time we were filming children, and P.J. [ Hogan ] wanted the freedom to work with them spontaneously. He’d rehearse, play with the kids, and then tell us to roll camera. We never knew exactly what was going to happen, and didn’t want to stop for retakes."

McAlpine likens the retouching he did at EFilm to putting the final touches on still photograph prints in a darkroom. The cinematographer recalls that in 1987 he shot the film Predator, which included many computer-generated images.

"It was clear to me that computers were going to be an important part of the future," he says. "That’s when I began experimenting with Photoshop. I’ve become reasonably computer-literate. I think of the computer as another brush in my palette."

Libatique says he spent approximately five days at Cinesite, and McAlpine estimates that timing Peter Pan for cinema, high-definition television and DVD releases required about 15 days of his time at EFilm.

Both cinematographers say that the timing they did for the cinema releases brought them about 80 to 90 percent of the way toward putting the finishing touches on the masters for DVD and other video formats. In addition to saving time, Libatique stresses that it ensures the integrity of his intentions for the images.