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CINEMONTAGE / FALL 2015
64
CINEMONTAGE / FALL 2015
by Michael Goldman
A
mong the
challenges of
creating The
Hateful Eight in
“glorious 70mm,” as filmmaker Quentin
Tarantino described it in his original
screenplay, was the fact that it required
an overall post workflow that was highly
irregular in many respects — both a
throwback to an earlier era and extremely
complex at the same time. That’s because
the project needed a unique, large-
format, film-based pipeline for 70mm
dailies and, eventually,
the final assembly of
the 70mm version of
the movie, as well as
the ability to link that
pipeline with a modern,
Avid-based workflow so
that the editorial team
could cut the movie in
the most efficient way
possible.
Thus, in addition
to Tarantino’s editorial team headed by
Fred Raskin, ACE, filmmakers had to
locate and restore vintage equipment,
find assistant editors and technicians who
had experience with 70mm film-based
workflows, and partner with a host of
specialized vendors, including FotoKem,
Panavision, Kodak, Datasat, Inventure,
Schneider Optics, Boston Light & Sound,
Method Studios, Scanline VFX, and
others, to pull everything together.
“The Avid workflow was
straightforward and not any different
due to working with 65mm/70mm — the
difference was in the overall workflow,”
Tina Anderson, the project’s post-
production supervisor explains. “In this
digital age, we have become accustomed
to moving data fairly quickly all over
Hollywood — and the world — with the
entire workflow being digital. But we
were challenged by Quentin Tarantino
with his desire to only screen the film for
dailies using work print, and then cutting
negative for the limited 70mm release.
Both of these mandates took many
steps to enact, whether it was setting
up a screening room featuring a dual
projection system with Ultra Panavision
70 lenses to screen the 70mm work
print, compositing effects and titles, or
determining the reel sizes and breaks for
negative cutting and optical tracks.”
For the editorial workflow, FotoKem
adapted both its 65mm telecine and its
nextLAB digital dailies file processing
software to be compatible with the Ultra
Panavision 70 format in order to transfer
film and rapidly produce synched dailies
that could move to editorial efficiently
during production. The editorial team
used three Avid Media Composer systems
(v. 8.2.5) — one each for editor Fred
Raskin, ACE, assistant editor Andrew
Eisen and Avid assistant Jason Barnes
— linked to 32TB of Avid ISIS shared
storage.
Eisen took charge of overseeing
the dailies process, organizing bins,
handling re-synching of any off-speed
footage, creating temp visual effects
shots, tracking visual effects shots,
communicating editorial notes to all
the visual effects vendors, and creating
change and cut lists for the editorial film
team. Raskin says Eisen’s role in keeping
these processes
organized was so
crucial that, “I
honestly have no
idea how we could
have done the movie
without him.”
Simultaneously,
for the 70mm
workflow, the
production utilized
three 70mm film
benches, where first assistant editor
Paula Suhy and film assistants Michael
Backauskas and Bill Fletcher conformed
the work print. Suhy and Backauskas
worked in Los Angeles throughout
principal photography, collaborating with
the lab to prep and synchronize 70mm
film dailies.
On location, dailies were screened at
a specially configured theater in Telluride
using a 70mm work print with sync
sound playback on Fostex DV40 audio
decks. Another unique challenge involved
finding a methodology to initially sync
film dailies with sound at FotoKem to
THEULTRACHALLENGE
OFDIGITALLYEDITING
ANULTRAWIDEFILM
The Hateful Eight.
The Weinstein Company
CineMontage_Fall15-4.indd 64 11/6/15 7:58 PM

2. 65
FALL 2015 / CINEMONTAGE
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FALL 2015 / CINEMONTAGE
begin with, since they did not have a
70mm Kem capable of playing DV40
audio.
Post supervisor Anderson and
producer Shannon McIntosh, however,
who headed the effort to help the
production solve some of the retro
technology challenges the post-
production chain faced to work in the
70mm realm, located a vintage 70mm
Officine Prevost Milano flatbed machine
that had not been used in decades in the
warehouse of the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts & Sciences. FotoKem
overhauled the Prevost’s electrical system
and added an encoder for DV40, since it
was originally designed for Mag, and got
it up-and-running for dailies production.
“We built 70mm select rolls with a
hand-written log of slate sync foot and
frame counts,” says Backauskas. “With
this guide, I built an Avid sequence to
match each select roll, exported the audio
to a WAV file, and burned it to DVD
twice, to have a backup disc. The 70mm
select rolls and discs were checked on the
70mm Prevost flatbed viewer, in sync with
the DV40 disc reader.”
The project also faced the challenge
of having to build a 70mm film conform.
Backauskas explains that the editorial
team used “Avid Filmscribe to generate
pull lists, cut lists and change lists
for the film conform. Since modern
65mm/70mm 5-perf film has a key code
every 24 frames, Auxiliary Ink code was
used to identify in/out frames. Durations
are still figured in the same way as a
35mm ‘screen foot’ — every 16 frames.
Digital Vortechs worked with Avid to
make a software patch that modified
the dupe detection function to use
Auxiliary Ink code instead of key number,
which would have been incorrect for
65mm/70m.”
Backauskas adds that the production
rented “old-school equipment,” from
large-format industry veteran David
Bartholomew, who supplied 70mm
Hollywood Film Company synchronizers
and Neumade tape splicers to punch
perfs through splicing tape. “We used
three-quarter-inch and four-perf tape for
dailies, and three-eighth-inch, two-perf
tape for the conform,” he elaborates. “The
larger tape is faster to use, but the edges
of the cut tape do show in mid-frame.
The narrower tape must be applied with
some precision, and is less noticeable. For
exteriors, the splices were imperceptible,
and not too distracting, even in bright
snow.
“Quentin Tarantino told a preview
audience that viewed the work picture,
‘This film is literally held together with
tape,’” Backauskas concludes. f
The Tenacious Ten: From left, Cara McShane (assistant to the director), Michael Backauskas (film assistant), Bill Fletcher (film assistant), Jason Barnes (Avid
assistant), Andrew Eisen (first assistant/visual effects editor), Tina Anderson (post-production supervisor), Quentin Tarantino (writer/director), Paula Suhy (film
first assistant), Fred Raskin (editor) and Stephanie Williams (post-production assistant) in The Hateful Eight’s film cutting room in Hollywood.
Photo by Randy Krehbel
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