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At World’s End was finished with a digital intermediate (DI), which Wolski carried out with colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3. “Stefan has graded all three Pirates movies,” notes the cinematographer. “Any time we had a hiatus [during this two-year shoot], we’d go see him, check the looks and do some test outputs. The biggest challenge for me was the night material. I like to use lighting balloons, and when you’re shooting nights on such a big scale, you use HMI balloons because they’re more efficient. Then, for interiors and people, we were simulating candles and firelight. The color-temperature difference between the HMIs and the firelight is huge. If this were printed without a DI, the night would be candy blue and faces would be red, and there would be nothing we could do about it. DI technology is what makes these techniques possible; I can take the blue out and turn it into more of a gray-green, and I can take the red out of the firelight and make it more yellow. The DI really helped tremendously.” Throughout the shoot, footage was processed by Technicolor, and hi-def digital dailies were created by Company 3. “We watched our dailies in Gore’s trailer on a Sony BVM-D24EWU 24-inch high-def monitor, which was identical to the monitor Stefan used to color-correct the film. Every couple of weeks, Stefan’s team would come calibrate our monitor, so there was no doubt about the look we would get.” Sonnenfeld notes, “We sent dailies on HDCam SR tapes. Gore and Dariusz and I were in constant communication, and the look [of the dailies] carried over into the preview and DI process.” When the production went on location, the filmmakers used a Philips Colorimeter and a Sony Auto Setup probe to keep the monitor calibrated. “Anywhere we traveled, we brought the whole setup,” says Wolski. “You shoot a huge amount of footage on a movie this size, and it can sometimes take three or four days to get dailies on location. Talking to Stefan really helped cut down on the fear factor; he was always telling me where my negative was, if I was too far under, and so forth.” Sonnenfeld adds, “Dariusz created a lot interesting colors and lighting in this movie, in particular a lot of low-light scenes, and we methodically went through [the film] and set colors with him and Gore so the material would mesh. We established a look for every single effects shot and scene, and we sent our graded 2K DPX files up to ILM via hard drives or our secure server. Sometimes they used the original raw scans, but all of their work was in line with our color palettes. “We butterfly the digital prints against the film output on every reel we work on,” continues the colorist. “We’ve done a calibration of our look-up tables with Technicolor so they can replicate what we’ve done in the release prints. We also protect a little bit for variances in the photochemical process — it’s not unusual to see a half-point tolerance slip either way in high-speed printing. When film prints on the Pirates movies go red they tend to fall apart in terms of [the look] we’re after, but if they go a little cyan they can still look great. So sometimes we’ll call the lights just a little skewed; then if we’re off, it’s the way we’d like to be.” At press time, Wolski was continuing to oversee the DI from London during breaks on the set of Sweeney Todd. “Unfortunately, I’m not able to personally correct every frame, but the look of the movie is pretty much set, and Stefan’s sending me images,” he says. “Knowing Gore and Stefan as I do, I feel pretty confident.” As the Pirates trilogy draws to a close, Wolski and his team are taking stock of their epic voyage together. “This is a type of filmmaking that doesn’t happen often,” says Sanchez. “When you get this sort of opportunity, it’s a blessing.” Noting the trilogy’s considerable ambition, Wolski adds, “You always go back to basics no matter how big the film. Everyone has done small projects where they had no resources whatsoever, and you have to remember those experiences, because it really helps on a film of this scale that’s so technologically complex. You can still grab a camera when you see a great shot and do something handheld and raw; you just have to be able to see it. The most powerful thing about filmmaking is that you have this whole range to work from. It’s my hope that the Pirates movies have that variety.”
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
2.40:1 Super 35mm Panaflex Platinum, Lightweight;
Arri 435, 235; Photo-Sonics Primo lenses Eastman EXR 50D 5245; Kodak Vision2
50D 5201, 200T 5217, 500T 5218 Digital Intermediate Printed on Kodak Vision 2383 |
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