4 TB original 4k footage available as CC-by

by - 2013/03/15 13 Comments Compositing, Development, Filming, Production

Thanks to our friends at Xiph.org we now can offer everyone access to the original source footage of Tears of Steel.

You’ll find something like 80,000 frames, each in OpenEXR half float files, in 4096 x 2160 pixels. This is 5 times more footage than used in the film, including unused shots, but mainly it’s because of long lead-in and lead-outs, and of course we’ve been cutting shots sharp.

Pictures have been shot using the (4k native sensor) fantastic Sony F65 camera. The raw files were converted with Sony software to OpenEXR, using ACES color. We then converted these with OpenColorIO to Rec709 “scene linear” which we further used for the movie pipeline.

Before we started with this VFX project we already noted a huge lack in available free high quality footage for motion tracking, keying and cleaning testing. With this huge data set this problem now belongs to the past forever!

Browse the full catalog at Xiph.org here.

Note about Creative Commons Attribution: apart from the obvious crediting, you have to be aware that the actors keep their Personal Image (Portrait) and Privacy Rights. That means the footage is OK to use for technical demos, showcases, tutorials etc. But not to use the actor for making a commercial. Read more here.

Have fun!

-Ton-

(BTW: xiph.org is currently syncing files from another server, arrival of all footage finishes in a few days).

New Premium Sponsor: Rovi Corporation

by - 2013/03/08 6 Comments Production

Our open film projects and the 4k re-rendering of Tears of Steel don’t go unnoticed by the industry. We’re very happy to confirm today that Rovi Corporation has offered to become Premium Sponsor for our project, to fund the work we’re doing here to get an amazing 4k (Ultra HD called now) version of Tears of Steel.

Rovi Corporation will premiere the first screening of several minutes of 4k ToS in April at the famous NAB show in Las Vegas.

Rovi Corporation press release

We expect to release the new version (downsized to HD, and a 2k DCP) shortly after. The 16 bits lossless frames (and OpenEXR originals) will be available some weeks after – it takes a while to upload another TeraByte of data.

Thanks Rovi!

-Ton-