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.