November 15, 2005
The finishing touches of Warner Bros.' Duma were completed during digital intermediate timing sessions with Director Carroll Ballard at LaserPacific in Hollywood. Duma is an adventure story that revolves around the relationship between a boy and an orphaned cheetah rescued in the wilds of Africa.
"It's a wonderful story with a lot of heart and beautiful cinematography," says LaserPacific senior colorist Mike Sowa. "We turned day into night and created sunrises and sunsets in the jungle. There are also numerous visual effects shots. It's in this setting that the tools of the digital intermediate really give the creative team extra ammunition."
"We filmed it in South Africa at locations I had scouted for another picture about 20 years ago," Ballard explains. "The landscape had not changed all that much. Duma's cinematographer, Werner Maritz, has a great eye and powerful visual sensibilities. Our decision to shoot day-for-night was motivated by our decision to not carry a lot of lights into the wilderness, but much of the story takes place during the night. The digital intermediate was Werner's idea. We shot tests and experimented with darkening the sky. After I saw the tests, I was amazed by the flexibility we had and how good it looked."
After the film was cut by Editor Tom Christopher, the digital intermediate process began at LaserPacific. The conformed negative was scanned at 4K resolution, optimized for digital intermediate workflow at 2K. Sowa explains that scanning images at the higher 4K resolution ensures that nuances in contrast and colors recorded on the original negative are retained through the conversion process. Ballard supervised the color grading sessions at the digital timing theater at LaserPacific, where images were displayed through a Christie 2K digital projector on a 33x13-foot screen.
"I watched the movie with Carroll to get a sense of where he wanted to go," Sowa says. "Then we'd watch one scene at a time and I'd get his feedback. The night sky looked very blue. Carroll asked me to bring the blue tones down and make the sky look silvery. We made late afternoon shots leading into nightfall darker and a bit warmer, giving them the feeling of the golden hour, and we timed scenes where night fades into dawn. Everybody perceives that look differently. Carroll wanted the shadows very cool. In scenes that take place as twilight progresses toward sunrise, we used Power Windows to make the shadows warmer and a little brighter, with a slight pink magenta tone on the horizon. These tools allow filmmakers like Carroll creative latitude that is sometimes taken away from them during the pressures of production."
In addition to fine-tuning the dawn, dusk and night skies and timing the film for shot-to-shot consistency, Ballard and Sowa integrated visual effects images into the movie.
Sowa selected segments of different DI shots every day and recorded them out onto 35mm color intermediate film to evaluate the film recording process. Ballard and Sowa began each day by screening the print and discussing any adjustments the director wanted in the DI files. Ballard says that this method gave him a truer picture of how the DI files translated to print film. He says the film images have denser black tones and slightly richer colors.
"It was a fabulous experience," Ballard concludes. "It blew my mind how much control you have. It helped a lot that Mike and I have similar views about how things should look. It's going to take a bludgeon to get a film camera out of my hands, but I believe that shooting film and going through the DI process is the best of both worlds."
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