Scanning Film for VFX

[nobbystylus]

Hi

I'm about to do some VFX work on a feature film, shot on 2 and 3 perf 35 mm film, shot with a 2:35 aspect ratio and i'm looking to establish a good workflow for getting scanned footage to work with. I'll be working in After Effects and Cinema 4D and i'm assuming that i'll be working at 2K resolution. Anybody got any good hints on issues i might discover, such as best file format (DPX files, Cineon, pro res 4444?), whether i need to worry about colour profiles to match stock, working in 32bit HDR etc? I'm very experienced working in advertising, titles etc, but this is my first feature film so any tips would be great. I'm working along side an offline editor who is cutting in Avid Media Composer, and we're also wondering whether i'd need graded shots before i start my VFX work.

Any hints or good places to look would be great.

Thanks

 

[oneinfiniteloop]

You'd only need DPX/Cineon if you were planning on going back to film on output, i.e. a print for theatrical viewing. Like all things regarding the moving image, you work towards your final output and that dictates everything before that. If you're going to finish to Blu-Ray/DVD/HDCAM/any other HD flavor then ProRes 4444 should be enough. There are some benefits to working with DPX, but you need to understand the log/linear workflow to work effectively with that type of file.

 

[nobbystylus]

Thanks for the answer. Yes eventually this will go back out to film so i'll need to work in DPX/Cineon. From my understanding CS5 (after effects) now understands DPX files natively, but i'll have to look into colour profiles with regards to the film stock etc. I've studied up on Log and Lin to a certain extent but any advice on working with Log files in After Effects would be great.

 

[oneinfiniteloop]

Working with log files in AE is easy, just add the Cineon Converter to them and work in linear as usual then output in Log (by using the cineon converter back to log) per whatever the film recorder/output house requires.