Chennai based Prasad EFX has digitally converted the first Super 35 mm Tamil film to Anamorphic (cinemascope) format through the Digital Intermediate (DI) process. The film is Director Selvaraghavan’s �Pudupettai�, produced by Lakshmi Movie Makers.
�Pudupettai� is the first Tamil feature film to make use of DI technology to deliver content to digital cinema and celluloid film simultaneously. Shooting in Super 35mmm film format allows the use of the area demarcated for sound track on a film, thus giving a larger image area. This has to be digitally converted to the cinemascope format. This means the entire film has to be digitally scanned and allows greater creative control over the normal methods. Since the master is in the digital format it becomes easy to output the film to any media including Film, Digital Cinema and more.The DI process also enabled very high resolution 2K images to be converted directly for Digital Projection.
Arvind Krishnan DoP, â€?Pudupettaiâ€? was very thrilled on the eve of the movies’ release about the effects he could achieve using the digital grading process. He shared some of his views with Animation ‘xpress.
â€?Pudupettai is a film with a difference and that excited me. When we made the decision ahead to go through the DI route I knew the creative possibilities were going to be endless. What we got finally is something that we are all very happy about” said Krishnan.
â€?DI is here to stay and many projects will start adopting this technology as they start understanding the advantages of this process. Digital Grading is enabling us to bring the best out of celluloid film, the results are stunning and cannot be achieved by manual grading. It has opened a new world of creative possibilities for Cinematographers. It also makes our task easier when we want to release the movie for other media like Digital Cinema, DVD and so on since the Digital Master is already available”
The DI process enabled some inspiring digitally color graded scenes and amazing VFX sequences which blended seamlessly with the whole film.
�Different scenes required different moods and accordingly the color tones had to be adjusted. Different layers of windows, for color correction in a selected area of an image, were used in many shots to enhance and add to the drama of the scenes. This has been done to such perfection that one feels the difference but still cannot make out how it was achieved. Some shots involved very intensive secondary color correction in the different layers. Quite a few scenes are memorable to us and I feel the whole movie is going to be a visual teat to watch, commented Madhusudan.K, Sr. Line Producer (DI), Prasad EFX
Talking about the visual effects in the movie, EFX Sr Line Producer Hima Kumar pointed out that,â€?The VFX shots in “Pudupettai” have been done with great attention to detail,
particularly the Mist Fight Sequence, Fire Extensions and Background Changes. Both the director and DoP are perfectionists and that made things much more interesting�
Interesting truly, are the times today, where thanks to digital technology as well as India’s emerging breed of techno creative artists, the production levels and story telling possibilities are rising by leaps and bounds not only in Bollywood but also in regional cinema!