International. Company 3's Stephen Nakamura used DaVinci Resolve in the feature film for Tomorrowland, the new epic sci-fi adventure produced by Disney. Since this feature film is the first to premiere in Dolby Vision, Nakamura also employed Blackmagic's editing program to create a pass for this new projection system.
Tomorrowland was directed by Brad Bird, who has been awarded two Oscars (Ratatouille and The Incredibles), while the filming was in charge of the director of photography Claudio Miranda, also deserving of a statuette of the Academy (The life of Pi).
According to Nakamura, there is a fascinating sequence of special effects in which one of the protagonists is transported to the world of Tomorrowland for the first time. He explains: "This is a moving shot that lasts around two minutes and includes a vast amount of elements created by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). I was just coloring this scene at ILM while the effects were being designed. On that occasion, I used the edge dimming and light adjustment tools in the "Color Match" panel, along with some functions for the composition of images by chrominance, with the aim of increasing or decreasing the saturation in specific parts of the image.
Nakamura also turned to these tools to carry out the Dolby Vision pass. "By converting files from the conventional P3 D-Cinema format to PQ, it is possible to achieve that the lighter areas of the images acquire more than twice the brightness, and that the black color of the shadows is more intense. Brad and Claudio were interested in taking advantage of this great dynamic range in a very subtle way. A lot of the tweaks for Dolby Vision really consisted of creating a new interpretation of the material, so that the amplitude of the dynamic range wasn't an overwhelming aspect over other elements."
Nakamura concluded, "Although the Dolby Vision pass gave me the ability to accentuate the brightness in the clear areas of the images in a way never before seen in the traditional D-cinema format, I used the edge dimming and light adjustment features in DaVinci Resolve to retain the original look of the standard 14-foot Lambert version in the 31.5-foot Lambert Dolby Vision variant."
