PostWorks, New York, the east coast's most comprehensive full-service
film and High Definition post facility, today detailed its supporting
role in delivering director Michel Gondry’s concert film, Dave
Chappelle’s Block Party. Focus Features debuted the film
theatrically on Mar. 3.
Produced by Bob Yari Productions, the concert portions of the film were
lensed on location in Brooklyn by acclaimed cinematographer Ellen
Kuras, a three-time Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award winner.
The director and DP captured the film’s performances on Super 16mm film
stock. Among many critical services provided by PostWorks, colorist
Scot Olive worked directly with the filmmakers to color-grade the 2K
Digital Intermediate (DI), which became the source for all the film’s
picture deliverables.
“PostWorks is a ‘Gold Star’ vendor for us,” said Ben Urquhart, director
of post production for Focus Features and Rogue Pictures. “Their client
relations and technology are top notch. Ellen, Scot, and the PostWorks
crew worked very hard to create the specialized look of the film, and
it’s important to me that those efforts are visible to BLOCK PARTY
audiences around the world. Often times the color science at the DI
facility doesn’t interface well with the photochemical laboratory, but
after minimal adjustments, the 35mm prints were very nice. I’ve
received compliments on the prints at every screening we’ve had.”
Post-production on the film began at PostWorks in Oct. 2005. PostWorks
provided an Avid Media Composer 9000 for the last stage of offline
editorial to editors Jeff Buchanan and Sarah Flack. The 2K DI process
involved scanning the camera original Super 16mm negative using
PostWorks’ new Grass Valley Spirit 2K. George Bunce conformed the 2K
data files in Quantel iQ, and Scot Olive then used the Pandora Pogle
PiXi system in conjuction with iQ’s 2K playback capability to color
grade in real-time on the 16’x9′ screen in PostWorks’ DI Theater. The
finished film was recorded to 35mm Kodak Negative Stock via Arri Laser.
Custom look-up-tables (LUTs) were built to allow for release printing
on Fuji 3513DI stock.
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