Blackmagic Design case study: For the movie "Rotting in the Sun"

Blackmagic Design case study: “Rotting in the Sun”

Blackmagic Design announced that Blackmagic Cloud was used for real-time collaboration in post-production for the feature film Rotting in the Sun, which will premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Caffeine Post lead colorist Arnie Schaefer and his staff also used DaVinci Resolve Studio for grading, online editing and mastering of the film.

Commenting on the black comedy, director Sebastian Silva, who also appears as himself, said:

Silva: This film is a critique not only of the business of filmmaking, but also of contemporary solipsistic culture.

After saving social media influencer Jordan Firstman from drowning, Silva and Firstman decide to collaborate on a series. When Mr. Firstman arrives at Mr. Silva’s Mexico City studio, he is nowhere to be found, and Mr. Firstman suspects his housekeeper knows what’s going on. Based in Mexico City, Silva won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival for “The Maid” and won the World Cinema Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival for “Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus.” Received Best Director Award for Drama.

Schaefer, also of Mexico City’s Caffeine Post, worked with Silva and Chile-based cinematographer Gabriel Diaz to create the special look for the film.

Schaefer commented:

Mr. Schaefer: We printed a sample on a 35mm positive to see what we liked, and explored the digital look of this work with the feeling of a 35mm positive print that is as soft as 16mm.

Experience shows that art films take longer to reach their final grade. Colorists, directors, and cinematographers all need a step-by-step process to figure out exactly what they want in the final grade. Luckily, Blackmagic Cloud and DaVinci Resolve’s remote collaboration capabilities gave us the much-needed extra time and flexibility in our workflow.

At Caffeine Post, we designed our color team like our sound team. Image supervisors, lead colorists, and ambient colorists create visual depth, dialog colorists control faces and people, and FX colorists draw special image masks, specific color controls and lighting adjustments. In addition, the color premixers are matched to maintain continuity. Mastering then does the final balancing and pushing of the theatrical and streaming versions. Our process can be adapted more and more time and finds its way creatively for the freedom of expression in visuals as well as audio.

In order for each staff to maximize their creativity, it was essential that each department was always connected.

Schaefer: Gabriel was working in a studio in Chile, so we used Resolve’s collaborative features to test and create the look. Then, using Blackmagic Cloud, Caffeine Post staff reviewed notes, changes, etc., and collaborated on grading. We also used a hybrid approach using DaVinci remote grading and Blackmagic Cloud. This helped me a lot. While Gabriel and I worked on the previous scene, the colorists were able to color-correct the scenes we had already adjusted.

He said it’s important to have good communication and a consistent post-production pipeline.

Schaefer: Blackmagic Cloud allows us to establish a working folder for our film’s media and mirror it to servers at different studio locations. With picture locks, VFX versioning, subtitles, credits, replacement shots, and more, media and aggregation state can be maintained as the film progresses, allowing teams to relink and continue working without a hitch.