Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is set to make cinema history; not just in the box office but in its use of cutting edge DI technology. Most impressive is the thousands of hours of work put in by the ILM team to create a movie that sets a new benchmark in film.
Fred Myers, ILMs Principal Engineer, said, We built a very efficient digital pipeline for Episode III which allowed us to get Georges vision for the project up on the screen in an interactive way. The technical scope of Episode III meant we couldnt afford the delays of software/proxy based rendered color correction, given the scale of editorial and the reality of so many complicated CG shots delivering in the final weeks of the post production schedule.
Lucasfilm is all about innovation and pushing boundaries and the guys at Quantel share our vision. Myers continued, On Episode III, iQ played a key workflow role in mastering the movie and creating the digital intermediate. It was the final stop in building the reels to assemble the film out and record the digital cinema master. It was used to create the opticals the digital wipes and dissolve transitions between the scenes, as well as to slot in last minute updates. All the HD and 444 deliverables, the theatrical trailers and many screening reels were run through iQ.
We first used iQ on Episode II as a colour grading hub in its very early form. The thing we really liked was being able to work with the actual 10bit RGB frames up on the screen. If we made changes while on the system, we could export them and move on, knowing the image integrity was maintained. As the iQ toolset grew we used it on more and more projects including restoration of THX1138 and the original Star Wars Trilogy, concluded Myers.
“Having worked with Quantel so successfully on Episode II, the logical thing for us was to purchase an iQ specifically for Episode III,” said Star Wars Producer, Rick McCallum. Quantel is fantastic to work with, and they are there in an instant when you need support. With something as complex as Episode III we couldnt afford to screw around. Before we could get a call back from the competition, Quantel was in-house with something that actually worked. Their iQ is a liberating technology for film-makers.
Quantel Marketing Manager Mark Horton said, The more you watch of Episode III the more you appreciate what a ground breaking movie it is. The great thing about ILM has always been that they push the industry forward. Were proud to have played a part in helping them make yet more cinema history.
At NAB 2005, Quantel launched the Newsbox range of pre-packaged integrated news production systems. The pre-packaged approach of Newsbox ensures that server-based production need no longer be regarded as a major systems purchase. Newsbox is a convenient, self-contained unit that comes with all that is needed to ingest material, view rushes, choose shots, edit stories, review finished pieces and play them out to air. Its common progressive user interface and toolset are exactly the same as all the sQ systems from Quantel that are powering the news operations of some of the worlds greatest broadcasters. New ingest and playout automation from Quantel completes the Newsbox package, making it in effect the worlds first self-automating server. The Newsbox difference comes in the packaging of the server, which has been re-engineered to bring a new level of compactness and affordability a complete and very powerful, one-stop news shop from just $199K. Now every broadcaster, no matter what their market size, can benefit from the magic of the Quantel news workflow. A complete Newsbox system can fit into two 24 inch flightcases and can be up and running on location in a couple of minutes.