Takes Lead as Premiere Finishing Facility for Digital Filmmakers via New Proprietary Software and Top-Rated Equipment

NEW YORK --(May 15, 2000)-- DuArt Film & Video, the integrated, full-service post-production facility for film and digital mediums, provided the tape-to-film and tape-to-tape finishing for Griffin Dunne's "famous," it was announced today by Chief Executive Officer Linda Young. The cinema verite-style film, which was photographed mostly on digital video, premieres May 15 at Cannes. "famous" is one of four digital films exhibited at Cannes 2000, heralding major changes for the filmmaking and post-production industries.

DuArt performed the online, color correction, title design, videomastering and tape-to-film post-production on "famous," using its new, state-of-the-art Arrilaser Film Recorder in conjunction with new proprietary software available exclusively at the facility.

"famous" was directed by Dunne and co-produced by Mira Sorvino and Dolly Hall ("High Art") for GreeneStreet Films. The filmmakers selected DuArt after examining and testing several facilities. They chose DuArt because of its high quality trial digital blow-up of clips from "famous" and capacity to meet their Cannes deadline.

"As more directors mix formats or shoot digitally, there will be increasing need for post-production facilities with one foot in filmmaking traditions and the other in new technologies," said Young. "With its Academy Award-winning history, cutting-edge equipment and exclusive software, DuArt is poised to produce the highest quality product, no matter the medium."

"When `famous' was accepted into Cannes, I didn't know if we would have the time to produce a good print," said Dunne. "Not only did DuArt deliver a beautiful film, they did so in 15 days, finishing a week ahead of schedule."

"DuArt did an amazing job on `famous,' which called for several visual textures and was shot mostly on NTSC video," Hall added. "As a result of the facility's creative and technical contributions, portions of the final film version look like they were photographed on 35mm negative."

The greatest challenge faced by DuArt was producing a theatrical print from NTSC Digital Beta, MiniDV and Super 16 source materials. The facility's artists and technicians converted the Digital Beta and MiniDV footage photographed at 30 frames-per-second to a film-ready 24 frames-per-second using a proprietary algorithmic process that removes frames with a minimum amount of motion artifacts. Another DuArt exclusive process, which interpolates rather than duplicates information, was used to uprezz the video imagery to film resolution.

DuArt worked closely with Dunne, cinematographer William Rexer II and GreeneStreet's head of digital production, Chris Uettwiller, during the color correction process to help communicate the "story within a story" themeline with two distinct film looks. They also treated the film scene by scene, softening some sequences and sharpening others, in order to produce the finest possible imagery.

Founded in New York in 1922, DuArt Film & Video is a premier, full-service post-production facility offering film, video, digital and sound services to the feature film and advertising industries. Linda Young is the chief executive officer. DuArt has provided laboratory services for such Oscar-winning films as "Forrest Gump," "Fargo" and "JFK" and has earned a technical Oscar for the creation of a computerized frame count cueing system. For more information, visit www.duart.com.

 

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