The 'Digital Grader'

The benefit of a Digital Grader on your production:

These stills taken on the HD feature "Promised Land" shot in South Africa prove to demonstrate the value that an engineer or digital grader can add to a production.

The visual tools of digital cinematography aim to support and magnify the underlying psychological message the director and DOP are trying to communicate to the audience. These tools consist of the extensive camera menus available to the digital grader on cameras like the Sony HDW F900,DVW 700, 790 and the Sony PD150.

Pre-production:

In a perfect scenario the digital engineer or painter will spend time in pre-production with the DOP and director. With "Promised Land" Jason Zenopolous and Guilio Bacari spent a day discussing references with the Magus Visual HD technicians. This was to form a basic departure point for what would finally become 3 grades to be used throughout the film.

Tests:

Test should always be shot involving the wardrobe, art and make up departments. During these tests the grades or look would be moulded and changed using the contribution of the above departments.

This process allows one to manipulate variables to the grade. Wardrobe, set-dressing and make-up can be changed to benefit the camera grade in a synergetic way.One plus one is now three as one can alter variables to contribute to the camera grade.

With film the grade was done in post-production by which time the wardrobe, sets and make-up were already captured on film. In the digital domain the camera grade or look can be pre-determined and the variables available to tell the story moulded around the camera look and of course the camera look can also be moulded around wardrobe or sets.

Production:

During production these digital graders will assist the DOP and on occasion grade individual shots depending on unique requirements.

On the HD feature "Promised Land" the HD technicians also advised the DOP on the use of the 3° to 330° shutter on the HDCam. As Marius van Straaten and Julian Guillaume had extensive film backgrounds they were able to put digital principals in film terms thereby futher bridging the gap between film and digital formats.

Magus Visual have three highly skilled digital graders: Julian Guillaume, Steve Lawton and Marius van Straaten. Value is added to any production shooting on a digital format by having these digital technicians on set. This expertise is especially important when blowing up a digital format to film.

Visuals Group Technical Department.