Post production facilities are facing numerous challenges when working with HD. Is it worth the trouble?
DIGITAL MASTERS: Could you give us a glimpse into the making of the newest @cineteam trailer?
MIKE KREBS, @cineteam filmproduktion: The Cineteam trailer was created by the Swedish film director Niklas Hansen as part of our website relaunch. Niklas, who also directed many of our commercials, is, in fact, deeply rooted in film editing.
DIGITAL MASTERS: Niklas Hansen is an internationally acclaimed commercials director from Sweden.
KREBS: He made us send him our work of the last decade and he created a phantastic trailer in just a week, which is technically a collage of all of our TV and Corporate productions.
If you see Niklas’ work, it becomes immediately obvious that he is a very talented editor. The Swedish post production facility “Stop” supported his work. As far as I know, the effects were created in Flame + AE.
In the meantime, we have been busy expressing our creativity in countless new and fascinating projects. I think it is high time I asked Niklas to create another of his impressive trailers…
DIGITAL MASTERS: Do you plan to transition to high definition?
KREBS: I wouldn‘t call it a transition. We already produce in 35mm film, and since we scan it with highly sophisticated Spirit or C-Reality equipment, we can downsample [from 2K and 4K – dp] to HD whenever necessary.
And indeed we have chosen HD several times, for instance for our corporate projects on live events. Another field in which we go HD are TV commercials in SD, since HD gives us the flexibility of being able to easily scale the footage or zoom in without worrying about the resolution.
And by the way, the question whether to go HD or not, is being decided on a project basis. Since we are deploying FCP HD and Shake, we always have the option to output in HD. Regardless of whether we shoot on 35mm film or in digital HD – we will certainly keep renting camera equipment.
DIGITAL MASTERS: Which editing software do you use?
KREBS: At @cineteam, we rely on two Avid Composer systems and two FCP HD workstations for editing and we are truly very happy about this.
DIGITAL MASTERS: Your post production facility is also known for using Shake, which is resolution-independent and thus well prepared for HD alongside other formats. Which projects have you already completed in Shake and what is – in your opinion – the most compelling advantage of this software?
KREBS: At present, our deployment of Shake is mainly focused on the finishing of SD projects. We strongly prefer finishing TV commercials in dedicated post production facilities, and therefore we frequently rely on Shake for a perfect offline finish; nothing is more convincing than special effects which are already clearly recognisable in offline.
Nevertheless, sometimes we also do online effects or corrections for commercials, be it because of a short deadline or cost-efficiency.
The most compelling advantage of Shake is clearly its price-performance ratio, its capabilities for universal deployment including compositing, high-end image processing, color grading, etc.
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