LaserPacific DI puts Waist Deep's Creative Ideas Front and Center

LaserPacific continues to bring the amazing creative control and efficiency of digital intermediate to independent productions with an eye on the budget. Laser’s technical expertise and top-shelf service helps filmmakers design the right workflow for the project and translates into creative, cutting edge looks achieved on tight indie schedules. 

On the Focus Features feature film Waist Deep, Laser scanned and reformatted a wide variety of capture media. Meanwhile, Laser’s digital intermediate services allowed cinematographer Shane Hurlbut to move very quickly on the set, shooting 85% of the film using existing practicals, knowing he could fine tune the mixed color temperatures in DI. The result is an edgy urban realism with stylized images that communicate the 105 degree heat wave in which the story plays out. 

Waist Deep was directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall, who is best known as an actor (Crooklyn, Soul Food, Romeo + Juliet), and photographed by Shane Hurlbut (Crazy/Beautiful, Into the Blue, Mr. 3000). The filmmakers shot in a variety of formats including 3-perf Super 35, 4-perf 35 mm, Super 16 and HDCAM SR video. The movie will be seen in 2.41 widescreen aspect ratio. 

“My goal for the movie was to give the audience that sense of immediacy, that documentary feeling,” says Curtis-Hall. “I like stylized grit, and beautiful images that look real. We were shooting that Los Angeles environment and we wanted to create the feeling of the heat.” 

Hurlbut, who had worked with LaserPacific in the past, did some testing through the facility and came up with a grainy, edgy look based on shooting Kodak VISION 320T 5277 film stock overexposed by two-and-a-third stops. Night exteriors were photographed on Kodak VISION2 Expression 500T 5229 stock, usually underexposed. 

Hurlbut knew that he could carefully control the details of the look in digital intermediate. But the DI was also valuable in terms of saving time on the set. “We had to shoot quickly,” says Curtis-Hall. “We were hitting it hard, and we couldn’t take the time to make sure everything matched. So the DI was a perfect tool for us. We used Power Windows extensively for color and contrast, and together we developed a look, and an idea of how far we wanted to take things.” 

Waist Deep was the first digital intermediate for colorist Tim Vincent, who had a relationship with Hurlbut going back years. “The dailies on Waist Deep were interesting due to the variety of formats, and the number of cameras they used,” says Vincent. “One some stunt scenes there were seven or eight cameras running. We were able to handle all the various formats smoothly, with the technical details kept behind the scenes and invisible to the filmmakers. It’s important to let the storytellers concentrate on being creative. It’s our job to take care of the technological aspects.” 

The footage included a tremendous amount of night material. “The dark stuff was shot very dark on purpose, and the bright, daylight footage was very bright,” says Vincent. “The idea was to communicate the raw, extreme feeling, with burning highlights and extreme contrast. There was a lot of handheld camera and lots of edgy, close angles.” 

The production saw dailies in HDCAM 4:2:2 format. These images were transferred from the negative using the Thomson Spirit Datacine. The dailies were seen on a Rush Play digital projector, which allows random access, making dailies viewing more efficient. The same scan provided the images for the previews. 

Vincent says the dailies were an approximation of the final look. The previews brought the images closer, and the final DI made them perfect. “The transition into DI color space and the look we came up with made everyone happy,” he says. “DI color space allows you to do more, to transcend. A lot of the unusual color temperature and colored lights Shane worked with came to life when we hit the DI.” 

After an assembly of the film was locked, the necessary shots were rescanned at 2K resolution. The SR footage from the set was reimported at optimal resolution. After cleanup, those raw files were used for the DI, where the images were framed in the 2.41 widescreen aspect ratio, color-timed and otherwise manipulated. The finished images were then output to intermediate film using an ARRILASER film recorder. 

“Shane created most of the graininess through his photography,” says Vincent. “We added grain to the video footage to make it blend. Shane blew out highlights, crushed blacks and added lots of chroma, especially on day exteriors, for that hot feeling. We shifted the feeling so that each location had its own look and character.” 

Hurlbut found that the DI meant he could use existing lighting on many sets, allowing him to move much more quickly. “Vondie wanted this film to feel very real and in the moment,” says Hurlbut. “I set out on a mission to light the whole movie with practicals, and I’d say about 85% of the film is lit that way. Whatever the urban landscape of LA delivered, we wanted to capture, and that included sodium vapor, mercury vapor, cool lights fluorescents, white headlights, and red neon. 

“I was convinced that a DI was necessary in order to manipulate the wide variety of sources,” he says. “I needed the ability to create blackness, and to alter the landscape of LA during the day. We had many cloudy days, and a lot of driving where you drive up one street and it’s cloudy, and you drive down another and it’s sunny. I knew with the schedule we planned on this film that DI was the only chance we would have to even things out. 

“Another major consideration was the African American skin tones, which I feel are often overlit,” says Hurlbut. “I underexposed most of those skin tones by a stop and a half. That allows the dark skin tones to pick up subtle reflections from the environment. In the digital intermediate, I was able to control all those practical lights, and fine tune the African American skin tones. 

“LaserPacific did an amazing job of getting it all scanned in,” says Hurlbut. “I have a longstanding relationship with them, and they have been very good to me. Tim Vincent is a great colorist with a great eye. He had done dailies on six of my films, and he made the move up to DI colorist seamlessly. He understands the subtleties. I trust him with my images, and trust is what this is all about.” 

Vincent sees digital intermediate creating more opportunities for filmmakers. “It’s another avenue,” he says. “Laser’s approach to DI brings things to another level, and I think it’s going to allows younger, newer filmmakers the chance to make better, more creative films. There are going to be more discoveries because people will get the chance to create using this technology. It’s definitely going to have a big impact on the future of filmmaking, and LaserPacific will be leading the way.”