FEATURE | WHY THEY WON
SCIENCE PROJECT PANAVISION SCOOPED THE AWARD FOR COLOUR SCIENCE IN OUR TECH INNOVATION AWARDS BY BOLSTERING ITS DXL2 DIGITAL CAMERA WITH SOME HIGH-END AND VERY USABLE LOOK MANAGEMENT
QUESTIONS JULI AN M ITCHELL
T raditionally if you ask a DOP about manipulation of colour within their camera, they will say they do it with filters, lighting and the grade. But with LiColor2, there is now a whole lot of extra help for Panavision’s DXL2. We asked two DOPs, Brett Pawluk and Pawel Pogorzelski, about their experience with the new colour science that now resides in the camera.
saturated colours, or how the sensor handles low exposure and noise in the toe for instance. I shoot pretty low from an exposure standpoint and whatever they have been able to do with the LiColor2 and underexposure for me is incredible. I’ve pushed it much further than a Red or Alexa and have been able to pull back some acceptable detail that I swore off as completely gone. I have been fortunate to have Ian colour the majority of my projects and we tend to have the same taste in aesthetics. Working with someone so often, you form a sort of shorthand. Over time, I realised that we would initially correct Red/Alexa footage pretty similarly, regardless of what aesthetic we were going for on a particular project. PAWEL POGORZELSKI: I am not a technical DOP. I know most of the basics, but I make decisions using my gut and the feeling a sensor gives me for a particular project. I don’t like the way the Red camera looks, so
when I first tested the cameras (film, Alexa and DXL2) for the film Midsommar, I was apprehensive about the DXL2 as I knew it had a Red sensor. I tested the cameras in Los Angeles in February last year on a hot, sunny day with stand-ins dressed in white. Once I received the film footage back, I went to Panavision to watch the tests projected and was blown away by the latitude and colour rendition of the DXL2 sensor with LiColor science. DEF: How easy is it to use LiColor2 through the DXL2 camera and what BP: For me, LiColor2 is extremely easy to use. I don’t manipulate it too much, if any. The great thing about LiColor2 is that it gives me a good range to work within and feels like as close to the final as I can get on-set. I’ve only really made minor contrast, or saturation adjustments. But for me, it’s a ‘set it and forget it’ situation. manipulation do you have?
DEFINITION: What does LiColor2 give you that Red’s IPP2 image
processing can’t?
BRETT PAWLUK: I’ll be honest, I’m not a technical person. I don’t have a clue
as to how you even begin to explore colour science within different sensors. Inherently, we all know that sensors are just gathering information – ‘metadata’ to be interpreted how that specific camera looks. As long as a sensor can gather the information required, I’ve never shied away from any specific camera or sensor. So for me, it’s a blessing to have such amazingly talented and smart friends who know how to do those things. I’ve worked with Light Iron, specifically Ian Vertovec [co-founder of Light Iron] on more than a dozen projects over the years. When I first got my hands on the LiColor2, it fitted like a glove. LiColor2 gives me a baked-in ‘look’ – that would usually be my first correction when sent to the lab for dailies and when I get to the final colour. So right off the bat, aesthetically I enjoy the ‘look’ it creates. From a very layman’s or basic take, LiColor2 takes away some of the attributes of other sensors that sometimes aren’t favourable. The way it reacts to certain
ABOVE Ian Vertovec (left) and Michael Cioni (right) with their Colour Science award
48 DEF I N I T ION | AUGUST 20 1 9
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