American Cinematographer - February 2011 - 64

Post Focus
Right: Jerry O’Connell (left) and Jim Belushi star in the CBS series The Defenders, shot by Alan Caso, ASC. The series’ dailies and final color-correction workflows are handled by MTI Film’s Hollywood facility. Below: One of MTI Film’s colorgrading bays.

MTI Film’s Control Dailies Simplifies TV Post By Simon Wakelin

Known for its contributions to digital film restoration since 1997, MTI Film expanded its services last year with a move into a new Hollywood facility, and now manages dailies workflows and final color correction for television series that include TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles, shot by Anthony Hardwick, and CBS’s The Defenders, shot by Alan Caso, ASC. MTI Film’s Correct DRS (Digital Restoration System), which removes dust, scratches, chemical stains, warps and other anomalies, has become a popular tool in film-restoration projects around the world. The company subsequently developed Control Dailies to streamline digital-dailies and film-dailies processing; the system handles every step of the dailies workflow beginning with acquisition and including data management, image ingest, audio ingest, audioimage synchronization, primary color correction, deliverables configuration, tape layoff and digital-file output. The Control Dailies color
64 February 2011

correction is ASC-CDL compliant and can be carried through the editorial process on Avid or Final Cut Pro. Control Dailies sits at the heart of MTI Film’s television work, and has proven a crucial component of both Rizzoli & Isles and The Defenders. On the latter, Caso has been shooting mainly with Sony F35 cameras, recording to Sony SRW-1 portable recorders; he also mixes footage shot on Sony XDCam PMW-EX3s and Canon EOS 7Ds. With Control Dailies, the multiple formats are seamlessly intermixed in the dailies pipeline in a single codec, eliminating the need for different workflows for each type of source footage. Working with MTI Film senior colorist Steven Porter, Caso’s goal is a vibrant look befitting The Defenders’ subject: high-powered lawyers in Las Vegas. “I’m using a lot of color to create a very glossy look, which we decided would be perfect for a show about slick, powerful lawyers in Vegas,” the cinematographer explains. “The ability to pipe all the different media from each camera into the same stream was a big attraction at MTI.” “Control Dailies is possibly the simplest and most elegant solution for the F35 today,” says Ethan Philips, the digital-imaging technician on The Defenders. “I’ve worked with many different systems, but none match its speed and efficiency. Color correction renders really fast, and I also like that the system is hub-and-spoke, meaning everyone from the colorist to the effects crew can have access to the material at the same time.” Hardwick shoots Rizzoli & Isles with Red One M-X cameras. He lights the show by meter and by eye and then checks the image on set through a look-up table before looking at the camera’s raw stream to gauge how much detail exists in shadow areas. “When we started shooting, I noticed I needed more fill to achieve the look I was going for than I typically would with film or other digital systems —

American Cinematographer

The Defenders image courtesy of CBS. MTI Film photo courtesy of MTI Film.

American Cinematographer - February 2011

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