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Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that DaVinci Resolve was used by EC3 dailies colorist Adrian DeLude for near set dailies grading on the Twentieth Century Fox blockbuster “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” EC3, part of Deluxe Entertainment Services Group's near set dailies offering, harnesses the technology and personnel of post houses EFILM and Company 3 to create custom configured dailies solutions for feature films.

In the film, directed by Bryan Singer and shot by Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC, characters from the original “X-Men” film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from “X-Men: First Class” in an epic battle that must change the past to save the future. During the production, DeLude worked closely with Sigel out of one of EC3's trailers, a near set mobile grading theater outfitted with a complete projection room and full set of color grading tools. For "Days of Future Past," DaVinci Resolve was chosen for use in the trailer, where Sigel and DeLude created an elaborate dailies grade involving complex keys and secondary corrections.

“It’s very rare to do so many secondaries in dailies," DeLude explained. "We did it so close to the set that Tom [Sigel] could walk over and supervise at lunch and after wrap. And we did a lot of it in 3D!”

Sigel, who has always pushed the boundaries of photochemical and digital technology in his work, was eager to experiment with his ideas for "looks" during dailies creation, and DeLude used DaVinci Resolve to help him do so. “Tom likes to play with and push the image as far as he can to help communicate his ideas, define his concept and help get a director used to a look, knowing that he could tone it down in the DI," Delude recalled.

"Tom has a really strong knowledge of what can be done in DaVinci Resolve. He understands what the capabilities are,” Delude added. “It was a lot of in depth grading, and I had about 11 nodes per shot. It was like a full DI every day.”

Colorist Stephen Nakamura, who has done the DI grade on almost every feature Sigel completed digitally, also used DaVinci Resolve for the final DI grade of the film at Deluxe’s Company 3 facility in Santa Monica. While Sigel considerably re worked many of the color concepts he built with DeLude, Nakamura noted that it was very beneficial for Sigel to have been able to experiment so extensively in the dailies.

According to Nakamura: "The dailies were a great guide for us, and I think his work with Adrian really helped Tom develop his ideas so that by the time we got to the DI theater, the process went very smoothly.”

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

About Deluxe

Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc. is a global leader in media and entertainment services for film, video and online content, from capture to consumption. Since 1915, Deluxe has been the trusted partner for the world's most successful Hollywood studios, independent film companies, TV networks, exhibitors, advertisers and others, offering best-in-class solutions in production, post production, distribution, asset and workflow management, and new digital solution-based technologies. With operations in Los Angeles, New York and around the globe, the company employs nearly 6,000 of the most talented, highly honored and recognized artists and industry veterans worldwide. Deluxe is a wholly owned subsidiary of MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc. For more information visit www.bydeluxe.com.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that “The Living,” a new indie drama, which the Tribeca Film Institute selected to screen during the Tribeca Film Festival and which will premiere at the prestigious Manhattan Film Festival, was shot with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. DaVinci Resolve was also used for on set and final color correction.

Directed by New York filmmaker Jack Bryan, “The Living” was developed by New York’s Shooting Films and was produced by Laura DuBois and John Snyder, with cinematography by Aleksandar Kosutic. “The Living” stars Fran Kranz, star of “Cabin in the Woods” and “Dollhouse,” Jocelin Donahue, star of “Insidious 2” and the critically acclaimed “House of the Devil,” Kenny Wormald star of “Footloose” and “Love & Mercy,” Joelle Carter of “Justified,” and Chris Mulkey of “Grimm,” “Captain Phillips” and “Boardwalk Empire.”

Set in Pennsylvania, “The Living” is a dark thrilling drama focused on redemption. The lead character, Teddy, discovers he has severely beaten his wife, Molly, while he was drinking. As he attempts to redeem himself, she must decide whether to take him back, as her mother continuously expresses her disapproval and her brother hires an ex con to kill Teddy.

Director Jack Bryan and Director of Photography Aleksandar Kosutic set the film in earth tones with a dark and low key look to most scenes. This meant that the film included a number of low light and nighttime shots and also included some dramatic close up shots to convey intense emotion and action. To capture all of this, Aleksandar chose the Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF.

“I wanted a camera with a wide dynamic range, and the Blackmagic Cinema Camera’s 13 stops of dynamic range and ability to shoot in RAW gave me exactly what I needed. I chose it over a number of other cameras we looked at,” said Aleksandar. Footage received a first pass grade on set by both Aleksandar and Jack using DaVinci Resolve on their laptops. Footage was then sent to New York’s theColourSpace for final editing and color correction by colorist Juan Salvo, who also used DaVinci Resolve. The entire 91 minute film was shot in RAW and was stored on three 240 GB SSD cards.

“The Blackmagic Cinema Camera gave us all we needed in terms of image quality and dynamic range, and its small size was also perfect and let us get all the shots that we needed throughout the film. The form factor really allowed us to shrink the entire rig and use smaller and lighter tools, but the image quality coming from it was the same as I would get from a big camera,” said Aleksandar. “We got the film done faster and on budget with this camera.”

“A lot of the scenes were dramatic, up close and personal. And they were shot in very dark circumstances, so there were times when the light and locations were not perfect for getting the shot we wanted. But we knew we had the range of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, and we were able to be incredibly creative and flexible. It was amazing how much we could pull out from the RAW images, and the camera’s dynamic range made the film look complete,” noted Aleksandar.

He continued: “One shot that was really tough was shooting the lead in a dark car at night. We were looking at the shots on small external monitors, and we just were not sure that we got it. But when we got the footage to color correction, it was all there, and the shot looked great. With any other camera I would not expect to get that result.”

“The Living” will be distributed worldwide in 2015 and will continue to be shown on the international film festival circuit throughout 2014.

Press Photography

Product photos of Blackmagic Cinema Camera are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, today announces version 7.3 of its widely used EDIUS Pro and Elite multiformat nonlinear editing software. This new version boasts a host of new features to amplify productivity throughout the entire post production workflow, including I/O support for the Matrox MXO2 LE, MXO2 Rack, Mojito MAX and MXO2 Mini editing devices.

New features include multi-channel audio monitoring for clip preview, SONY XAVC format export, lower bit-rate audio support for MP4 output, AAF exchange with DaVinci Resolve and audio monitoring while capturing with third-party I/O hardware. The ability to support Matrox expands the software's capabilities even further. Matrox MXO2 editing devices are versatile I/O products that are used in various places including laptop and desktop computers, studios, OB vans and on set. They can connect to the editing computer via PCIe or ExpressCard/34 adapters.

Additional new features of EDIUS 7.3 include:

– Multi-channel audio monitoring in the preview window

– Audio level adjustment with preview

– 96kHz/192kHz audio support

– The ability to apply the Layouter as a separate (transform) filter

– SONY XAVC S file export ability

– SONY PMW-1000 export ability

– XAVC S timecode support (AS100V)

– Panasonic AVC-Ultra additional format support (AJ-PX5000)

– Panasonic LUMIX GH4 4K file support

– After Effects plug-in Bridge update (with support for Sapphire presets)

EDIUS 7.3 is now available for download by registered users on the Grass Valley website. EDIUS Pro will automatically detect the update and inform users of its availability. EDIUS Elite will require manual updates.

Chaos Software released updates to V-Ray 3.0 for 3ds Max, and V-Ray 2.4 for Maya. The updates contain support for 3ds Max 2015, and Maya 2015, respectively. A new update with support for 3ds Max 2015 for V-Ray 2.0 users is also available.

Press Release

Blackmagic Design announced that “Kill Game,” a new suspense thriller/horror film produced by Marty Murray of Full Throttle Pictures and distributed by Vantage Media International (VMI), and being screened at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, was shot entirely on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF and graded and edited using DaVinci Resolve.

The filmmakers were so pleased with the results gained on “Kill Game”, they decided to also use the Blackmagic Cinema Camera for all reshoots and additional photography for their other new film, “PARANORMAL ISLAND”, starring Lance Henriksen and Briana Evigan. Ari Golan, owner of Atomic Imaging and a noted cinematographer, shot all of the steadicam/B-Cam, underwater and 2nd Unit footage for “Kill Game,” as well as shooting all the second unit, pick ups and underwater sequences for “PARANORMAL ISLAND,” after he returned from working with Peter Jackson on Hobbit 2.

“Kill Game” is an intense new horror film from Full Throttle Pictures and Atomic Imaging, who supplied all three of the Blackmagic camera packages. The film was directed by Robert Mearns, with cinematography by Andrew Strahorn. The film follows a group of high school pranksters who one day go too far and kill another student. Years later they return to their home town when one of their friends is mysteriously found dead and one by one each member of the group is slowly and methodically murdered.

To capture the extreme brutality and dark imagery of Mearns’s vision, Producer Marty Murray and Co-Producer Ari Golan approached Strahorn and chose to use multiple Blackmagic Cinema Cameras as the main cameras on the shoot.

“The director had a very specific vision for how he wanted every shot to look, and he wanted the entire movie to capture the darkness and horror that this group of friends was facing. We needed dark skies and morbid killing scenes. The brutality of the violence had to come out, but not be overwhelming. To get this, we needed a camera with high dynamic range and the ability to shoot in RAW so that the director could get all the data possible to really exercise his creativity,” said Marty. “The Blackmagic Cinema Camera fit everything we needed and the images were incredible.”

The film was shot in RAW using two Blackmagic Cinema Cameras. Footage was brought into DaVinci Resolve for a first pass grade and was then transferred to ProRes for editing. Once the footage received an initial edit, it was exported back to DaVinci Resolve for final color correction, final editing and audio fixes by Ari Golan It was then output to ProResHQ, BluRay and DVD for final delivery to Cannes.

“We really wanted to shoot on the Blackmagic cameras because of their workflow and image quality. Also, The camera had to be tough enough to work in some very difficult situations, and the Blackmagic cameras were extremely flexible. The entire workflow was simple with RAW and DaVinci Resolve. We really put the camera through some torture tests and the image quality was great throughout,” said Ari.

The shoot included working in a number of difficult locations and extreme conditions, such as shooting in the worst heat wave of 2013 in the US. In order to meet his vision, the director needed the action scene images to be up close and have a truly visceral feel. The Blackmagic Cinema Cameras allowed the filmmakers to get right into the middle of the action with their small form factor and design.

“It is a tough camera and held up great. One of the toughest shots we had was a POV shot from inside a car. We wedged ourselves into the trunk with no problem. The camera’s small form factor let me get my shot without worrying about losing image quality,” said Ari. “For another shot, we needed to shoot underwater and had a leak in the waterproof camera housing. About a quarter inch of the camera was sitting in water. It was not a problem at all, and the footage came out great. Although we certainly don't suggest the camera is waterproof, nor recommend testing that attribute, it did survive the unintended water torture test.”

“We will always shoot with the Blackmagic cameras from now on. They give us the best image quality per dollar, and allow us to do multi camera shoots. They really freed us up creatively to meet the director’s vision on ‘Kill Game’ and they gave us outstanding cinematic images at an amazing value,” said Ari.

The film will be shown at the Cannes film market event, Le Marche du Film, in May. It will also be shown at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival and the upcoming international Shriekfest horror film festival, and will be distributed to theaters later in 2014 by VMI.

Press Photography

Product photos of Blackmagic Cinema Camera and DaVinci Resolve are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check www.blackmagicdesign.com.