My Sister's Keeper places trust in LaserPacific's aIM dailies

Nick Cassavetes' new movie My Sister's Keeper stars Alec Baldwin, Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin in an adaption of the Jodi Picoult novel. The story is about a thirteen year old who was conceived as a genetic match for her cancer-stricken sister and is seeking emancipation from her parents. The movie was shot by award-winning cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, ASC. Both Cassavetes and Deschanel were initially insistent that they wanted the dailies to be printed on film. New Line approached LaserPacific to see if aIM dailies could be used as an alternate approach. The calibrated HD dailies transfer could be used as an alternative to print dailies as well as for viewing copies for the studio and for input into editorial.

LaserPacific arranged a test so that Nick Cassavetes and Caleb Deschanel could become more familiar with aIM dailies and could see some of their own material transferred at LaserPacific and viewed on an aIM dailies player in a calibrated environment. A long-time proponent of film dailies, Deschanel was initially skeptical that aIM dailies could really look like film, explaining, "I never had hi-def dailies where I felt like I was looking at film until I saw the aIM system. Since film dailies went away, I’ve usually been forced to bite the bullet and watch flat, ugly dailies. I’ve had to explain my way out of dailies screenings, assuring my colleagues that the images aren’t all overexposed and out of focus, and that they will actually look good when printed on film."

 When he and Cassavetes saw their aIM dailies test they were more than impressed and were happy to take advantage of this new technology. "Kodak and LaserPacific have developed the aIM system so that it matches the print stocks, to the extent that you feel like you're watching film in terms of the way it represents shadows and light and overexposure," continues Deschanel. The aIM system brought Caleb Deschanel and Nick Cassavetes to LaserPacific and they decided to stay there for the digital intermediate, working with senior colorist, Mike Sowa.

"Mike was great," says Deschanel. "Most of the initial passes we made were pretty similar to what I would have done using traditional timing in the lab. But then at the end, I found myself starting to obsess over things. In some of the flashback scenes, we would vignette the edges and sometimes darken an area of the image slightly to subtly direct the viewer's attention within the frame."

My Sister's Keeper is due to be released in the United States by New Line Cinema on June 26 2009.