Matching Color And Geometry

In recent years more and more production companies have come to see the disadvantages of a typical telecine-based workflow. Colors, geometries and the complete look of the offline image data can be dramatically different to how the final result will appear after high resolution scans. Very often the director or DoP will be puzzled by inconsistencies between the offline cut and the final online edit.

With the ARRISCAN these inconsistencies need no longer exist. Dailies can be scanned at a reduced resolution very quickly and stored on disks for further use. Once the edit decision list is available the film can be scanned at a higher resolution and higher dynamic range, and the results will match the color and geometry of the lower resolution dailies.

The Special Demands Of Aged Film

Millions of meters of film are stored in film archives worldwide. Some material is in very good condition, but as film ages it can show signs of becoming damaged, shrunken and brittle.

In addition to the important standard ARRISCAN features, such as cold light by LED illumination, resolution up to 6K and high dynamic range by double exposure, some extra archival features makes the ARRISCAN the perfect tool for this kind on material.

Soft Archive Mode:

– Pinless scanning of shrunken film with all ARRISCAN gates
– Easy framing adjustment for non-standard frame positions
– Frameline correction during the scanning process
– Variable winding speed of 0.01 – 0.3 m/s
– Variable step transport speed of 200 – 1000 ms during the scanning process
– Electronically controlled reduction of film tension

Wetgate System:

The 16mm and 35mm wet gate, which can accommodate color and blackand-
white film stocks, washes away dust and conceals scratches while images are scanned. Unlike  most other wet gates, the ARRISCAN wet gate system uses a less toxic liquid, which perfectly matches the refraction index of the film carrier and a unique and contactless drying system to eliminate the possibility of scratching the film material while drying.
For the first time ever such an essential tool has been available on a high resolution film scanner.
Every ARRISCAN can be retrofitted with the wet gate
system.

35mm Archive Gate:

With an aperture that is not only wider, but also taller than a standard 35 mm frame (25 mm x 19 mm), this pinless gate has enough headroom to allow frames to be stabilized after scanning. Severely damaged film can be scanned with ease, as can non-standard film formats with unusually tall frame sizes.

Sprocketless Transport System:

A new and completely sprocketless transport system can scan unusual, early, non-standard film formats and film material that is completely destroyed, with no remaining perforations.
This modular system can be installed on any ARRISCAN and allows
changing from normal to sprocketless transport in less than a minute.

A New Approach

Most commercials are finished in HD resolution and therefore do not require resolutions higher than 2K. The ARRISCAN Speed3K model features a maximum scanning resolution of 3K (oversampled to 2K) and is designed for precisely these kinds of applications. It delivers high end image quality at a superior speed and fits seamlessly into a tapeless workflow.

Scanning in 2K resolution and simultaneously storing 1K proxies allows for a highly paralleled workflow. The 1K proxies are used for best-light color correction because many agencies like to work with material that already has the ‘look’ of the commercial in the edit suite. The deliverables for the edit can be generated traditionally as tapes or rendered in DNxHD format, which allows for fast import into an Avid system.

What makes this workflow so interesting is the fact that visual effects work and color grading can begin before editing is finished, because all the footage is present on disks with the full latitude and in high resolution. Tape-to-tape color correction processes such as a first transfer become obsolete and the time that is apparently lost by using a non real-time film scanner can easily be regained.

The advantages for a commercials workflow at a glance:

• Complete negative information will be transferred to digital data
• No artist is necessary for the scanning processes
• Full grading can be done on the scans
• No additional equipment like a transfer engine is necessary
• Oversampling delivers sharper SD images
• Special ARRISCAN Speed3K model is available