On Set Tech (OST) has implemented a colour management workflow for digital dailies, based on Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve 10, during filming of The Secret Service. The Matthew Vaugh film, starring Colin Firth, Michael Caine and Samuel L. Jackson, is set for release in March 2015.
O.S.T. founder and director Joshua Callis-Smith collaborated with the editorial department to develop a DIT cart workflow capable of maintaining a colour accurate pipeline throughout the post workflow. DaVinci Resolve’s new live grade capabilities were used extensively during principle photography to set up shots.
Up to four camera sources were captured via a series of Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K I/O devices to a Compact Videohub router, which acted as a switch and allowed the DIT to change which camera sources were fed into DaVinci Resolve. A live input was then graded with preview LUTs and then fed out via a HDLink Pro onto monitors for viewing by DoP George Richmond.
The DIT cart also featured a Blackmagic Design MultiDock, which was used for uploading footage to and from SSDs to DaVinci Resolve via a Thunderbolt RAID. Each day the DIT would process on average 2.5TB of data 25 minutes after wrapping for the day, including double delivery, ProRes files for Fox and MXF for the editorial delivery.
“DaVinci Resolve 10 has allowed us to apply primary and secondary grades requested by the DoP and taking this right through our on set post workflow up until the point of grade,” explained Callis-Smith. “The way we achieved that was to create stills for every slate. Editorial would then re-transcode everything using those stills knowing that they are applying exactly the same thing we had on set. This meant for example that our VFX shots came back to editorial via a VFX pipeline exactly the same way I delivered them. That is far more accurate than any way I’ve previously worked.”
He added: “The ability to now apply secondaries on set allowed for a collaboration between myself, George and the gaffer to take place when setting up a scene that up until now has been impossible. Now, we can pre-empt the DoP’s thoughts for the DI as we are lighting and get a feel for how the entire image will look on completion before we turn over.”
