IRON MAN Update #2

Here is the final update on the post of IRON MAN, with editor Dan Lebental. Thanks to Dan and the assistant Dawn King for the excellent information.

1. Was having up to 8 channels of production audio ultimately a positive... or a pain? Were you working at 24 bit audio, and did this create any problems?

It was a positive when they were used especially with iso mics. We didn't work in 24 bit as we were going to because the lab made a mistake and we didn't find out until it was to late.

2. Post Sound: were there any surprises when you moved to the dubbing stage (nothing was in sync, the sound quality was surprisingly good / bad)? You mixed at Skywalker. Who supervised and cut sound? How did you get picture to the stage? Did post sound hook Pro Tools into your Unity?

Frank Eulner was our Sound Superviser and Chris Boyse was our Sound Designer and FX Mixer. We gave the stage quicktimes. We didn't hook Pro Tools with the Unity.

3. Your plan had been to color grade in a mobile facility near the mix. How did that work out? Were you dropping VFX shots into the DI as you were grading? What system was used for the digital assembly and grading?

We did set up a station for color timing at the ranch (Skywalker Ranch). Steve Scott from Efilm did the job and it went very smoothly.

4. Was a lot of progress made in fixing problems with the Avid software? Or did you have to come up with work-arounds for most issues?

We did have to use some workarounds and got used to the Avid not doing certain basic things like doing a matchback without the target bin open. One nasty problem was that out of nowhere the Avid would completely eliminate a bin. We would have to go to the attic or archives to recover bins.

5. You made this workflow work with a big budget. What advice could you offer for small budget films that want to work in HD?

I think cutting HD for smaller budgets only makes things easier. You are at a true 24fps without having to get rid of false frames and it all relates to film better. Also, a tapeless work flow would be great for a film with one editor and one assistant. And you can screen dailies and have previews directly from the avid media which can save a lot of money.

6. Did you continue to have sync issues with your client monitor?

No. It was never an issue for me. I think it effected people who use there playback monitor to edit and like to stop on a frame and mark it. When you stopped the monitor would jump back to an earlier frame. This isn't how I work so it didn't effect me.

7. Were there Effects plugins that were missing, or needed improvement? If you resized a shot did it retain its sharpness? Did you use any Timewarp effects, and did they translate to your DI? Did they take five hours to render? Were there issues with rendering?

I thought the effects plug-ins worked well an rendered quickly. I did plenty of resizes and repos and they help their sharpness. I used time-warp to great success but had an VFX house replicate my moves before it went to DI. The highest quality renders seemed to take 10 or 15 minutes. I really relied on the very effective SpectraMatte plugin along with AniMatte for my temp compositing.

8. What audio plugin is missing, or needs improvement?

The audio plug-ins are still a weak link. I really only used Dverb in the end. Well, also pitch shift sometimes.

9. What could Avid do to make your next project easier and more efficient?

I think that making bins open and close and change ownership faster would be the one thing that would take my frustration level down. Also, we should not have to save bins that aren't going to be altered in editing.