ROMAN COPPOLA'S, A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III, COLORED ON DAVINCI RESOLVE

Blackmagic Design today announced that American Zoetrope, a San Francisco based production and post house, and SPY, a FotoKem company based in San Francisco and specializing in visual effects, used DaVinci Resolve Lite and DaVinci Resolve, respectively, for color grading on Roman Coppola’s latest film, “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III.”

Resolve was used by freelance colorist and VFX artist Ryan Bozajian at American Zoetrope for the early conforming and initial color correction, with footage then sent to SPY for final color correction. Ryan and Sin Cohen, American Zoetrope’s digital post production manager, worked closely with SPY’s Head of Technology, Steve Maggioncalda, and Senior Colorist, Chris Martin, on system calibration to ensure a seamless transition to SPY for a final color grade on Resolve. The project was then exported out of Resolve for film outs, digital cinema packages and video masters, and the team benefited from the ability to turn Resolve’s LUTs on and off for each deliverables’ needs.

“We developed a great workflow where certain nodes meant certain things, so when the project was handed over to Chris, there was a system for him to interpret right away,” said Ryan. “Resolve’s innate flexibility made the migration easy, and it was a huge advantage for the production.”

“The goal was to get the heavy lifting color correction done up front at Zoetrope, which would lead to an efficient final DI at SPY. We made sure the grading environment at Zoetrope was calibrated as closely as possible to SPY’s DI theater,” said Chris. “We even did initial tests that resulted in Roman feeling very good about how the color decisions made at Zoetrope translated at SPY. Upon import of the project, the media linked up immediately, and we finished color in just two days.”

Because of the compatibility between the two systems, SPY did not have to reconform, translate color decision lists or regrade the project, and instead, simply fine tuned it using Resolve’s Power Windows to sharpen and accentuate features, custom curves to hold highlights and maintain contrasts and multi point tracker for enhanced efficiency. The collaborative process maximized American Zoetrope’s time and budget, while still allowing a specialized facility to handle final DI and deliverables.

“We got two weeks of time consuming pre grading work, which you don’t need to be in a DI suite for, done in our office, and Roman was able to work with Ryan in a non pressured environment,” said Sin. “We were able to maximize our time and budget, but still finish in a proper suite. It was the perfect combination.”

“Resolve’s power and flexibility really made this whole process possible and incredibly seamless on top of that,” said Roman Coppola, Director, American Zoetrope. “It was the bridge between the two workflows, allowing us to collaborate with SPY in the most efficient and cost effective way possible.”

American Zoetrope and SPY are already collaborating on a second project for which Sin is using Resolve for dailies creation and transcoding for offline editing, which sets up media pools for a faster conform. “Now, everything goes into Resolve right off the camera. The projects get built in Resolve from the start, and I can create dailies out of Resolve with all the editing materials linking back to the system. It’s a seamless round trip that saves me time in the online process,” said Sin.