Fox's Dragonball Evolution utilizes the full range of LaserPacific feature film post production services 

Shot almost entirely in Mexico, Dragonball Evolution is a visual effects laden adaptation of the popular Japanese media franchise, directed by James Wong and shot by Robert McLachlan, ASC.  Dragonball Evolution is the latest movie in a long collaboration between James Wong and Robert McLachlan, stretching back to the TV show Millennium in the late nineties. LaserPacific's involvement began by providing an aIM dailies package consisting of aIM calibrated dailies transfers plus an aIM dailies player and viewing environment allowing the creative team to see digital cinema quality pictures on location in Mexico.

The aIM package allows the entire production team to view dailies that look like the film is intended to look and communicate the creative intent. Steve Barnett, the post production supervisor on Dragonball Evolution, describes the benefits - “The colorist here at LaserPacific would do his work and that work would be accurately displayed on location in Mexico and also on the Fox lot in Century City. This was really important because we had a distant location with an evolving look yet we could be confident in telling the executives that what they see is what they're shooting. aIM is spectacular!”

aIM also provides a great basis on which to begin work on your preview screenings. According to Steve Barnett, “it gets us several steps further down the field than where we would have been if we were starting with raw dailies”. This saves both time and money during the preview process and also the digital intermediate.

During production, LaserPacific performed tests with Vision Research's Phantom high-speed camera, which was being used for some specific visual effects shots. The Phantom camera can shoot at up to 1000 frames per second. Its raw format needed to be converted to a format that could be used in the digital intermediate process and after a series of tests, LaserPacific's engineers came up with a conversion. Steve Barnett was impressed by the diligence of LaserPacific's engineers - “ the Phantom camera wasn't designed to be intercut with 35MM film so you guys began to work out the best approach to getting the Phantom footage into some sort of format that we could use in our DI. LaserPacific was absolutely selfless in all the work that they did! They are always trying to solve problems for their clients.”

Senior colorist Dave Cole's involvement began in pre-production,when he started developing some looks with the director and cinematographer. His involvement continued throughout production as James Wong and Robert McLachlan continued to develop the look of the movie. Steve Barnett explains, “during the course of shooting, when there were concerns about how we were going to achieve what we wanted to achieve, LaserPacific stepped up to the plate. During the Christmas holidays, Dave Cole colored all these great tests to show how far we could stretch the look of this motion picture.”

Dave Cole was also very involved in ensuring that the visual effects pipeline worked seamlessly. Dave elaborates, “because there were so many visual effects and several different facilities working on them, it was crucial that the scans were pre-timed to balance them before we sent them out to the various VFX facilities. This step means that when we receive the final VFX shots, I don't have any problems dropping them in and integrating them with the live action.”

Dragonball Evolution will be released in the United States by Fox on April 8th, 2009.