Interesting article on IIF ACES workflow being used on "Justified"

[Joe Carney]

http://www.studiodaily.com/main//Is-...phy_12916.html

Be interesting to get opinions from others on this.

[shannyla]

Sorry, I don't see the point in any of this approach other than for the ASC to stick its grubby fingers into post... Again... Following the crushing success of their CDL workflow...

Don't get me wrong, I get their notion that the cinematographer is the author of the images, even if I believe it's not strictly true anymore, but would they enjoy the colorist turning up on set to tell them how to place the lights?

The use of 16 bit linear is more interesting as I suspect that's the future but I would argue that the amount of extra processing required puts it at the limit of viability right now with the computers we currently have, especially in a real-time grading environment.

[David Mullen ASC]

Sorry, I don't see the point in any of this approach other than for the ASC to stick its grubby fingers into post... Again... Following the crushing success of their CDL workflow...

Don't get me wrong, I get their notion that the cinematographer is the author of the images, even if I believe it's not strictly true anymore, but would they enjoy the colorist turning up on set to tell them how to place the lights?

What sort of equivalency is that??? A colorist telling a cinematographer where to place a light is like a cinematographer telling a colorist how to color a shot? The colorist is supposed to SERVE the cinematographer -- they are not equal collaborators on the image, they are not co-authors of the image. You don't see the colorists name in the main credits.

I respect what colorists do, enormously, but when they start suggesting that they have some sort of equal rights over the image creation as the cinematographer and that the cinematographer has no business getting into the post side of image manipulation, their egos have run away with themselves. The responsibilities of a cinematographer don't end once the image is shot, just as it didn't end in the photochemical days with the processing of the negative -- it was a negative-positive system. It's like saying that Ansel Adams should have just concentrated on his photo-taking and handed off the printing to someone else.

[Andrae Palmer]

You are so right Mr. Mullen. :-) I enjoyed reading that rebuttal a whole lot. Yes a colorist does serve the DP... enough said.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

The evolution of technology is changing both the image authoring toolset itself and the options for wielding the tools. In addition to lighting, production design, etc - the typical Director of Photography circa 1995 relied on filtration, lens selection, stock selection, printer lights, etc to give the image the tone and feel they desired. As we push into the new paradigm DPs can decide to use digital tools to accomplish many of the same things. In many cases, they have more control sitting next to their colorist than anything the 1st AC can put on the camera.

I think it is time to move beyond the arbitrary divisions of the image making process and embrace the power at our fingertips. The DP should be involved in the image crafting pipeline from beginning to end, making informed choices about when and how to manipulate the image. Leverage the power of the RAW image data and the increasingly sophisticated image processing options in virtual telecine/post.

FWIW the IIF/ACES program looks to be a huge step in the right direction in this brave new multi-format world. At the risk of oversimplification, the ACES benchmark provides a fixed point of reference for mastering/grading with input and output transforms used to compensate for specific sources and displays. The ASC/CDL has been great for some projects and pipelines but cannot encompass as many workflows as IIF/ACES.

I urge anyone interested in this area to read up on the spec.

Cheers - #19

[jake blackstone]

It would be nice to be able to present every acquired or VFX produced image in the same color space and gamma. This way every step in post processing could be greatly simplified with less possibilities of gamma and gamut mismatch as it was sighted in the article in an example of Open EXR vs 10 bit DPX. Said that, it remains an open question if IIF-ACES will eventually become that solution.

[Daniel García]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if i've read this right, they still convert to 10bit log for grading in Lustre. Does Lustre not support EXR yet? Then what is it they're hyping?

I don't see much point in converting everything to 16bit linear pipeline when the grading platform is a 10bit log bottleneck. And how on earth can they claim better results?

[Daniel García]

From the article:

For Justified, which is colored on an Autodesk Lustre at Encore Hollywood, there’s one more tweak — the data in the 16-bit linearized ACES-encoded file is “quickly re-encoded into a log format,” Clark says, so that Lustre’s log toolset can be used for grading rather than its more video-centric (i.e., lift-gain-gamma) linear adjustments, which aren't appropriate for the wide-gamut ACES data. The data is re-linearized after grading takes place.

Ok, maybe they're just applying a log curve but not losing bit-depth?
Maybe someone with Lustre experience may explain this.

[M Most]

Sorry, I don't see the point in any of this approach other than for the ASC to stick its grubby fingers into post... Again... Following the crushing success of their CDL workflow...

ACES has nothing to do with the ASC other than the participation of some rather esteemed ASC members on the tech committee. The IIF/ACES project was developed and is managed under the auspices of the Science and Technology council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, led by Ray Feeney and Andy Maltz. And FYI, the CDL has been and is rather widely used for exchange of basic grading information between production and post on a regular basis, at least in Los Angeles.

I don't know why you're so hostile to something you probably haven't either participated in or tried. I have been involved in testing of the system and can honestly say that it is very promising. The only real limitation at the moment is finalization of the rendering transform and characterizing of more cameras so that it can fulfill its promise.

[Chuck Z]

Mike, would you mind writing an entry about the IIF/ACES workflow on your blog? I think a lot of people look to you for insight into the post workflow world (myself included).