A wild, prehistoric landscape – herds of dinosaurs roam the frosty plains, or sail through the snowstorm over the mountain ranges. In the undergrowth stirs a completely different, small group – primitive humans, but in this world they are among the hunted. They lie in wait for a creature that haunts their tribe, hoping to defeat it once and for all. But nature has other plans: they are surprised by a gigantic T-Rex and are forced to fight. However, they are powerless against the monster; their primitive weapons have no effect. In the end, only one of them remains, who bravely confronts the giant with his daggers..
This is how the short pilot film “We Hunt Giants” ends in terms of content; but the production began much more harmlessly.

The beginnings

Although Titus took the lead on the script, it was important to him to involve me from the first version of the book. On the one hand, I was able to think about the quantity and realisation of the VFX shots at an early stage. At the same time, I was able to give him critical feedback on the contrast with my own perspective on film and offer further creative suggestions from my side. One of these suggestions was, for example, to introduce the film with a vignette of different dinosaurs for a better worldbuilding – even if this would mean creating several additional dinosaurs in CG, which would be counterproductive.

While Titus was making revisions from his side, I began to create the first storyboard sketches and to build and cut a 3D pre-visualisation based on them. This gave me creative freedom to design the resolution & composition, as well as giving Titus the option to plan the shoot in a more focussed way. As the 3D scenes & cameras were scaled to real-life specifications, this allowed us to plan the technical side of the work on set in advance and identify any potential obstacles that could cause problems for the VFX work. This was particularly helpful when talking to cameraman Marcus Möller, as he not only got a better idea for the shoot on set, but was also able to contribute his own expertise. With a finalised 3D previs, shooting schedule and a well-rehearsed core team, nothing should now stand in the way of production.

The shoot

A few days before the shoot in February 2022, cameraman Marcus unexpectedly showed severe Covid symptoms and tested positive. However, giving up was not on the cards, as the equipment and transport had already been booked, and fortunately Andrés Rignell was found at the last minute to stand in for him. He had also already gained experience with VFX as a professional on various shoots and was very familiar with the camera system (RED Gemini). So we found ourselves for a weekend in Tyresta National Park south of Stockholm, and perfect for the first morning we were presented with an untouched winter wonderland, as it had snowed freshly overnight. So deep that even some of the rental cars got stuck in the snow on the last few metres to the film location.
To gain time, Andrés & I went off separately and started shooting various VFX plates while the rest of the crew freed the cars and prepared the actors. This allowed us to find a rhythm on the fly to gather references & camera data alongside the main takes. This was also important as we had to work with less daylight due to the winter season in the north, so some scenes were shot in a rush.

As soon as director Titus & I were happy with the takes of one shot, the actors were prepared for the next shot or recorded sound. Meanwhile, we were shooting quick cleanplates, noting camera specs, taking shots of lens grids, chrome & greyballs and a toy dinosaur for reference. This initially attracted some strange looks, but after a few shots there were always a few interested people around the camera monitor who wanted to catch a first “preview” of the prehistoric star. In every free minute or general break in filming, I also had to take separate photos of all possible references – actors, props, the surroundings & set design (a mini attrape for the dino trap) as well as additional Chromeball photos at different times of day so that an appropriate selection would be available depending on the shot.

Another result of the tight schedule was that almost all the shots were shot on location without any additional equipment – a blue screen was only used for a few specific shots where the VFX work would otherwise have been enormously complicated. After two intensive days of filming in the snow, I flew back to London to start preparing the VFX, while the material went into editing for the next few weeks.

Plate Prep

Finally, all the footage from the shoot was sent to London in the post as RED raw files, along with the first rough cut. Nuke Indie allowed the EDL of the cut to be imported directly and the individual shots to be exported in separate Nuke scripts. For further processing, the plates were reduced from 5K to 2.5k and saved locally as OpenEXR sequences. As the editing was still in progress in Sweden, the sequences were exported with extra leeway to be on the safe side and all tracked in 3D in Nuke Indie for the matchmoving. Thanks to the quality of the shots and the rich texture of the environment, an automatic 3D track usually produced a high-quality result, and it was rarely necessary to intervene with manual tracks or further manual work.

Based on the 3D track, 3D meshes of the environment could also be generated in Nuke at the same time using point clouds. Fortunately, despite initial fears, only a few shots had to be retouched to remove isolated references to the park such as fences or signs. However, the small amount of bluescreens would mean that every interaction with VFX would have to be rotoscoped by hand – some of the shots would end up spending several days or weeks exclusively in rotoscoping. Luckily, a friend and former colleague, Dominik Platen, stepped in towards the end of post-production and took care of the rotoscoping for some shots.

Dinosaur assets

Before filming began, thorough internet research was carried out for each dinosaur. Drawings & photos of skeletons, artistic reconstructions & screenshots from films, as well as material from related species were collected to provide further references. For the main dinosaur in particular, we initially considered a range of large theropods, but Titus was keen to use a T-Rex as a homage to Jurassic Park. In the end, we allowed ourselves a little variation – the bony dorsal crest was inspired by another theropod, the Acrocanthosaurus.
All 3D models were first roughly pre-built in 3ds Max, and then detailed and textured in Mudbox. A method that had proved successful in previous work was again used for the texturing:
For each dinosaur, a small library of base textures, masks and further grunge maps were painted onto the surface, which were then combined together with normal & displacement maps in Nuke via compositing to create a finished texture.

This process, although hardware-hungry, allowed free experimentation with various options & details, all simultaneously on multiple UDIMs in a non-destructive environment. In addition to the main texture, maps for shader attributes could also be “combed” in this way.
This was particularly important for the T-Rex: the model should give an idea that the dinosaur led a rough existence, in the form of scars and wounds from past confrontations. Other ailments such as frostbite & inflammation should indicate that it is actually not welcome as an invasive species in the cold.

With the texture compositing in Nuke, a suitable balance could be found quite quickly over a few iterations. At least one dinosaur was spared all the work, as the CG asset from “Tucki”, a past project, could be directly reused for a small guest appearance. You can read all about Tucki in DP 21:02, or download it for free here is.gd/tucki_pdf.

Rigging & Animation

For the rigging we went back to 3ds Max. As a tried and tested module, each dinosaur was given a special rig in the Character Animation Toolkit, CAT for short, which could be saved as presets for the subsequent animation process.
To save time during rigging and animation, shortcuts were built into the rig for each asset. For example, the flight membranes of the pterosaurs were animated using a cloth simulation, and the tails of all dinosaurs were procedurally controlled with spring constraints to create a flowing organic movement without further manual intervention.

In turn, the T-Rex received an additional upgrade due to its presence in the film: a simplified skeleton and part of the musculature were modelled for the asset, which in turn formed the basis for a tissue simulation in Houdini using the newer Vellum-based Tissue System. The result was subtle, but provided better deformation and volume on the final animated asset. One advantage of working via CAT rig presets in 3ds Max was that the animations could be saved as separate clip files and transferred to identical rigs later. In this way, the animation scenes were kept very performant without having to load the entire asset. Possible revisions could also be quickly transferred to the corresponding main 3D scene later using a new clip.

For the animation, which was done exclusively with keyframes, it was important that all dinosaurs should reflect natural behaviour. In addition, the T-Rex should appear more aggressive than usual, which may also be due to the injuries. Smaller tics such as snorting, snarling and more impulsive movements helped with this. The animation would also have a strong influence on the editing; scenes were often extended to give the dinosaurs more time to perform.

For one particular scene, which features a herd of 20 dinosaurs, a crowd system was not used. Instead, I spent a weekend animating various actions with excess length – eating, head shaking, sleeping, looking out, running, etc. – which were then placed by hand using animation caches and staggered in time to get the appropriate variation. For a quick turnaround, it was advantageous that the individual animations did not have to be too detailed, as they would all blur together in the mass.

FX simulations

A critical point in the project was the FX simulations, as all the dinosaurs had to interact with the cold snow world. A few systems could be prepared directly in 3ds Max & Particle Flow, but Houdini was used for the rest.

For the most part, snow tracks were created procedurally using geometry; a few shots were even given a dynamic simulation with Houdini Grains, insofar as the interaction had to be represented much more subtly. An important component was also frozen breath for the T-Rex and finely swirled snow dust, which were simulated with PyroFX in Houdini. All Houdini project files were created in such a way that, depending on the shot, only the
correct assets for dinosaurs & environment had to be loaded & exchanged, with a little adjustment afterwards.

Otherwise, separate simulations were created for one or the other shot in the respective tool where it was best suited – such as a flock of birds in Particle Flow (3ds Max) or water splashes with fluids in Houdini. For simpler particle effects such as atmosphere, snowflakes, sparks and more, we even used Nuke Particles, which were incorporated as part of the compositing process.

In contrast, the most prominent FX interaction – where the T-Rex violently squeezes through two trees in one moment – was primarily animated by hand. Springs were again used in the rigging so that the bending of the branches did not have to be simulated. A secondary layer of different FX sims from 3ds Max & Houdini combined gave the moment the finishing touches.

Rendering & compositing

All elements were lit & rendered in 3ds Max with V-Ray; caches from Houdini were exported and imported as either VDBs or Alembics. All dinosaurs & snow elements were rendered directly with surface scattering, whereby the intensity of the scattering was slightly exaggerated in order to benefit from the additional details in the shading.
The lighting rig was kept quite simple to limit the amount of render passes – after all, all shots had to be rendered on a single desktop PC. For each CG element there was an average of 3-4 setups, one for each light and a separate data pass with geometric or vector-based render layers such as Zdepth, Velocity & Position.
As each element in this multi-pass setup was rendered separately, this resulted in countless renders, but only in rare cases did a pass exceed a render time of a few minutes per frame. The immense advantage of this setup was the compositing; the lighting & shading could be manually adjusted for each individual CG element without the need for a second render
a second rendering process was required. A comp template in Nuke, which had been refined over the years for V-Ray passes, helped with this, and changes could later be copied directly from one shot to another. Additional details such as dirt, blood and snow were often projected onto the surface of the dinosaurs using the geometric render layers, either as procedural setups or with prepared textures.
Thanks to the references & cleanplates on set, the integration process for the dinosaurs was quite effortless and the compositing template proved to be very robust.
Some shots also required a few more invisible compositing tricks: for example, in the final shot of the film, one of the hunters faces the T-Rex, but it was not possible on set to make the fur jacket flap in the wind as it roared. So a CG plane was generated in 3ds Max via Cloth-Sim and exported to Nuke, where it served as the basis for a 2D projection of the rotoscoped fur. Additional distortion filters created the impression of turbulent fur.

Environments

Environments also played a major role in the VFX. To keep the shooting schedule efficient, all shots were filmed in the same location – for example, during the first half of the film, the actors stared at the same hill in the distance where they would later be chased down by the T-Rex.
So with the help of digital matte painting, the hill had to be transformed into a flat plane, which was primarily done with alternative plates & more photographs. In addition, a somewhat more threatening sky and more atmospheric fog from the snowfall were added. The forest in the background, on the other hand, could be partially retained and was merely expanded; plates from the shoot with shaken trees helped to give the impression that a larger animal was in the background
to give the impression of a larger animal stalking around in the distance.
The trap was also collaged together from photographs of the smaller set on set, and a CG pole with a chopped off leg from one of the existing dinosaur assets added the finishing touches. In view of the fact that the DMP would be visible over an entire sequence, it was designed from the outset as a 3D projection in Nuke with simple geometry. Depending on the shot, the Matchmove camera or the DMP could be easily moved into position.

The opening shot of the film, in which a couple of pterosaurs fly through a snowstorm, was based on a drone shot of a mountain range at sunset, and followed a group of sled dogs. A new stormy sky was added, the dogs and other anachronistic objects were painted out, and Nuke Particles were used to generate a completely new atmosphere for the pterosaurs to freely interact with.

Digital double, weapons & wounds

During the confrontation, one of the humans, Hunter (played by Urban Bergsten), is scooped up by the T-Rex and thrown around. It was clear from the first draft of the script that a digital double would be needed for this moment, and during the shoot there was an extra photoshoot with the actor Urban in costume. The corresponding asset was built quite simply, as it would only be visible for a few seconds with a lot of blurring.

A male figure from the open source programme ‘MakeHuman’ served as the basis, with the model being slightly adapted to Urban in advance. The photos from the shoot were projected directly onto the models of the body and clothing; to suggest more details, while the model could remain quite simple. Instead, cloth simulations & a simple hair groom helped to make the character look more organic, animated with keyframes.
All the weapon props were also photographed on set and recreated quite simply on the base. With a little secondary animation, it was possible to create the impression that the weapons were dangling from the body and could be detached if necessary.
The digital props were also used in other shots. In one case, a digital bow was placed in the hand of one of the characters to cover up a mistake in the editing; another time, a spear throw had to be digitally replaced so that it could interact with the dinosaur.
Plates were originally shot for another shot in which Urban is grabbed directly, but because the moment was redesigned in post-production, the digidouble was also used here. With the help of a new camera, an environment assembled from various cleanplates and a few animation tests, the desired shot was found and was now realised entirely in CG. After the high-altitude ride, Hunter/Urban lands violently in the snow, and the (graphic) consequences are clearly recognisable – his body is torn open from the bite & the fall, and he is missing an eye. Despite a bit of practical facial make-up on set, the result wasn’t scary enough, so a bit of a rush job had to be done towards the end. After an initial (stomach-churning) online search for references, digital DMP patches or projections for wounds, blood spatter and torn clothing were created directly in Nuke for each individual shot. Depending on the situation, individual parts of the body were tracked in 3D or analysed using Smartvector in order to project the elements. Small variations were incorporated into the track for each level, giving the impression, for example, that wounds/skin and clothing moved independently of each other as the person squirmed.

The hunt continues.

In mid-May 2023, after around a whole year of work, all the VFX shots were finally finalised and delivered. The film went into colour correction & final mixing for another month, followed by the premiere in early June in the heart of Stockholm.
As the short film was also conceived as a pilot/pitch, they are already striving for higher things – while the film is enjoying initial success at festivals, the makers are already working on the first script version for a feature-length film. It is still far too early to say what the outcome will be. But we can only hope that the journey into this primeval world is not yet over, despite its dangers.

The post We Hunt Giants first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Andreas Feix.

Non-linear video editing with computers (NLE for short) has given us enormous freedom. Not only the fiddling with adhesive presses and cotton gloves, synchronised tape machines or even toxic carbon tetrachloride in magnetic magnifiers from the early days of videotape are a thing of the past. today, “cuts” are non-destructive and can be altered at will (sometimes all too often). But the whole thing has one disadvantage: the individual components are actually scattered around on storage media and are only accessed at lightning speed. If the end product is to be passed on or archived, a final rendering must therefore be carried out. Depending on the complexity of the visual processing and the codec used, this can sometimes take longer.

However, customers sometimes (or usually) have last-minute change requests. We ourselves are not perfect and sometimes only discover errors shortly before delivery. Careful quality control under human eyes is essential in any case because of technical errors. These can range from faulty field sequences to the erratic rendering errors of overheated graphics cards (just think of the infamous D700 in the MacPro). Such errors are particularly time-consuming because they can occur in completely different places when rendering again. In the final check, the entire file must therefore be reviewed one-to-one, even if only a short section has been corrected – sometimes it’s just a single line in the credits.

Experienced specialists in the fields of 3D animation and VFX, where the final rendering can take an extremely long time and errors often occur in completely unexpected places, therefore generally use numbered image sequences instead of contiguous individual files. This allows faulty parts to be specifically recalculated and inserted. However, such sequences take up an enormous amount of space and require very fast storage media for smooth playback. Errors during copying would also easily lead to shifts in image and sound or separate alpha masks. Compared to DPX master files (Digital Picture Exchange), ProRes 444 or DNxHR can be up to a factor of 10 smaller. In the broadcast sector, individual files in high-quality codecs are therefore in demand today, which usually also include numerous audio tracks and subtitles due to the international evaluation. What if it were possible to correct a section or individual tracks without affecting the rest of the content?

Until now, people have said: “That’s not possible!” Charles D’Autremont from Cinedeck proudly explains (presumably with a twinkle in his eye): “But we didn’t know that, so we did it.” The company does indeed have a unique selling point with CineXtools, even though Avid has announced a similar function for its NLE. However, this is still in beta testing and will only work with the company’s own system in the OP1a container anyway, while CineXtools support the common intermediate and broadcast codecs in both popular containers. In addition, they have already proven themselves at several large production houses, which is the most important thing for such a tool. The whole thing is open-heart surgery, so to speak, because the target file is irretrievably changed in the process. If you cannot rely on the integrity of all other parts afterwards, the enormous time advantage of a targeted quality control of the corrected parts alone is lost.

Technical requirements

The central condition for such an operation is that the file structure allows the exchange of any image sequences, even with changing content. This not only rules out temporal compression methods, but also codecs with pure I-frames but variable bit rate (VBR) are unsuitable. After all, you cannot rely on the content of an image to be exchanged being compressible to the same extent as the original image. What is needed is a framework for the individual images that corresponds to the maximum expected image content. Only codecs with a constant bit rate (CBR) fulfil this requirement. Apple’s ProRes, Avid’s DNxHD/HR and, as optional upgrades, Sony’s AVC-Intra and XDCAM-HD are currently supported. For XDCAM, only the versions with CBR are permitted. In addition to MOV (Quicktime), both versions of MXF are also suitable as containers, depending on the codec. While DNxHD/HR theoretically also allows VBR, in practice it always occurs in CBR, ProRes is usually output as VBR.

DaVinci Resolve also supports ProRes in CBR as an option for output under MacOS, as do the video products from Autodesk. Plug-ins from Cinedeck are available for Adobe and Avid, which enable output in CBR. Alternatively, CineXtools also offer re-wrapping from ProRes to CBR. In this process, only the container is filled with empty data so that the maximum permitted data rate can be accommodated – this is also known as padding. This is not a transcoding of the image material, which remains completely untouched (even if the generation losses with ProRes would be very low anyway). Due to Apple’s licensing policy, however, some ProRes functions are only available for MacOS, while the other parts of the program are available for PC and Mac and a CineXtools licence can even be transferred between the two systems. The programme’s system requirements are modest: OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) is sufficient on the Mac, while we tested on High Sierra. On the PC, everything from Windows 7 (64 bit) with Service Pack 1 or newer is possible. The programme is also frugal when it comes to hardware, even if transcoding and copying processes are of course significantly faster on powerful machines. During re-wrapping, the metadata in the header is also cleaned up in such a way that it should pass a quality check for broadcast – unfortunately, this is not a given with every NLE system.

If CineXtools is primarily used for quick last-minute changes, it makes sense to output all master files in CBR, even if they take up a little more space. In the test, the CBR version of a professionally produced short film with low-noise image quality and typically easily compressible elements (such as opening and closing credits) was around a third larger than in VBR due to the padding. On the other hand, the new tools save the space that new full-length render files would take up during corrections. If ProRes is frequently delivered in VBR, the re-wrapping by the CineXtools is primarily dependent on the disc throughput. When reading and writing the material to a single USB 3 hard drive, you have to expect considerable waiting times, whereas padding is done very quickly with two separate SSDs or fast RAIDs. Our test film took almost seven minutes on such a single hard drive, while the process on an SSD RAID connected via USB-C took 45 seconds. A free tool for re-wrapping with automation via watch folder has also recently become available. For projects where the length and format have already been determined but most of the content still needs to be created, CineXtools can prepare a suitable blank file with all the desired additional tracks using “Create Insert Media”.

The above conditions apply to the full-length master file. The patches to be inserted (i.e. the corrected sections) may also be in VBR and even in another of the above codecs and containers, as they may be quickly converted during insert (this is then logically a real transcoding). JPEG2000 in YUV with 4:2:2 subsampling is also accepted as a .mov file for patches
for patches. Even the support of several formats for single image sequences such as .dpx, .tiff and OpenEXR is in the works: we have already been able to try it out with .dpx in 10 bit and .tiff in 16 bit. Even different colour depths or colour spaces are accepted for patches, but this can certainly lead to image jumps when inserting into parts of existing scenes. The responsibility for this therefore lies entirely with the user, who should select the same output format and the same software as the original file if possible. Logically, insertions in the appropriate format without recoding are the fastest. Changes to audio or subtitle tracks are possible without affecting the picture, even with files in VBR. The resolution can be over 16,000 pixels, but must be the same for the patch and target file, as must the frame rate and line structure (interlaced or progressive). Sound to be inserted from external files must be in .wav format with 24 bit and 48 kHz, .aac or even .mp3 are not accepted.

The tools

First and foremost is “Insert Edit”, i.e. the insertion of patches into a film file. The term is not used here in quite the same sense as in conventional NLEs, as the area is not inserted in the target file, but overwritten in the same length. This is more of an “overwrite” in the modern sense, but it was no different with tape machines. Because of the similarity to working with tape, the manufacturer also likes to use analogue terms such as the classic “Black Striped” for an empty file – many users are obviously still familiar with this. Video, audio and captions can be selected in any combination as content to be changed, the timecode (TC for short) can be rewritten for patch and target (“Restripe”) and the reel tape ID of the target file can be corrected.

For audio, there are also extensive options for reassigning up to 32 channels in patch panel style, adding external sound files and, if necessary, crossfades for critical connections of the sound content. The target file can be renamed, but editing is still a change that cannot be undone. If you have enough time for copying, it is therefore better to work with duplicates.
The actual insert cut is very simple: For example, you specify an entry point in both windows and an exit point in one of them, and the area to be replaced is marked in both windows (known as a 3-point cut). The convention of band cuts applies here, i.e. the out point corresponds to the first image that is not changed. If the TC matches, the cut points can also be conveniently copied to the other window. Finally, there is an opportunity for a preview or to trigger the hot cut, which does not take place without a warning that the file will inevitably be changed. Incidentally, unlike a rendering process, the file can already be checked in a player while a somewhat longer insert is running elsewhere. This means that another person can continue quality control under time pressure while corrections are still being made.

A further tab (Multiple-Source Single Target) allows a whole list of patches to be inserted into a target file, so basically not just batch processing, but almost a rudimentary editing function. The target file can of course also be a “Black Tape” generated in the programme with “Create Insert Media”. With “Extract Audio to File”, you can extract audio tracks from existing films and write them to separate files; you can also select a different track assignment. The “Rewrap & Audio Versioning” tab is also basically self-explanatory: In addition to the conversion from VBR to CBR, comprehensive reassignment and the addition of audio tracks are offered, whereby their starting point can be redefined in relation to the TC of the target file. If required by the customer, this tool can also convert a CBR file back to VBR after correction. Pure audio inserts are also possible with VBR or GOP codecs anyway.

Finally, the programme also offers the option of editing or adding subtitles: Corrections are written directly into the file here. Subtitles as .mcc and .scc files are supported directly, as is extraction to sidecar files. Subtitles (or closed captions) can be imported in .cap format (Cheetah International) or as .scc files (Sonic), unfortunately not in the popular .srt format. But there are plenty of tools for converting subtitles: free online services such as subtitleconverter.net, subconverter.rest7.com or rev.com/caption. Those who are reluctant to entrust their texts to a third-party website will find professional tools in Subbit’s Subtitler (PC and Mac) or Annotation Edit Suite (Mac). Another option is the editing of metadata in accordance with the British broadcast standard AS-11 DPP (Digital Production Partnership), which is increasingly gaining acceptance in North America and Scandinavia.

Getting to know

While the available Quick Start PDF still looks a little immature and some links are missing, the manufacturer provides easy-to-understand and detailed video tutorials(cinextools.com/video-tutorials). They all look like Mac, but apart from ProRes conversions, everything works exactly the same on a PC. There is also a freely available basic version, which is limited to formats up to 10-bit colour depth, maximum 2K resolution and master files with two audio tracks. If you would like to get to know the full version better, you can request a one-week trial licence. Incidentally, the licence is issued using the iLok system familiar from Avid. This is somewhat cumbersome, but does not require a constant Internet connection, as is often required for production machines. The licence can be transferred to a computer via a temporary online connection or written to a dongle for full mobility.
The user interface still lacks clarity, with hardly any visual differentiation between important and less important buttons and information. Our test version also showed some minor quirks when controlling the Playhead in some formats. However, these are blemishes, activated tooltips make the individual functions quickly understandable and the core functions ran smoothly with clean source files. Unfortunately, it should be noted that some software and hardware manufacturers only loosely adhere to the standards, and FGPA-based cameras and field recorders in particular are notorious for this. It is therefore essential to use the test version to check whether your own workflow works without any problems. In our test, for example, the mixed insert between XDCAM-HD material and DNxHR in the MXF wrapper from DaVinci Resolve did not work reliably, while there were no problems in combination with DNxHD/HR in the MOV wrapper. However, Cinedeck is known for dealing with such problems quickly – this was also the case in our test.

Comment

At a time when editing programmes – albeit sometimes of dubious reliability – are being given away, the price of CineXtools seems rather steep. However, this programme is not aimed at amateurs and semi-professional users, but at users who will quickly amortise the price through massive time savings. This ranges from quality control for last-minute corrections to the creation of different versions from partially identical material, right through to internationalisation and multiple evaluation with subtitles or varying audio tracks. In addition to Technicolor PostWorks and NBC Universal’s “The Voice”, even pure audio houses such as RH Factor are already using the software. Anyone in DACH who is interested in CineXtools can order it from DVEAS (www.dveas.com).

The post The virtual glue press:CineXtools from Cinedeck first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Uli Plank.