DEFINITION March 2018

SHOOT STORY THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI

from there. “Ben Davis would turn up from set before the mags did to review what they shot that morning; they would get one package in the morning and one in the evening. So he would review what they shot in the morning and also what they shot in the evening of the day before. So if the last of the mags arrive with us at 8pm by about midnight or 1am we would be copying media over to editorial for them to start on in the morning. We would also be uploading to PIXREVIEW so they could see what was shot the night before. Any delays caused by geography are shortened by how quick the process is when we get the files. That’s the beauty of us being with production as we don’t have to ship across states to have it processed, it just has to go back to the production office or the editorial department.” Pinewood Post has some invaluable experience when it comes to processing large amounts of data, namely from cameras like the ARRI ALEXA 65 where each frame is around 30.5MB in size. The amount of

balance everything out, as what the DIT doesn’t have is the ability to see all the shots in a row, so we’re able to balance any shots and update the CDLs. Then that’s baked in to the media that we supply to editorial for online reviews, like PIXREVIEW, and then that metadata is passed on to the assistant editors who keep in their AVID bins. But we also hold a database of all that metadata so the video that they’re cutting during the editorial process has that baked into it. When they do the turnover to the DI either editorial can provide EDLs that they cut the film from which has the CDL information baked in or Pinewood can provide a comprehensive list of all of the colour adjustments that have happened to each shot as a database.” DAILIES ROUTINE Obviously when you shoot on a studio lot you can get dailies whenever you like but with this movie there was a delay and dailies would get to Pinewood’s lab by about 8pm on that day. Thom explains the workflow

ABOVE Director Martin McDonagh with actors Francis McDormand and Peter Dinklage. ABOVE The ALEXA XT, ready to shoot.

realise that it’s the number one filming location in the world, due to film, television and digital entertainment tax credits of up to 30%. Pinewood has been there for a few years now but the digital and film dailies side is new. For Three Billboards Pinewood built a digital lab next to the edit rooms and director’s office in Asheville which was about an hour from Sylva, where much of the shooting was done. Dane would courier the Codex mags back to the lab. Thom Berryman of Pinewood explains the process: “Dane would send over the mags in a Peli case with his CDLs on a memory stick. We would then ingest, process and archive the files from the Codex mags but didn’t need their Vault for any part of the process; we just archived direct from the mags rather than going through any transport medium. “Once we’d ingested media we would also ingest metadata which are just text files essentially. The software we use applies the grades he was doing on-set to each clip, then our guys use that as a starting point or a reference from Dane and Ben. They will then make any adjustments and FOR THREE BILLBOARDS PINEWOOD BUILT A DIGITAL LAB NEXT TO THE EDIT ROOMS IN ASHEVILLE

BELOW Actors Sam Rockwell and Francis McDormand in a scene from the movie.

DEFINITION MARCH 2018

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