Superman Returns – Electronically
This summer America's best-known superhero has a homecoming in director Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. Absent from the screen for nearly 20 years, the Man of Steel will benefit from the digital revolution that has given audiences visual effects undreamed of in 1987, when Superman made his last big screen appearance in Superman IV. Superman Returns is also the first blockbuster to be shot with the Genesis Panavision-Sony camera. With so many digital bits and new technology to manage, it seemed sensible to rethink the management of the entire filmmaking process for this $200 million action-adventure.
The Genesis is the next-generation camera following the Sony CineAlta, the HD camera that George Lucas used to shoot the latest episodes of Star Wars. The Genesis, however, tries to come even closer to the look of film by employing a 12-megapixel RGB sensor that is very close to the size of a film frame, allowing the use of standard 35mm lenses and providing similar depth-of-field characteristics. The Genesis also has a dynamic range much closer to that of film than any previous electronic cameras. While it’s possible to record the output as uncompressed files, Superman Returns production opted to record to 4:4:4 HDCAM SR, a lightly compressed format that needs to be handled carefully to maintain quality through hundreds of visual fx processes and a digital intermediate.
Use of the Genesis camera, and the fact that Superman Returns effects would be handled by at least six major visual effects houses and shot by a live action team in Australia, presented an opportunity to manage data in an innovative way. Enter Scott Anderson, a visual effects supervisor and veteran filmmaker involved with a half dozen blockbusters, including King Kong, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and I, Robot. Anderson’s long experience had taught him that with data moving between so many different facilities (and with their inevitable politics and redundant systems) that a single organizational structure and pipeline made sensefor digital postproduction. Anderson formed L.A.-based Digital Sandbox to provide this organizational and technological solution. The company is based on a low-overhead model and uses off-the-shelf hardware and software.
“In visual effects, I wanted to bridge the world of the freelancer and the world of the facility,” Anderson explains. “Having worked in both, I saw and experienced advantages and disadvantages in each. Viewing it as a filmmaker, I saw each as a compromise. My concept was simple: the great structure and management of a large facility but without the computer arms race (and the overhead it adds).”
For the Superman Returns pipeline, Anderson performed a lot of testing on the system's I/O graphics boards since every frame of Genesis footage would pass through this part of the pipeline. While doing these tests, Anderson’s rigorous pipeline quality control caught a hardware problem that might have caused havoc in the workflow. “When looking at our needs – a pure data capture – we need hardware that gives us exactly what is on the tape and records back exactly what is on the drive. Other cards tried to 'interpret' the data, make sure it is OK by them. I don't want that. If I underexpose or overexpose, that's my choice. In the case of Genesis, where it is absolutely not a video signal, changing the data with a video tool is disastrous. It was amazing how many graphic cards didn't actually do that.”
In the end, Anderson chose Blackmagic Design as the pipeline's supplier. “The Blackmagic HD tools did what we needed with superior data accuracy and at the best price,” Anderson says. “At first, no one else could meet spec, so the choice was obvious. But even when others matched Blackmagic, we saw no point in switching to something much more expensive for no better result.” Modified Blackmagic products were used for previewing, digitizing, and workflow distribution, including Blackmagic's HDLink, DeckLink HD, Multibridge Extreme, and the Workgroup Videohub. “Blackmagic first modified their firmware to allow us the control we needed, then rolled it out into the product line,” Anderson explains.
The workflow was clean and simple, and, in Anderson’s words, data centric. The basic Superman Returns pipeline began with the Genesis camera, with the data captured going to HDCAM SR tape. This material was digitized with the Blackmagic DeckLink HD and the Multibridge Extreme to AVI files using Adobe Premiere Pro on a PC.
Next, DPX frames were extracted from the AVI files using Blackmagic’s FrameLink. This workflow preserved the full range of values in the raw Panalog4 encoding. Using its own custom LUTs, Digital Sandbox used Blackmagic’s HDLink to decode the Panalog4 data for viewing. The digitized files went into Assimilate Scratch and custom code written by Digital Sandbox, and then were distributed to the visual effects and postproduction vendors. Files that came back after being processed at other facilities went through a reverse procedure through the Blackmagic pipeline so they could be laid back to tape for viewing or archiving. Final delivery was conformed, but the ungraded DPX files were delivered to digital intermediate facility TDI in Los Angeles.
Superman Returns principle photography was shot on the 20th Century Fox lot in Sydney, Australia, so Digital Sandbox was working with data from the Genesis camera from halfway around the world. Also, director Bryan Singer, on the set in Australia, needed to view VFX work coming back from the effects facilities in California. On the lot in Sydney, the production used a 2K black chip Barco projector for dailies. According to Anderson, “Superman had a number of methods for previewing work, but as time went on Bryan only trusted one – the DPX review. Our reviews all take place on color-corrected monitors, each balanced (within the limits of technology) to each other. Initially these were set to a basic technical standard. We also worked with HDI on the lot to balance and certify their screening room. Once set up, their Barco 2K projector matched our monitor so that reviews could take place in either space.”
Editing was done in standard definition on an Avid. Anderson received the SD material and put it into the pipeline. “We then conformed everything at 1920x1080 (the native Genesis resolution),” Anderson says. “SD resolution files could be incorporated into our conforms, but Scratch uprezzes on the fly, so we don't worry about SD/HD issues. It's all just data to the software in the Sandbox pipeline.”
Superman Returns is more proof that electronic acquisition is rapidly catching up to film. That durable and pricey medium is great to look at, and after 100 years of using it, everyone knows where and how the production pipeline alters the original negative. This is not so with data, which is prone to rounding errors, compression artifacts, and passage through hardware that may change it inadvertently. The main goal of Digital Sandbox's pipeline is to protect data from unintended alteration -- in other words, to protect the director's and cinematographer’s creative intentions.
Superman Returns is Warner Bros. biggest summer movie and a great ride. Behind the scenes, hundreds of artists worry about the math and logistics that underlie the art that creates the thrills. Fortunately, companies like Digital Sandbox are there to sweat the details, and, like Clark Kent, they have no problem letting the Man of Steel take the credit.
