By Staff, January 25, 2007
FotoKem put the film Jackass Number Two through all three of its divisions-FotoKem Film & Video, FotoKem Nonlinear and Keep Me Posted-for its digital intermediate finish. The guerilla-style cinematography for the film required the combining of footage from a wide range of cameras, formats, aspect ratios, and frame rates into a seamless whole.
"We shot 35mm, super16, HD, DV, 30i, and HDV PAL," explains Cinematographer Dimitry Elyashkevich. "Camera technology was changing very fast and we took advantage of the different capabilities of a lot of different cameras. Probably eight different formats ended up in the final feature."
Elyashkevich relied primarily on the Panasonic DVX100 and the Sony MSW-900. Shooting the DVX100 at 24p made for an easy transition to film out. Many of the stunts and gags in the film, however, required hidden cameras that used standard-definition 30i DV. Elyashkevich also used the new high-definition Panasonic HVX200 P2, which shoots to a card instead of tape, taking advantage of the camera's variable speed capability
. For some night vision sequences, Elyashkevich used a PAL Sony HDV.
"We got incredible support from FotoKem to meld all these formats," notes Post Producer Volney Howard. "All the resources we needed were here. FotoKem used the Teranex system to convert the PAL HDV to 24p. We took the MXF files from the P2 card into an Avid Symphony at Keep Me Posted and transcoded them to HD D5 tape that we then digitized into the Avid Adrenaline HD at FotoKem Nonlinear. Some footage that was shot without lights became very grainy when brightened. FotoKem was able to de-speckle the footage and significantly reduce the grain."
Once all the format conversions had been made, editor Seth Casriel worked in multi-cam mode on the Avid Adrenaline HD. "We output our cut to D5 in standard definition for all the SD footage," said Casriel, "then made a second pass for all the HD footage and conformed both in the Quantel iQ."
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