American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 78

Post Focus

Left: Red Riding Hood’s magical world was finessed in the digital intermediate at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging. Above: Cinematographer Mandy Walker, ACS (right) checks the light on set.

Warner Bros. MPI Facilitates Fast Finish for Red Riding Hood By Michael Goldman

Color is not only in the title but also at the core of Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, and the director worked with the film’s cinematographer, Mandy Walker, ACS, and colorist, Maxine Gervais of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging, to achieve what she had in mind. Hardwicke suggests the trio’s close collaboration was particularly crucial in light of the picture’s short schedule: 43 days of principal photography and 10 weeks’ less post time than originally planned. “We were supposed to have 31 weeks [for post], but that was shortened to 21 after Warner Bros. secured a great release date in March,” says Hardwicke. “It was handy to do the color timing on the lot, where everyone else was. I had never worked with Maxine before, and she’s a real artist. You barely give her an idea, and she’s quickly making a cool little matte and tracking it. She’s a real rock star on that console, and that’s what Mandy and I needed to get what we wanted on our schedule.” When they spoke to AC (in separate interviews), the team was still putting the finishing touches on the picture. All three emphasized their intent to create a magical world in which the titular heroine (played by Amanda Seyfried) encounters dark forces and enjoys a passionate love affair in a mysterious forest. “It’s definitely not a horror film,” says Walker. “It’s a thriller and romance [wrapped] in a fairytale. Our forest scenes are magical,
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with lots of shafts of light, lots of color and lots of atmosphere.” Hardwicke, a former production designer, based the look on reams of designs, pictures and drawings from medieval times to the present, and had long talks with Walker about the colors she had in mind. Walker, who shot on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 and 250D 5207, jokes that the two of them turned to Gervais “to sprinkle fairy dust on top of some of our images. Maxine was really able to compliment what we did in-camera and also push a bit further things we couldn’t achieve fully in-camera, such as giving the skies stronger contrast and color, and doing some beauty touch-ups.” Gervais was involved earlier than usual on the production, working on various tests and timing several preview screenings herself. “That helped because we could really put the filmmakers’ vision into the previews,” notes Gervais. “Many previews come straight out of the Avid, but in this case, we did intricate, full-on digital grades. We’d take an HD DNx 115 output [from Avid] to HDCamSR tape, ingest that tape into [the Filmlight Baselight 4.2 colorcorrection system], scene-detect it to break it into cuts, and time it in Rec 709. We timed the previews as if they were the final DI, except for the fact that it was compressed HD. “Because of that, by the time we finally scanned the negative to start final color correction, I already had a strong direction from the filmmakers and could go through the first pass before Mandy and Catherine came in to do final tweaks,” she continues. “Then we could spend the rest of the time refining it. This enabled us to bring it all home in crunch time with our tight schedule.” “Color is very important in this film, especially with the art

American Cinematographer

Photos by Kimberly French, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

American Cinematographer - April 2011

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