[HELP WANTED] Looking for quality ROTO service.

[Björn Benckert]

I have some underwater shot diving dogs I need to have keys for. Need high quality mattes in short time. So I was thinking to contact some large / quick place in India. Any recommendations?

Heard of prime focus and some others but I forgot the names. Google gives several hits but to hard to judge where I find the good guys... So I turned to reduser, as always

thanx in advance.

 

[Marcello Altieri]

How long are the shots? And how many? I could help you out ;-)

 

[Björn Benckert]

Thank you MArcello, But I now got in contact with 3D Services India, they replied to my inquiry really quick and had a really good price. And they already started to download the files. Hopefully they will have it done when I wake up tomorrow. It's 984 frames in total, so it should be possible if they got a lot of people.

 

[jimhare]

Björn, would be great if you could tell us your experience after the smoke clears. How easy it was to make the payment, value for money, your overall experience etc.

Would love to read about it.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Really whished I had the dragon last week. Even though our epic MX holds up amazingly I can't help thinking of how this would look with the new sensor stuff. DOP Eric Börjeson, lens duclos tokina 11-16mm, 5k FF, backplate for the commercial shot at Sodowana bay north of Durban South Africa. We where there shooting for 4 days and then one day in blue screen pool down in Capetown. Both with quite critical conditions, storms and so on. Still the pictures look amazing. I was diving here and I can tell you the reef looks nothing like this, in comparison the reff looks like a low contrast almost black and white image. So under water the MX sees far more than I do with my own eyes... So please Jared, just let the dragon out, I do not care if you are not completely finnished with the color science and what not. I really just want more of this red smack it amazes me.

http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/A005_C002_0826SL.0000023.jpg

click link to see full image, this picture in 5600k 800asa and redgamma3, redcolor3 default values looks like a bluetinted black and white photo, it's shot quite deep down and in mercury water... when pulliing the colors around... you realize that it's a lot more in there. Nuts amount of colors. and all of a sudden int almost looks like the reef is taken out of the water. Thats pure RAW love

 

[Michael Romano]

Its interesting you turned to Indian low cost labor for a solution. I have yet to have been placed into a situation where outsourcing was a requirement to deliver. Can I ask why you went that route (aside from cost) and your thoughts on it? It has long been my feeling that it dilutes the ability for people in my country (USA) to make a living doing the same tasks and as such, I prefer to avoid any outsourcing. I'm not looking to poke eyeballs out, just looking for some insight because, whether we like it or not, this practice effects how things get done in production and the state of work in the future.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Its interesting you turned to Indian low cost labor for a solution. I have yet to have been placed into a situation where outsourcing was a requirement to deliver. Can I ask why you went that route (aside from cost) and your thoughts on it? It has long been my feeling that it dilutes the ability for people in my country (USA) to make a living doing the same tasks and as such, I prefer to avoid any outsourcing. I'm not looking to poke eyeballs out, just looking for some insight because, whether we like it or not, this practice effects how things get done in production and the state of work in the future.

It's an interesting subject, I actually do agree with you to some extend and I would much rather keep the work inhouse and I do not think a little bit of protectionism and patriotism is necessarily a bad thing. But I also believe in a free market where supply and demand sets the rules. If I had it my way taxes in sweden would be far lower, as it is now we have the highest taxes for labour on the planet (second to Denmark). To me thats not good, I vote against it, not only with my vote but also how I do my business.

Flying all around the planet to shoot indoors in SA because it cost less due to taxes than shooting in the same thing here in Stockholm, does not feel right. But what do you do, say no thanks and risk to loose the project or take the trip to Africa. For me thats simple, I take the trip.

So it is about costs. If I would get this matte painting work done here in sweden it would cost me 20k USD. I actually by mistake also sent a inquiry for this particular job to a US company (I though I sent it to their Indian office) and the US price was to my surprise actually higher, 23k USD. But the company also told me that they could not do it within the given timeframe. Now as I get the job done in India I pay 2k USD and they say they will deliver on time and they do it up to spec (I already received several shots and they look great). So it's not so difficult to do the calculation, the difference in price is 18k USD, and for some thats not much, some might even say that it's a low price to pay to keep the work within your company or country. But for me personally, call me short thinking, those 18k USD can be used for something else. For me a Dragon upgrade comes to mind and maybe a scarlet on the side...

Also I think I done my share of splining mattes. I been on Flame for 16 years and probably done more splines than there is people in India and I'm not really interested in setting up a shop that does that kind of work as I'm far to busy with things that I find more interesting and I can not really say that I'm totally against outsourcing since pretty much all my work is coming from people in other countries that does just that. They come to me because they believe I can deliver something that's better than what they can get at home. So I guess the ball goes around and funny as it is, less than a few weeks back I worked on an Indian production...

 

[Michael Romano]

Thats a really good take on the state of it. The biggest point for me would have been the delivery to spec and on time - The service has to at least provide that much.

Don't confuse though: In no way do I feel that the budget savings are minor - No matter how much you have, a dollar is a dollar (Or Pound, Euro or Yen) and you should make it go as far as you can.

I also do a lot of work for foreign companies (Particularly Japanese - To which *I* am the low cost labor here in the USA) and I appreciate their business. The difference is the location production work I perform can't be done back in Japan for geographical reasons.

I think at this point I'm just a little saddened that the uneven distribution of wealth globally has created an environment where a market can get pulled out from under you the minute a third world employee is capable of performing the task.

I have recently read articles detailing when a low cost labor force starts to up their asking price many companies pick up and move elsewhere. This continues until there is no place or people left to exploit at very low cost.

It is possible that the Indian post houses should be charging only slightly less than their western counterparts. This would avoid the cheapening of the craft of, in this case, rotoscoping.

Before I get attacked - It is a craft. We have all seen good (The best are never seen) and equally bad roto jobs. A good roto guy is indispensable!

Anyways, I appreciate the insight. I've been a little perplexed with how to tackle this topic ever since "Globalization" really started in earnest.

We live in the strangest times nowadays!

 

[Björn Benckert]

To the left. How it really looked, to the right how it looks when discovery channel goes diving... RAW is magic, but also to me it makes diving very disappointing as the oceans will never look as good as they do on the telly.

http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/hawk/RAW_MAGIC.png