Cinnafilm
Shortly before NAB, I got an email from one of my PR contacts who represents about three different companies that I regularly deal with, wanting to know if I wanted to meet with Lance Maurer, the president of Cinnafilm at a cocktail party at the end of my stay at NAB. When she told me that he was unveiling a real-time video-to-filmlook conversion software, I was intrigued. Of course, when I found out that it was designed for mid-size project studios, I was a little skeptical of how well it would fit in with our readership. Still, as Lance was a low-budget filmmaker himself (in addition to being an aerospace engineer, of all things), I felt that it wouldn’t hurt to check out what he was showcasing. If nothing else, I figured it would likely be a meeting of kindred spirits.
After I, my writers, and a few other press representatives were escorted to Cinnafilm’s suite at Mandalay Bay, I got a chance to see some of the ideas the well-spoken Lance Maurer had come up with. Essentially, he and his associates have created a Real-Time turn-key color grading/de-interlacing/film-look computer system.
Unlike most software based film-appearance products, Cinnafilm’s HD1 system doesn’t try to add analog-looking artifacts on top of the digital video you’ve recorded. Instead, it tries to map the movement of every pixel recorded and then convert it to an analog equivalent. This allows you to have much more control over the look, softness, and feel of the conversion. Because the turnkey system is real time, you can see all changes instantly, with no render time. Furthermore, because the software tracks each pixel and tries to figure out intangible things about the camera, it can actually create frames that don’t exist, which is very useful for slow-motion. While Adobe After Effects attempts to do this same thing with their Pixel motion effect, this usually only works at about 30-50% speed (the equivalent of 60-80 fps). Go any slower than that and bad things start happening, like crazy halos generating around your subjects and overall image degradation. However, the HD1 system is designed to be able to slow footage down to 6000 fps with “perfect frame recreation.” While “perfect” is a bit lofty a goal, the slow mo that I saw was pretty darn amazing. We went to about 400-500 fps and the editing system managed to make things very smooth and pristine. Cars in slow mo really looked as thought they were shot on a true high speed camera, while a closeup of a human face looked a little off, but surprisingly good, nonetheless.
Because of the technology for tracking pixels in this package, it will lend itself well to creating motion tracking technology for special effects, an area Cinnafilm looks to expand into. However, where it wants to go beyond that is even more impressive. They believe they can reverse track a camera’s movement and essentially recreate focal planes after the fact. If they can manage to do so, they could artificially create shallow depth of field in digital video in Post production, without having to use a 35mm lens adapter in production. If that’s possible, then that could open up a huge number of creative possibilities for low-budget filmmakers.
And, of course, if they can figure out how to artificially recreate one camera after the fact, then what stops them from artificially simulating TWO cameras, separated 2 and a half inches apart? Yes, for especially smart readers who paid attention to my Iconix commentary earlier, Lance and the folks at Cinnafilm believe they could create true stereographic 3D imagery out of a single 2D video stream. Could they possibly be right? Normally, I would say absolutely not. However, after getting a chance to check out the actual pixel tracking the software was doing on the back end, I can’t help but believe that they might just pull it off.
While they currently are only making their turnkey systems available on a lease basis to studios (at $10K a month), they will allow filmmakers to make appointments with them at their headquarters and convert a film to a filmlook they like for around $7K - $8K for a 90 minute film. When I explained that our readers would really want to own a version of this software in their home studios, Lance explained that they were looking at making some very economic base versions for low-budget filmmakers. While they suggested an extremely pared down version for under $100, they had no plans at the moment for a mid-range version that was much less pared down. I suggested that they could easily make a more robust version for a similar price point to Magic Bullet Suite and that our audience would be very interested in that, because it could be owned rather than used at a faraway facility. My personal suggestion was that a robust version at the $800 price could allow filmmakers to use the super slow-mo options, which would be very valuable to low-budget action filmmakers who want to create John Woo-like action sequences.
For more about Cinnafilm, be sure to check out their website: Cinnafilm.com
