We thought it might be interesting for some of you to know the production path, tools & techniques that we employed for HUNTED. Every film of ours is a new learning experience and I’m sure for other filmmakers this also would be true. With the speed of technology, new shooting formats, codec and post-paths things will change from shoot to shoot. Here’s a quick overview of the process:
01. AATON XTR-PROD (Camera) »
02. FUJIFILM E160 VIVID (16mm Film Stock) »
2b. Audio Recorded via Boom & Lapel mics on multichannel DAT »
03. Telecine to DigiBETA »
04. Edit FINAL CUT »
05. SCAN film to HD DPX (1920×1080) Image Sequence »
06. Output Edit Audio
07. Visual Effects After Effects & Photoshop »
08. Output DPX image sequence and colour grade. »
09. Add titles, credits and made small visual effects additions »
10. Record ADR with actors & add music. »
11. Receive separate channels (ie Left, Right, Rear Right, Centre etc) in 96kHz/24-bit uncompressed format. »
12. TSMuxer to Mux DTS-MA Audio & Uncompressed Video to MPEG4/AVC Blu-Ray 1080 24p Disc.
And now in more detail….
01. AATON XTR-PROD (Camera)
This just happens to be John’s (DOP) favourite 16mm camera. We also used this same camera on STALLED as it was just small enough to fit through some of the small spaces that we had created. Hired from our friends at LEMAC the camera was simple & efficient.
02. FUJIFILM E160 VIVID (16mm Film Stock)
This was a tough decision to make. Both the Kodak stock and Fujifilm stock we’re relatively the same price. Both would also work in the Aaton camera so we had to look in a different area. The Kodak film that we were looking at had a super fine grain, it’s basically at the pinnacle of 16mm film development. The Fujifilm on the other hand had an intense colour and very contrasted look…and a fair amount of grain. In the end we decided that the grain & colour of the Fujifilm suited our intentions for the final look of the film and headed in that direction.
Shooting on film also presented us both rewarding and hindering elements. Rewarding in the area of the look, you still just can’t beat film. The simplicity of a format working for 100 years means that troubleshooting is easier and things don’t break down and mystify you – loosing valuable shooting time. The downsides are obvious to anyone who has picked up a digital video camera. With a digital camera the files are ready to edit as soon as you get them off the card. You can also output to a display monitor that will display in full quality, begin editing on the go, view rushes straight away and skip the costly telecine and scanning procedures.
The biggest issues for me personally was the instant playback of a digital camera (we used a device to record the video split in the end) and the ability not to be able to endlessly shoot at scene. With a short film, self funded, you can’t go shooting forever on film stock. You can smell the dollar notes burning as the camera ticks along.
However, with all those pros and cons, I still believe that we chose the best option. If you ever see HUNTED from a Blu-Ray Disc source you will agree that it looks fantastic.
2b. Audio Recorded via Boom & Lapel mics on multichannel DAT »
On the shoot Ric Creaser employed at boom mic system with Esteban Vargas doing the swinging. In some scenes however we required shots that a boom mic was not possible to use. In this situation we used Ric’s own tiny lapel mic for both actors. We’d also swing the boom mic in for additional sound – but from a distance. This provided us with some audio source choices in post. The DAT recorder was synced with the timecode on the Aarton camera via radio frequency. This helps to sync the audio and video in post.
03. Telecine to DigiBETA »
In order to get going on the edit we were lucky enough to have the film telecined by Lemac. This gave us a good look at what we had and were off and running straight away with the edit. We did have a few issues with the sound syncing with the picture, but once that was sorted it was onto the first cut.
04. Edit FINAL CUT »
Using Final Cut HD at Madman for editing on a new Intel Mac G5 was a bit of a breeze. We’d used the software before on our previous shorts and projects and it was all very familiar sitting down to edit another short. Scott and I work in tandem operating the machine. Scott however does most of the operating as he’s a little more familiar with it than I. With HUNTED the film is broken into several scenes, although all in one location, and are broken up with spaces in time between them. First we basically tried to get rough edits of each of these sections until we had a complete film. The original edit had a runtime of around 26-27 minutes. With our heavy commitments to work and other projects we were only able to spend a couple of hours a week editing – which I think ended up being a bit of a blessing. With the time away from the editing station you get to come back to the edit with semi-fresh eyes. We refined over time the cut right back to 21 minutes. Sometimes only trimming a tenth of a second off shots, removing a single word from a block of dialogue and other small tweaks. We also had the opportunity to show the film to some of our peers and get feedback, this helped greatly in getting an outside opinion of the flow and clarity of the story.
So with our edit complete we needed to get our edit scanned at a hi-resolution for grading and visual effects. Final Cut has the ability to output a file that has all the ins and out points that we’ve made during the edit via the timecode embeded in the video files. This map of our edit was then passed on to the technical wizard Sal Kennedy at Complete Post.
05. SCAN film to HD DPX (1920×1080) Image Sequence »
Sal basically loads up our original processed film reel and the scanner goes through our edit and scans the sections of film that we have used in the edit. The sections also are scanned with a small handle on either side so there is the ability to make very minor changes if need be. The film was scanned at a HD resolution from our Super 16mm film, 1920×1080. The files were then handed back to us to work on the visual effects.
06. Output Edit Audio
Final Cut also has the ability to output an .OMF file. An .OMF file contains all the audio, including hidden handles, in edit order and in a format that many audio and video editing software applications can read. This .OMF file was handed over to Aaron D’Arcy at Rippon Studios for cleaning up the sound and for his work on the sound design for the final film.
07. Visual Effects After Effects & Photoshop »
The latest version of Adobe CS4 Photoshop and After Effects both handle .DPX image sequences very well. We received just the shots that required visual effects work. Even though it wouldn’t have been more than a minute worth of footage the file size was close to 12gb. Each frame sits at around 8mb each so you’d think scrubbing through a sequence of 200 frames in After Effects your computer would struggle – apparently not. You import the groups of images into After Effects which then treats them basically as 1 video file. You can place it on the timeline like any other video clip.
For the visual effects there were several things required for HUNTED. Firstly there was some patching up of the set itself. There is a scene close to the end of the film where the wall was being leaned on by the actor and a gap between to set walls was created. No matter how hard the crew pushed on the othersize we were unable to close the gap. This became our first post work required. Using firstly Photoshop to determine different ways in which the gap could be closed on a single frame, this solution was then put to use within After Effects. For most of the shots where this was occuring a little strip of wall was placed over the gap and hand motion tracked over time to stay in position. Not very time effective but no one has or will pick up the end result.
The next task was getting the hand operated ID Generator that is used in the film to actually have a working digital display and output. Some challenges were made clear soon after opening the files to begin work. The corners of the device were not in focus, they moved around over time and the display had a default out-of-focus static readout already. The first task was to work out what a static frame of the final result would look like. Using Photoshop and many layers a close to final look was achieved. With the relationship between Adobe products most of the layer effects were able to be brought into After Effects without any changes. The display animation and readout itself was created using Adobe Flash. Luckily also After Effects CS4 can now import .SWF files directly. Once the animation and look was achieved, the really hard task of mapping it to the footage over time begun. Without hard edges I was finding it hard to get After Effects to motion track the display in a 3D space. After several attempts I gave up and took the plunge and begun to hand motion track the display to the device over time, frame by frame. After hours of work the results were played back and were far from satisfactory. After a good nights sleep I returned and tried using the in software motion tracking again. This time however I found some other areas of the device, some soft light highlights on either corner and tried tracking to those. This time there was success, the motion was a lot smoother and was closer to ideal.
One of the hardest and most time consuming effects in the film was the door cutting shot. At only 60 frames it was quite short, but took a lot of man hours to achieve the final look. For the original shot we used 3 sparklers and a smoke machine. Blowing the smoke through the gaps in the door at the same time as running the sparklers through the gap a below average but jumping point shot was created. From their in After Effects I isolated the sparkler video and was able to multiply the this piece of video many times and bunch it up to create the illusion of a solid glow plus sparks. Additional spark effects were added so that the whole shot didn’t look like repeats and also the time offset of the shots were all different so that the sparks coming off were at different points in time. The final piece of the puzzle was achieved using a digital stills camera with the video function. I recorded some sunscreen coming out of a bottle, on a black background. This was then inserted into the shot, matched and motion tracked into place giving the cutting shot a hot dripping metal effect.
Once all the shots for the visual effects had been completed we were able to take them back to be re-inserted back into the timeline to be graded with all the other shots.
08. Output DPX image sequence and colour grade.
Our visual effects had been added to our original edit scan and now Sal was able to grade the whole film. For this step we’d always recommend your DOP to attend as this is their chance to do their work. John Brawley, our DOP, was shooting the film with a look that we’d decided upon before starting. So when it comes to the grade the scope of the footage was there to create that look. For the final look we wanted to dial back the blues, this gave our walls the desired concrete look and gave warmth to the footage. We also desaturated and darkened the blacks.
Once the grade was finished the whole film was outputted to .DPX image sequence and transferred to our hard drive, at a file size of 350gb @ 35 000 images!
09. Add titles, credits and made small visual effects additions
The whole film was now one massive image sequence. This was placed on the timeline in After Effects and handled really well. Around this was built the credit sequence and titles animation. The final footage was then created by exporting either an uncompressed Quicktime or AVI file. This too was around 350gb.
10. Record ADR with actors & add music
Some of the audio during the film needed to be fixed due things like car noise in background or actors overlapping each other. Simon and Tom came down to Aaron’s studio and looped over the required areas until both the performance and audio was in sync with the original. This ADR was added to Aaron’s audio work on the fly.
David Crease since before we started shooting the film had been working on the original score. This was very handy for setting the mood of the film during the editing process as we had something to edit to. David had been working his score to various cuts of the film and mostly to the final cut of the film from a DVD. This music was then ported out to Garageband and then from there to Adobe Audition where we mixed the music. The mixed music was then outputted as separate tracks and given to Aaron to mix into the final audio for the film.
11. Receive separate channels (ie Left, Right, Rear Right, Centre etc) in 96kHz/24-bit uncompressed format.
Aaron, once he was finished with the sound design, outputted the audio from his 5.1 mix to separate high quality audio files. From these very good audio files we are able to create any 5.1 audio format. For the DVD we created a DTS track with optional Stereo track. For the Blu-Ray Disc we created a DTS-MA audio track, this is uncompressed audio and retains all the clarity of the original sound design.
12. TSMuxer to Mux DTS-MA Audio & Uncompressed Video to MPEG4/AVC Blu-Ray 1080 24p Disc.
The final step in the process was done by our tech wizard and production manager Kevin Desa. Using his authoring skills he was able to create our Blu-Ray master for showing at screenings and other events. There is one problem with the Blu-Ray Disc format and that is that there is no support for 1080@25p. Which is a massive issue when it comes to PAL territories where we shoot everything, including HUNTED, at 25fps. In order to get the film out in a progressive format we’ve had to slow the film down by 4%, making it 24fps. For a 21 minute film it became 22 minutes on the Blu-Ray.
And that’s the production path we took for HUNTED.
