By Elina Shatkin, September 13, 2003
Post Logic Studios, a full-service post-production company, announced it has completed the digital intermediate color process for "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over." Shot in full-color stereoscopic 3D by the ever-inventive Robert Rodriguez, "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over" is the first project to be done via Post Logic Cinema Digital in Post
Logic Studios' new 1500-square-foot digital/film projection theater, which opened in May. Final digital elements were assembled and delivered by the facility to support multiple distribution formats. Color timing of the movie's 3D digital cinema and 3D and 2D DVD releases was also done at Post Logic Studios by John Persichetti, Rodriguez's HD mastering colorist for the entire Spy Kids franchise and numerous other Rodriguez-directed productions.
At the front end of the process, HD footage arrived at Post Logic Studios from a CAMERON/PACE Reality Camera System, which Rodriguez used to capture left and right eye images simultaneously. Post Logic Studios also received additional media from the seven different vendors working on visual effects/green screen shots. Taking this material - and Rodriguez's EDL, Digital Imaging/iQ Artist Matt Johnson digitally assembled an online edit of the movie on Post Logic Studios' Quantel iQ workstation, saving separate left and right eye versions out to DVS. Persichetti then color graded each of these versions, using the da Vinci 2K Plus color corrector to work first with the left eye file (which is considered the "correct" eye because it is photographed straight on) and then to apply this same color correction pass to the right eye
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From there, the "stereo pairs" were married together as an anaglyph in the facility's discreet Inferno suite, where the cyan was essentially stripped out of a full-color left eye version while the red was removed from the full-color right eye file. Throughout, Persichetti was able to manipulate and view the media with Rodriguez, McNulty and others in Post Logic Studios' real-world projection environment, which features a 24x10-foot screen, DLP and 35 mm projectors and custom 5.1 surround audio.
"All but about 10 minutes of this 84-minute production is in 3D,"
Persichetti said. "We knew the color correction would be very touchy; too much manipulation of the colorimetry would diminish the 3D effect of the anaglyph. As a result, we balanced the density from shot to shot and utilized secondary color correction only on specific scenes where it enhanced the 3D. For example, all of the 'butterfly' shots were changed from blue to pink after discovering that pink produced a better 3D effect. Having all of the tools at our fingertips in Post Logic Studios' new theater was extremely helpful. We could look at things digitally, project film and, via a CRT monitor, even see what the material would look like for television viewers - all without having to go to another screening room."
The final digital element produced at Post Logic Studios was provided for use in filming out a 35 mm print of Spy Kids 3D: Game Over. Post Logic Studios also generated D5 masters from this file for 3D digital cinema exhibition and 2D and 3D DVD release versions. John Persichetti is currently working from Post Logic Studios's digital intermediate theater on the DVD release of Robert Rodriguez's next production, "Once Upon a Time in Mexico."
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