Michael Cioni
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- Mar 18, 2008
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- 6381 DeLongpre | LA | CA | 90028
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I'm excited to announce that the latest theatrical release of a RED feature film hits theaters tomorrow night in North America called "The Muppets." This film does a lot for the file-based community and I'm pleased to share the highlights of my experience on my Tumblr blog.
Hoping everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and if you are interested in spending time with family outside of dinner, I recommend checking out "The Muppets" in theaters for an amazing film and a great RED experience.
m
EXERPT FROM MICHAEL CIONI's BLOG. Read the entire blog @ http://michaelcioni.tumblr.com/
While there are projects out there in 2010 that did similar workflows, I’m fairly confident in saying that Muppets was the first movie of this magnitude and for a major studio that literally did not have a post house on the show at all until the DI. Archiving, LTO, dailies color, syncing, web deliverables, visual effects pulls and temp conforms were all done by the OUTPOST operator, Disney’s on-site DEPOT backup and the Muppet editorial team. Muppets followed our recommended workflow exactly, creating what was a completely self-sufficient machine that was independent of outside, 3rd party post production support. On the scale that Muppets was with the talent and politics involved, this was a huge task and couldn’t have been done without the blessing of Don and director James Bobin, Jeff and Leon, the talented and forward-thinking DIT Carissa Ridgeway and one of the sharpest and most up-to-date post supervisors out there, Jill Breitzman.
A good workflow on paper should always be simple. I’m shocked when I see workflows that look more like the electrical plans of an office building than a flowchart. If a workflow cannot pass the Occam’s Razor test, it means its overt complexity on paper is likely to manifest itself in practice, thus hard to execute in reality. The Muppets workflow was simple, streamlined and proximal. Cory was on set, and worked in between the production party (led by the DP and DIT) and the post production party (led by the post supervisor and assistant editor). Putting the heavy-horsepower of OUTPOST with Cory on set allowed him to satisfy the needs of both entities while simultaneously eliminating unnecessary 3rd party involvement such as post laboratory…including Light Iron! And that’s the way I like it.
Muppets. There was a small joke floating around the set based on an inaccurate rumor that people claim; “RED can’t get good skin tones.” While I personally have never had trouble with RED skin tones, the joke we made on Muppets was the very real concern over Muppet skin tones! -It sounds strange, but it’s actually very important. A major actor might have a slightly different look in tone from movie to movie. This can be based on the the time of year, type of lighting or filtration or the color correction at the end. But so long as the look is “natural” or “appropriate,” no one would probably notice. But unlike people, the Muppets have a very distinct set of colors. Kermit green is bright, but not electric. Fozzie orange is semi-saturated, but not too brown. Gonzo is blue with purple, not purple with blue. It is critical that the RED captures the colors of these characters that look, essentially, “perfect” based on 35 years of memory. Until now, most memories you have of the Muppets were photographed on film and almost none of them went through any precise digital color correction whatsoever. But it was clear after a couple days that Muppet skin tones were looking perfect and people were immediately talking about the content, not the technology (which is more important).
But as soon as people started looking closer at the iPads and the projected dailies, everyone realized that there was a new dimension of Muppets we have not seen before: texture.
You know what Kermit looks like, but when you see the Muppets, you will know what he feels like. You know what Rolf looks like, but when you see the Muppets, you will know what he feels like. This additional level of dimensionality brings these characters to life in an entirely new way. I didn’t see it coming, but it was clear to me that what Don was lighting and what the RED MX was capturing was a combination that the Muppets have never experienced before. This merging of elments: Don & Book of Eli, Disney & Pirates, RED MX & Epic, RedLogFilm and REDGamma, the list goes on and on, but it was a fantastic intersection of talent and trust that enabled this film to look the way that audiences will experience upon it’s release tomorrow night.
Hoping everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and if you are interested in spending time with family outside of dinner, I recommend checking out "The Muppets" in theaters for an amazing film and a great RED experience.
m
EXERPT FROM MICHAEL CIONI's BLOG. Read the entire blog @ http://michaelcioni.tumblr.com/
While there are projects out there in 2010 that did similar workflows, I’m fairly confident in saying that Muppets was the first movie of this magnitude and for a major studio that literally did not have a post house on the show at all until the DI. Archiving, LTO, dailies color, syncing, web deliverables, visual effects pulls and temp conforms were all done by the OUTPOST operator, Disney’s on-site DEPOT backup and the Muppet editorial team. Muppets followed our recommended workflow exactly, creating what was a completely self-sufficient machine that was independent of outside, 3rd party post production support. On the scale that Muppets was with the talent and politics involved, this was a huge task and couldn’t have been done without the blessing of Don and director James Bobin, Jeff and Leon, the talented and forward-thinking DIT Carissa Ridgeway and one of the sharpest and most up-to-date post supervisors out there, Jill Breitzman.
A good workflow on paper should always be simple. I’m shocked when I see workflows that look more like the electrical plans of an office building than a flowchart. If a workflow cannot pass the Occam’s Razor test, it means its overt complexity on paper is likely to manifest itself in practice, thus hard to execute in reality. The Muppets workflow was simple, streamlined and proximal. Cory was on set, and worked in between the production party (led by the DP and DIT) and the post production party (led by the post supervisor and assistant editor). Putting the heavy-horsepower of OUTPOST with Cory on set allowed him to satisfy the needs of both entities while simultaneously eliminating unnecessary 3rd party involvement such as post laboratory…including Light Iron! And that’s the way I like it.
Muppets. There was a small joke floating around the set based on an inaccurate rumor that people claim; “RED can’t get good skin tones.” While I personally have never had trouble with RED skin tones, the joke we made on Muppets was the very real concern over Muppet skin tones! -It sounds strange, but it’s actually very important. A major actor might have a slightly different look in tone from movie to movie. This can be based on the the time of year, type of lighting or filtration or the color correction at the end. But so long as the look is “natural” or “appropriate,” no one would probably notice. But unlike people, the Muppets have a very distinct set of colors. Kermit green is bright, but not electric. Fozzie orange is semi-saturated, but not too brown. Gonzo is blue with purple, not purple with blue. It is critical that the RED captures the colors of these characters that look, essentially, “perfect” based on 35 years of memory. Until now, most memories you have of the Muppets were photographed on film and almost none of them went through any precise digital color correction whatsoever. But it was clear after a couple days that Muppet skin tones were looking perfect and people were immediately talking about the content, not the technology (which is more important).
But as soon as people started looking closer at the iPads and the projected dailies, everyone realized that there was a new dimension of Muppets we have not seen before: texture.
You know what Kermit looks like, but when you see the Muppets, you will know what he feels like. You know what Rolf looks like, but when you see the Muppets, you will know what he feels like. This additional level of dimensionality brings these characters to life in an entirely new way. I didn’t see it coming, but it was clear to me that what Don was lighting and what the RED MX was capturing was a combination that the Muppets have never experienced before. This merging of elments: Don & Book of Eli, Disney & Pirates, RED MX & Epic, RedLogFilm and REDGamma, the list goes on and on, but it was a fantastic intersection of talent and trust that enabled this film to look the way that audiences will experience upon it’s release tomorrow night.
