The Briefing Room

New film storms Sundance and is a showcase of the most modern digital production techniques

Codex Digital, specialist in high-resolution media recording systems, today revealed details of how its technology streamlined the workflow between production and post on “I Love Sarah Jane”, the new Australian short film that is taking the 2008 Sundance Film Festival by storm.

“I Love Sarah Jane”, an fxphd and Last Picture Company production, in co-operation with QOOB (Europe), was directed by Spencer Susser and produced by Angie Fielder, with Mike Seymour of fxphd.com the executive producer and visual effects supervisor.

The production is the story of Jimbo, a 13-year old, who can only think about one girl, Sarah Jane. No matter what stands in his way, including bullies, violence, chaos and zombies, nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world. “I Love Sarah Jane” is the opening film in the 10/10 short competition at the Sundance Film Festival, taking place from January 17 – 27, Park City, in Utah.

Codex Digital recording technology formed the heart of the workflow on “I Love Sarah Jane”. The production was shot in on location in Sydney, Australia, using a Thomson Viper FilmStream™ camera, shooting in 1:2.35 scope format, at 1920 x 1080 24P for film and HD masters.

During production the Codex system was employed as a multi-purpose recording, storage, playback and review device for footage coming either directly out of the Viper camera or separately from Venom on-board flash packs. As such, the Codex provided the director, producer, camera-team and effects supervisor with a reliable and convenient hub to check footage for focus, editing and visual effects purposes.

With fxphd overseeing the on-set digital workflow, visual effects and post production, the Codex system was also employed to serve up the recorded footage in a range of different formats – including data for the post production facility in Sydney, HD-SDI for HD-SR tape copies, and QuickTime files for review on remote workstations and laptops.

“Our film is a showcase of the latest technical skills and the most modern digital workflow,” said Mike Seymour. “As the production industry moves towards data workflow, professional and robust boxes like the Codex are just what we need. “I Love Sarah Jane” was a fast-paced production and we found the Codex engineering well-built and designed for real production.”

Miguel Ferros from Codex Digital said: “We have designed our systems to deliver the highest quality images, in the most convenient way, to everyone that needs them. It is great to see productions such as I Love Sarah Jane fully-utilising the workflow advantages we offer.

“In production, the Codex provides two key advantages. The first is the ability to playback full, uncompressed HD on set as soon as you have shot the material – invaluable for the various departments to know what they have in the can. The second is to make available the captured footage in a variety of formats for post production – for offline, effects and online finishing, as well as the ultimate export for film-out.”

Codex Digtal systems have now helped to streamline the entire workflow for every scale of high-resolution feature, from low budget to multi-million dollar productions. Along with “I Love Sarah Jane”, and many others, Codex systems have also been deployed on “Deadgirl”, an independent feature shot in Los Angeles, and “Speedracer”, directed by brothers Andy and Larry Wachowsi.

Codex Digital is headquartered in Soho, London, from where it designs and manufactures high-end digital equipment for motion picture and broadcast production. Products include: an award-winning high-resolution media recorder, which captures moving images from the new generation of digital motion picture cameras, at up to 4K uncompressed resolution; plus a range of high-performance media management stations to manage the entire workflow of a digital production from set to post production. With the introduction of the Codex Portable, the company is setting a whole new standard for digital cinematography.

fxphd.com is a high-end online training company that specialises in visual effects and post-production training, in such areas as DI, compositing and motion graphics. fxphd.com is the sister company to fxguide.com and is based in Chicago, Los Angeles and Sydney.