FilmLight Ltd. a world-leading pioneer of digital film technology, is pleased to announce the sale and installation of a second Northlight film scanner to Cinesite. The new machine represents a significant expansion in Cinesite’s scanning capabilities, which the company is finding are becoming increasingly in demand as the market accelerates.
“We’re seeing exceptional demand,” explains Head of Imaging, Mitch Mitchell. “Up until January 2004 we had scanned six million frames in our 11 year history of scanning. Last month alone we put through 240,000 frames and we will scan over one million frames for one of the productions we’ve currently got underway.”
The majority of work is scanned at 4k, with vfx work usually being down-rezzed to 2k by the Cinesite proprietary super 2k process. Recently the company scanned 6k resolution from the original interpositives of Stanley Kubrik’s opus for a forthcoming high quality art book from Taschen.
Projects put through the Cinesite Northlights so far include Alfie, The Brothers Grimm and Troy vfx shots, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Alien vs Predator, while currently on the slate are Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and vfx shots for Batman Begins, Sahara and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Mitchell cites several reasons for choosing Northlight again, chief amongst them being the need to match the high quality of Cinesite’s existing equipment and deliver the pristine scans that the company has become renowned for. The company now has three scanners, the third being a Kodak legacy machine, all of which are identically calibrated, allowing for projects to be shared across all three machines with confidence.
“The Northlight is a very good, well designed machine,” says Mitchell. “Equally important though it allows us a degree of flexibility and customisation that is very difficult to get anywhere else. That applies to both the machine and to FilmLight themselves who have been incredibly co-operative in letting us adapt the Northlight to our purposes. This has allowed us to match it exactly to the needs of our production pipeline and customize it for additional functionality.
“We bought the first machine to primarily service the vfx industry,” concludes Mitchell. “Since then though the DI market has taken off and soon we expect the digital mastering one to do the same. The throughput we’re seeing is phenomenal, so we really need that second machine. Also, for digital intermediate it gives us the additional capability of high quality 16mm scanning.”
Contact – Deepa Parbhoo ([email protected]) +44 20 7292 0400
