HP technology, key in the action film 'Act of Valor'

Bandito Brothers elige las Workstations de HP y las pantallas HP DreamColor para desarrollar su primer largometraje rodado con la DSLR Canon 5D Mark II. El rodaje de ‘Acto de Valor’ se llevó a cabo en 48 días a lo largo de 12 meses y medio, y se filmó en 12 estados de EE.UU. y cinco países.

HP participa en la película de acción Acto de Valor, the first feature film from the Bandito Brothers company, with its Workstations and HP DreamColor monitors that have been used to develop an extraordinary piece about real-life heroism and the most innovative cinematography.

The protagonists of the film are not actors, but members of an elite section of the United States Navy, known as the Navy SEALs. The adventure takes viewers on a rescue mission for a CIA agent that unexpectedly leads them to discover a global threat. The filming of Acto de Valor It took place in 48 days over 12 and a half months, and was filmed in 12 states and five countries on four continents with poor technological conditions.

“We have a great reputation for being able to work with virtually any format and give films the best look possible,” says Jacob Rosenberg, CTO of Bandito Brothers. “To make a movie like Acto de Valor “We had to develop innovative solutions and exceed our own limits, always with the support of HP,” he adds.

HP technology behind the scenes

Bandito Brothers is an independent film studio that needs to control costs a lot. Which is why it chose HP technology, which combines unmatched speed and quality at an affordable cost. The team used innovative technologies to capture the mind-blowing combat sequences, minute-by-minute battlefield action and fast-paced excitement of a high-action film showcasing the skills, training and tenacity of the Navy SEALs.

Bandito Brothers has positioned itself at the forefront of the Digital SLR revolution in film production. Their directors shoot with cameras Canon 5D Mark II Digital SLR and use HP DreamColor displays to immediately check images to ensure color accuracy on-set.

For the filming of Acto de Valor, Bandito Brothers used HP EliteBook portable Worstations, storing all the material captured by the cameras on hard drives. He also used HP DreamColor displays on location to quickly review work.

For post-production, they relied on HP Z800 Workstations that work with Adobe Production Premium and Cinnafilm desktop tools and are equipped with graphics cards. Nvidia Quadro FX 5800 that improve software performance.

In total, Bandito Brothers shot around 200 hours of 5D footage (4 terabytes of data) and 20-30 hours of film produced, edited and processed using HP Workstations.

“Before, when we carried out the process of rendering film images, it took us an hour for every minute of content, so processing 50 hours of raw material meant about 3,000 hours of rendering,” says Mike McCarthy, director of technology at Bandito Brothers. “With the HP Z800 Workstation the process was twice as fast, allowing us to complete the render on four systems in approximately one month,” McCarthy said.

Workflow

La película, inicialmente filmada con la Canon MkII, se transfirió a HDCAM-SR y renderizada en Cineform. Todos los recursos se combinaron en un simple proyecto de Adobe Premiere basado en un EDL de Avidm con salida como ficheros DPX e integrándolos fuera del timeline utilizando una tarjeta AJA Kona. Bandito Brothers utilizó Adobe Premiere Pro para el online de Acto de Valor con tarjetas Kona para permitir un flujo de trabajo 2K. Posteriormente, junto al audio 5.1, se empleó un AJA Io Express junto a Avid Media Composer y Adobe Premiere Pro trabajando sobre las mismas workstations, con los ficheros compartiendo partición.