American Cinematographer - August 2015 - 75

would allow didn't mean we had to.
If we'd started in the HDR (PQ)
space, we would have been creating
effects with color and contrast that could
never be viewed on standard D-cinema
screens. Instead, we started grading in
traditional digital cinema space (P3), and
then we remapped the files to take
advantage of HDR - but that doesn't
mean we took the same image and just
made it brighter. Displayed in Dolby
Vision, the converted files resulted in
images that sometimes had highlights
that wildly overpowered the portion of
the frame Claudio wanted to draw the
audience's eyes toward. Also - and this
wasn't so much an issue in Tomorrowland, because the filmmakers didn't feel
the super-deep Dolby Vision blacks were
aesthetically right for that project - if a
cinematographer designed a shot to
maximize the deep shadow detail only
displayable in HDR, that information
would very likely disappear if those files
were simply remapped from the HDR
version to the P3 standard for D-cinema.
You can get the math perfect for the
"conversion," but that doesn't mean that
the cinematographer's intention is going
to come through on a different display
with different characteristics.
I've mastered a number of versions
of features specifically for stereoscopic
projection, such as Prometheus, directed
by Ridley Scott and shot by Dariusz
Wolski, ASC [AC July '12], and X-Men:
Days of Future Past, directed by Bryan
Singer and photographed by Newton
Thomas Sigel, ASC [AC July '14]. There,
too, the filmmakers gave a lot of consideration to the way the images would be
viewed at 14 foot-lamberts, at 4 (the
standard for stereoscopic projection) and,
in some cases, at 6 for select theaters
with brighter 3D projection systems.
A post house like Company 3 can
adjust the curve to constrain the image to
the dimmer projection system, but the
result isn't the same image at 4 footlamberts that you'd have at 14. It's close,
but a small, bright portion of the frame
that works beautifully at 14 might clip at
4. Objects that might stand out distinctly
from a dark background at 14 might
become muddy at 4. The relative bright-

ness on an actor's face versus the wall
behind him might draw the viewer's
attention in one display format but not
the other, even though the image data
was remapped "perfectly" for that
display.
It's impossible to overstate the
importance of the display component
and its impact on how images look and
feel. This is true not just when it comes to
mastering for different types of exhibition, but during principal photography,
too. Directors of photography frequently
will set looks on location, which is a great
way to communicate ideas to collabora-

"It's impossible to
overstate the
importance of the
display component
and its impact on
how images look
and feel."

tors on set and ensure that their vision
radiates through the editorial and screening process. However, it's never a good
idea to "bake in" any of these corrections. It's vastly preferable to have them
exist as metadata alongside the raw
image files as they go through color grading and the rest of the post pipeline to
final color for D-cinema - and possibly
other viewing formats that don't even
exist yet.
Most professional cameras
produce raw files and make use of an
expanded color gamut; you want to
preserve all of that image information.
Also, if you're looking at the material on
a monitor in Rec 709 space - which is
still the standard at the moment - you're
going to see some aspects of those
images differently when you put those
files up in a theater in P3 space. Somewww.theasc.com

thing that might look contrasty on the
monitor could read as flat in the theater;
colors that might look subtle on the
(perfectly calibrated) monitor might look
garish in the (perfectly calibrated) theater.
Even as monitor technology and
standards develop, and projection and
monitor standards evolve, the viewing
tools available on location are generally
not going to present images exactly as
they'll be seen in a projected environment. You can use algorithms to remap
the files to the monitor's display technology, but that monitor still can't make
colors it can't make. And even in the
event that the cinematographer can see
material displayed on location identically
to the way it will be seen in its initial
theatrical release, that still doesn't cover
him or her for all the various ways the
images may be shown in the future.
We're in a very exciting time where
people are watching motion-picture
content in innumerable ways. I recently
remastered Exodus: Gods and Kings [AC
Jan. '15] specifically for Samsung's very
bright UHD panel and Tomorrowland
specifically for Dolby Vision-enabled
home displays. To me, these additional
versions are aesthetically successful
because the filmmakers took the time
while working with me in the theater to
learn how to get the most out of each
unique display environment.
Stephen Nakamura, senior colorist
at Company 3 - a Deluxe Creative
Services Company - has done the final
grade on an extensive list of features,
including Tomorrowland, Exodus: Gods
and Kings, X-Men: Days of Future Past,
Prometheus, Oz the Great and Powerful
and Zero Dark Thirty.
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August 2015

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American Cinematographer - August 2015

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