NAB April 15 Afternoon Sessions

*Digital Cinema Summit*

April 15

*Making 3D Movies From 2D, Meet The Robinsons *
Robert Neuman - Disney
Nordi Rahhali - Digital Domain
Dan Brimer - Digital Domain
Josh Greer - REAL D
Howard Lukk - Disney
Walt Ordaway - Consultant

Neuman - Depth of field is a problem in 3D because people try to focus
on out of focus objects.

Neuman - Floating windows are created to make sure that objects do not
inadvertantly violate the corners of the screen. But a window violation
can be used as a creative choice to highten emotion in the sceene (i.e.
a wepon comes forward off the screen to create fear in the audience).

Rahhali - Digital Domain can take 2D files, split the layers and
re-render the image at 2 different offsets, one for each eye.

Lukk - The release of Day and Date for 2D and 3D films is happening now.
It will get more frequent as the formats for digital cinema are
standardized.

Lukk - Audiences will watch feature length digitally projected 3D films.
(See: Meet the Robinsons, Nightmare Before Christmass, etc.) However,
they can not watch more than 20-40 minutes of traditional 2 projector
sytstems because audiences members tire trying to resolve the
differences in the Right and Left eye projections (i.e. jitter, etc.).

Greer - 3D allows stories to be told on a percineum stage rather than a
flat screen.

*Shoring Up Digital Pipelines*
Curtis Clark - ASC
David Stump - ASC
Lou Levinson - Post Logic Studios
Glenn Kennel - Laser Pacific

A complete digital pipeline flowchart can be viewed on the ASC website.

*Case Study: Balls Of Fire, Capture To Master*
Leon Silverman - Laser Pacific
Jeff Roth - Focus Features
Tom Ackerman - DP (not present)
Steve Gaub - Associate Producer
Dave Cole - Colorist
Aaron Weintraub - Visual Effects Supervisor
Nolan Murdoch - Panavision

Cole - Using an End to End digital pipeline allows you to see in the
theatre exactly what you intended from post.

Roth - It costs more to shoot digitally now. But this will change as
crews become more familar with the new digital equipment and the cameras
become cheaper.

Roth - Budget line item spends are shifting because new rolls are being
defined (i.e. DITs).

New Terms:
- End to End - This means a film is created and distributed digitally.
- Genesis Camera - It is a digital camera made by Panavision that uses a
35mm CCD and standard Panavision optics. It has similar dynamic range to
film.
- Panalog - Refers to the custom color space and gama curve that is used
on a Genesis Camera. This curve is different than the one usually
created on a CCD and it causes images to visually appear more like
film.
- Luster - It is a color grading (correcton) software for digital video
from Autodesk.
- Lut - Look Up Tables used to keep consistancy in image characteristics
from shot to shot.
- DIT - A Digital Imaging Technition assists the traditional film camera
crew in its use of the digital camera systems like Genesis.

-- compsed on my hiptop --