'Also the rain', finished with Film Master at Telson

Telson has carried out the shaping and color correction of Icíar Bollain's new film, 'Also the Rain', with Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master system. Independently of the color correction of this film shot with RED One, different focus, stabilization and noise reduction adjustments were made taking advantage of some of the tools included in Film Master's DVO.

The audiovisual services company Telson has carried out the shaping and color correction of the new film by Icíar Bollain, Also the rain, with Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master system, distributed exclusively in Spain by Trigital. Nucoda Film Master is a system designed for film, television and advertising finishing that provides a complete digital intermediate (DI) solution, with primary and secondary color correction, effects and conforming, from SD to 4K.

Also the rain is a production of more than five million euros by Juan Gordon, of Morena Films, which narrates the trip of a Mexican film director and a Spanish producer to Cochabamba and surrounding areas to shoot a modest-budget feature film about Columbus. The film has just received 13 nominations for the Goya Awards, including best film and direction.

Shot in Bolivia, Also the rain It is a large production with a Bolivian and Spanish team of 130 people, about 70 locations, almost all of them outdoors, including the Chapare jungle and the city of Cochabamba.

The feature film, starring Luis Tosar and Gael García Bernal, has been chosen by the Film Academy to represent Spain at the Oscars.

As director of photography Alex Catalán commented to Ximo Michavila, Telson's colorist, during the color grading of the film, "it is a film filmed in difficult settings, in extreme situations in many cases. The work plan was very brief and I knew that I would not have much time to control the image, especially outdoors. My intervention in their filming was limited to concentrating on the continuity of the light throughout the sequences and controlling the contrast: reducing it when it was excessive and increase it when it seemed poor to me.”

"Therefore, the lighting conditions were complex, which entailed much more exhaustive work when doing color correction. For example, in some shots masks were used in the skies to avoid overexposure and in others a selective color correction was used to control saturation and tone. The important thing was to keep the neighborhood of Villa Pagador warm and bright, with dirt streets and ocher walls. The jungle, on the other hand, I kept in cold tones or neutrals to protect the green of the vegetation,” added Alex Catalán.

New tools

Independently of color correction, various focus, stabilization and noise reduction adjustments were made taking advantage of some of the tools included in Film Master's DVO. This is a set of plug-ins designed mainly for the restoration of many of the imperfections that may appear in the image, such as scratches, dirt, grain, lack of definition, flicker,... It also has other tools that facilitate the work of color correction and optimize the quality of the image, such as automatic mask tracking, speed adjustments, field removal, etc.

“Además, lo bueno del sistema es que cada vez que sale una nueva versión se agregan al DVO nuevas herramientas adaptadas a las cámaras digitales actuales”, afirma Felipe Muraca, técnico de Postproducción & DI de Telson.

Also the rain was shot using two RED One high definition cameras, whose RAW files integrate perfectly with the Nucoda Film Master. Javier López Casado, Telson operator, has assured that "the system is capable of recognizing the camera's native material, so compatibility with its files is perfect at all times, and always working in real time."

Native material

Film Master recognizes the native material of the main digital cameras used in the audiovisual industry, such as ARRI, Phantom, Red One, Sony and Panasonic. Another advantage of Film Master is that it integrates shaping and color correction in the same system.

“That is very important because with the Film Master you can do almost the entire process, from intake, shaping, color correction and the insertion of special effects,” says Isidro Jiménez Sánchez, FX supervisor at Telson. “At the same time, the fact that almost everything is included in a single system allows you to continually have global control of the product,” he adds.

“In addition, the speed of work that the Film Master allows you is key, since we are in an area where work is done in relatively short times,” continues Isidro Jiménez Sánchez.

Javier López Casado also highlights the speed of the equipment: “it is an effective and intuitive system when it comes to forming, and it also has the advantage of complete integration with Avid and with the DVS SAN, which is Telson's central storage.”

Pedro Escalona, ​​commercial director of Trigital, which exclusively represents Digital Vision and DVS in Spain, applauds the work carried out by Telson with Also the rain. “The people at Telson have been able to make the most of the powerful tools of the Nucoda Film Master, which make it a much more complete, flexible and profound system than a typical color corrector,” he stated.

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