PRODUCTION & POST NEWS
COLORFRONT EXPRESS DAILIES 2022 SUPPORTS NEW ERA OF SET-TO-POST WORKFLOWS
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olorfront has released Colorfront Express Dailies 2022. Shipping now, Express Dailies 2022 runs on the new Mac Studio M1 Ultra workstation, and features support for the latest digital cinematography camera formats, such as ARRI Alexa 35 4.6K, with its ARRI Reveal colour science, ARRI Textures and 17-stops of dynamic range, plus Red V-Raptor 8K VV, Sony Venice 2 8.6K and Blackmagic Design 12K RAW. Significantly, Colorfront has upgraded the colour management capabilities of Express Dailies 2022 to embrace a new era of workflow operations, and deliver versatile option to help users streamline end-to-end, colour-accurate workflows. Express Dailies 2022 delivers full support for ACES 1.3, the latest Academy Color Encoding System, including ACES Metadata File (AMF), which is designed for greater flexibility when implementing ACES viewing pipelines. Bruno Munger, Colorfront’s director of business development notes: “ACES AMF takes set-topost workflow to another level by removing the guess-work of applying colour pipeline and colour decisions across multiple applications on multiple shots from different cameras. Having ACES AMF within Express Dailies 2022 gives users a supreme way to manage precise colour communication between on-set and dailies, through to editorial, VFX and post-production mastering, and extends the capabilities of Express Dailies 2022 to enable new and highly-efficient workflows.”
ARRI LAUNCHES NEXT GENERATION ALEXA 35 CAMERA
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RRI recently launched the ARRI Alexa 35, a 4K Super 35 camera that, the company says, is designed to elevate digital cinematography to new heights. ARRI’s first new sensor in 12 years builds on the evolution of the Alexa family, delivering 2.5 stops more dynamic range, better low-light performance, richer colours and filmic textures. Alexa 35 measures at 17 stops of dynamic range (exposure latitude), offering 1.5 stops more in the highlights and one stop more in the shadows than previous Alexa cameras, while retaining the naturalistic film-like highlight roll-off. Sophisticated stray-light suppression in the camera and lens mounts ensures that the full contrast range and character of each lens are captured by the sensor to provide an optimal source for HDR (High Dynamic Range) projects. Sensitivity settings range from EI 160 to EI 6400, and an optional Enhanced Sensitivity Mode can be applied to settings between EI 2560 and EI 6400. ARRI’s discussions with filmmakers, and review of the image pipeline, have led to significant improvements in image quality and faster workflow. Reveal Color Science is the collective name for a suite of new image-processing steps used by Alexa 35 internally, and also available through third-party postproduction tools for ARRIRAW processing. Reveal Color Science includes an improved debayering algorithm for cleaner compositing, a new colour engine for more accurate colour reproduction, a new wide gamut colour space for faster grading, new LogC4 encoding to contain the increased dynamic range, and new LogC4 LUTs (Look Up Tables) for improved colour fidelity. It is backwards compatible, meaning that ARRIRAW footage captured by Alexa LF and Mini LF cameras can be
THE LIGHT BRIDGE ADDS NEW DIFF 0 TO CINE REFLECTOR KITS
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In an on-going collaboration between Colorfront and Pomfort, a unique round-tripworkflow supporting Colorfront Engine has been implemented in Pomfort’s Livegrade Studio on-set colour grading system, to enable the exchange of clip-level ACES AMF metadata and colour descriptions in ACES viewing pipelines. Additionally, Colorfront is developing a brandnew Colorfront Engine Plug-In for Blackmagic’s Davinci Resolve colour grading/non-linear editing system. The new plug-in supports ACES AMF workflow, as well as the application of Colorfront Engine parametric looks and transforms during post-production operations, ensuring perceptually matching simultaneous SDR/HDR deliverables.
14 JULY/AUGUST 2022 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD
also processed. ARRI Textures is a unique feature allowing cinematographers to fundamentally alter the way in which the camera records images, should they wish to. Up until now, Alexa cameras have been preprogrammed with a default texture that determines the amount and character of grain in the image, and the amount of contrast at different levels of detail, perceived by the viewer as sharpness. For the first time, Alexa 35 provides the option to choose from a menu of ARRI Textures, much like selecting a film stock. With its Super 35 4:3 native 4K sensor, Alexa 35 can be used with a vast global inventory of modern and vintage, Anamorphic and spherical, Super 35 and large format lenses. Filmmakers wanting to shoot with ARRI cameras, whilst having to fulfil 4K mandates, now have a very broad lens choice.
he Light Bridge, makers of the Cine Reflect Lighting System (CRLS) has added to its line-up with the new Diff 0, now part of the company’s C-Drive+ and C-Move+ Kits. Lightbridge’s reflectors utilise a precision aluminiumcoated, smoothly-polished, wrinkle-free surface that reflects up to 97% of the light hitting them, with 100% colour rendering. Now there are five cine reflectors in every size, each offering various levels of reflectivity, ranging from the minimum, Diff 0 to the maximum diffusion Diff 4. The new Diff 0 offers all the handling and surface benefits of the other cine reflectors, but is formulated and engineered to a mirror surface. A ‘real mirror’ replacement, Diff 0 offers the benefits of being lighter weight and shatter-free, in addition to outputting greater reflectivity as there is no light
loss due to through-the-glass transmission. Designed to provide optimum control, CRLS tools act as key lights, capable of aiming diffused light with precision accuracy.
THE TERMINAL LIST
