(Seattle, WA., June 29 2006) Putting the Quantel eQ editing /effects /grading /deliverables system through its paces, post-production facility Flying Spot Entertainment did the finishing for the just released 'The Heart of the Game', the critically acclaimed Miramax documentary about a girls' basketball team and the emotional journey of one of its star players.
The Quantel eQ played a critical role in transforming a collection of disparate, often low-res tapes into a seamless motion picture now being projected on screens in 35mm. The project came to Flying Spot through Seattle-based director Ward Serrill, a veteran of more than 40 short films. "He arrived with over 200 DV tapes," says Flying Spot Co-President Pat Sanford. "He had been shooting for over five years and said, 'I think I have a movie here'."
Five years earlier Serrill had met Bill Resler, coach of the Rough Riders high school girls' basketball team. Sensing a documentary, he followed Resler around with a camera. One day a tough inner city girl and natural athlete, Darnellia Russell, joined the team, but her off-court struggles threatened to destroy her plans to play college ball. Russell's loss of her eligibility, followed by her battle to get back on the court, is at the story's center.
The project was especially challenging from a post-production standpoint because, for the film to make it to the theatrical marketplace, raw footage shot on DV, plus assorted material acquired on other formats like VHS, Beta SP and 8mm, had to be seamlessly edited and assembled for eventual release on 35mm.
"Altogether there must have been close to 300 source tapes, including material shot by TV crews and others," says Flying Spot Editor Troy Murison. "Over 90 percent of it was standard NTSC DV in 4x3 aspect ratio. Most if it was interlace, but there was some progressive stuff in there, which was a challenge."
Post-production for ‘The Heart of the Game' began with the offline edit, which took over a year and was done outside Flying Spot. Once the EDL was complete, the project returned for finishing. The decision to use the Quantel eQ for that task was a no-brainer, according to Murison.
"eQ was the best choice for what we needed to do," he explains. "Miramax wanted the footage handled as cleanly as possible. Even though it was from many different sources, they didn't want to step on it any more than necessary. We also knew that we would have to tilt and scan, and for that process eQ is an obvious choice."
Murison conformed the entire movie in standard def, then up-resed it. He used the eQ to convert it to anamorphic format, do the tilt and scan, reframe certain shots, and create titles and credit rolls.
"We also used eQ to do different versions of 'The Heart of the Game' for various film festival entries, with some basic color correction, before we did the final finishing for the theatrical print," adds Sanford.
Flying Spot delivered two finished versions of 'The Heart of the Game' to Miramax: one was a 29.97 fps anamorphic SD Digibeta version, the other a 29.97 HDCAM version. Flying Spot also handled the final tape-to-tape color correction.
Flying Spot has had its three Quantel eQ systems for just over two years and had used them on a variety of television and film projects. "What's great about the eQ is that you take material that originated in SD or HD or whatever format, work on the same timeline, and output it to whatever you want," explains Murison. "It's a real flexible machine for mixed-format programs, which seem to be getting more frequent."
'The Heart of the Game' opened to critical acclaim in New York and Los Angeles on June 9. It premiered in Seattle on June 15, and Miramax plans a wider release based on grass-roots marketing and word-of-mouth praise for the film.
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