Vision On Makes the Grade

New York post house Vision On’s first color grading of a feature film turned out rather well. Director/writer Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep had its premiere at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, Directors’ Fortnight.

With the purchase of two Red digital cameras in 2007, Vision On expanded its capabilities from highly creative digital still capture and retouching to also include high-impact film and videos for the fashion industry, with a client list that reads like a who’s who in Women’s Wear Daily. The boutique began using Assimilate’s Scratch digital finishing solution in August 2009 for the real-time conform, color grading, and finishing of imagery projects.



Dustin Bowlin, senior editor at Vision On says, “We’ve used the Scratch tools to color grade and finish numerous client videos, including Red and other formats, and knew it had the power and output quality needed for Banks’ film. I’d worked with him before as a colorist on [his film] Gauge  and knew he would appreciate the hands-on manipulation and real-time creativity that Scratch enables.” 



Director of Photography Jody Lee Lipes used a Red One digital camera for the Two Gates of Sleep shoot.  The edit was done in Final Cut Pro and then the Quicktimes were transferred over to the Scratch system for the complete DI.

“Banks was going for a very precise look and our colorist, Nick Metcalf, was able to translate that into Scratch and create versions that could then be quickly pared down to the kernel he wanted,” says Bowlin. “The DP and some of the producers were in the sessions as well, and were amazed at the quality and speed of the grading process and what Nick was able to achieve.”  



Metcalf says, “We did a lot of research to find the right DI tool set for high-end grading and finishing.  Scratch met our criteria with a streamlined, real-time data workflow and the ability to easily deal with Red’s native R3D files. For this film, we had a tight deadline and an even tighter budget. I was able to push through the grade, experiment, and finish within 40-plus hours.  It’s exciting to see how far digital cinema has come today – we can be amazingly productive, do great work, and all while staying within budget.”

“Like any new software as powerful as this there’s a learning curve,” Metcalf says, “but with Scratch, once we worked out a few back-end issues at our facility, we were up to speed and working very quickly through projects. The power and ease of use make Scratch a very attractive software.” 

The final output for Two Gates of Sleep was to 2K anamorphic DPX, converted to a Digital Cinema Package for its premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight. Ultimately it will output to an anamorphic 239 print.