Audio Head News Update March 26, 2012
Posted on | March 27, 2012 | No Comments
A recent article in the LA Times may have overstated the impact of the development project on the Historic Lot.
While one of our stages is being replaced, our business at Audio Head continues to grow. We are proud to unveil a major upgrade to Stage “C” (Famed Director Terrence Malick’s mixing stage of choice).
Our Future plans for 2012 include further renovations that will improve and preserve the legacy, historic value and charm that has made the Goldwyn Facilities, Warner Brothers and now our home Audio Head a landmark in the Entertainment Industry. Audio Head is currently operating 3 state of the Art Mix Stages, ADR, Foley, a 134 seat screening room, 18 Production office suites and a newly redesigned Stage “A” coming in the near future.
Hollywood’s Picture Head Posts “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom”
Posted on | December 14, 2011 | No Comments
http://www.shootonline.com/go/index.php?name=Release&op=view&id=rs-web3-8348772-1323190574-2
Facility Conducts Round-the-Clock Effort to Prepare Doc for Debut
Hollywood, December 06, 2011 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | — Independent films often have compressed post production schedules but even by those standards “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” — which is short-listed for Academy Award consideration — was finished at lightning speed.
Acclaimed documentarian Lucy Walker had just completed principal photography in Japan when she received an invitation to debut her film at the Toronto Film Festival. It was a great honor, but it meant that a completed film needed to be delivered in less than a month. It seemed impossible, but Walker and her production company, Supply & Demand Integrated, ultimately made the deadline with the help of Hollywood post house Picture Head, which provided DI color grading, finishing and sound mixing services, in a literal round-the-clock effort.
“The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” is Walker’s moving chronicle of the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last April. Called a “visual poem about the ephemeral nature of life,” the film shows how survivors in the country’s hardest hit areas drew the courage to rebuild by the arrival of cherry blossom season.
“The cherry blossoms, which announce springtime, arrived on the heels of a horrible disaster,” notes Supply & Demand Integrated EP/Partner and the film’s producer Kira Carstensen. “It was beautiful to see the hope the trees gave to people who had lost everything—their homes, their jobs, their friends and their family members.” The film features an original soundtrack by Moby.
Upon Walker’s return to Los Angeles, a post team was quickly assembled. Japanese-born editor Aki Mizutani of Cutters, Los Angeles, was selected to edit the film. “Aki was in Japan when the earthquake struck,” Carstensen says. “She brought a lot of energy and desire to the project. She had felt bad leaving Japan and thought that this was one way she could give back and help the people of Japan.”
Final post work began at Picture Head, barely a week before the film was due to be delivered to Toronto. Matthew Flint, Picture Head’s Vice President, quickly assembled a complete post production team to simultaneously begin the tasks of sound design, sound mixing, graphics production, conforming final picture and final DI color grading. Picture Head is virtually unique among Southern California post facilities in offering both sound and picture finishing services in one location.
“It was certainly a rigorous schedule and demanded a lot of concentrated resources,” says Flint, “but it was well worth the effort. It is a beautiful film and one that deserves to be seen. We were pleased to help get it on the screen.”
Despite the quick turnaround, Picture Head was able to give the film a studio quality finish. Color grading was performed in the facility’s DI theatre by veteran DI colorist Phil Azenzer on a Baselight system. Sound designer/re-recording mixer Mark Herscovitz mixed the film in 5.1 surround sound on a ProTools workstation. Picture Head’s graphics department, meanwhile, created the main title and end credits.
Conforming was done through a hybrid approach. “The film was shot with a Canon 5D, which lacks time-code,” explains Flint. “So, we first conformed the film on a Final Cut workstation and then passed it onto Baselight for final finishing.”
The last post session ran for 24 hours. “We started at 9 a.m. one day and I left the next morning at 9 a.m. with 30 DVD copies,” recalls Carstensen. “It was delivered just in time.”
Although 24-hour sessions are unusual, Picture Head’s workflow was designed for projects like “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” with tight budgets and complex needs. “We were able to give this film a great look and deploy a lot of resources to get it done quickly,” says Flint. “The filmmakers were able to monitor the mix in one room, walk to the DI theatre to see the grade, and also oversee graphics production and finishing. For many independent filmmakers, that is a very compelling solution.”
About Picture Head
Picture Head is a world-class facility servicing the motion picture, television and cross-platform markets. The company recently completed an expansion devoted to high definition and file based finishing. It was an early adopter of non-linear solutions, and built one of the industry’s first complete, all-digital, tapeless and data-centric workflow environment. The company utilizes state-of-the-art equipment in a complete digital environment for standard definition, high definition, 2K and 4K requirements for editing, 3D, visual effects, graphics, audio mixing, sweetening, duplication and digital media distribution. Picture Head is Everything under One Hat.
Picture Head, LLC is located at 1132 Vine St., Hollywood, CA 90038. For more information, call (323) 466-2066 or visit www.Picture Head.com.
Contact Info
Matthew Flint
Picture Head
323.466.2066
Contact Matthew via email
Picture Head Capitalizes on Baselight’s Editorial Features to Ready “Kaboom” for Cannes Debut
Posted on | November 16, 2011 | No Comments
L.A. post house gains time and creative flexibility by using Baselight as an all-in-one DI finishing solution.
Baselight’s reputation as a superior grading platform is well known among filmmakers worldwide. Relatively few, however, are aware that the system also provides powerful compositing and visual effects tools that can be used to save time and costs in post-production, and even, potentially, to produce a complete DI master. A case in point is Kaboom, director Gregg Araki’s unconventional sci-fi comedy that recently wowed audiences at the Cannes Film Festival.
A quirkily surreal tale of a libidinous film student, Kaboom was a late addition to the Cannes field and, as a result, final post work, ongoing at L.A.’s Picture Head, was suddenly thrust into high gear. The facility had just two weeks to complete visual effects, colour grading and editorial finishing, and ultimately deliver a 4K master for the screening in France.
To meet the deadline, Picture Head opted to both grade and conform the film, which had been shot with a RED camera and edited in FinalCut Pro, in its DI theatre with their Baselight HD. That resulted in a simple workflow and saved considerable time
that would otherwise have been required to transfer 4K files had separate colour grading and editorial systems been used.
“We’ve used Baselight as a grading tool for many projects, but this was the first time that we also employed it for editorial,” recalls Picture Head Vice President Matthew Flint. “Kaboom was an unusually rigorous film to grade and conform. The director went for a radical editorial approach using a lot of editorial effects, time warps and resizings. He broke a number of filmmaking rules and we were up against quite a challenge to make all that happen.”
To begin the process, Picture Head imported all of the native 4K RED camera files into Baselight. XML files related to the FinalCut offline were also brought into the system. DI Colourist Adam Nazarenko and Online Editor Chuck Crews were then able to proceed simultaneously with grading and editorial finishing.
“We were able to bring over all the metadata from the FinalCut timeline and link it back to the native 4K files, and bring the show online very quickly,” recalls Crews. “It was stunning how smoothly and accurately Baselight interpreted the XML file.”
Doing all of the work in Baselight was useful not only given the time constraints, but also because the creative demands of the film were so great. Nazarenko certainly had his hands full in trying to achieve the look that Araki wanted. The film is an over-the-top fantasy that makes hairpin turns between the real, the unreal and the surreal, and all those perceptual shifts are reflected in the film’s kinetic visual style.
“Gregg had a very specific, radical look in mind,” Nazarenko says. “It’s aggressive and much of the film has a dreamy quality, it’s definitely not rooted in reality.”
For his part, Crews was busy using Baselight’s compositing toolkit to integrate visual effects shots and to replicate editorial effects created during the offline process. The latter ranged from split screen composites to intricate time compressions.
“Baselight had a lot of VFX tools that we were able to use, including glow effects and camera shakes,” Crews says. “There
is a car chase near the end of the film where the editors used a FinalCut plug-in called Earthquake to produce a particular shaky camera effect and we were able to process all those shots—there were about 100 of them—in Baselight. It was a huge time-saver.”
Reviewers are already hailing Kaboom as an instant cult classic. The film proved a sensation in Cannes, drawing a 15-minute standing ovation from an overflow crowd of 3000 at its midnight screening debut. IFC Films subsequently snapped up the U.S. distribution rights. That has resulted in a bit more work for Picture Head, according to Flint. “We’re preparing film deliverables for the theatrical release,” he says.
Flint added that his team was impressed by the extent of Baselight’s editorial capabilities and that without them it would have been difficult to deliver Kaboom in time for its debut. “If we had done this in a more traditional manner, building it in an editorial box, we would have had to complete the conform and then move it over to the DI theatre,” he concludes. “An hour and a half of 4K material is a lot data to move over our network. In this workflow, we were able to colour and conform in the same room, and that made it easy for us to accommodate new material when it arrived and to experiment with effects and transitions. It gave us tremendous flexibility.”
Picture Head & FilmLight Event
Posted on | November 16, 2011 | No Comments
In today’s dynamic post-production environment, the color grading suite is no longer for color alone, and grading doesn’t happen only in the suite. Today, filmmakers can begin making color decisions on-set and in editorial. The grading suite has become a finishing suite where changes that once had to be done off-line as VFX shots can now be created and adjusted interactively on Baselight with the director, producer and cinematographer present. Baselight’s conform tools allow “finishing” to begin before the edit is locked and easy reconforming to keep up with changes. This creative innovation creates tremendous freedom but it needs to be properly understood to avoid confusion.
Join us for a look at a streamlined digital intermediate workflow for features and television with experts from FilmLight and Picture Head.
RSVP @ event@picturehead.com
Matthew Flint Speaks on Panel at Createasphere
Posted on | November 16, 2011 | 1 Comment
Innovation has created a dramatic workflow revolution, which will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future. Createasphere’s Post Production Master Class is an invitation only global summit to gather thought leaders and craft the future of post.
http://www.createasphere.com/En/2011-burbank-post-production-master-class.html
Picture Head’s 11 Year Anniversary!
Posted on | November 10, 2011 | No Comments
Picture Head opened its doors for the first time in October 2000. We were in our current location, but only occupied 1/3 of the building with 15 employees, 2 audio bays, and only 1 true on-line bay. Our machine room looked and functioned completely differently, and the machine room operators patched connections manually to bays.
Picture Head has grown and morphed to a facility of 75 employees. We not only occupy the entire building but also boast a spacious 4K DI Theater featuring the Baselight Advanced Color Correction System, 12 edit bays (supporting DPX, HD tape and all file-based formats in 4K, 2K, or 1080p) and 5 audio bays. Additionally, we have added our sister facility, Audio Head on The Lot, which has given us 4 theatrical mix stages, ADR, Foley, 24 production offices, and a 134 seat screening room.
Together Audio Head and Picture Head combined have an illustrious resume that includes work on some of Hollywood’s biggest films. We’ve been featured in a number of publications and now you can follow all of our latest happenings and developments on Facebook and Twitter!