Fremont, CA – May 5, 2015 – Blackmagic Design today announced that Every Thing Will Be Fine, directed by legendary German director Wim Wenders and starring James Franco, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Rachel McAdams, has been graded on DaVinci Resolve at Arri Film & TV Services Berlin by colourist Philipp Orgassa.

The film, which focuses on a novelist who accidentally knocks down and kills a child, is shot in 3D in order to produce a magnifying effect that draws out the emotions of grief and trauma felt by the protagonists. This is Wenders’ first dramatic production in 3D, following his Oscar nominated dance documentary Pina and the Cathedrals of Culture architecture series

Philipp immediately faced the challenge of handling rich contrast and visual elements within a stereoscopic production environment. “As with many of Wim’s films, color plays a hugely significant role within the film’s narrative, however as soon as you put on the 3D glasses, the range in light is diminished,” explains Philipp. “Pushing up the contrast can risk details being blown out, so we had to use a lot of tricks to keep the vibrancy that DoP Benoît Debie had captured on set. We used Resolve’s noise reduction throughout the grade, which helped us to produce a very rich contrast in 3D . We worked wearing 3D glasses in the grading theater to ensure the depth and emotional connection that Wim wanted from the stereo effects remained intact.”

Wim also uses a lot of natural lighting in his films and Philipp relied on luminance keys within Resolve to tackle shots in bright sunshine from being completely blown out. “The keys were used in almost every frame, but in particular one long scene had been filmed in the snowy depths of a Canadian winter. So we still had to be able to keep the detail of the snow, which would have ordinarily been blown out due to the stereo projection weaknesses.”

Unlike the common use of 3D in movies, where everything is in focus, to make elements pop out of the screen, Wim was clear that the film had to retain a cinematic look and feel, which has the opposite effect drawing the audience into the drama. “There was a lot of shallow depth of field and out of focus elements, just as in a normal feature film, which we had to manage,” explains Philipp. “As well as using a print LUT to eliminate the digital look from the footage, I used Resolve’s Power Windows and tracking for both eyes simultaneously, as well as for sharpening and blurring particular elements. It was a very complex, but really interesting process to work with, as it balanced the best of what stereo effects can produce, with the beauty of more traditional cinematography.”