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3D Postproduction Advances

Mar 9, 2010 12:00 PM, Based on content from Claudio Hernández, editor, The Lady and the Reaper

An overview of Oscar-nominated short film The Lady and the Reaper's postproduction workflow.

           

Claudio Hernández, editor, The Lady and the Reaper

One of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short Film, The Lady and the Reaper, is a mortal tale about the Grim Reaper's battle over an elderly woman with her self-satisfied doctor. Starting as a research endeavour, the short film prompted new techniques—emerging throughout its creative process—that carry application for future projects.

The idea for this short film arose from a competition of ideas among the members of Spanish animation house Kandor Moon, with the goal of taking a technological step forward to create a new film using the latest advances in animation and 3D editing technology. The winning idea, submitted by art team member Javier Recio, launched Recio and team into a two-year production that combined detailed art studies, storyboards, animatics, animation system improvements, lighting, rendering, composition, mastering, and more. The short film was experimental, risky, free of commercial restrictions and both artistically and technically ambitious.

As the story's production evolved, the team brought several goals to light that required the in-depth involvement of the Kandor postproduction departments for composition, 3D stereo, and editing. First, the imaging had to be as close as possible to the color pallet chosen by the director. Second, in order to move the production team forward, they had to animate in a much higher resolution than previous projects. Finally, Kandor's newest endeavour had to test and use the 3D stereo format for animation. Over the next several months, these goals served as the driving force behind all work carried out against The Lady and the Reaper, and also spawned the implementation of new work platforms.

Offline and 3D

The editorial team combined render layers at a colour depth of 32 bits using The Foundry's Nuke compositing system. TIFF images (16-bit depth) were created for output.

To accommodate the 3D stereo images, the number of renders and compositions doubled. A camera system, for controlling depth perception, was developed and monitored with Zalman 3D monitors using active glasses for offline viewing and large-format projectors for final verification.

The editorial workflow included Avid Media Composer systems and Avid MetaFuze, a free application, to conform the sequences. After initially editing in 2D, the editorial team moved to 3D views during the final phases of offline editorial, using Avid Media Composer's stereoscopic editing capabilities to ensure synchronization between left and right eye views.