American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 86

Filmmakers’ Forum
I
The Importance of the Image Interchange Framework By Stephanie Argy In last month’s issue, we outlined the use of the Image Interchange Framework on the television series Justified (Production Slate, page 16). The IIF is a new, forward-thinking workflow architecture devised by a group of color scientists and industry experts working together under the auspices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to address the problems created by the industry’s adoption of digital tools for image capture. It defines the image characteristics of cameras, color-correction systems, output devices and other elements of the production pipeline so that maximum dynamic range and color information can be maintained through the entire production and post workflow. Justified is the first real-world use of the IIF. In this conversation, Ray Feeney, cochair of the Academy’s Science and Technology Council, and Curtis Clark, ASC, chairman of the ASC Technology Committee, delve deeper and explain the IIF’s importance to the industry. Ray Feeney: If you’re reading this magazine, you have an interest in images, so right now you need to be paying attention to the IIF. A lot of people think it’s only for the future. They say, ‘That IIF stuff is interesting, but it doesn’t relate to me right now. Why should I care? Why should I change?’ My experience is that colorists make the picture as good as they possibly can within current color-management workflow parameters. Then, from there, if they turn the dials left, right, up or down, it only gets worse, and they say, ‘Anything else I do to it makes it less good. I’m already making the picture as good as it can be. So why do I have a problem?’ What they don’t understand is that because of the system they have, ‘as good as it can be’ isn’t really as good as it can be. Curtis Clark, ASC: You’re using a color-management workflow that won’t let you achieve optimal results, and you’re throwing away vital pieces of your image data, including highlight and shadow detail, along with color bit depth. It’s like looking at a VistaVision image in an Academy format. The difference between a Rec 709 rendered implementation and an IIF-ACES implementation is so powerful that you cannot come away from the comparison of the two with any other conclusion than, ‘This is how I must work.’
86 April 2011

“You can shorten the amount of time it takes to do certain things because you're starting off from a better place.”

Feeney: When we deal with people one-on-one, we tell them, ‘Take something you’ve done that’s gone on the air, something that’s as good as you can get within your time and budget, and then take the source material behind that and bring it into IIF and spend just a couple minutes tweaking it. If you don’t like the IIF system better, we’ll be very surprised.’ Clark: You can shorten the amount of time it takes to do certain things because you’re starting off from a better place. It boils down to a simple question: How much time do you want to spend making creative decisions vs. doing fixes? Feeney: The problem is that we can’t do that one-on-one demonstration for everybody. When we make presentations to cinematographers, they go back to their trusted colorist and say, ‘I hear there’s this thing called IIF …,’ and the post facilities say, ‘Yeah, we know about it. When it’s ready, we’ll talk about it, but don’t worry your pretty little head about that.’ Clark: We’ve heard those comments even in the ASC Technology Committee: ‘It’s a science project.’ Feeney: Clients are often told, ‘You don’t need that.’ Clark: With Justified, we didn’t have any doubts about what the IIF-ACES would be able to achieve because of all the work we’d already put into it. A year and a half ago, the work in the Academy’s IIF groups had arrived at a level of maturity that created the consensus that the system was ready to be implemented in real-world trials. People needed to be confident that it’s ready for primetime. Feeney: We have said, ‘We’ve done all we can as a research group. We need facilities that are willing to try this and give us feedback.’ Clark: We set up several test beds, initially at Laser Pacific with Ron Burdett and Lou Levinson. We had a very enthusiastic reception using a Baselight color corrector and got valuable feedback that we brought back into the IIF working groups. Then, with Justified, we had the advantage of having already done successful test beds, so we knew how to rapidly deploy the system at Encore Hollywood. In addition to Pankaj Bajpai, Jennifer Tellefsen, Ada Anderson, Jay Bodnar and their excellent Encore team, we had tremendous support from Doug Walker at Autodesk for the Lustre, because that’s a key component, too — the actual implementation of the IIF architecture. Doug had been part of the initial committee from the very beginning; he’s a color

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American Cinematographer - April 2011

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