Digitalscope?

Phil Rhodes · August 11, 2004

Hi,

Reading up on the cinematography for "Underworld", photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts, I notice that the IMDB entry states the "cinematographic process" as Digitalscope. This process is listed for only four other films.

I'm going to make an intellectual leap and assume that this is someone's trade name for a super35 DI to scope. Framestore CFC, and several digital lab people whose names I recognise from that facility, are mentioned, so I'm presuming it's a DI of some kind.

Perhaps I'm being a slave to the modern desaturated look, but I the desaturated blueness of "underworld" is the kind of thing I find myself aspiring to - some time ago I posted stills from something wherein I was going for a similar result, which naturally failed miserably on video!

Phil

Mike Panczenko · August 11, 2004

I also really liked the way that film looked. Digitalfilmlab.com says that "Digitalscope is recording from data back to film in a 1:2.35 (Anamorphic) format". Digital Film Lab says that they have the trademark, so it seems that "Digitalscope" is just an DI filmout, as you said, though only in the anamorphic ratio, done by Digital Film Lab. So, when the Lord of the Rings movies and other have done this, it is apparently not Digitalscope for the sole reason that Digital Film Lab didn't do it. By the way, Tony Pierce-Roberts, I read, just did the romantic movie about Cole Porter, "Delovely". His versatility is something I can only aspire to.

Phil Rhodes · August 12, 2004

Hi,

Aha well. It turns out that the DI for Underworld was done at Framsetore CFC, and was in fact scanned on Northlight, unquestionably the world's finest film scanner as manufactured by my current employers. This information courtesy of current Filmlight person ex Framestore CFC person.

See my contacts. Hear them roar!

Phil

Mike Panczenko · August 12, 2004

Hey,

I checked Digitalfilmlabs website again, and they have a feature on "Underworld", so I'm guessing they had something to do with it in some capacity- it probably says what in that article, but I just glanced at it. But, yeah, I don't know. I trust your contacts and, sir, they roar beautifully! :P

Phil Rhodes · August 12, 2004

Hi,

Turns out they didn't actually do DI, they did a huge amount of effects work, so DFL probably did do the DI. Interestingly, Underworld was originated on 3-perf, which of course the superb and wonderful Northlight scanner as lovingly hand-crafted by my current employers handled perfectly.

Phil

Kim Sargenius · August 24, 2004

Interestingly the print I saw here in Australia had some problems - weak blacks and a little bit noisy. Other than that, yes it did look great!

I spoke to a colourist at a Quantel iQ roadshow who worked on the DI (in what capacity I'm not sure, and I can't even recall his name right now) and he seemed to suggest that we might not have gotten Vision Premier prints down here.. Bummer..

BTW, Phil, had any chance to have a good look at Baselight yet?

cheers,

Kim Sargenius

cinematographer

Sydney

Phil Rhodes · August 24, 2004

Hi,

Yes, work with it every day, but since I'm working for them it's a little difficult to post about it here. It's generally very clever, in that you never run out of channels of correction or layers of adjustment, and it has tricks such as feature tracking which are very difficult for the hardware correctors to do.

There's a whizzy new system, Baselight 8, which uses eight nodes in a renderfarm for realtime 4K grading. See both and the Northlight scanner at IBC!

Phil