The Making-of 2012
Summary
Although digital technology is now part of everyday life, a plethora of workflows on one hand and a lack of lasting standards/supports on the other make it more complicated for producers to fulfill the demands of their partners (co-producers and distributors).*
In the middle of this chaos, producers are, in addition, very dependent upon the limited digital equipment proposed by postproduction providers, who themselves have limited investment capacities given the flood of expensive and often short-lived formats.
None of all this comes cheap!
The bottom line is that, in order to resolve these problems, producers must create a reliable relationship with partners who understand their needs and seek adequate solutions to them. To achieve this, they must make themselves understood, meaning they must become familiar with the terms of a shared language, rendering communication trustworthy.
As the German producer Martin Hagemann, the chairman of the DPC Workshop, stressed it in its welcoming speech, DPC intends to help producers to get a better grasp of this complex environment and to acquire that shared language, thus granting them full access to the decision chain.
The workshop opened in a very practical way giving the floor to 10 participants to pitch their projects in pre-production stage (or advanced development phase), expose the main challenges they face regarding the workflow, thus offering concrete working material to the whole delegation. The projects were then discussed in further details in group sessions, with final conclusions and recommendations given the last day.
Between the projects’ discussions on Days 1 and 3, there has been a series of sessions alternating:
- technical focuses by the French DoP Philippe Ros on the workflow skeleton or Decision Tree (including key words such as Compression, Colour Depth and Colour Sampling, Bayer/Debayer, Sensors, Dematerialization, Bitrate, LUTs) and the most used digital cameras. Complementary expertise was regularly given by the two main post-production providers participating, Tommaso Vergallo / Digimage Cinéma and Ruedi Schick / Swiss effects Film GmbH, as well as by some other professionals with a cameraman, DIT or post-production supervisor hat.
- case studies presentations on films (from low to high budget) recently completed, concretely illustrating key principles and challenges production and post-production professionals often have to deal with,
- presentations and panel discussions on decision making in the new workflows, digitisation and distribution/exhibition and the archiving issue.
Throughout the workshop, tutors stressed the importance of communication and teamwork – which triggered interactive discussions on the evolution of the roles played by the various key players of the chain, from producers, post-production providers to distributors and exhibitors, and on the future of independent cinema.
Digital technology is demanding since it keeps on changing (lack of standards) and quickly. But the new opportunities this phenomenon brings along make it worth being curious and more familiar with it!
* A context that also increases the risk that the major manufacturers who control the entire chain, from cameras to distribution supports, will impose their technical standards, which are often a hindrance to creativity.
The Making-of 2012
- General Presentation
- Summary
- Case Studies
- Technical Presentations [PDF] by P. Ros
- Participants’ Projects
- Workflows of Participants’ Projects [PDF] by P. Ros
- The DCI Manufacturing Process and Digital Cinema Distribution
- Digital Distribution in France
- Digitisation and Archiving (summary, separate detailed presentations)
- Photo Gallery