Paris’ Digimage invests in SGO’s Mistika for high profile film work

Digimage Cinema, a division of media group CMC, used Mistika for all the stunning stereoscopic 3D effects in live-action 3D French-language feature film Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty’s Service. Digimage offers high-end state-of the-art Stereo 3D and colour grading in the largest DI room in Europe, following its investment in SGO’s Mistika technology. The acquisition included a Mistika 2K system with DI and Stereo 3D capabilities with 48 TB of storage, on HP’s Z800 Workstation and NVIDIA 6000 Graphic Boards. A Mistika Assist station has recently been added to the workflow, further enhancing efficiency and film capabilities with Mistika’s advanced grading power.

DIGIMAGE BELIEVES IN MISTIKA – PUTTING IT STRAIGHT TO WORK ON ASTERIX

“We see Mistika as a long term investment and without wasting a moment, we immediately put it to work on Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty’s Service and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s highly anticipated film, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet due to be released this October across all IMAX Theatres in France.” Tommaso Vergallo, Managing Director Digital Filmlab of Digimage Cinema states. Located in the South of Paris, Digimage Cinema has worked on many exciting film projects prompting Tommaso to closely review various Stereo 3D and grading systems last year before undertaking the Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty’s Service project and concluded that Mistika was the clear choice with which to move their cinema division forward. “We heard a lot of positive reports about Mistika and the supportive team at SGO. The fact that Mistika’s advanced technology provides everything we need all in one complete system, is really unique.”

Tommaso continues “Virtually all of the major post houses across the globe are now adopting Mistika as their primary system for world-class projects of the highest degree. It became an easy decision when we saw Mistika in action and how unbelievably fast it was. It has achieved real results in recent award-winning films, and with all these factors combined, we knew it was the perfect technology for us without a doubt.” 

Francois Dupuy, Technical Manager at Digimage expands “It is very exciting that we are also using Mistika for the complete post of award-winning French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet starring Kyle Cattlet and Helena Bonham Carter. It was filmed using ARRI ALEXA cameras in Stereo 3D, and we are currently using our Mistika for the conform, colour grade and Stereo 3D.”

MISTIKA ACHIEVES STUNNING COLOUR GRADING AND STEREO 3D RESULTS IN ASTERIX

Mistika played a crucial role at Digimage in the post production of high profile Stereo 3D animation film lead by Stereoscopic Post Production Supervisor Sergio Ochoa with Post Supervisor from Fidelite Films, Susana Antunes and a team of talented artists. Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty’s Service (Asterix et Obélix: Au service de sa Majesté) was directed by Laurent Tirard who was also responsible for the stunning cinematography, which was produced by Olivier Delbosc and Marc Missonnier at Fidélité Films for film company Wild Bunch. It boasts over 800 CGI shots created by Mac Guff and Micros. Alain Derobe and his daughter Josephine Derobe, both Post Supervisors of the Stereo 3D live shoot, which was shot on ARRI ALEXA cameras, set Sergio Ochoa various challenges in post which included Stereo 3D colour grading with CG simultaneously, as well as solving polarisation challenges in the film.

KEY OBJECTIVES MET USING MISTIKA

Sergio explains “The key objective within Alain’s brief was that we had to achieve an extremely high quality finish to ensure a comfortable Stereo 3D experience for the audience, and I believe we accomplished that using Mistika. The project involved extensive colour grading, Stereo 3D grading, conforming and VFX deliveries using Mistika’s advanced toolsets in real-time which made it possible for us to achieve excellent results.” Sergio and his team faced polarisation issues throughout the film, which they were able to solve owing to Mistika´s pixel motion estimation tool which was used for conforming and then exported for the VFX phase of the post process.

MISTIKA IS TIME-SAVING

Sergio elaborates “Also the fact that we were able to complete the colour grading and the Stereo 3D grading simultaneously, made it possible for us to save time and increase the creative power as well as the final quality. Mistika´s innovative metadata-based philosophy allowed us to do design a workflow which made it possible to parallelize tasks and by doing so, provided the opportunity to synchronise with the editing team, applying editing changes to the project and re-conforming it with all of our processes and changes in a matter of minutes.” Sergio enthuses “Mistika´s capacity to work simultaneously in colour grading and Stereo 3D grading in real-time, facilitated a high quality finish process and enabled Josephine Derobe´s great vision to be actualised.”

MISTIKA IS A FUTURE-PROOF INVESTMENT

Jose Luis Acha, Regional Sales Manager at SGO affirms “Digimage Cinema was looking to invest in a post production solution with the additional benefits of first-rate stereoscopic 3D functionality, which they found in Mistika. We are delighted that they chose SGO and Mistika, which delivered great results in Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty’s Service. Mistika is a ahead of the game in DI and stereoscopic editing and with Digimage’s recently acquired Mistika Assist station indicates their rapid growth SGO supports as their high profile projects flow in.”

IN MEMORY

Internationally renowned 3D expert, Alain Derobe, who was also the inventor of a 3D technique named the ‘Natural Depth Method’, sadly passed away on 11 March 2012. Before that he had also supervised the Stereo 3D shooting and grading of Wim Wenders’ PINA, which was post produced using Mistika and was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar and received the Special Jury Prize from the International 3D Society of Los Angeles. He was quoted as saying “The key to quality 3D depends above all on the will to use a new form of language.”

Sergio expresses the following about his work with Alain, “As stereoscopic post production supervisor of Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty´s Service, I had the honour of working with Alain Derobe, who managed a highly successful production design for shooting tremendously challenging Stereo 3D within the same time scale expectations of 2D and, despite technical hiccups along the way, he overcame those moments with his incredible wit, delivering great results.”

THE FILM’S PLOT

The film’s storyline is about Julius Caesar landing in Britain, where a small village still holds out bravely against the Roman legions. A critical situation develops and villagers face real danger. Jolitorax, one of the villagers then looks for volunteers to help including his second-cousin, Asterix the Gaul to rescue the villagers under Roman threat of occupation. The film features a star-studded cast of French stars including Gérard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini and Catherine Deneuve.

Asterix & Obelix: On Her Majesty’s Service is currently out on Blu Ray. More news will follow about Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet post produced at Digimage Cinema using Mistika.

SOME OF THE CREDITS INCLUDE

Post Production Supervisor: Susana Antunes
Stereoscopic Supervisors Josephine Derobe and Alain Derobe
Producer and Production Company: Fidélité Films, Wild Bunch
Director: Laurent Tirard
Director of Photography: Denis Rouden
Cameras used for filming process: ARRI ALEXA
Post Production Company: Digimage Cinema
Offline Editor and Post Facility: Valérie Deseine, Digimage Cinema
Post production system: SGO Mistika, used by Post Production Supervisor, Sergio Ochoa