Post Workflow on Gone Baby Gone

Ben Affleck Scores HDCAM Dailies, DNxHD Editorial, and a 2K DI

Too often, the post workflow is the last thing on a first-time director's mind — nothing can throw a monkey wrench into a filmmaker's best-laid plans like bad decisions that add expense or compromise quality. But for Ben Affleck, making his directorial debut with Gone Baby Gone, post was just another opportunity to get his hands dirty.

Eager to start working on his edit as soon as production wrapped, Affleck quickly balked at highly compressed SD Avid imagery. The team at Runway in Culver City re-engineered an HD editorial workflow for him, using Avid's DNxHD 175 codec, after the SD editorial process had already started. And, determined to make cinematographer John Toll's images the best they could possibly be on movie-theater screens, Affleck successfully lobbied for a 2K DI at Modern VideoFilm, which provided HDCAM SR digital dailies during production and had guided him through various workflow options.

Everyone F&V spoke to about the post process lauded Affleck's level of technical knowledge and his commitment to keeping the quality high at every step of the process.

Read about how Modern VideoFilm VP of Sales Marcie Jastrow, iQ artist Roger Berger, and colorist Skip Kimball tackled different segments of the job.

Then, read a Q&A with Daniel McGilvray, senior systems engineer and tech department supervisor at Runway, for the details on the HD editorial pipeline.