Technical

ROUSH Media Shoves Elephant Through a Stir Straw.

At ROUSH Media, the sources and 4K color graded masters we work with are elephant-sized, where a single frame can be 36+ Megabytes. In order to collaborate with our clients and make deliveries, the digital media files we deal with every single day are securely and quickly transmitted over fiber around the world through Aspera High-Speed File Transfer Service. “We chose Aspera because it is the leader in speed, security and cost savings for our clients. Digital media content capture and delivery requirements are only getting bigger, so we built ROUSH Media’s new facility in the heart of Burbank’s media hub to handle content creators’ big media,” said Keith Roush, Senior Colorist and CEO of ROUSH Media.

Recently working with the large animation files on a deadline for Lionsgate animated feature “Norm of the North,” transferring files from overseas was no problem. “Being on a deadline knowing we could receive new shots to conform at the last minute while the color sessions were happening was necessary to meet the delivery schedule. We also knew files would get there securely and with the care and love we’d put into them.”

ROUSH Media uses Aspera because it aligns with our philosophy of quality, trust and experience. It has a cost, but the savings outweigh it in terms of shipping costs, time savings, and unexpected delays with customs and fees. We’d rather see your money put on the big screen, not in shipping and waiting for unsecure hard drives.

From Burbank to Mumbai, Bangkok, Brooklyn, or Beijing, ROUSH Media can color, manage and transfer your digital content within hours NOT days.

The Color of Lady Csejte

blog, Films, News, Technical

2015 HPA Awards Nominee, Outstanding Color Grading – Feature Film

The color of Lady of Csejte is a beautiful period thriller with a modern uneasy edginess that just lurks behind the surface. Inspired from Rembrandt’s paintings, Keith Roush – Colorist uses a soft pallet of Renaissance-like colors to match the feel of the story of Lady of Csejte.

Using every brush in the Nucoda’s tool box, Keith Roush used colors like notes in a visual score. The director’s creative team allowed Keith unprecedented freedom to create the look you see on screen.

The Color Workflow:

Using the 12bit log-c source, we graded on a Barco DP4K projector in P3. To maintain highest image fidelity, a 16bit DCDM was made from the 12bit LOG source.

In the image above, the look created reflects the dark and cold world the story takes place in. Only the red blood, light skin and fire are allowed through. Shaping your focus and creating the mood is the use of shadow.

An example of interior candle and natural light scenes captured the intended look of a Rembrandt painting.

In the DI, the colorist set the look and warmed up the highlights and mid-tones, fire and other selective areas, adding glow to candles, enhanced shadows and pools of light while preserving dynamic range. Using subtle shaping of warm vs cool color temperature and adding light, your eye is drawn to the shots focus.

War Room DI WorkFlow

blog, Films, News, Technical

ROUSH Media recently had the pleasure to complete the 4K Digital Intermediate & Mastering on the new feature film that is taking the world by storm War Room. It has now reached 67+ million at the box office. Pushing Straight Outta Compton out of its top spot on its 2nd weekend bringing it to #1 at the box office.

It all started when Director, Alex Kendrick and his team sent to Keith Roush A screener of the film & then discussed the look. War Room was one of Keith Roush’s favorite films to color grade.” It is such beautifully emotional impacting story, the images need to match the the story. Alex wanted a warm lush beautiful look with rich skin tones.” Shot on the RED Epic ROUSH’s team conformed the film in it native 4 or 5K on our Nucoda System and processed the RAW images with Roush’s proprietary Debayer and Color pipeline.

Alex Kendrick had a certain vision that he wanted to get across to his viewers. The vision that he had was a very warm summer luscious feel. He wanted the look of the film to match the emotional arks of the story that he was trying to present his viewers.

Keith felt personally connected to the story and wanted to make sure the audience would experience the story visually as well. From warm lush greens, to rich and creamy dark skin, to turning the brown trees into green ones or taking cloudy gray to sky baby blue. This is what we call digital intermediate color grading.

War Room was such a pleasure for Keith to color grade because it allowed him to use his artistic talent to impact viewers on such a great film. He felt like he was painting in colors that were not there and making a raw image turn into something wonderful and amazing.

If you still haven’t seen the film now is the time to go. You definitely will not regret it.

For more information and to get a more detailed description on the work flow of War Room please go to:

Pro Video Coalition War Room Post work flow artical