Full control of images in cinema

The discussion of being digital or not being digital in cinema causes divisions among the authors of the seventh art, but one of the conclusions that has been reached is that it does not matter the medium, but to tell stories.

Thus, the tools that are used depend on what is meant and, of course, the budget. Meanwhile, little by little the process to make a film is filled with new tools, and many of its possibilities are still to be explored.

In Mexico, Ollin Studio has made available to filmmakers the Digital Intermediate process, a method of film post-production that allows from removing a mole from a character, to creating a helicopter in an empty sky.

"In Latin America we are the first to have this technology," explains Carlos Iturriaga, production director of Ollin Studio, a digital animation and post-production house.

Of the 500 films made in the United States, 40 a year used the digital intermediate method; in the world there are no more than 100 films made with this procedure.

The cost of digital post-production in the United States is 10 times higher than the cost of post-production in the laboratory. At Ollin Studio, on the other hand, it is only 10% more expensive than the usual process.

In the laboratory process there is a step that is the intermediate, which includes all the processes that are carried out between the camera negative and the positive for movie theaters. That's where the digital intermediate is used.

It's about doing this whole phase on computers. Thus the color and quality of the images are fully controlled, and the visual effects are at the disposal of the narrative.

The digital intermediate is not a product that is bought in the store and used, it is a group of tools and people (colorists, photographers, engineers, artists, operators). It is not a job that can be done by one person in a single machine.

The tools used in digital intermediate processes are completely different from the traditional ones to create images. "It's like comparing a drawing with crayon on paper and an oil painting made by a Renaissance," Says Iturriaga.

In the digital intermediate, a set of software and hardware is used that in general – following the flow of Ollín – consists of the following steps: