Social Network...

[Sanjin Jukic]

'Social Network' tops box office

'Social Network' tops box office

'Social Network' tops box office this weekend!!!

Estimated to ring up between $23 million-$28 million through Sunday.

LINK>>>

 

[Julien Deka]

Almost the whole film seemed either underexposed, or improperly color corrected (gray blacks and stuff).

Just saw it... I really liked the look, and yes it is underexposed, like Fight Club or Zodiac were... I think this is the way Fincher goes, and that's a kind of his magic touch that I like so much... The story is telling in shadows...

Oliver, your article is very interesting, thank you... I hope Micheal Cioni will have more details to share with us.

Great movie.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Very good piece in the new American Cinemtographer as well. I was surprised to learn that they didn't work with a D.I.T. I was glad to see both Lightiron Digital and Lowry Digital acknowledged in the article.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

Box office: 'The Social Network' starts with a good $23 million.

Los Angeles Times >>>>

 

[Tom Lowe]

Very good piece in the new American Cinemtographer as well. I was surprised to learn that they didn't work with a D.I.T. I was glad to see both Lightiron Digital and Lowry Digital acknowledged in the article.

Was this a 4K finish? Someone told me they saw the film at 4K digital projection in New York. I need to get a copy of the latest AC.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The AC and ICG articles said that the D.I. was done at 2K even though they used a 4K projector at Red's RenMar studio.

 

[Sanjin Jukic]

To whom it may concern: Below it is end of the article in AC October 2010

LINK>>>

 

[Tom Lowe]

Well the film out was done at 2K. David says the DI was done at 2K. But why?? Seems like a perfect film to finish at 4K, even if you want to film out at 2K.

 

[Chris Kenny]

2K just fits more easily into established workflows. Particularly working from DPX -- 4K DPX has some pretty insane bandwidth requirements, that most grading facilities still aren't set up to handle.

Incidentally, it's really sort of hilarious to read all of these articles about the "groundbreaking" file-based workflow used on The Social Network -- that looks a lot like what we've been doing for the last couple of years.

Update: But why not work raw? From this article, it sounds like they wanted to work with DPX for the online because there were so many VFX shots, and they didn't want a situation where every facility involved was doing its own raw to RGB conversion, producing inconsistent results. So they just had the editorial team take the entire film online (in After Effects CS5, interestingly) as REDcolor/REDlog DPX, so the colorist and the VFX guys were all working with consistent files.

 

[Frank Cueto]

Michael probably did process/render of the whole DI (CC & Debayering) at 4K, with a downscale to 2K before going to "On-Line"

I know we do it that way here for local ads and Local movies. Makes all the sense on a huge job like TSN.

 

[Tom Lowe]

I can't believe Jim would let them finish at 2K! Hehe.

 

[Alessio G.]

Best Red movie I've seen. It looked perfect.
Well except for those 4 sec. of over exposed videoish frames at the pool. I wonder how something so perfect gets that.

 

[Michael Cioni]

Groundbreaking & 4k

Groundbreaking & 4k

Incidentally, it's really sort of hilarious to read all of these articles about the "groundbreaking" file-based workflow used on The Social Network -- that looks a lot like what we've been doing for the last couple of years.

Chris-
Agreed within the context of "file-based workflow" specifically. But the "groundbreaking" component to what ICG and some of the other articles are referring to is not about the way in which the files were treated for DI, rather the design of the DI itself.

You and I both agree that this type of file-based workflow isn't groundbreaking by today's standards (though some of the most modern post houses sadly still don't endorse files through-and-through). But the component to this DI that was groundbreaking was that we performed it without any sort of traditional post production infrastructure. We literally mobilized the entire DI workflow on a very complex film that traditionally would need to have been performed in a post house with a machine room, server room, SAN, overnight staff, vault, etc. Harnessing much of this type of technology is common on set - as thousands are doing backup, viewing, processing, even syncing on set. If the convenience of on-set, small, mobilized media manipulation is possible, what is stopping it from improving the filmmaking process in a similar way during digital intermediate?

Back in January RED had an event for the public called "RED Day." Some attendees may recall Li had a Pablo there to do some demonstrations and playback in the theater using the new color spaces, etc. What we were really doing at that time was testing the waters as to the potential of doing The Social Network DI at RED in the theater, which happened to overlap with the RED Day event. After a successful test, it really got me thinking as to the possibility of expanding the practice of mobilized DI. The trick is that it is not to be taken lightly, as accurate and efficient digital intermediate is not simple nor easily mobilized. But given the right context, right film, right venue and (most importantly) right people, even a complex DI can benefit from being performed where the director/dp/studio prefer. While numerous reasons and very smart people can easily argue why DI should/does happen in a DI theater at a post house (myself not excluded), I can honestly say this groundbreaking approach to mobilized DI not only benefitted TSN, but has/is been applied to other projects we are working on.

Originally posted by Tom Lowe
Well the film out was done at 2K. David says the DI was done at 2K. But why?? Seems like a perfect film to finish at 4K, even if you want to film out at 2K.

Tom-
It is the perfect film to finish in 4K. But the biggest hurdle regarding 2K finishing vs. 4K finishing is plain and simple: cost dependent effort. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of other hurdles to consider as well, but the cost of doing 4K and the closely related time and effort in which it takes to create, move, store, modify, and often move and store again is 4x longer than 2K. That, in itself, is what is creating warranted resistance to 4K end-to-end workflows.
But look at it like this: 8 years ago at NAB I witnessed some of the most spectacular images on display from the Dalsa camera. I'll never forget the experience of watching those images and wondering how I would ever get to work with pictures of that potential. But during that time and throughout the early portions of the decade, the notion of simply acquiring in 4K was full of resistance. Thanks to RED, we now (mostly) unanimously feel that (RED) 4K acquisition is not only made simple, but justified. 4K mastering and distribution will inevitably be experienced by tens of thousands of people within the decade-just like 4K acquisition today. For TSN, the amount of visual effects shots was enormous, and the turn-around, budget, and distribution path for the film was not ready for a 4K finish, hence the 2K version of the film you see today.
That said, I can assure you that extensive 4K tests were performed on this film including numerous 4K and 2K prints on both Fuji and Kodak that I personally watched over and over to insure we could deliver the best prints for the time and money available. 2K was not a decision made overnight, nor without critical evaluation. Timing will be everything.

 

[M Most]

But given the right context, right film, right venue and (most importantly) right people, even a complex DI can benefit from being performed where the director/dp/studio prefer...

i think people need to pay attention to that statement, especially the part about "right people." To my knowledge, in this particular case the infrastructure wasn't necessary in part because editorial had the SAN based infrastructure and also did the DI conform. Since you didn't have to conform from the original elements, you didn't need the infrastructure that's usually required to house and serve up those elements. So in this particular case, you had a situation in which the usual steps required of the DI vendor were not required, greatly simplifying what it is you wanted to do. As you said, that is not usually the case, and traditionally production companies and editorial departments are not going to be willing and able to take on the responsibility of doing a DI conform. In the case of Fincher's team, they had already done 2 pictures this way, and had the personnel and the experience - not to mention the eagerness - to take it on again. So while you make some very good points, and provide some food for thought, it's also true that this was a unique situation from the beginning, and one that isn't very common, at least at this point in time.

 

[Frank Cueto]

i think people need to pay attention to that statement, especially the part about "right people." To my knowledge, in this particular case the infrastructure wasn't necessary in part because editorial had the SAN based infrastructure and also did the DI conform. Since you didn't have to conform from the original elements, you didn't need the infrastructure that's usually required to house and serve up those elements. So in this particular case, you had a situation in which the usual steps required of the DI vendor were not required, greatly simplifying what it is you wanted to do. As you said, that is not usually the case, and traditionally production companies and editorial departments are not going to be willing and able to take on the responsibility of doing a DI conform. In the case of Fincher's team, they had already done 2 pictures this way, and had the personnel and the experience - not to mention the eagerness - to take it on again. So while you make some very good points, and provide some food for thought, it's also true that this was a unique situation from the beginning, and one that isn't very common, at least at this point in time.

So how could someone conform from the RAW files if they dont have the original elements (r3d's)?

Or am I reading this all wrong?

 

[Michael Cioni]

To my knowledge, in this particular case the infrastructure wasn't necessary in part because editorial had the SAN based infrastructure and also did the DI conform.

You are correct in reiterating my statement as to a "formula" that that needs to be considered for this type of workflow (ie: right context, right film, right venue, and (most importantly) right people), but your reasoning isn't accurate.

While "the right people" are critical to performing any non-traditional/experimental workflow process, TSN was not conformed with the use of a SAN nor was it conformed in a post house. It was conformed by a young, very intelligent, efficient 1st AE named Tyler Nelson, who did it on a MacPro using CS5 in a small office, not a post house like previous Fincher features. And that's the entire point of this discussion! -The fact that progressive infrastructure change is yielding more democratized freedom and less concrete constriction. That is the point I don't want people to miss, not the fact that I didn't bring a SAN to RED. The last thing you need to conform R3Ds is a SAN.

Frank-
Yes you need the R3Ds to conform. What I want people to realize is that facility walls that have been a staple of post production necessity in this industry are weakening. While we will always need them, exclusive reliance is diminishing with good reason. If you look back at history, you will find traces of this pattern a dozen times since computers were introduced to post production in the 1990's. I personally prefer the road of democratization and flexibility - as that rarely leads to a product coming out worse than the alternative, and almost always leads to a happier client.

Proving the point further, while coloring TSN, we did manage to conform 3 other projects, including another feature, while simultaneously doing the TSN DI in a mobile sound stage without a sAN. That's why we call it light iron.

 

[M Most]

...TSN was not conformed with the use of a SAN nor was it conformed in a post house. It was conformed by a young, very intelligent, efficient 1st AE named Tyler Nelson, who did it on a MacPro using CS5 in a small office, not a post house like previous Fincher features.

I see your point. At the same time, I would point out that previous digitally shot Fincher projects all used uncompressed 1920x1080 file based post production, thus requiring a very large and fast storage infrastructure. If anything, I think their ability to do an in house conform procedure is more a tribute to Red's dedication to a high quality RAW compression codec than it is to anything else. And I'm not underestimating the significance of that. I'm just saying that even with that, there aren't a lot of studio productions that would necessarily take the same route at this point in time. Basically I think we're saying essentially the same thing.

 

[Frank Cueto]

Michael, if you don't mind me asking. What color space did you monitor your work on TSN as u graded? Rec709,DCI or other? If DCI, was it a trivial task preparing film/video deliverables that matched the creative intent?

Thanks!

 

[Brook Willard]

Fantastic movie, looked gorgeous, markedly impeccable focus, can't wait to see it projected digitally.

 

[Brook Willard]

...I would point out that previous digitally shot Fincher projects all used uncompressed 1920x1080 file based post production, thus requiring a very large and fast storage infrastructure...

I would note the number of uncompressed effects shots [face replacements, sky replacements, etcetera] that certainly came into the "rolling post house" at stages before, during and after the DI. Michael will correct me if I'm wrong, but an uncompressed conform would've been possible on the same hardware with the same mindset.

Proving the point further, while coloring TSN, we did manage to conform 3 other projects, including another feature, while simultaneously doing the TSN DI in a mobile sound stage without a sAN. That's why we call it light iron.

Another plus to point out is the rapid changeover of the theater and hardware from "Fincher mode" into other projects. Not only could they all happen in the same sound stage... they could switch back and forth without compromise.

This movie is a big deal in a lot of ways.