Codex Digital has been busy revealing details of how its technology streamlined the workflow between production and post on ‘I Love Sarah Jane’, the new Australian short film that iis making some serious waves at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
The production (an fxphd and Last Picture Company production, in co-operation with QOOB (Europe)) is the story of Jimbo, a 13-year old, who can only think about one girl, Sarah Jane. No matter what stands in his way, including bullies, violence, chaos and zombies, nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world.
The production was shot on location in Sydney, Australia, using a Thomson Viper FilmStream camera, shooting in 1:2.35 scope format, at 1920 x 1080 24p for film and HD masters. During production the Codex system was employed as a multi-purpose recording, storage, playback and review device for footage coming either directly out of the Viper camera or separately from Venom on-board flash packs. As such, the Codex provided the director, producer, camera team and effects supervisor with a reliable and convenient hub to check footage for focus, editing and visual effects purposes.
With fxphd overseeing the on-set digital workflow, visual effects and post production, the Codex system was also employed to serve up the recorded footage in a range of different formats – including data for the post production facility in Sydney, HD-SDI for HD-SR tape copies, and QuickTime files for review on remote workstations and laptops.
The short was directed by Spencer Susser and produced by Angie Fielder, with Mike Seymour of fxphd.com the executive producer and visual effects supervisor.
“Our film is a showcase of the latest technical skills and the most modern digital workflow,” said Mike Seymour. “As the production industry moves towards data workflow, professional and robust boxes like the Codex are just what we need. ‘I Love Sarah Jane’ was a fast-paced production and we found the Codex engineering well-built and designed for real production.”
Miguel Ferros from Codex Digital said: “We have designed our systems to deliver the highest quality images, in the most convenient way, to everyone that needs them. It is great to see productions such as ‘I Love Sarah Jane’ fully utilising the workflow advantages we offer.
“In production, the Codex provides two key advantages. The first is the ability to playback full, uncompressed HD on set as soon as you have shot the material – invaluable for the various departments to know what they have in the can. The second is to make available the captured footage in a variety of formats for post production – for offline, effects and online finishing, as well as the ultimate export for film-out.”
Codex Digtal systems have now helped to streamline the entire workflow for every scale of high-resolution feature, from low budget to multi-million dollar productions. Along with ‘I Love Sarah Jane’, and many others, Codex systems have also been deployed on ‘Deadgirl’, an independent feature shot in Los Angeles, and ‘Speedracer’, directed by brothers Andy and Larry Wachowsi.
