Grand Prize at Dimension 3 goes to film produced on Mistika

Wim Wender’s feature film PINA, post produced using Mistika at PICTORION das werk, received the Grand Prize at Dimension 3

“Throughout the post production process of “PINA”, Mistika empowered us to work and deliver in various resolutions, formats and frame-rates in one timeline, which was a major advantage. This is why Mistika is considered the perfect system for challenging projects … that require a demanding mastering process.”

Christian Troeger , DI Conform / Finishing & Stereo Artist, PICTORION das werk

Paris, France, 1 June 2011:

SGO is delighted to announce that well known German Director, Wim Wenders’ Stereo 3D feature documentary film, titled PINA, was awarded the Grand Prize at 3D technology festival, Dimension 3, in Paris last month. SGO Mistika had a presence at Dimension 3 this year with various demonstrations taking place attracting great interest at their booth. Mistika was used from the beginning of pre-production and at the start of the post production process at PICTORION das werk for the project. PINA was the very first stereo 3D film ever to be shown at the Berlinale festival earlier this year in Germany.

PINA was filmed entirely in Stereo 3D, using two Sony HDC 1500 cameras, and was ingested into its Mistika’s native Dual YUV-10bit JS format. DI Conform / Finishing and Stereo Artist at PICTORION das werk, Christian Troeger explained: “Throughout the challenging post production process of PINA, Mistika empowered us to work and deliver in various resolutions and formats in one timeline, which was a major advantage. This is why Mistika is considered the perfect system for challenging projects like this that require a demanding mastering process.”

Christian continued: “Two weeks before the “picture lock” stage, we decided to capture the maximum length of every shot that we anticipated for the final edit, in order to have enough time to handle all the footage from over 130 original camera tapes.” He added: “In an “A-mode style” timeline in Mistika, we flipped all mirror rig “eye” shots and created a DPX data-pool, which relied on the powerful capacity of our SAN storage system. It literally took seconds for Mistika to bring an offline edit to a high resolution stereo 3D conformed timeline; and even the VFX and grading departments could immediately start working from one data-pool from the Mistika system.”

The initial Stereo 3D depth grading incurred more than two weeks of concerted effort with Alaine Derobe, a stereoscopic pioneer and the on-set stereographer. The colour grading took place at the same time as the stereo 3D depth grading with a flexible and efficient workflow that made it possible for director, Wim Wenders to colour-time his film, while Alaine simultaneously worked in the Mistika suite.

Due to Mistika’s smart GUI and picture processing capability, Christian and Alaine were able to work at the same time on the graphics monitor in anaglyph mode and also project a full HD stereo picture on the suites against a silver screen. “The convergency graph and stereoscopic warp functionality in Mistika were a great help as it enabled me to check the images and geometrical issues, while working on them, and then still be able to make corrections where necessary.” Christian noted.

Christian Troeger and Sven Heck, both DI Conform / Finishing and Stereo 3D Artists, also completed the 1:1.85 frame using Mistika, which would normally occur during colour timing in the grading suite. However, in this production, it made more sense to render all geometric changes, such as framing, stereo corrections, warps and compositing, all at once using one single Mistika process tree to maintain and protect image quality. Mistika was also used for various visual effects shots, as well as compositing, polarisation elimination, stabilisation fixes and other re-touches that were required.

The complete sub-titling of all European language versions were also completed in Mistika, which involved placing 2D sub-titles into Stereo 3D, followed by setting depths for each title separately, while concurrently, taking the image behind each sub-title, into account. The sub-titling was created in the final DCP resolution of 1998 x 1080 using Mistika, while the film retained the native format right up until the very end, thus avoiding any unnecessary time-consuming rescaling.
The official film trailer is available to view on You Tube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dflLt1G_Tc and other websites to visit about the film include: http://www.wim-wenders.com/ and http://www.pina-film.de

Demonstrations of Mistika took place in French, at Dimension 3 in Paris and are available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIi4z0f8wzs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9ZfLTlP8dI
Credits

DIRECTOR Wim Wenders
POST PRODUCTION PICTORION das werk
DI CONFORM AND FINISHING ARTIST Christian Troeger, PICTORION das werk
DI CONFORM AND FINISHING ARTIST Sven Heck, PICTORION das werk
POST PRODUCTION SYSTEM SGO Mistika
(Please refer to the main film website to see the full list of credits)