LaserPacific Media Corporation, a Los Angeles post production company,
has built a new end-to-end 4K workflow for mastering and re-mastering
feature films. The company is currently preparing a "true and complete 4K
master" of the Steven Spielberg film '
Minority Report' for
Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox for release on Blu-ray next year.
LaserPacific's 4K workflow is based on FilmLight's Baselight EIGHT colour
grading system and also features FilmLight's Northlight scanner. In order
to handle 4K media efficiently, the Baselight EIGHT installation includes a
massive 96 TB of local storage. LaserPacific took delivery of its Baselight in
January and began using it for mastering projects in June. 'Minority Report'
is the first film that LaserPacific is grading entirely in 4K.
For "Minority Report", the entire film was scanned 6K to 4K on Northlight
and is now being graded in 4K on Baselight. Additionally, LaserPacific is
using a combination of off-the-shelf and proprietary tools to perform dust
and scratch removal and other restoration processes at 4K resolution.
"Minority Report is a true 4K master. We scanned to 4K, 4K goes
to Baselight-everything is done with 4K files," noted Levinson. "When we
do the final render, it will be straight 4K to HD. There are no intermediate
steps. No proxies."
While 4K mastering will surely yield spectacular results for home
theatre, LaserPacific believes that the high resolution medium will have an
even greater impact as an archival tool. The company expects to remaster
films in 4K as part of a process of creating new film negatives in order to
preserve films in an optimal state for decades to come. LaserPacific has
coined the term "DI Restoration" to describe this process.
"Our goal is to be able to scan negatives in whatever format and condition,
restore them through a 4K restoration process and ultimately use the new
4K master to output a brand new negative," explained Ron Burdett,
general manager of LaserPacific's film mastering department. Burdett
added that he believes 4K will be the standard mastering medium for A-
list, film-originated features within a few years.
Hollywood film studios are showing increasing interest in 4K mastering
both as a way to create the highest quality product for home theatre
release and for archival purposes. The challenge for post houses seeking
to tap into this market has been to build a workflow capable of processing
4K media in a time- and cost-effective manner.