ARRI News September 2009 - ARRI Media

16 Camera
Top London-based production company
Coy! Communications recently used a D-21 Mscope kit,
supplied by ARRI Media, for a television commercial promoting Cuprinol garden products. Directed by Mark Denton
and photographed by Bob Pendar-Hughes, the 30-second spot was shot on a suburban back garden set at Black
Island Studios and sought to emulate a colourful, Hollywood musical look.
True Anamorphic and beyond HD
Mscope allows anamorphic lenses to be used
on the D-21 and captures a higher resolution
than standard HD by utilising the entire 4x3
sensor area and outputting two HD streams.
When combined and de-squeezed in post,
the two streams create a 2.40:1 image of
exceptional quality.
“I had heard about Mscope but I wasn’t sure
how far along it was,” says Pendar-Hughes.
“Mark likes to explore new technologies and
his brief was that he wanted this garden
world to be sharp and hyper-real, so I thought
Mscope would be perfect. It was great
shooting anamorphic because the Hawks
are excellent lenses and just give a certain
look. I’ve shot anamorphic on film with Mark
a couple of times before and he was curious
to see what happened when we mixed HD
with anamorphic – it was a very enticing
idea.”
Pendar-Hughes found the D-21’s anamorphic
optical viewfinder extremely helpful during
the shoot. “It’s a great advantage from a
DoP’s point of view,” he says. “You’re just so
much more connected to the image. Even
Mscope – Workflow Example
The Cinematic Look of Mscope
D-21 / D-21 HD
Anamorphic lens
squeezes the image by a
factor of 2 (circles become
ovals).
Camera sensor creates a
2880 x 2160 pixel (1.33:1)
Bayer raster image.
Image D-21 is / D-21 reconstructed HD and
downscaled to a 1920 x
1440 Anamorphic (1.33:1) HD lens image.
squeezes the image by a
Image factor is of split 2 (circles into two become
HD-SDI ovals). streams, one
containing the even, the
other Camera the odd sensor lines. creates a
2880 x 2160 pixel (1.33:1)
Bayer raster image.
MscopeTM Dado Valentic of digital lab My Therapy
handled rushes and also combined the two
HD streams after the edit. “The shoot was
two days, so at the – Workflow end of Example each day we
would dump the tapes to Betacam SP as
editing rushes that went to the edit house,”
says Dado. “Once the edit was complete
they emailed us the EDL, which we con-
Image is reconstructed A and Link
1920
downscaled to a 1920 x
1440 (1.33:1) HD image.
1440
Image is split into two
HD-SDI streams, one
containing the even, the
other the odd lines.
B Link
1920
with a high resolution electronic viewfinder
I tend not to use it – I stand by a monitor instead,
but that makes me feel disconnected.
I’ve spent most of my shooting life close to
the camera – close to the actors and the
light.”
There was a Cinetal monitor on the set, which
displayed just one of the HD streams, resulting
in a distortion-free widescreen image. “It
was very handy to be able to look at it occasionally
and the clients loved it,” continues
the cinematographer. “When I told them that
it was only half the information of the final
image they were just blown away; they walk ed
off with big smiles on their faces, which is
great for Mark because it keeps them off
his back!”
1440
2x HD-SDI 4:2:2 2x HD-SDI 4:2:2
A Link
Mscope TM – Workflow Example
HD RECORDER
Each HD-SDI stream contains
1920 x 720 (2.66:1) pixels of
image content in the 1920 x
1080 HD image.
Any HD recorder capable of
recording in dual stream mode
can capture MscopeTM images.
Examples: SONY SRW-1,
S.two HD RECORDER
DFR2K, Codex Digital.
Each Each stream HD-SDI contains stream half contains the
lines, 1920 thus x 720 presents (2.66:1) an pixels of
unsqueezed image content image in the (circles 1920 are x
circles) 1080 HD for on image. set previewing.
Any HD recorder capable of
recording in dual stream mode
can capture Mscope
1920
B
A
720 1080
B
A
1920
TM images.
Examples: SONY SRW-1,
S.two DFR2K, Codex Digital.
Each stream contains half the
lines, thus presents an
unsqueezed image (circles are
circles) for on set previewing.
1920
1920
720 1080
720 1080
STORAGE MEDIA
Both streams are
stored interleaved on
one tape or data
magazine.
B
A
B
A
POST INGEST
For off-line editing, only
one stream is used to
save bandwidth.
For image recombining,
both streams can be
ingested either in parallel
or one after another.
2x HD-SDI 4:2:2 2x HD-SDI 4:2:2
STORAGE MEDIA
Both streams are
stored interleaved on
one tape or data
magazine.
POST INGEST
For off-line editing, only
one stream is used to
save bandwidth.
For image recombining,
both streams can be
ingested either in parallel
or one after another.
1920
1920
formed on our Iridas system and generated
the Mscope image in real time.”
My Therapy has facilities to accommodate
3D mastering and found it convenient to treat
Mscope as a stereoscopic image, though
this is by no means the only workable pipeline.
“The nice thing about Mscope is that it
fits into so many different workflows; there
isn’t just one way of doing it,” continues Dado.
“Different productions will have different
ways they want to do things and it’s important
not to limit them, but with Mscope that
works absolutely fine. On this job they were
grading in an older suite so we delivered
HDCAM SR tapes for the grade. In reality
Mscope isn’t really intended for that workflow;
it’s best used for the big screen because
of the 3800 × 1080 resolution. But
the point is that any workflow is possible.”
For more information please visit:
http://www.arri.de/camera/35_mm_digital/
mscope.html
1920
1920
Mark Hope-Jones
720 1080
720 1080
720 1080
RECOMBINING
After ingest, the two
streams are recombined
and rendered in postproduction,
resulting in the
same anamorphically
squeezed 1920 x 1440
(1.33:1) HD image that was
present in the camera.
The first company to support
MscopeTM RECOMBINING
is Quantel
with After the ingest, Quantel the iQ. two
streams are recombined
and rendered in postproduction,
resulting in the
same anamorphically
squeezed 1920 x 1440
(1.33:1) HD image that was
present in the camera.
The first company to sup-
1920
port MscopeTM is Quantel
with the Quantel iQ.
1920
1440
1440
DELIVERABLES
Images are cropped and if
necessary de-squeezed to
2.40:1 and/or scaled depending
on the delivery format. Deliverables
can be a Digital Cinema
Package (DCP), a film-out or HD
letterbox versions on tape or
Blu-ray Disc.
DCP Images are cropped and if
necessary de-squeezed to
3456
2.40:1 and/or scaled depending
on the delivery format. Deliverables
can be a Digital Cinema
1440
Package (DCP), a film-out or HD
letterbox versions on tape or
Blu-ray Disc.
Film-Out
HD
DELIVERABLES
DCP
1728
1920
Film-Out
1728
3456
1440
720 1080
1440
1440