American Cinematographer - January 2009 - (Page 57)

picture detail independent of grain or noise and provide the filmmaker with broad control over how much grain or noise remains on the final images.” Lowry would get a FireWire drive from MPI that held 10-bit log 1920x1080 anamorphic DPX files that had been color-corrected, but not with the final grade. “The first step is to run the frames through our noise-reduction process so they are flicker-free, noise-free and artifactfree,” says Patrick Cooper, Lowry’s lead project director on Benjamin Button. “The next step is detail enhancement and the noise — or grain — addition. I enhance the images and put a nice, even amount of noise on the picture, and then the files are loaded back onto the FireWire drive and shipped back to MPI.” (The 2K scans of the 35mm material went through Lowry’s processing. At press time, the Sony F23 footage and select scenes shot with the Viper were not scheduled for processing.) Visual-effects plates needed a few extra steps. “The only thing different with the pre-composite effects shots is that I didn’t add any noise back into the image,” says Cooper. “That way, there was a sharpness target the compositors could match, and the noise-free imagery made it easier for them to do things like pull mattes. Once we go the shot back with the effects completed, we’d put an amount of noise on it equal to the noise in the surrounding shots.” Sharpening shots of the title character was treated more delicately. “If it’s a close-up or a shot of somebody with a lot of makeup, we want to be careful about how much we sharpen it,” notes Cooper. “I vary the enhancement on a shot-by-shot basis.” Sometimes, enhancement wasn’t applied at all. Mavromates notes, “There’s a love scene with Daisy and Benjamin when they’re in a warmly lit bed covered by mosquito netting, and we all agreed the look had a beautiful softness. That softness accented what’s going on in the scene, so we didn’t want to mess with it.” I TECHNICAL SPECS 2.40:1 High-Definition Video and 35mm (3-perf and 4-perf) Thomson GrassValley Viper; Sony CineAlta F23; Arri 435 Zeiss lenses Kodak Vision2 50D 5201, Vision3 500T 5219 Digital Intermediate Printed on Kodak Vision 2383 57 http://www.kinoflo.com http://www.kinoflo.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2008

American Cinematographer - January 2009 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes: Triangle of Need Production Slate: Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler Close Focus An Old Soul Brothers in Arms A Cut Above Post Focus: HPA Awards, Still Me New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: Robert C. Jessup, ASC Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Gabriel Beristain

American Cinematographer - January 2008

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