LaserPacific Media Corporation, one of the leading providers of post production services in Los Angeles, has built a new end-to-end 4K workflow for mastering and re-mastering feature films based on FilmLight’s Baselight EIGHT colour grading system. The company is currently using the workflow, which also features FilmLight’s Northlight scanner, to prepare a true and complete 4K master of the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report for Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox for release on Blu-ray next year. Veteran colourist Lou Levinson is performing the 4K grade.

LaserPacific’s 4K workflow is part of a business unit, formed last year, devoted to feature film mastering. In order to handle 4K media efficiently, the Baselight EIGHT installation includes a massive 96 TB of local storage. LaserPacific took delivery of its Baselight in January and began using it for mastering projects in June. Minority Report is the first film that LaserPacific is grading entirely in 4K.

“When we made the decision to enter the film mastering business, we committed to doing so in a first class way, and we are seeing success already,” said LaserPacific Media CEO Brian Burr. “Talent is the most important ingredient—and we have assembled one of the top teams in the world—but having proven, reliable tools like Baselight is also essential. We have had a great experience with it.”

Hollywood film studios are showing increasing interest in 4K mastering both as a way to create the highest quality product for home theatre release and for archival purposes. The challenge for post houses seeking to tap into this market has been to build a workflow capable of processing 4K media in a time and cost effective manner.

Baselight represents a key part of the solution. With its 72 processing cores, 96 TB of local storage and parallel streaming architecture, Baselight EIGHT provides sufficient horsepower to grade 4K imagery in real-time, even when performing complex operations such as grading scenes with multiple isolation areas.

For Minority Report, the entire film was scanned 6K to 4K on Northlight and is now being graded in 4K on Baselight. Additionally, LaserPacific is using a combination of off-the-shelf and proprietary tools to perform dust and scratch removal and other restoration processes at 4K resolution.

“Minority Report is a true 4K master. We scanned to 4K, 4K goes to Baselight—everything is done with 4K files,” noted Levinson. “When we do the final render, it will be straight 4K to HD. There are no intermediate steps. No proxies.”

While 4K mastering will surely yield spectacular results for home theatre, LaserPacific believes that the high resolution medium will have an even greater impact as an archival tool. The company expects to remaster films in 4K as part of a process of creating new film negatives in order to preserve films in an optimal state for decades to come.

“Our goal is to be able to scan negatives in whatever format and condition, restore them through a 4K restoration process and ultimately use the new 4K master to output a brand new negative,” explained Ron Burdett, general manager of LaserPacific’s film mastering department. Burdett added that he believes 4K will be the standard mastering medium for A-list, film-originated features within a few years.

LaserPacific’s decision to be an early entrant in 4K mastering will pay dividends in the long term, according to Burr. “Our focus is to be a significant player in the mastering business and to focus on quality—we want to do great projects like Minority Report with no compromises,” Burr said. “The challenge is to do 4K efficiently. That means having tools that allow you to do 4K in a time effective, cost effective manner, and Baselight is there. It allows you to do 4K projects without requiring extra time.”

Contact – Mike Grieve ([email protected]) +44 20 7292 0400

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