DaVinci Resolve Studio at The Box Office
Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio has left its mark on some of this summer’s biggest films, including Deadpool 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Solo: A Star Wars Story and more.
The software is the tool of choice for many post production professionals and facilities, including Company 3’s Stefan Sonnenfeld who graded Adrift, Mile 22 and Skyscraper; Harbor Picture Company’s Joe Gawler who graded Solo: A Star Wars Story; and MTI Film’s Trent Johnson who graded Overboard.
Along with big budget blockbusters, DaVinci Resolve Studio was also used on many of this summer’s hit indie films, including RBG, Sorry to Bother You, A Kid Like Jake and The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Goldcrest Post completed the final DI for the latest film in the Jurassic Park franchise using DaVinci Resolve Studio and a DaVinci Resolve Advance Panel.
According to Supervising Digital Colorist Adam Glasman, “Our aim with ‘Fallen Kingdom’ was to achieve a lush, vibrant look whilst retaining natural contrast levels. The DP Oscar Faura worked with the DIT on set to grade dailies and provided us with looks for each scene as CDL files. These gave us great visual references to use as a starting point, which we were then able to enhance and adjust in DaVinci Resolve.”
Since the film was such a VFX-heavy production, it was essential that Goldcrest, Faura and the ILM VFX team were all on the same page regarding the color palette, as significant changes to the look could affect the lighting of some of the CG involved.
“Faura came over to the UK a few months before DI began, and spent a week with us at Goldcrest. Together, we completed a rough grade of the film and screened it to the director, editor and VFX team to ensure all were comfortable with the direction of the grade,” said Glasman.
A lot of communication was required. ILM had CDL files shared with them so they could work on the CG while seeing something close to the final look of the film, and Goldcrest had access to mattes for every single dinosaur during the grade, which gave Glasman more flexibility to adjust the grade while still ensuring that the CG fit into the background plate.
Deadpool 2
EFILM’s Senior Colorist Skip Kimball used DaVinci Resolve Studio to grade the superhero sequel.
“The biggest challenge in balancing the look of ‘Deadpool 2’ was to seamlessly integrate a high volume of visual effects shots that came in from many different vendors,” said Kimball. “The footage was shot over many weeks at various stages and locations so my aim was to make sure everything was kept fluid and cohesive. For example, the convoy scene is 10-minutes of action, but elements were shot on bluescreen and on location during different times of day.
Ryan Reynolds stars as Deadpool in Twentieth Century Fox’s DEADPOOL 2. Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.
“It took many external mattes combined with Power Windows, along with DaVinci Resolve plugins like camera shake, blurs and many tricks to make it all come together.”
According to Kimball, “With DaVinci Resolve, I have the ability to work with the camera raw footage as well as VFX delivered in EXRs in numerous resolutions. Also, I find the DaVinci Resolve plug-ins very beneficial for creating looks; the open FX plug-ins provide creative starting points for countless looks.”
Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Twentieth Century Fox’s DEADPOOL 2. Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.
DaVinci Resolve 15
With its latest update, DaVinci Resolve now includes even more: DaVinci Resolve 15 has integrated Fusion, making it the world’s first solution to combine editing, color correction, audio post production, and now VFX and motion graphics in one software tool.
For more than 30 years, Fusion has been one of Hollywood’s leading VFX tools, being used on hit films and television shows, such as “Red Sparrow,” “Ant-Man,” “Orphan Black” and “Teen Wolf.” Now, it’s built into DaVinci Resolve, giving users a new Fusion page for feature film quality VFX and motion graphics animation.
DaVinci Resolve 15 now gives users a true 3D workspace with more than 250 tools for compositing, vector paint, particles, keying, rotoscoping, text animation, tracking, stabilization, and more. It also includes a major update to Fairlight audio, along with more than 100 new features and improvements for editing and color grading, such as a LUT browser, expanded HDR support, stacked timelines, and subtitle and closed captioning tools.
For more information, visit their website here.
