November 24, 2009
AJA Video Systems' KONA 3 cards were used by the Where the Wild Things Are editorial team to build efficiencies into their digital production and post workflow. The I/O cards were used to digitize dailies from the set and facilitate screenings. Where the Wild Things Are is an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book of the same name. The Spike Jonze-directed film opened on Oct. 16.
The film was edited by longtime Jonze collaborator Eric Zumbrunnen and James Haygood. First assistant editor Steve Bobertz and associate editor Erik Jessen were integral to developing the film's digital workflow. The team worked closely with DigitalFilm Tree in Hollywood to build the systems and digital pipeline for the film.
The Wild Things team used KONA 3 during principal photography in Australia to digitize dailies from set. "We shot and digitized at true 24, not 23.98, and our audio was 48kHz. The KONA 3 card helped us get great looking dailies," says Zumbrunnen.
The team also used the AJA I/O cards to facilitate screenings. "The KONA 3 was invaluable in laying out to HDCAM for screenings. We initially tried screening off of drives, but we didn't have time to deal with any potential technical glitches, so we played back to HDCAM, using the KONA to upconvert from 720 to 1080, and it looked great," explains Jessen.
"We were using Final Cut and we had true 24-frame QuickTimes that we would render out. We put those into a 23.98 sequence and were able to set that up to go to our HDCAM deck and play back with great accuracy. There really wasn't much else needed other than a computer with the KONA card. Then you run a cable to the deck—pretty simple," adds Bobertz.
"We had enough confidence in the KONA card to allow the director and editor to work as late as they could, even if we couldn't begin rendering and laying back to tape until 2 or 3 in the morning. It was great to know that at the end of the day, when we were ready to lay off the tape for the screening, we wouldn't run into any problems or technical glitches. The performance of the KONA 3 card was always very reliable," concludes Jessen.
Steve Bobertz and Erik Jessen have deployed AJA KONA cards in previous digital workflows. Jessen used them for ingest on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Bobertz also used KONA cards as key components of the editorial pipelines on the movies Reno 911: Miami and Balls of Fury.
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