It took SGO Mistika‘s workflow in order for The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey to become the first large-scale wide release feature film to be exhibited in 48 frames per second. Park Road Post General Manager Cameron Harland said, together with SGO Mistika, it took two and a half years of research, development, testing and refinement to create the workflow. “From on-set services, grading and exhibiting HFR digital dailies through to the DI online, stereoscopic work and final colour grading, it was a massive undertaking.” Utilising SGO’s Mistika platform as the hub of its large DI infrastructure, Park Road in partnership with SGO, co-developed tools across the entire pipeline. SGO worked in parallel with the Park Road team in Wellington from pre-production through to final delivery of the film developing the tools and inbuilt-HFR feature-set needed to meet the extremely high demands of this complicated production. Dave Hollingsworth, Park Road’s head of Picture and supervising digital colourist for The Hobbit said when Park Road discovered the Mistika they knew they had found their solution. “When the decision was made to film and post The Hobbit in 48fps 3D, there wasn’t any one product on the market capable of delivering what was needed. SGO had by far the best stereo toolset available and equally importantly, they had a passionate and highly skilled development team that demonstrated an absolute commitment to developing everything else we needed to deliver this film.” Park Road’s head of Technology Phil Oatley added: “We wanted to create a complete pipeline, based on one platform, from dailies work and dailies screenings right through to final online, stereo and colour grading. The Mistika provided a platform that was flexible and robust, gave us even greater speed than what is normally required for your average 2D 24fps project and was so good that the filmmakers never noticed that we were dealing with four times the data of a normal feature.”www.parkroad.co.nzwww.sgomistika.com
(L-r) MARTIN FREEMAN as Bilbo Baggins and IAN McKELLEN as Gandalf inthe fantasy adventure “THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY,” aproduction of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM),released by Warner Bros. Pictures and MGM.
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
