When we started work on Associated Producers’ latest documentary Quest for the Lost Tribes we did not know the full scope of the journey we were about to embark on.

Digital Post was originally contacted by Simcha Jacobovici to create a number of digital maps that would assist the audience locate the countries that the production crew traveled to to locate the lost tribes of Israel.

One full year before Quest was premiered, Debbie Gaysinsky, Digital Post’s animator, started drafting the look required for the maps. Simcha did not want just a collection of maps, but maps specifically designed for his show, that would retain an ‘old look’ but be modern enough to be able to withhold the use of 3D effects.

Our first step was to watch the Indiana Jones films to see the effect achieved by Spielberg in those movies, but those maps were very flat and simple and Simcha wanted the maps to be an integral part of the film.

We bought the licence for a map collection that would ultimately be completely changed, but helped us with the border definition.

Debbie developed, in PhotoShop and Illustrator, between 10 and 15 different looks of a Middle East map until she had the right combination of texture, color and resolution.

Once the look had been defined, she developed five different maps covering the different parts of Asia and North Africa that were required by the nine digital shots used along the film.

After the textures were ready, the director determined that he did not want the different routes traveled to appear as a simple red or dotted lines, so we started developing different icons that would represent the Assyrians, the Israelites, the boats they used and so on.

Then all the elements were imported into 3D Studio Max. Because the maps had to be an integral part of the movie, some of them were seamlessly placed in place through the use of special effects such as clouds and sandstorms, which were also done on 3D Studio Max.

After the animations were completed, I composited all the layers (maps, names, icons and effects) in After Effects. One of the maps had a total of 37 layers.

Because of the detail in the maps, we needed a graphics card that would allow us to see how the colors and details were holding on the ntsc monitors. We decided to buy a new video board that would provide us with uncompressed quality and that would drive the ntsc monitor directly from the applications we were using.

The obvious choice was the DigiSuite, manufactured in Quebec by Matrox. Not only did all our applications address the board directly, but also Matrox provided the plug-in for Studio Max in their bundled software.

At the time, there was also some talk the Discreet Logic edit* would be able to run on Matrox’s boardsets, so it made us comfortable knowing that the boardset could be used in an editing situation.

As the deadline drew closer and our visits to Associated Producers increased to at least two per day, we started assisting editor Reid Dennison on several shots, in particular, one of Simcha riding a Jeep.

Because of the lighting conditions of the shot, you could not actually tell that Simcha was inside the Jeep, so we had to brighten the scene just inside the Jeep, while retaining the outside levels.

The task was accomplished using Digital Fusion, which talks directly to the DigiSuite board, allowing us to do proper adjustments while checking the actual results directly in the video monitors.

In this same way, the title treatment was developed. Because of some precise timing required in the appearance and disappearance of the title, which basically had to follow the director’s flashlight, we needed not only to track the position of the flashlight on the screen but also its intensity and the color balance of the elements of the shot. Digital Fusion and DigiSuite allowed us to do a perfect match.

As the online session for the film was about to take place, we approached the director and told him that we had the capability of doing the job. We knew that Simcha is a perfectionist to an extreme, and the film presented a lot of challenges, particularly the color correction, as some of the footage had gone through pal to ntsc conversions, different cameras with different mediums and uncontrollable environments.

At this point, Discreet Logic had not released edit* for the full DigiSuite, but it was available for the reduced boardset, the DigiSuite le.

With the assistance of Extra Bytes, our premier supplier, we acquired another Matrox Board, the DigiSuite le and edit* 4.0. The combination proved to be a winner.

We had chosen this option because of its hardware enabled, realtime color correction and dve capabilities. What we did not know was how great its editing capabilities are. Not only can you edit in nonlinear editing fashion, but also the keyboard editing facilities are astounding.

Discreet’s production integration is fantastic. We had a few dropouts on the original camera tapes and paint* was able to address these problems perfectly, accessing the files directly, and because of our multiple DigiSuite setup, we could move the files for correction across the network.

Even just a few months ago we wouldn’t have taken on this kind of endeavor. We had bad experiences in the past with other nonlinear systems not being able to deliver the goods on the nt platform.

With Discreet’s line of products we have proved that nt is ready for Primetime.

Alex Olegnowicz is president of Digital Post, Toronto.