While
a resume and a credit list provide essential information, they
can be a bit dry and don't really tell the whole story.
Steve's professional career spans many years and encompasses
a broad range of experiences in the world of digital effects,
so
it is not a short story. This section is intended to get closer
and more revealing about the kinds of places he worked at, the
projects he worked on, and his responsibilities. There is a
section that
describes his Digital Intermediate work
as Technical Director which even includes a brief "'tutorial" of
what a Digital Intermediate is, in case you are not familiar with
the process. There is also a page on his digital effects work which
describes his role as
the
2D Technical Director and Senior
Compositor at Cinesite. And lastly
there is a section that tells the story of how
he developed digital ink and paint software and used it with the
Pixar computer to
do animated
feature film work and television commercials.
Steve's feature film credits may also be viewed at IMDb.
In
classic film production, the camera negative is edited together
into finished reels that are taken to a film lab for "'color
timing". Each cut is given a different color correction to
even out the inevitable differences in exposure and color that
would otherwise make the movie "'pop" annoyingly from
cut to cut. Recent technological advances have made it possible
to do the color timing of the entire feature film on a computer
system.
First, each reel of the feature film is scanned and the digitized
frames are written to a huge array of disk drives. A digital color
correcting system is then used to color correct each shot and the
color corrected version of each reel is rendered back to the disk
array. From there the color corrected reel is sent to a digital
film recorder to be shot back to film. This piece of film made
from the color corrected digitized frames is the Digital Intermediate.
The current state of the technology makes the DI process a little
slower and a lot more expensive than classical lab color timing.
However, its overwhelming advantage is creative control - the
movie just looks a lot better when done as a DI. Digital color
correctors have an almost magical ability to selectively correct
virtually anything in the shot - make the sky bluer, the
flesh tones warmer, bring out the detail in the shadows, or just
about anything else you can imagine. Over time the certain advances
in technology will lower the cost of the DI process to the point
that it will eventually become the only way to color time a movie.
Technical Director for Digital Intermediate
The
Digital Intermediate (DI) process is an exciting and interesting
field to work in precisely because it is an emerging and rapidly
evolving technology. There is an urgency due to critical production
deadlines to meet the release dates of important feature films
plus the excitement of working on the films of such great talents
as Steven Soderbergh ("'Traffic"), Taylor Hackman ("'Ray"),
Spike Lee ("'She Hate Me"), and Kevin Costner ("'Open
Range").
As
the Technical Director for the DI process at Kodak's Cinesite
(now Laser Pacific), Steve was responsible for addressing a very
wide range of technical issues ranging from color science questions
to production problems to film format issues. On any given day
these are the types of issues that must be dealt with:
The client's visual effects house
needs help with the linear to log conversion parameters to convert
their work from a linear file format such as tiff to the log
format of cineon or dpx.
Analyze a digital imaging problem from
any department (scanning, recording, compositing, paint), determine
the cause, work out a solution, and sometimes execute the solution.
Write Unix programs to manage the status
of 24.2 Terabytes of digitized film data for multiple concurrent
feature films containing over 6,000 shots and well over half
a million scanned frames.
Evaluate new software that the company
is considering purchasing.
Work with in-house engineering staff
to define new software that is needed, then test and evaluate
that software as it is being developed and deployed.
Answer whatever questions and solve whatever
problem the producer might have from how to crop a super 35 2.40
common top window and resize it to Cscope or how to dust-bust
4k scans using a 2k paint system.
Know all film formats and create camera
guides for the colorist and outside vfx houses for even arcane
formats such as 3 perf, super 35 common top, and super 16.
Test and evaluate new Kodak film stocks
as to their performance for bluescreen and greenscreen digital
effects.
At
its peak, Cinesite Hollywood had over 30 compositors in their world
class 2D (compositing) department and almost 50 CGI artists in
their excellent 3D department. During its 12 year history Cinesite
produced digital effects for major motion pictures such as "'X-Men
2", "'Solaris", "'Clockstoppers", "'Thirteen
Ghosts", "'Mission Impossible II", "'Red
Planet", and many, many more. As the 2D Technical Director
for Cinesite's 2D department, Steve's mission was to
be the "'goto guy" for all of the compositors to solve
all types of technical problems and devise novel solutions to compositing
problems.
Since
the 2D department worked in cineon 10 bit log space and the 3D
department worked in 16 bit linear space there was a chronic difficulty
in maintaining color correctness when moving images between these
two colorspaces which Steve addressed routinely. To get new hires
up to speed rapidly on the Cineon compositing software and the
unique issues of compositing in log space, he prepared training
programs and training materials. He also helped to evaluate new
commercially available software tools for the 2D department and
worked closely with the engineering department to help specify
new tools and test new software for production.
Kodak
founded Cinesite in 1992 as a proving ground for its foray into
the new realm of digital film technology. Featuring the Lightning
digital film scanners and film recorders with the Cineon compositing
software, they were all designed specifically to work perfectly
with the new 10 bit log cineon file format. Since that time Cinesite
has established itself as a world class 2D compositing center for
feature film digital effects. This was the scene when Cinesite's
senior management brought Steve in as a Senior Compositor in 1997.
During
his seven years at Cinesite, Steve worked on a long list of feature
films as a Senior Compositor (click
here for Cinesite compositing credit list). Mastering not only
the artistic requirements of 10 bit log compositing, he also studied
the mathematics behind linear vs. log image data until that was
mastered as well. As a result he was expert at facilitating the
incorporation of 3D linear data into log space for compositing.
Steve also made a study of greenscreen and bluescreen compositing
(which forms a large part of his book) developing original despill
algorithms and pulling some of the most difficult mattes.
Steve
learned the art and science of compositing at Sidley Wright & Associates
on the Pixar computer, a special image processing computer made
by Pixar. He mastered this very difficult machine, which required
the artist to write huge Unix scripts to composite a shot rather
than the current convenient GUI seen on all modern software, 2D
and 3D. Though difficult to operate, the Pixar was very fast and
had superb image quality and high enough resolution that it could
do feature film work (click
here for more feature film credits done with the Pixar). In
addition to feature film work, the Pixar was used to do digital
effects for a long list of broadcast television commercials (click
here to see broadcast television commercial credits).
As
co-founder of Sidley Wright & Associates, one of the most interesting
projects was the development of one of the first digital ink and
paint systems outside of Disney. The purpose was to give an "'added
value" to the company in addition to the 3D animation and
2D compositing services already
offered. The Pixar computer had been adopted as the compositing
engine of choice because it produced by far the highest quality
and resolution composites available at the time and was well suited
to feature film work. By writing custom software, cel animation
line art could be scanned on a flatbed scanner then digitally "'inked
and painted" on a computer workstation then composited on
the Pixar computer and filmed out on 35mm film. This was a bold
innovation that meant for the first time digital effects could
be mixed into a classically animated feature film. Keep in mind
this is in 1991, years before digital effects had become common.
The
first animated feature film to take advantage of this new process
was Bill Kroyer's "'FernGully: the Last Rainforest".
Over 30 digital effects shots were produced for FernGully with
all of the animation digitally
inked and painted, composited on the Pixar, and filmed out on a
Solitaire Cine III film recorder. The next feature film project
was Turner Film's "'The Pagemaster" which featured
very complex multi-layer shots that were impossible to do with
conventional "'cartoon cameras". Digital effects shots
for three more feature films, over a dozen animated television
commercials as well as the animated video "Mortal Kombat:
The Journey Begins" were created with the proprietary digital
ink and paint software.
While
a resume and a credit list provide essential information, they
can be a bit dry and don't really tell the whole story.
Steve's professional career spans many years and encompasses
a broad range of experiences in the world of digital effects,
so
it is not a short story. This section is intended to get closer
and more revealing about the kinds of places he worked at, the
projects he worked on, and his responsibilities. There is a
section that
describes his Digital Intermediate work
as
Technical Director which even includes a brief "'tutorial" of
what a Digital Intermediate is, in case you are not familiar with
the process. There is also a page on his digital effects work which
describes his role as
the
2D Technical Director and Senior
Compositor at Cinesite. And lastly
there is a section that tells the story of how
he developed digital ink and paint software and used it with the
Pixar computer to
do animated
feature film work and television commercials.
In
classic film production, the camera negative is edited together
into finished reels that are taken to a film lab for "'color
timing". Each cut is given a different color correction to
even out the inevitable differences in exposure and color that
would otherwise make the movie "'pop" annoyingly from
cut to cut. Recent technological advances have made it possible
to do the color timing of the entire feature film on a computer
system.
The
Digital Intermediate (DI) process is an exciting and interesting
field to work in precisely because it is an emerging and rapidly
evolving technology. There is an urgency due to critical production
deadlines to meet the release dates of important feature films
plus the excitement of working on the films of such great talents
as Steven Soderbergh ("'Traffic"), Taylor Hackman ("'Ray"),
Spike Lee ("'She Hate Me"), and Kevin Costner ("'Open
Range").
As
the Technical Director for the DI process at Kodak's Cinesite
(now Laser Pacific), Steve was responsible for addressing a very
wide range of technical issues ranging from color science questions
to production problems to film format issues. On any given day
these are the types of issues that must be dealt with:
At
its peak, Cinesite Hollywood had over 30 compositors in their world
class 2D (compositing) department and almost 50 CGI artists in
their excellent 3D department. During its 12 year history Cinesite
produced digital effects for major motion pictures such as "'X-Men
2", "'Solaris", "'Clockstoppers", "'Thirteen
Ghosts", "'Mission Impossible II", "'Red
Planet", and many, many more. As the 2D Technical Director
for Cinesite's 2D department, 
Steve's mission was to
be the "'goto guy" for all of the compositors to solve
all types of technical problems and devise novel solutions to compositing
problems.
Kodak
founded Cinesite in 1992 as a proving ground for its foray into
the new realm of digital film technology. Featuring the Lightning
digital film scanners and film recorders with the Cineon compositing
software, they were all designed specifically to work perfectly
with the new 10 bit log cineon file format. Since that time Cinesite
has established itself as a world class 2D compositing center for
feature film digital effects. This was the scene when Cinesite's
senior management brought Steve in as a Senior Compositor in 1997.
During
his seven years at Cinesite, Steve worked on a long list of feature
films as a Senior Compositor 
Steve
learned the art and science of compositing at Sidley Wright & Associates
on the Pixar computer, a special image processing computer made
by Pixar. He mastered this very difficult machine, which required
the artist to write huge Unix scripts to composite a shot rather
than the current convenient GUI seen on all modern software, 2D
and 3D. Though difficult to operate, the Pixar was very fast and
had superb image quality and high enough resolution that it could
do feature film work 
As
co-founder of Sidley Wright & Associates, one of the most interesting
projects was the development of one of the first digital ink and
paint systems outside of Disney. The purpose was to give an "'added
value" to the company in addition to the 3D animation and
2D compositing services 
already
offered. The Pixar computer had been adopted as the compositing
engine of choice because it produced by far the highest quality
and resolution composites available at the time and was well suited
to feature film work. By writing custom software, cel animation
line art could be scanned on a flatbed scanner then digitally "'inked
and painted" on a computer workstation then composited on
the Pixar computer and filmed out on 35mm film. This was a bold
innovation that meant for the first time digital effects could
be mixed into a classically animated feature film. Keep in mind
this is in 1991, years before digital effects had become common.
The
first animated feature film to take advantage of this new process
was Bill Kroyer's "'FernGully: the Last Rainforest".
Over 30 digital effects shots were produced for FernGully with
all of the animation 
digitally
inked and painted, composited on the Pixar, and filmed out on a
Solitaire Cine III film recorder. The next feature film project
was Turner Film's "'The Pagemaster" which featured
very complex multi-layer shots that were impossible to do with
conventional "'cartoon cameras". Digital effects shots
for three more feature films, over a dozen animated television
commercials as well as the animated video "Mortal Kombat:
The Journey Begins" were created with the proprietary digital
ink and paint software.