Congratulations!

ROUSH Media would like to announce that 10,000 Days, an original web series created by Eric Small and shot entirely on the RED camera, has been nominated for various IAWTV and STREAMY Awards.  With DP Marco Mazzei, Visual Effects by CafeFX, and Sound Design by Tom Myers/Skywalker Sound, 10,000 Days is the story of Comet 23 which struck the Pacific Ocean with the magnitude of all the nuclear weapons in the world. The Beck family was among the lucky few who survived the heat blast and firestorms. And then the freezing began…

Congratulations 10,000 Days on the following award nominations:

IAWTV Awards (International Academy of Web TV):

Best Directing (drama)- Eric Small

Best Cinematography- Marco Mazzei

Best Design (Art Direction/Production)- Mimi Gramatky

Best Costume Design- Rita Riggs and Shawnelle Cherry

Best Original Music- Joseph LoDuca

 

STREAMY Awards

Best Visual Effects- David Ebner

View 10,000 Days Grading Demo Here
10,000 Days offered a unique challenge for ROUSH Media to provide end to end workflow and finishing solutions on a complex RED Camera project. The file-based footage and our data-centric SAN server infrastructure allowed easy collaboration between the visual effects and editorial companies. Utilizing Digital Vision’s Film Master digital grading and finishing system, ROUSH Media processed the RED R3D’s for dailies and editorial. Once the editor was finished with the cut, ROUSH Media conformed the shots to be used for VFX from the RED files. 2K DPX files with handles were sent to CafeFX for the VFX creation. As CafeFx finished each shot, they were sent back to ROUSH Media. The DPX files were converted to low res QuickTime files for the editor to replace in the edit. Then, with the edit complete and including the new VFX shots, the Film Master was used for the final conform encompassing RED, DPX visual effects, and QuickTime Motion graphics files.

 Creating the look

Director Eric Small and DP Marco Mazzei knew the look they wanted. ROUSH Media pulled some high resolution stills from the RED footage as references during the dailies process. They used Photoshop to color correct these images and sent them to DI colorist Keith Roush as a starting point for the look. “Since an image is worth a thousand words, once I saw the images and I knew what they wanted, it was kind of like 300 meets The Day After Tomorrow,” said Keith Roush.

We decided we wanted an ultra sharp image. “I did not want blurry snowflakes on the actor’s face,” said Keith Roush, DI colorist and founder of ROUSH Media. In a process developed by ROUSH Media Using Digital Vision’s DVO algorithms, the Film Master allowed the adjustment of texture as well as color. Bypassing the OFPL setting from RED’s debayering and utilizing our own post filter process to control the levels of detail gave better results in the image. We were also better able to mix RAW RED footage with the DPX from Visual FX. Creator/Director Eric Small was extremely satisfied with the work flow: “I now have the digital bridge from the stories in my head to an online audience. I’m not sure it gets any better than that.”  

Working with the images in unique ways allowed us to remove some of the characteristic RED camera “look” and just create stunning images. At the recent REDucation event, Digital Vision showed the trailer of 10,000 Days on a Sony SXRD 4K projector to some very excited DPs. One DP came up and asked what lenses we used to get the image to look so sharp!

View the Trailer here

ROUSH Media’s latest documentary project Foo Fighters: Back and Forth received the 2012 Grammy for Best Long Form Music Video.  Foo Fighters: Back and Forth, directed by Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy winner Director James Moll, looks into the 16 year history of the band Foo Fighters and encompasses excellent direction, storytelling and a distinct look like no other documentary.  Keith Roush, Senior DI Colorist at ROUSH Media, provided color grading and restoration of the archive footage for the documentary on Image System’s Nucoda Film Master. The “music video” look that was set for the band’s interviews came about in conversations during the DI sessions between James, and Keith.  The music video rock and roll look was achieved by creating deep rich blacks, with a soft sliver like glow  for the skin and highlights.

ROUSH Media also provided the up-conversion and restoration of the archival footage from many various tape and digital formats, including  ¾”, VHS, Hi8, DVD, Beta SP and DigiBeta. Using our Nucoda DVO image processing algorithms we up-rezzed and frame rate converted the footage, removed unwanted video noise, drop outs, and other artifacts that have accumulated over time within the footage. This further polished the film to restore 80’s and 90’s home video and MTV footage to the current HD standards audiences have come to expect.

 

Once the final grade and image restoration was complete we created the Digital Cinema Package and other deliverables for the various Theatrical and TV Versions.