American Cinematographer - March 1993 - 16

compiled by Marji Rhea
DCT in Great White North
Gastown Post & Transfer has

announced their

acquisition of an Ampex
Digital Component Technology (DCT) video
postproduction system, the first of its kind
in Canada.

The new system will tie together
Gastown's existing network of digital ser¬

vices, and provide a fully digital online ed¬
iting environment to put digital post within
reach of a wider base of clients.
The greatest

benefit of DCT in

video postproduction is the transparency of
the process. While traditional analog pro¬

cessing invariably degrades the video im¬
age, DCT's digital processing is virtually
transparent, giving producers a finished
product as pure as their original.
The new DCT system will include
the DCT digital component switcher, the
DCT 500a digital component ADO, four DCT
700D digita I component tape drives and two
D75 Betacam SP tape drives with digital
output. The new suite is scheduled to come
online in April.
For information: Gastown Post &

Transfer, 50 West 2nd Avenue, Vancouver,
BC, Phone (604) 872-7000.
CIS Meets the Muppets
CIS recently finished digital com¬

posites for Jim Plenson Productions'feature
The Muppet Christmas Carol. Originally
assigned eleven shots, the company was
later asked to do 50 digitally composited/
electronically painted shots for the movie.
Most of the shots involved combining
Scrooge (played by Michael Caine) with
animated characters who played the vari¬
ous ghosts, one of which, the fairy-like
Ghost of Christmas Past, was given a trans¬
lucent quality by shooting in oil at high
speed, then compositing at various levels
until the appropriate ghostly effect was
achieved.

screen

and matted onto

an

empty

frozen pond by distorting and inverting
surface to give a reflective quality.
For information: Composite

the

Im¬
age Systems, 1144 N. Las Palmas Ave.,
Hollywood, CA 90038, Phone (213) 4638811, Fax (213) 962-1859.
Post Facility
VideoWorks

Infested
recently posted
Joe's Apartment, a short form pilot for MTV
about a young man whose flat is invaded
by cockroaches. The show features a mix¬
ture of live cockroach effects and

stop-mo¬

ferent exposures,
so I had to kind of
cheat and chroma¬

Michael Caine, as
Ebenezer Scrooge,

key in the hand,

Past,

Ghost of Christmas

with," he adds.
For information: Videoworks, 24
West 40th St., New York, NY 10018. Phone

(212)869-2500.

tion animation directed

by Bill Wright, us¬
ing real cockroaches that have been killed,
gutted, stuffed and animated frame by

frame.
One tricky shot animated by
Wright and assembled in post by editor
Gary Belcher, in which a cockroach offers a
female guest a snack, was shot in three
stages, explains Belcher. "First there's a
stop-action of the roach extending a pret¬
zel nugget in the air. Then a hand comes in

Dog Food, Planet Blue Style
Planet Blue recently posted a
spot for Kibbles 'n Bits that required green
screens of five different dogs to be
composited together. Fifteen hundred feet
of film was transferred, pin registered, on
the digital Rank Ursa by senior colorist Mark
Griffith. "Aside from shots in the studio and
on location of exteriors, alleys, and green

elements," he explains, "there was
35mm still negative of the product
shot we threaded onto the Rank and color

screen

and pulls it away from the roach, then the
roach goes back down behind the bowl. The

also

problem was that all three were shot at dif¬

corrected. To make

American

March 1993

Cinematographer

encounters the

as designed by
CIS of Hollywood.
then sneak a dis¬
solve in between
the two different ro i shots. That was a
little hairy.
"It was fun working with that
kind of footage. The roaches were hysteri¬
cal and we had a great soundtrack to work

provided a shot of skat¬
ing penguins: operator Don Lee combined
a number of the birds, which were shot on

CIS also

14

blue

street area. He made the street resemble a

a

sure we

could

accom-
American Cinematographer - March 1993

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - March 1993
