“Do what?…. grade a movie in 3 days!”
This was what I replied to Stephan Surya Colorist at 3Di Jakarta when he asked me to grade their latest movie project “Safana”. I continued “You just cannot do a film justice in 3 days. What I can do though is set the key looks of the film with the director then let you balance the rest of the film based on my looks.” He hadn’t really thought of this option, he had a limited budget and having me around for the whole project would have been unproductive. He went back to the management then phoned me the next day and said, “Next time you are in Singapore, will you consider flying to Jakarta for 3 days to help us?” I agreed, seeing it as a chance to experience some of the city and help Stephan by being a sort of 3 day “colorist mentor.”
At the beginning of May I was at Media Village, in Singapore running an ICA class. When the class was finished I extended my Australian return ticket and hopped on a flight to Jakarta.
Jakarta is the 10th biggest city in the world, and as soon as you land you know you are in the heart of Asia. People doing all kinds of different things everywhere you looked. 3di is in Kemang, the hub of the post production industry in Jakarta. The town has very small streets, lots of hustle and bustle and huge traffic chaos which all lends to its charm.
We started by viewing the film out test of the trailer. The guys had gone up to Bangkok to do film out tests on the Cinevator and the Arrilaser, so we headed over to the local lab to view the results. Sandy from Inter Studio not only showed us the prints but also gave us the royal tour, a very traditional lab that hadn’t changed too much since it opened in 1976. The studio was filled with great Steenbecks, projectors and a Colormaster for grading. They were still using a typewriter for the film can labels!
The director of “Safana”, Hornady Setiawan, and Stephan both liked the results of the trailer tests so I took the decision not to change anything with their workflow, just add a decent grade. Film projection is still the priority and the main source of revenue in Indonesia with very little Digital Cinema and because of piracy, virtually no DVD sales.
The movie was already loaded on the Resolve at 3Di. I hadn’t used the older 2K panels for a while, but once we got into the session I quickly familiarized myself with the controls. We were viewing our grade on the Cinetal monitor set to REC709 Col Space with no LUT applied either in the monitor or in the Resolve. Not ideal for grading a movie , but I felt that we could achieve some good results even allowing for the monitor and lack of LUT calibration. I had already seen an early offline cut on DVD so knew the story, so was now looking for technical and potential grading issues. The film had been shot on the Sony XDCAM F350 camera, and my initial impressions were very good. I was surprised by the lack of noise when I had to push the images. The Resolve soft white clip control came in very handy to roll of the hot highlights. My plan was to set the key look for each scene and let Stephan fill in the gaps. I expanded this to include the wide shot plus each close up, then left the rest of the scene ungraded. The first scene was one of the hardest to grade as it was a dark rainy night where the key character escapes from the bad guys. It was very difficult to judge where to place the black level. The filmout tests had looked ok on the same scenes so I decided to go with a similar look, although it was very dark and there wasn’t much detail on the Cinetal monitor. The first scenes are always extremely instrumental as it is important to build a good impression of the film, so I spent a large part of my first day working on the beginning of reel 1.
As the story warmed, portraying a young girls relationship with her Grandfather, I introduced more color as the relationship grew. The biggest challenge occurred during a rainy dusk scene where 3 shots where edited together from visibly different takes in which the light was fading fast. I managed to get a good balance taking the first shot down a little and the last shot up a lot to match the middle. Sometimes you have to take the edge of a fantastic looking shot to aid the match to a slightly underexposed or a shot taken from a different day or scene. I try not to do this as I prefer getting the best out of each shot first, then maybe having to dynamically change the grade towards the end of the shot so it blends better with the next shot.
I continued grading the hero shots from each scene. Discussing with Hornady what was happening in the film, as I don’t speak Indonesian so sometimes needed a little insight into what was going on, and how we could relate that to our grade. In all cases if I set a look on a wide shot I would always try it on a couple of close ups to judge whether it would work for the entire scene. (A tip to all Colorists, you can create the funkiest grade on a wide but if it doesn’t match correctly with the actors or close ups you have wasted your time. Matching is very important and takes time and practice to perfect.)
By the end of day two, I had been through all 6 reels, but really needed a 3rd day to check the looks with the rest of the team. We ran through everything and tweeked a few scenes before locking off on the first part of the grade. Stephan now had the task of matching my grades across the rest of the film.
As a freelance Colorist things are not always as you would like them.
It’s not an ideal way to work only having 3 days, not having a calibrated projector or the chance to do a couple of my own film out tests. Having said that I think the Colorist partnership worked well as we got the film finished within budget and hopefully Stephan benefited from his time with me.
http://www.safanathemovie.com/blog
http://www.3di-post.com
www.warreneagles.com.au
www.vimeo.com/icolorist
www.icolorist.com
