Rushes Cooks Up Chemical Reactions With The Pharmacist
posted on 17th Nov 2009
Rushes Post uses diTTo scanner for 16mm feature film Digital Intermediate.
Conceived as a love story, five years ago, ‘The Pharmacist’ is itself a labour of love and devotion by producer and director team, Tom Dalton and Patrick von Boetticher at Texture Films.
The film was self funded by Texture Films while making TV Commercials with agency WCRS and as fate would have it was through these connections that the film has come to fruition. Eliot Liss (WCRS Agency Producer) had been grading an ALLI weight-loss aid commercial in Rushes’ Resolve suite and was impressed with Resolve as a grading tool, this started what became an in-depth conversation about feature-film Digital Intermediate grading. Eliot had been advising on The Pharmacist throughout its production: “When my friends at Texture Films started picking my brains about getting ‘The Pharmacist’ graded I was glad to be able to introduce them to Alex Panton as a font of knowledge on the subject and I’m delighted that they hooked up with Rushes for their grade as Adrian has done an amazing job on the film.”
Alex Panton explains, “As we perceived this as a true, Digital Intermediate grade, to the highest possible spec, we opted to scan all the negative in the cut. As Rushes in-house Cintel Ditto scans at 3k, interpolated to 2k at 4 frames/second, we knew that we would be squeezing every ounce of detail from the 16mm original camera negative. Though the film was not conceived of as an effects-heavy job, inevitably there were areas of enhancement and correction that required VFX and clean-up work , and this was greatly assisted by working from pin-registered scans. Aside from the resolution, the stability made these processes far more efficient as compared to data captured from TK or data-cine. As an ex DI Producer, fully aware of its benefits, I am really glad to have the Ditto in our armoury. This kind of scanner is unique in the commercials market, and is typical of Rushes’ traditional thinking ‘outside the box’ in search of the best results.”
Adrian Seery graded with Resolve using Truelight colour management enabling the grade to translate to HD output for sales screenings or for creating Blu Ray discs, when the time comes. ‘Grading a movie shot on film was a fantastic experience for me, and different in so many ways from the way in which I usually work. The most obvious difference being the running time but also, at the end, finishing it off on a big screen. You can teach an old dog new tricks!’ Remarks Adrian, ‘Tom and Patrick were a joy to work with, and the fact that our sensibilities seem to be pretty similar made for an enjoyable time in the dark.’
The digital information was also stored as data, ready to create theatrical deliverables in the form of film negatives or for Digital Cinema as and when the film is distributed.
“We’d become so used to seeing the film at its offline resolution (it was tk’d by Soho Film Lab to dv) - it was something of a revelation to finally see everything we’d filmed. Even if it was the reflection of our sound recordist in a pharmacy display case! ” Says Tom Dalton, Producer of The Pharmacist, “Adrian is the best colourist we’ve ever worked with, and resolve obviously allows him to bend the picture to his will. Our DP (Per Tingleff) did an excellent job of providing him latitude. Adrian made full use of it.”
Tom goes on to mention ‘Our budget dictated a rather unusual workflow, but somehow Alex always managed to squeeze us through the different stages without missing deadlines or compromising the creative process.’ With scanning, conform, vfx and main grading at Rushes, it ment that 142 were able to step in for the Theatrical grade and colour management with the 142 Digital Lab Services looking after the digital clean up and Soho Film Lab handling the front end services.
The Pharmacist is now being submitted for consideration on the festival circuit with a number of sales agents and distributor screenings already confirmed. ‘We hope more than anything that it finds its audience. At its heart is a central performance (Liana Gould, in her first screen role) that deserves to be seen. It is remarkable.’ Says Tom, and we happen to agree.
Watch out for ‘The Pharmacist’ screening near you in 2010.
