The Burbank facility of Vancouver-based Rainmaker Digital Pictures is currently testing and helping to develop a new digital film finishing system that has the potential to, among other things, alter the time-worn process of feature film color correction.

The system, dubbed DataLab by the facility, brings more of the steps involved in the film post-production process into the digital realm, thereby moving the increased range of capabilities that have been available for television post into the feature world. Anchored by the Philips Spirit Datacine and using the Specter Virtual Datacine and gear from several other manufacturers, the system allows film finishing tasks like color timing and titles to be done using digital files.

After the dailies are scanned by telecine and edited on a nonlinear system and the cut is locked, that material is retransferred at 2K resolution via Spirit and stored as data on huge disc arrays.

Rainmaker l.a. president Peter Sternlicht points to the system as the first substantial change in several decades to the way feature film color is modified. ‘DataLab’ bypasses the photochemical process using hazeltine and replaces it with a more flexible digital process. With the film digitized, the Specter, a server-based system, working with the Pandora MegaDef color corrector, is used to provide a wider array of color capabilities.

‘The range of adjustment allowed by the current method is very limited when compared to the type of color correction systems in the tv environment,’ says Sternlicht. ‘We’re doing an r&d test to verify the technology to allow the same type of tool set to be used with high-rez data to provide a wider range of creative options for feature filmmakers.’

In addition to Philips, the manufacturer partners involved in the test include Silicon Graphics, Panasonic, Sony, Ciprico, Mountain Gate, Digital Projection and Pandora. Rainmaker is also working in cooperation with studios like Paramount, Disney and mgm, which are providing test footage.

The system is in beta test in Burbank now. Concurrent testing with a second system in Vancouver will begin in May, with market availability scheduled for summer.

With the test, Rainmaker will develop color look-up tables, custom-made systems integration and asset management tools.

Sternlicht says the DataLab system provides a number of advantages, the first being creative latitude, as well as the ability to create a film-resolution distribution master.

‘Once you have that distribution master you can use it to create any distribution format you need, be it film – we can take the data and shoot it back to film – or standard or high-definition tv or any electronic format we use now or will in the future.’

The cost of assembling the system from scratch, says Sternlicht, would range anywhere from $5.2 million to $12 million, depending on the storage and bandwidth configurations. The test system at Rainmaker utilizes about 1 terabyte of storage; in full production use, it would require about 3.5 terabytes, says Sternlicht.

He says the reaction from filmmakers and dops has been along the lines of ‘ `It’s about time.’ It gives them a whole new set of tools.’

Rainmaker Vancouver also recently installed the Innovation tk telecine tool Y-Front as an upgrade to its telecine services.

On the effects and animation side, the shop has upgraded its Henry suite to Infinity, enabling unlimited layers and has upgraded and expanded to two Inferno 3.0 suites and one Flame 6.0 suite.

The company has also set up an in-house art department to handle the design work on internal jobs like Website design as well as client title design, previsualization and storyboard requirements.