Cinelicious: Retro-Digital
By Chris Wolski

Paul Korver, principal/executive producer at Cinelicious, admits that he “really loves film.” And by that he means celluloid.

Cinelicious recently backed that love up by purchasing a Scanity film scanner, which is now the heart of the company’s non-linear 4K DI workflow. The Scanity can handle every type of film project from dailies to DI and visual effects footage to archival projects. It’s eliminated the need to have three separate scanners, making Korver’s decision to stick with celluloid as a creative medium a smart business move.

Cinelicious has stuck with celluloid because, as Korver sees it, “The organic quality film has aesthetic advantages over digital sensor for image acquisition, but when paired with a cutting edge digital film workflow in post it’s the perfect storm for ground-breaking cinematic images.”

“The dynamic range of other film scanners is 2.2 to 2.3 film density,” he explains. “Vision 3 film stock is 3.1. With the Scanity we can get 3.5. If you like shooting film, you’ll find there’s more information in the highlights with Scanity. That was a surprise and very exciting for us. Nobody has seen 35mm at it’s full dynamic range and true resolution.”

Korver adds that with 4K distribution soon becoming a reality, film will truly come into its own. “And by leveraging the Scanity’s workflow efficiencies, we can bring the cost of a stunning 4K DI out of the stratosphere, making it accessible to mid-range feature budgets.

Like most of today’s post houses, Cinelicious will work with a DP and a director to develop a workflow that fits their needs. They’ll discuss the camera type, the look of the dailies, how the dailies will be handled – file-based or tape – and how best to view them.

Even though Korver is an analog aficionado, Cinelicious is definitely a company for the digital age. It can handle color correction over the Internet; including setting dailies’ looks virtually on the fly, as well as take virtual delivery of files. Its 1,200-square-foot Melrose Ave. theatre in Hollywood is equipped with a 4K DLP projector and has a 24-foot-screen that is 3D and high-framerate capable.

LOS ANGELES, May 2, 2012 | Below The Line | —Cinelicious is proud to have contributed to the color grading and scanning of the wealth of archival footage featured in the new documentary MARLEY. Directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland), the film is currently in theatrical release through Universal and Magnolia Pictures as well as available on demand.

“Production company Cowboy Films sought out our expertise and flexibility in archival film remastering. With our broad support of multiple film formats we were able to handle original film elements with care and technical expertise, finishing off the meticulous transfer with a discerning eye for a period-specific palate by our colorist Steve Rodriguez. Bob Marley’s music has touched all our lives in many ways so it was a real honor to be selected for the project.” comments Paul Korver, EP and archival film expert at Cinelicious.

MARLEY is the definitive life story of Bob Marley — musician, revolutionary, and legend — from his early days to his rise to international superstardom. Crafted from a myriad of filmed sources, personal and professional, archival and contemporary, the documentary features rare footage, performances and revelatory interviews with the people that knew him best.

WATCH THE TRAILER:

LOS ANGELES, March 21, 2012 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | — Cinelicious’ film passion and expertise was tapped for the just released 7 For All Mankind’s Spring Campaign. Born from an art film imagined and created by James Franco in collaboration with the brand’s creative agency, LIPMAN, the unorthodox campaign is an innovative multimedia experience that embodies the brand’s California roots and ‘forever cool’ aesthetic. Consulting with LIPMAN and DP Max Goldman for the project, Cinelicious provided cameras (Super 8 & Ultra 16mm), film, processing and 2K film scanning and color grading.

“This was an exciting project on so many levels, including the exploration of the cameras, film stock and the unique capability of our new film scanning technology to ‘overscan’ the negative above and below the frame-line… a never before seen approach to achieve a sun-washed, celluloid aesthetic that feels both classic and timeless,” says Cinelicious Founder Paul Korver. “We are one of the only companies that support small format and, as was the case here, can package film, camera & transfer as a complete solution for unique artistic endeavors. James Franco and DP Max Goldman have created a truly evocative and beautiful campaign.”

The campaign debuts with a short teaser video, which was shot from behind the point of view of James Franco. The campaign will feature a number of cutting-edge print and digital assets and will culminate with a full-length feature film to be released in May.

The new campaign brings the brand to life through the eyes of Franco resulting in a stimulating visual journey. Shadowing a cast of actors, artists, models and musicians that embody the Los Angeles way of life including Lily Donaldson, Henry Hopper and Amber Anderson, the campaign depicts the story of a hedonistic house party that takes place over a warm December weekend in Malibu. The resulting imagery evokes a causal California lifestyle interspersed with fashion and sexuality.

The campaign launch includes a dedicated 7 For All Mankind You Tube channel debuting on February 15th (youtube.com/7forallmankindjeans). The print and digital assets will live on the YouTube channel including curated episodes, which delve into the key cast members’ journey throughout the shoot. The episodes, all edited and directed by Franco, showcase the unique interpretation and expression of the brand (see Episode 1 above and future Episodes as they’re released below).

Advertising Agency: LIPMAN New York, NY
Agency website: http://www.lipman-nyc.com
Chief Creative Officer: David Lipman
Creative Director: Amir Zia

Director / Photographer: James Franco
DP: Max Goldman

Production & Post Services: Cinelicious
Film/Camera/Post Consulting: Paul Korver, EP
Color Grading: Steve Rodriguez
Telecine Producer: Reggie Diaz

Cast:
Lily Donaldson
Charlotte Free
Amber Anderson
Natalia Bonifacci
Nathalie Love
Elyse Poppers
Nana Agyapong
Tamzin Brown
Adarsha Benjamin
Nina Ljeti
Jessica Mau
Henry Hopper
Val Lauren
Mac Edouard-Leon
John Morrow
Vince Jolivette
Will Lewis
Alex Nifong

Here’s a surprising fact that independent producers may want to consider before they write off film as “too expensive”: There were 120 films in competition at Sundance this year. Based on our research and conversations with Kodak and Fuji only 5% were shot on film… and yet that small minority took 100% of the most coveted Jury and Grand Jury prizes in the US and World Dramatic competitions, as well as winning the Excellence in Cinematography Award in the US Dramatic category.

It’s true that producers of sub-$1M independent film need to watch the bottom line… but isn’t the ultimate goal to win awards and thereby sell the movie?

And if shooting a dramatic, narrative film costs an indie film an extra $70K over digital acquisition, but has the potential to elevate the performances of the actors, the attitude of the cast and crew on set, and give the film an aesthetic advantage over the sea of digital competitors… isn’t that $70K well spent? Although the producers and director of the Grand Jury Prize winner Beasts of the Southern Wild were unavailable for comment due to meetings with CAA, ICM, and WME after signing their million dollar deal with Fox Searchlight… if asked by fellow producers whether it was worth the extra investment to shoot on film no doubt they’d say with a smile… nah… keep shooting digital.

Tired of cutting in dingy, back-lot edit bays that are depressing to editors, directors, creatives and clients? At Cinelicious we believe inspired environments foster good creative, happy people, and better content. Perched high above Melrose and a block from Paramount our new Creative Editorial and VFX LOFT boasts 270 degree views Hollywood, modern design, cutting-edge tools, and is steps from Cafe Gratitude, LOU, Osteria Mamma, and many other delectable Larchmont eateries. Or, as one post supervisor recently commented, “It’s like editing at the W”.

We are currently making available all or a portion of the LOFT space to clients who have chosen Cinelicious talented Artists for their Color Grading, VFX/Finishing, or Feature DI. Editing at The LOFT, combined with our interconnected 4K DI theater and client friendly Flame and Color suites a block down the street provides a creative campus that is unique to the industry.

Details:

Workspaces

EDIT 1
• Avid and Final Cut on shared or local SAN storage
• 3D Stereoscopic Editorial with 3D Monitoring
• Flame 2012
• Edit Desk, Client Couch, Producer Desk, Bathroom / Shower, Private Balcony / Dining

EDIT 2
• Avid and Final Cut on shared or local SAN storage
• Edit Desk, Client Couch, Producer Office & Bathroom, Private Balcony

PRODUCER / WORKSTATION BULLPEN
• 4 x Graphics / Assistant edit stations in the bullpen area that can either be configured as a producer bullpen or assistant edit / assistant VFX stations.

Data & Tech

DATA
• 36TB Shared or Local SAN storage via switched fiber, and ethernet throughout.

VIDEO
• HD-SDI HD Video Routed to any Monitor
• 50″ Plasma 3D Capable Broadcast Monitors

BACK-UP
• LTO-4 Tape Back-up Station

INTERNET
• Business-Class high-dpeed wired/wireless with static IP

Security

STUDIO APPROVED
• The LOFT is security approved by the MPAA for work on Studio features

CCTV
• 2x CCTV Security cameras on 24-hr recording on servers at the main facility
• Biometric workstation login.

Amenities

GOURMET KITCHEN
• Wolf Stove, Sub-Zero Fridge, Dishwasher.

BATHROOMS
• Clean Modern Bathrooms (x2)
• Shower/Bathtub

LONG NIGHTS?
• Comfortably Sleeps 2

PARKING
• Secure, Direct-Access, Covered Parking Available

CLEANING
• Regular Cleaning and Plant Care Service

Hollywood, CA, December 7th, 2011 — Vrrrrrooooom! The Chrysler SRT launch video shot and directed by Michele Vittorio Ghersi highlights the energy, excitement and beauty of the 2012 SRT Line-Up, and Cinelicious was proud to provide color services to help the already striking work pop & sizzle, as well as seamlessly integrate the CG and Live-Action elements provided by Big Block.

Chrysler Corporation:
Ralph Gilles, CEO & Sr. Designer SRT / Dodge Motorsports
Beth Paretta, Director Of Marketing & Operations SRT Brand & Motorsports

Production & VFX: Big Block
Michele Vittorio Ghersi, Director/Cinematographer/co Creative Director
Mark Glaser, co Creative Director / CG Director
Kay Rough, Senior VFX Producer
Tom Connors, CG Supervisor

Color: Cinelicious
Steve Rodriguez, Color Grading
Paul Korver, EP
Reggie Diaz, Telecine Producer

Matt Thorne, Music and Sound Design

Ben.
 

Ben’s Parents Dancing.
 

 
Cinelicious Diversifies Into VFX With Hire Of Ben Looram; Launches Mobile “Take Out” Services
 
HOLLYWOOD, Calif., November 11, 2011, — Cinelicious, which opened last year as a telecine/finishing shop (SHOOTonline, 3/3/10), has extended its reach into visual effects and further into finishing with the addition of noted VFX supervisor and lead Flame artist Ben Looram. In turn, Looram and company founder Paul Korver have also launched Cinelicious Take Out, a new model of talent-driven pop-up-style visual effects and color creative delivered to any location.
 
Korver started Cinelicious with an eye to broadening the company into the full post spectrum. Today, Cinelicious’ Hollywood studio provides services for commercial and feature clients including color, telecine, high-resolution film scanning, restoration, and the new Flame suite for VFX and finish. As with set editing or shooting on location, Cinelicious Take Out provides the talent and technology wherever needed by the client, providing flexibility, faster turn-arounds, and a greater integration of creative teams and process.
 
“With Take Out we’re not just providing on-set postproduction rentals. Instead, we are bringing top creative talent and a high-end finishing and color solution into our clients’ preferred place of work whether it’s at the agency, editorial company, on set or at our studio,” explained Korver.
 
The Cinelicious Take Out concept was beta tested by Looram setting up pop-up post at a number of production companies, agencies and editorial houses including Bully Pictures on Casio for The Richards Group, Cosmo Street on Activision for 72andSunny and on the upcoming Growth Films feature The Pursuit of Loneliness.
 
Looram has had a hand in assorted pieces of award-winning work over the years. He was a Flame artist at a52 from 1998-’05. There he was part of the team honored with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Titles Design for HBO’s Carnivale. From 2005-’07 Looram was a VFX supervisor at Sway where he contributed to such projects as the Chris Milk-directed U2/Green Day music video “The Saints Are Coming,” which earned a VES award for Outstanding Effects In A Music Video. In 2007 and 2008, Looram was perma-lance at Sea Level, and was hired by Butcher as a consultant to start the company’s VFX division. There he worked on Toyota Sienna’s online campaign “Swagger Wagon” directed by Jody Hill (Caviar Content) for Saatchi & Saatchi LA. In 2010, Looram moved over to Animal as a staff VFX supervisor. Among his Animal-based projects were Audi 8’s Kenny G “Riot Suppressor” Super Bowl teaser directed by Hungry Man’s Bryan Buckley for Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco.

Opening a boutique post house with a focus on film projects could be perceived as risky in this day and age, but Paul Korver, the principal officer at Cinelicious in Hollywood, believes now is the perfect time to invest in film. “So many people believe that progress is only happening in digital, that no one is innovating in film, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says. “Film stocks are better, and today’s film-scanning technology allows us to really get the absolute best out of the negative, which is especially important with the coming of 4k projection.”
 
Located in a hip, 1960’s industrial environment a few blocks West of Paramount Studios, Cinelicious currently offers one color room — a DaVinci system connected to a Spirit Datacine and a state-of-the-art Scanity 4K digital film scanner — but a 4K-DLP projection DI Theater with a 25’ screen was under construction at press time.
 
Digital Film Technology’s Scanity is the star of the facility’s workflow. Capable of scanning at 4K at 15 fps, and offering a dynamic range of 3.3 density, the Scanity features an LED lamp source, a Time Delay Integration line sensor and dedicated Field-Programmable Gate-Array image processing.
 
The Scanity is a sprocket-less tension-driven system, utilizing a computer-controlled positioning driven by a photographic sensor that locks each frame in place within 6μ (microns, the size of one 4K pixel), delivering pin-registration accuracy without ever penetrating a perf. This combination of gentleness and accuracy makes the Scanity ideal for not only visual-effects and feature DI scanning, but also archival and restoration work, which often involves delicate materials. (Cinelicious also offers a temperature-controlled vault for the proper storage of nitrate film materials.)
 
The Scanity has a 16mm gate that is prepared for 16mm, Super 16mm and Ultra 16; the latter uses a wide area of regular 16mm (into the perfs) to create an organic 1.85:1 aspect ratio without requiring the lens re-centering that is necessary when converting 16mm cameras to Super 16mm. The scanner can also accommodate 2-perf, 3-perf and 4-perf 35mm and 8-perf 35mm VistaVision.
 
“In choosing a scanner, I wanted the best technology possible, and we took about a year to find the Scanity,” says Korver. “We created a roll of test film that had resolution charts up to 250 line-pairs per millimeter, which is way beyond the range of any scanners [in the 80-150 lp/mm range], and created density wedges from 0 to 4, in addition to shooting registration charts at Panavision Hollywood. I wanted to create a film loop that would push any scanner to the absolute limit of what it could do. Then we graded the results based on resolution, registration and dynamic range.
 
“Registration and resolution was on par with other high-end, pin-registered scanners but what blew us away about the Scanity was it’s dynamic range. Vision 3 stocks have 3.1-3.3 density range. All other scanners were hovering around 2.3 density, the Scanity came in at a whopping 3.3. This should be great news for DPs who want all that information to play with in their DI.”
 
Korver got his start in the business by creating Fifty Foot Films, a company that filmed special events on 35mm, 16mm and Super 8mm. Shortly after opening the doors, Korver had teams shooting private events all around the country, but he was frustrated by post facilities’ insistence on tape and digital workflows. “I was looking for a post house that could simply telecine straight to ProRes files, and back in 2008 I couldn’t find anyone,” he recalls. “Everyone wanted to go to tape first and then charge us for digitizing the tape to ProRes. Instead, we bought an Ursa Diamond telecine, hired a colorist and offered our own post workflow in a high-end studio we built in my garage which is how Cinelicious was born.”
 
Cinelicious began taking on outside clients, and was soon receiving film and hard drives from productions all around the world. “We set up a pipeline that allowed us to offer ColorCast Live sessions, which streamed the color session over the Internet with live Flash Encoding so that the client could watch the session from anywhere in the world,” he says. “We started getting requests for agency supervised finishing at the studio, but I was reluctant given the location. I knew that we had to evolve to a new space to be truly client friendly.”
 
Korver soon moved the work out of his garage and into the full service facility on Melrose Avenue. Just as he wished, Cinelicious works off of a completely data-centric workflow, forgoing the antiquated tape rooms for a large SAN server and Quantum LTO-5 robot for backup and storage.
 
Cinelicious feels like a high-end commercial post house – commercials being part of the company’s client base – but it caters to independent and studio productions as well. “Two years ago, fewer than 10 features had a 4K finish, and they were all $100 million productions,” says Korver. “Now, with the Scanity and our streamlined post workflow, we can bring the cost of a 4K DI down into the range of $20 million productions, maybe even $10 million productions.
 
“We don’t shy away from all-digital filmmakers,” he adds. “We just happen to really, really love film. With artists who are passionate about image making, you don’t hear, ‘I want to make film look like digital’ You hear, ‘I want digital to look like film.’
 
“We are dedicated to supporting filmmakers at the highest level, no matter if the tool of choice is film, digital or 3D. Other might people say we’re crazy for investing in film at all, but I say we’re blazing a trail for DPs to get the most out of their images.”
 
Cinelicious, 5735 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90038, phone: (323) 464-3700, website: http://cinelicious.tv/.

Goodness Mfg, Smith & Jones Films, Trailer Park and Cinelicious team up on the for the latest Toshiba campaign which was named ADWEEK’s “Ad of the Day”. See the full article here: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-toshiba-133487



Agency: Goodness Mfg.
Executive Creative Director: Thomas Adams
Art Director: Neal Desai
Copywriter: Eric Christy Manchester
EVP, Integrated Production: Rupert Samuel
Agency Senior Producer: Akash Khokha
Account Director: Kristyn Dunlap

Production Company: Smith & Jones Films
Director: Ulf Johansson
Executive Producer: Philippa Smith
Director of Photography: Barry Ackroyd

Postproduction: Trailer Park
Editor: Brett Nicoletti
Sound Designer: Gary Zacuto, Mike Rodriguez
Motion Graphics: Clarissa Donlevy, Steve Sikorski
Flame Artist: Kevin McDonald
Final Color: Steve Rodriguez @ Cinelicious
Telecine Producer: Reggie Diaz, @ Cinelicious