http://issuu.com/newbayeurope/docs/ibc2015_executive_summary/30
Attending
computer graphic show Siggraph in 1985, Rick Sayre first came across
a small outfit called Pixar. It was showing the Pixar Image Computer,
a machine born at LucasFilm that had the computational power to
manipulate digital images with high resolution. Impressively it was
able to handle 12-bit colour values, over and above the 8-bit depth
which has been common for much of content production ever since.
Moreover, these 12-bit colour components could represent values
greater than 1.0.
“I
was encouraged in the very early days of Pixar that the people there
had total respect for the imaging process,”
says
Sayre, who joined the start-up in 1987 and has been involved in many
of their short and feature projects from Toy
Story
onwards.
“For
most of the past thirty years in CGI and VFX it was only possible to
display a limited range of light values for images,”
says
Sayre. “By convention we picked 1.0 for the brightest value we
could make, and accepted that 0.0 wasn’t really black. Now, with
the new high dynamic range displays, we can begin to talk about
images as a photographer would - in terms of contrast, mid greys and
tonal structure. Not only VFX elements and light probes, but finally
the images the audience will see can move beyond that 0 to 1 range.”
Sayre
was involved in Pixar's pioneering work in creating an HDR finish for
Inside
Out
and was Digital Imaging Consultant on the Dolby Vision HDR for
Disney's Tomorrowland.
Unlike
the current migration to 4K and Ultra HD, the addition of HDR does
not incur a huge knock-on cost in data handling. “Improving the
pixel has a much lower incremental cost than making more of them,”
he
observes. “More pixels cost more to render but better pixels
require more care.”
HDR
manifests itself clearly in the brightest areas of a frame such as
metallic reflections or light sources. Sayre says that on
Tomorrowland,
the technique “revealed a gleam in the eyes of the actors which it
has not been possible to show theatrically before.
"We
have yet to fully explore what it means to not only capture in HDR
but to light for HDR,”
he
suggests. “A DP will know instinctively what an audience is going
to see and what dynamic range is appropriate. Today, you might gel a
window on location interiors to avoid it looking blown out. With HDR
capture you don't necessarily have to do that since you can delay the
decision until post. So now you can show the audience what is outside
that window. The question is whether you should, in terms of the
story. The DP needs to be involved in that post production process.
We need to beware of gimmicks.”
In
addition, HDR between scenes will need consideration. “Moving from
a night time interior straight to a daylight exterior may require a
few frames of adjustment, depending on how we wish the audience to
experience that change. Making HDR practical for editorial is another
important step.”
Sayre's
inspiration outside of the film industry come from photography and
the natural world. “We are hard-wired to appreciate the beauty of
the forms we see around us and as revealed in our understanding of
physics.”
He
views the advent of virtual reality as a fresh approach to a style of
storytelling that harks back to the ancient Greek
theatre-in-the-round.
“Many
of the storytelling dilemmas we are struggling with right now were
present thousands of years ago with ideas of audience interaction and
breaking the fourth wall,”
he
suggests.
The
veteran employee has seen the company grow into the world's leading
CG animation house under the auspices of Disney which acquired Pixar
from majority stakeholder Steve Jobs in 2006.
“When
I started here, you could fit the entire company in one room, and
everyone knew everyone,”
says
Sayre. “Pixar was small, intense, free-wheeling and idealistic.”
And
his favourite Pixar film? “That's easy, The
Incredibles.”
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