Montreal: Producers continue to demand optical and animation visual effects created in the lab, especially if the required effect is straightforward.

To meet the demand, Covimage, a specialty lab associated with Sonolab and the integrated Covitec-Eclair film laboratory service, was launched late last fall. The facility, which features the city’s only Debrie Printer, offers a complete range of optical and animation/effects, titles, blowups and reductions, says gm Jean-Guy Gagne who heads up operations.

(Sonolab, headed by gm Pierre Duceppe, offers traditional lab services of processing, timing, negative cutting, zero copy, inspection, printing and screening.)

‘The main difference between visual effects created in a film lab [optics] and cgi – at least the one that stops all the discussion – is the money,’ says Conrad Perreault, former director of the National Film Board lab and now a consultant with Covimage.

A case in point is titles or end credits (called handcreepers in the trade), which can cost two, three or five times less when done optically, says Covimage optical director Serge Langlois.

Debrie Printer

‘We have all the services of a traditional optical house and even more because we also have a Debrie Printer,’ says Perreault.

The Debrie Printer, unique to Covimage, is used to produce a 35mm direct print from a Super 16 original.

‘We also do ordinary blowups, reductions, liquid gate or dry gate,’ says Perreault. ‘And we offer CinemaScope Super 35 [2:35:1, called Scope or Widescreen] from a Super 35 original negative – that’s the way Titantic was done.’

Covimage just finished its first CinemaScope feature film, Un 32 Aout sur Terre.

Optical work done at Covimage includes the features Ultimate Weapon and Going to Kansas City, and 16mm film-originated tv series such as Omerta iii, Reseaux and Ces Enfants d’Ailleurs ii.

Optical effects – flipped and freeze frames, dissolves, wipes, multiscreens, mattes – originate with the existing filmed elements, while the animation process starts from original artwork, typically a drawing board, graphic or acetate, says Langlois.

Animation effects include graphics, high contrasts and titles.

Covimage’s installation features an Oxberry 1700 camera and two double-head projector Oxberry optical cameras. Perreault says the double-head cameras increase operation speed as tasks are run simultaneously.

‘We have another Oxberry printer used strictly for Super 35mm anamorphic [from the original or interpositive prints] because we have a lot of [coproduction] projects right now,’ says Perreault, adding:

‘The printer has what we called an additive head [lamphouse], which means we keep the same timing as the original timing, which is not something you’ll see very often in an optical house.’

Anamorphism is the process of squeezing a picture from one format to another format, then ‘desqueezing’ at either the projection or optical stage to change the projection format, explains Perreault.

Super 16 gains popularity

Among the lab’s major assets are its Schmitzer Total Immersion Printers.

‘It’s one of the best things that ever came on the market,’ says Perreault.

The Schmitzer printer is used for all formats – 16mm, Super 16 and 35mm.

As for trends, Langlois says many low-budget indie producers are opting for Super 16.

‘In the future there will be more specific tasks for optical than general requirements,’ says Langlois. ‘It’s the feeling of it, making an image with lights. It’s chemical, it’s physical.

‘The latitude with film is very high now, higher than 10 years ago. The quality of film is becoming so good,’ he says.

In ’97, Gagne and Covitec-Eclair, a Groupe Covitec company, purchased all the nfb’s existing lab equipment, with Covitec holding an 80% interest in Covimage.

Gagne projects sales for the first year at $1.2 million.