FilmLight Ltd., pioneers of digital film technology, announced today that FotoKem Film and Video, one of Los Angeles’ largest film laboratory and post-production companies and a leading provider of Digital Intermediate services, has purchased the Truelight system to provide their facility-wide colour management. Truelight enables FotoKem to accurately visualise film images on electronic displays colour matched to the final film print. FotoKem’s deployment includes the Truelight colour management software, four HD/SDI hardware boxes, the Truelight software developer’s library, and the Truelight “cube builder” enabling fast, accurate setup and calibration of new devices.
The most advanced commercially available colour management system, Truelight enables DPs and post-production professionals to accurately see how colours will be reproduced in the final film print. By characterising each stage in the typical workflow, from digital data to the final projected film image, the closest possible match between preview and final image can be achieved.
FotoKem’s Bill Schultz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Digital Film Services explained, “Colour calibration has always been critical in DI work. But it’s such a complex and difficult problem to solve that, until now, all anyone could do was use a 2D lookup table to model a grey scale approximation of film, and then rely on experience and instinct to judge the difference between a digital projector and film. Truelight calibrates 3D transforms based on measurements taken at each stage of the image pipeline for both the digital and film projections. The effect of film recorder calibration, neg and pos processing, projector/lens and screen characteristics are all factored in to the final transform. We can now adjust colour in the DI suite, set it, and rest assured that when it gets to film it will look nearly identical. It’s astoundingly accurate. I would relate the accuracy of Truelight colour modelling to the difference you would see from two prints. It really is that close.”
FotoKem has already implemented Truelight in one of its DI suites, and used it to ensure accurate colour calibration of its 2K digital projector on Chazz Palminteri’s “Noel” and Luis Mandoki’s “Casas de Carton.” Another Truelight HD/SDI box will be used in a high-end compositing suite for colour matching on trailer assembly work. The third box will be implemented in a finishing suite at FotoKem’s Keep Me Posted facility, to maintain colour accuracy for feature film main title sequences, visual effects, long form assembly and trailers. The final Truelight hardware box will be implemented in a data cine room, to correctly model colour response when digital imagery goes back to final film.
FotoKem’s Senior Vice President of Technology, Paul Chapman, noted, “Our goal is to address a problem that so many DPs have said is one of the most difficult challenges when working digitally – the ability to set a look as early as pre-production and carry that look through dailies, visual effects, previews and final release prints. With Truelight technology, we are closer to solving this difficult problem with a system that is both highly accurate and flexible in the ways it can be delivered. Having the cube builder along with the Truelight libraries gives us the flexibility to deploy this technology throughout the facility and even out to our clients. We’re looking at Truelight player applications, as well as things like pre colour correction for visual effects. We can even provide tools for our DP clients so that they can see their work on a CRT or projector system here, remotely, and get an accurate representation of what they have on film. This technology takes the guesswork out of the process.”
Contact – Deepa Parbhoo ([email protected]) +44 20 7292 0400
