We have succeed numerous times, the last five years, to facilitate small Post Production house's that where based even on the other side of the planet and up until today, had just the ability to do editing and graphics, to include successfully in their range of capabilities, with minimal investment, the option to deliver truly high end Digital Intermediate services, in a level that enable them to compete even with the big Hollywood DI houses.

In the least complicated installation, we need from our Partner to have, a room that can be totally dark, a MacPro with Apple Color or DaVinci, a control surface, a spectrophotometer and a very good monitor or projector as a main display device. The total cost of all doesn’t pass the 20k euro’s mark. Alternatively we can work with all other systems that are available, like Iridas, Assimilate, DaVinci etc.

As a next step we offer a special software toolset, plus our consulting services thru Skype. Slowly, during a period of two to four months, we transfer all our Know How on color management plus the basics of color correction to our partner. When we feel that we getting to the point that all are ready, we film record  1min test's and we try it, at least three times, until we get it right.

When we succeed and the filmout looks exactly as it looks on Partner monitor, then immediately our Partner is accredited as a WYSIWYG DI House and gets clients either form us or from his local market.

Additionally partners can bypass the real filmout step and be a "Digital Only" partner and get benefit from the LOG film workflow by leveraging the DCP quality to the Film level.

We, then act, as a co-pilot, working closely and cooperate with our new Partner to solve all his potential problems, to even other things not absolutely related to filmouts, like color management of graphics workstations, or assisting during production in color related problems of his/our clients. Our profit comes only from the filmouts that we do for him and are charged directly to the production that orders them. Our partner profits from his work and we from ours.

Our work is designed to allow small Post Production facilities to have access to things that was the privilege of big players up until today. Our experience in color management for film is at the disposal of the creative people around the world. The revolution has started.

Below are FAQ for a Post Facility or a Production house that wants to became a partner.

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FAQ for Post Production Facilities

Q. We are a post facility and we want to cooperate with you guys, what are the ground rules?

A. We don’t referring to producers, non partners; so you have to become a partner to get clients from us. To do that you have to successfully pass the consulting / accreditation phase; we also have limits in to getting new partners accredited when we already have an active partner in an area with population less than 1mil, the protection period is for only two years or if the partner seize operation. So it’s better to ask us if you want to start working in an area that there is already another partner.

Q. We are a production house and we typically do in house the editing in our Mac’s, since technically we aren’t a post facility… can we get accredited as a partner?

A. Yes you can, only with one limitation, if there is another active partner in the area we will not allow to work as a competitor to the other partner before his two years period passed. So it’s no problem if it’s for house projects or no problem at all if there isn’t another partner in your area or if your area has more than 1mil inhabitants.

Q. Unfortunately, we don’t speak English… can we still collaborate?

A. We are very sorry, but we can’t communicate if you don’t speak English. The know how transfer process includes long Skype conference calls in order to educate and solve your problems, so a lack of fluent English speaking can rise a serious communication barrier.

Q. We want to print a film next week… can we finish the process in one week?

A. Unfortunately the process is very time consuming and not very easy to happen in a week. It usually takes two to four months until all are ready. If there is a rush project you can take one of the other packages (for Cinematographers or Students) that having a faster turn around time. Off coarse there aren’t on the same level in terms of accuracy but they offer a good alternative.

Q. What we have to pay to start the accreditation and start the know how transfer process?

A. The consulting fee is 1200 euro’s and its one off; it includes all the software needed to do the calibration, display profiling and off coarse three 1 minute film out tests. To order now click here.

Q. We don't want to do real filmouts right now but instead we want to use LUT's and Color Management do grade in LOG for DCP, so can we apply as digital only partners?

A. Yes certainly, for consulting fee of 800 euro's there is the a special category in the Order Now page for Digital Only DI Post Houses. To order now click here.

Q. Do we need extra hardware to get it done?

A. Yes certainly a spectrophotometer probe and if your display device fail to comply another display device. Don’t thing tenths of thousands of euro’s… we have solutions that don’t pass even the 5K mark…

Q. We do have a color grading system, not Apple Color, can we work together?

A. Yes we can, we do cooperate with almost all systems available. We can’t though warrantee that we will be able to assist in system related problems or tips and tricks since our knowledge as users limits in Apple Color.

Q. What Monitor or Projector we have to get in order to get the job done?

A. For monitors connected with DisplayPort an Apple Cinema 27" LED would be good enough, for HDMI connected monitors we working with HP DreamColor and with a specific LG monitor, the  LG W2420R and lastly for projectors the latest JVC's are the best options. A monitor that is a real diamond if you find it and its on a good performing shape is the famous Sony FW900, this monitor achieves the best results but is very rare to find and needs expensive converter to work with Display Ports or HDMI.

Q. What are the supported LUT's that you can deliver?

A. We can deliver a wide range:

Q. We also have a monitor that we trust, can we work with that?

A. Off coarse you can, the only problem that we going to face is if the monitor doesn’t perform. Then we will need something that will perform since the whole process relies on that.

Q. The client will have to pay something to Motion FX that is related to color grading? 

A. No, you deal with your client and we don’t get anything from him except of the film recording cost. The way you will charge your client has nothing to do with us. The color grading / conform is your job and the film recording ours. The production pays us, directly, for the film recording process only.

Q. If we start a movie and we need confidence film out tests is there any cost involved?

A. On every movie that we print we give three 1 minute tests for free. The only cost that the client has to pay is the courier transport.

Q. What are the differences between what you do and Magic Bullet LUT Buddy free?

A. Let’s explain the different types of LUT’s existing to understand:

1. Viewing LUT’s, these are LUT’s that can be created from special software like CineSpace with the aim to calibrate accurately your display devices to certain targets like Filmout Stocks, DCP, REC709 etc. These are our Generic LUT's.

2. Looks LUT’s, these are LUT’s to take an A image “original” that you will alter it (color correct it) to an image B “new image” and because you want to transfer that Look to other applications you will need to create a Look LUT which when it will be applied to images it will convert them from Look A to the Look B.

3. Conversion LUT’s, these LUT’s are designed to take a given color space like a given Film Stock or Cineon Log to REC709 or DCP, these LUT’s can be applied in the video output and used to color grade a Log sourced image to REC709. You can find this type of LUT's in our Gneric's.

The first is needed to bring your viewing environment to an accurate state in order to have the confidence of what you see is also visible to your clients and to the world. This is a difficult and very expensive task to achieve, it needs special software that costs more than 1500$ and up, plus probe and monitor that can perform. Have in mind the package needed isn’t the typical Desktop Publishing monitor icc calibrators but rather the cinema counterparts that supporting 3D LUT’s. This can be covered along with the third in the most cost effective way by using our consulting services. Alternatively you can use our Generic LUT’s that are used with specific setups to get a similar result.

The second is what the Magic Bullet free plug-in is doing…

So the bottom line is that you either need a correct conversion LUT to work with Log and i.e. with the new Technicolor style like the REC709 to Cineon 6500K (HD) assuming that you use an averagely calibrated HD monitor or if you want a professionally accuracy you have to use the professional tools to calibrate and the appropriate monitors.

Q. Ok you do different thinks, but Technicolor provides a LUT with the package what is the difference?

A. The difference is that the LUT’s included on the package are just simple 1D curves in 8bits and we provide regular high precision 3D LUT with 12 or more bits in depth that allow you to take advantage of the internal Floating point color engines of Apple Color or DaVinci i.e. in a way that will result in much more rich image and more flexible. As an example the Technicolor LUT is 4k bytes and a DaVinci 3D LUT for Cineon Log 6500K (HD) is 951k bytes.

Q. Can After Effects work with 3D LUT’s?

A. As for After Effects the most current version CS5 (10.0.1) supports the Autodesk formats of *.3dl, which we can also provide as generic or conversion.

Q. Why the Log is so better than linear in small cameras like canon 7D or 5D?

A. Let’s assume that we want to capture an 8 stops image from a sensor that has 12 bits internal processing that’s 4096 steps of light intensity to an 8bit compressed H264 file that’s 256 steps.

In “linear” the top brightest stop n. 8 will consume 128 steps, the stop n. 7 will consume the next 64 steps and the stop n. 6 will consume the next 32 steps. The top 3 brightest stops of an image when is being described in linear will result to “consume” the 87,5% of the available bits in a file, leaving the lower 5 stops of the mid-tones/shadows to be described by just 32 bits…!!!

On Log we allocate 10 stops in equivalent segments like 25 bits for each stop. That results to a secondary data compression of an applied curve, which needs to be decompressed with the use of an appropriate 3D LUT in order to counteract accurately also the saturation of the converted image. By doing that we effectively recreate information that wasn’t visible in the original file but was there in the original image the sensor was capturing.

So the difference between Linear and Log is night and day.

Q. Ok, let’s assume that we going forward what is the expected accuracy?

A. The accuracy that we aim is +/- 1 printer light. It’s a difference almost in the accuracy limits of the instruments that measuring it. A difference, very hard to be noticed from the inexperienced eye.

Q. Is it obligatory to do our copies in Kodak Cinelabs Greece?

A. No its optional, when all is finished correctly and you have on hands a good zero copy then all god labs would be able to reproduce the results. If you decide to do the prints in Kodak Cinelabs Greece, you will benefit from the great stability and repeatability of an ImageCare accredited Lab. Of coarse there are other ImageCare labs around the world check out the list: ImageCare Labs List

Q. We want to deliver DCP, internet, and REC709 HD tapes to our clients do you offer conversion LUT’s? 

A. Off coarse we do, its part of our obligations towards to our Partners. We deliver conversion LUT’s for sRGB (internet), XYZ (DCP), REC709 (HD delivery).

Q. Can we film record 4K material?

A. Yes off course, with our Lasergraphics producer we can handle it. Although our ArriLaser can’t, because it’s just HD/2K.

Q. Can you handle sound?

A. Yes we can Dolby SR (analogue 5+1), Dolby digital and DTS. Only the rights to Dolby must be paid first so we do accept already encoded material. It can be uploaded to our secure FTP for optical print.

Q What is the typical job turn around?

A. From receiving the disk with the film to be print, it’s about two to three weeks time until the client will have a big smile in his face…

Q. Do you have a fast number on film recording pricing?

A. Due to competition reasons we can’t disclose pricing in public. Please get in touch with us and all will be available for your evaluation. Alternatively select the request for quotation from the side menu.

Q. What we have to do to start?

A. Just sent us an email, with your name, company and telephone or use the contact form and we will get back to you. Or submit an order by clicking in the side menu the Order Now and selecting the appropriate package.

Q. Can you scan films?

A. Yes we can, we have access to a Northlight II 4K scanner we can also offer 2K scans at lower cost, but due to the logistic cost involved to transport the film rolls by airfreight its better to seek for a local lab to do that. On the other hand we can offer this service and judge by your self since our pricing is very aggressive.

Q. Can you also do Telecine and negative processing?

A. Yes we do offer Telecine services thru our partner Kodak Cinelabs Greece. We will get you in touch.