Post-production: The colour of Tomorrow…

For Tomorrow, When the War Began, post-production/VFX vendor The Lab conceived and invented a colour calibration process called the Digital Print System (DPS). Its creator, head of digital intermediate Al Hansen, tells the story behind this innovation.

Tomorrow, When the War Began was the perfect project to utilise this colour calibration process, because it was a big feature film with an experienced cinematographer and production team.

We demonstrated the DPS calibration technique by showing test results to the film’s producers, Michael Boughen and Andrew Mason, and executive producer Christopher Mapp, during pre-production. With the support of the cinematographer, Ben Nott, ACS, we embarked on a method to completely colour-calibrate all levels of the production, ensuring that the images – from rushes to post – maintained the characteristics of the final 35mm film deliverables.

Nott understood the process and saw the advantages of viewing all images to the final film print, as well as delivering savings in time and money on the transfer of rushes. Mason trusted and believed the post workflow could be done and gave us the go-ahead to do it.’