MotionFX & Digital Praxis – at it again
After the amazing technical & creative success of Silence Becomes You, the world's first 100% Digital Cinematography film, shot Viper FilmStream and posted on a Quantel iQ Digital Intermediate system, MotionFX & Digital Praxis once again teamed up to help shoot Highlander: The Source, the latest in the Highlander series.

Directed by Brett Leonard, shot by DoP Steve Arnold, with 2nd unit DoP Trevor Coop, chopped by Les Healey, with cast led by Adrian Paul, the film was a real challenge for Digital Cinematography being a heavy vfx based feature with a lot of green-screen shots. Such heavy vfx is something Viper has not previously been extensively used for, but something the clean, uncompressed, RGB 4:4:4, and native 2.37:1 image quality is ideally suited for.

However, the issues with this project were always going to be the compressed time scales involved in the film's production, combined with a high shooting ratio, fast action editing, and large number of vfx shots slated from the off – with what can only be described as a low budget!.

What fun, but another ideal chance for Steve Shaw, of Digital Praxis, and MotionFX to prove their unique scene-to-screen digital film workflow, even with the likelihood of production problems caused by the lateness of their involvement and limited pre-production planning.

Pre-Production – with compressed time scales…
It was late September 2005 when MotionFX was contacted by the production team for Highlander: The Source to see if it would be possible to shoot multi-camera Viper Digital Cinematography on the film, due to start principle photography in October; less than a month away!

Obviously this didn't leave much time for pre-production testing, but with the success of Silence Becomes You behind MotionFX, it didn't seem too much to take Highlander on, even at this late stage.

Initial discussions were based on a two camera shoot, much like Silence Becomes You previously, with MotionFX and Digital Praxis again providing specialised support for the Digital Cinematography technology.

DoP, Steve Arnold, and Director, Brett Leonard, visited MotionFX to review the Viper camera & discuss workflow. Following this brief meeting - including trying out a few test shots with lead actor Adrian Paul - agreements were reached for MotionFX to supply the necessary camera equipment, off-line & dailies workflow, as well as later post-production on-line data management.

During these discussions the shoot also went from 2 cameras, to 4 cameras, along with an equal increase in the necessary support equipment required for such an ambitious production.

Brett also warned of a likely high shooting ratio, especially with a lot of first unit 3 & 4 camera shooting planned, and of a high edit count expected for the final on-line.

Digital Look Workflow
During this day's 'get to know you' a selection of ViewLUTs for on-set Director/DoP viewing - via HD monitors - of the Viper FilmStream images were assessed and modifications made to suite the project’s needs.

In addition, the ViewLUTs would provide 'graded' images for ingest into the off-line editorial system, as well as 'graded' dailies rushes for on-set viewing.

An additional aim was to use the ViewLUTs for later VFX work monitoring, negating the need to pre-grade the shots prior to distribution to various vfx houses – saving both time and money. This was a new and unique workflow approach to Viper Digital Cinematography, but held some serious benefit.

These ViewLUTs were built using Digital Praxis developed software, with the LUTs being loaded into the S.two DFRs (Digital Film Recorders) for real-time on-set monitoring and direct ingest into the off-line editorial system.

To aid production & post-production collaboration, with regard to the look of the film, the idea was to also use the ViewLUT calibrated images as a basis for on-set image manipulation of selected stills, via a graphics colour program and the ViewLUTs, extracting image stills as dpx files from the actual shot footage via the DFRs. The problem was that the shooting schedule didn't allow for such creative input, and the concept remains concept, not yet proven.

Also discussed was the development of additional ‘grading’ ViewLUTs to mimic the specific 'look' required for the film, initially intended to be generated via optical filters, but that could be replicated through specific ViewLUTs when required.

However, limited time at this point meant such ‘grading’ LUTs would have to be revisited later.

On Location
With only 2 weeks to go to the start of principle photography, and with only one previous test day to get acquainted with the camera, DFR disc recorder, etc., an immediate week’s camera equipment test was required on location.

A Viper camera system, lens package, and associated equipment were therefore shipped to Vilnius, Lithuania, with Ross Fall as MotionFX Digital Cinematography expert, with location testing commencing just 7 days prior to principle photography.

During this camera test week DoP Steve Arnold also generated a selection of reference images, testing not just the latitude and response of the Viper camera system, but generating the 'look' of the film through optical filters, with the intention of enabling the 'graded' look matched ViewLUTs to be generated by Digital Praxis from this image data, as discussed previously.

Having sourced the additional equipment required for the complex 4 camera shoot now planned for Highlander, the remaining camera equipment was shipped to Lithuania, arriving two days prior to principle photography starting.

Also at this stage, the original idea to use MotionFX's off-line & dailies workflow, based on Final Cut Pro, was changed in preference for Avid. FCP had proven its capabilities with a Viper based Digital Cinematography workflow on SBY, but Avid was easier to obtain within the available timeframe.

Pre-Production Ends
And that was pre-production done!

Obviously, that’s not strictly true as the production team on Highlander: The Source had been hard at it for a lot longer, preparing script changes, scouting locations, setting up in The Lithuanian Film Studios, etc., but as far as MotionFX and Digital Praxis – as well as camera testing and set-up – goes, that was all there was to pre-production.

Less than 3 weeks in total from the first involvement of MotionFX & Digital Praxis to start of principle photography. That just has to be some form of record!

And it says something about the directorial team, production operation, camera crew, editorial team, vfx supervisors, and the data monkey operation that more problems weren't encountered during the actual shoot.

Principle Photography - stunning imagery
Principle Photography started well, with the images being captured by the camera team, under direction of DoP Steve Arnold, looking stunning.

However, it would be fair to say there were worries due to the rushed time scales, and compromise that had to be made to get all the equipment on-set for the start of principle photography.

On location the Digital Film Technician team (DFT, or DIT in USA parlance) was not as fully staffed as MotionFX would have liked, with only one DFT per two camera systems, when ideally it should have been one DFT per camera. There were even times when one DFT was required to run three camera systems simultaneously!

But production schedules being what they were, there was no option.

While the shoot was in its early stages it had also been hoped to get the test images from the week’s pre-production test back to MotionFX for Steve Shaw from Digital Praxis to generate the discussed 'grading' ViewLUTs. However, with data management and editorial backed up time wasn't available, and the decision had to be taken to go with the initial ViewLUTs only, relying on Steve Arnold to provide the 'look' control via traditional optical methods. Unfortunate, as this would have further developed the Digital Cinematography workflow being used.

Editorial and Data Management
On the editorial and data management side of things, late installation of the offline Avid systems, and almost immediate use of 4 camera shooting, caused some initial problems with archive data backup, offline editorial, and dailies delivery that were, in hindsight, to be expected.

These issues, combined with the very fast initial shooting pace, meant 'camera stock', which in Digital Cinematography terms means disc packs (D-Mags from S.two) were being used but not archived ready for re-use. This meant there was a real danger of the shoot running out of 'stock'...

This was because initially only a single Avid system had been installed, making it difficult to both load material and start assembling the edit, and cut dailies DVDs, restricting the ability to supply production with feedback.

When combined with the high shooting rate there really weren't enough hours in the day to ingest, assemble an edit, and cut dailies DVDs.

The arrival of a second Avid, along with a Sony HDcam SR vtr acting as a 'buffer' between the S.two D-mags and the off-line system, enabled faster turnaround of the 'Digital Stock', as well as enabling the editorial team to provide assembled dailies, etc., as required.

But in honesty, getting the camera and associated equipment van to location only days before principle photography started, such workflow issues were minor when compared to what could have happened. Especially as there was no time to prep for a 4 camera shoot, let alone the initial 2 camera concept.

Shooting Progresses
The first two and a half weeks of shooting were mainly 1st unit shoots, with 3 or 4 camera setups, with the first two weeks being almost exclusively green-screen vfx shots. This generated a lot of footage very quickly, and with the data management and editorial teams not yet fully operational, caused a fair bit of worry during this period.

Week three was on location in the sea port at Klaipeda, some 300km north of Vilnius, which brought its own issues as the editorial team were obviously not moving location too. And this was the first of the shoots where the camera crews were split into two units, with the A unit moving into night shooting in a forest outside of Vilnius.

This was a testing time for the equipment, as well as the workflow, and with the main unit going to night shooting, and the second unit remaining on days, it became a very busy shooting schedule, putting more pressure on the data management and editorial team’s workflow.

And with the continued high shooting rates the likely total amount of captured image data was looking to top 80TB! Some 4 times greater than had been captured during the shooting of SBY.

To put that into context, 80TB is over 10 million frames, equivalent to 625,000 feet of 35mm film, and gives a shooting ratio of roughly 64:1 for a 110 minute movie. That's equivalent to about 1560 rolls of 400ft camera negative film, which would have cost roughly £200,000 in stock, plus a further £200,000 for processing and telecine dailies, not to mention transportation & insurance costs, plus the associated delay in seeing the actual shot footage as there isn't a film lab in Lithuania.

It’s a Wrap – everyone made it through…
The shoot finished with a final shooting ratio of 65:1, with over 90 hours of captured footage, and a total amount of data nearing 80TB. This had been some production operation, and really belies the true budget for this film!

By working longer than normal days, with a couple of extra days at the end, the shoot finish with something in the can that looks good in its raw form! It will be very interesting to see the final result after post-production.

For such a huge undertaking, with such a small budget, the footage that production managed to capture was nothing short of amazing.

And from what Adrian Paul wrote in his diary ‘Straight from The Source’ (www.adrianpaul.net) it wasn't just the technical team that felt the constrictions of a small budget. The actors suffered restricted set-up times and lack of practice, especially for the fight scenes.

All in all this was on ‘amazing’ production – and you can read into that what you will…!