Pictorion das werk Berlin GmbH has just upgraded to a new SGO Mistika license following the new version 5.0 release at NAB 2010, and has been highlighting its use of Mistika on one of this year’s Cannes Film Festival winners.
The facility works with a high performance SAN system to avoid transfer times as well as to have all material immediately accessible and available in each suite. Christian Tröger, Mistika artist at Pictorion das werk in Berlin explained: “We all work simultaneously in an advanced system with great efficiency. Mistika became the centre of our projects, irrespective of whether the format was PAL, HD or 2k, commercials or film. In our current workflow, all systems can start working at the same time with the same images. Therefore, all the systems can effectively view the retouched visual effects shots in the grading suite, without wasting storage capacities. Mistika’s rich toolset has saved the day many times.”
The post house used it to complete the offline, online and DI work on the Dreamer Joint Venture filmproduktion titled Life, Above All, which was awarded the Prix Francois Chalais Award at the Cannes Film Festival 2010.
Filmed in South Africa, Life, Above All was shot on the ARRIFLEX D-21 camera. The “truly anamorphic” footage was recorded in dual stream on Sony HDSR tapes, known as the “Mscope” format. A key technical challenge and requirement facing Tröger was to maintain and reproduce the Mscope format from the very first capture to the very last render, without losing any resolution or colour data in the process. “Mistika and its open architecture enabled us to choose a workflow that delivered the required results that the client expected in this case, and we achieved it with ease due to Mistika’s capability and openness.” Christian states.
In addition to the online post work, Mistika was also used in this project, to create and administer a camera chip pixel native source pool as DPX files. This in turn enabled the grading and finishing to function seamlessly with the same files in the SAN network. After Senior Colourist, Philipp Orgassa, had completed grading the film, Mistika was also used to then create the final, logarithmic, 1920 x 1634 true anamorphic format and digital master. Tröger confirmed: “Due to the typical challenges that take place in the post process and high production levels, I am certain, without a doubt, that Mistika should be classified as one of the world’s top post production systems in the way it handled a project like this – effortlessly and fast with sheer power and stability!”
