Tokyo-based HUMAX ENTERTAINMENT INC. is a premier media & entertainment company with a dedicated post-production studio, renowned for its expertise across various genres, including music videos, live performance videos, TV commercials and movies. Leveraging the advanced finishing capabilities of SGO’s hero-suite Mistika Ultima, HUMAX continually creates innovative content that meets the highest industry standards.
Recently contributing to an innovative animation series for Netflix, HUMAX marked a significant milestone in their portfolio of creative expertise. This production extensively used stop-motion animation – a technique that involves moving stationary dolls incrementally, frame by frame, to create a seamless fluid motion. The intricate and laborious nature of stop-motion animation presents unique challenges, particularly in maintaining consistent quality and tone throughout the production.
Mistika Ultima: The engine behind post-production excellence
Mistika Ultima is at the heart of the post-production process, enabling the creatives to achieve exceptional results in several key areas:
- Quality Control: Ensuring every frame met the highest standards
- Grading: Adjusting color tones to achieve the desired aesthetic
- Online Editing: Finalizing the edit and preparing it for distribution
- Color Management: Matching tones and ensuring lighting consistency across different shooting days, crucial for maintaining visual coherence
Overcoming challenges with advanced HDR techniques
To maintain the highest quality of HDR, the workflow was based on:
- ACES Color Management: HUMAX chose an ACES workflow to utilize RAW camera data, preserving the integrity and quality of HDR content. This approach also ensured compatibility with CG images.
- OpenEXR Format: The use of multi-layer OpenEXR allowed for detailed grading and adjustments. This format facilitated easy management of multiple layers within a single image file, enhancing the ability to finely tune color balance and focus, especially important for integrating CG elements.
One of the primary challenges was optimizing HDR workflow. Mistika’s capabilities in handling the multi-layered structure of OpenEXR and supporting Dolby Vision were crucial. This allowed HUMAX to:
- Ensure the highest quality: By using ACES and OpenEXR, HUMAX maintained high-quality intermediate data, essential for HDR production
- Detailed grading: The multi-layer feature facilitated precise adjustments in characters, backgrounds, and other image parts, ensuring visual coherence and high quality
- Depth of field adjustments: Mistika’s comprehensive toolset enabled quick adjustments to the depth of field, ensuring better integration of CG elements during grading
Crafting the final look with Mistika Ultima
Detailed and precise color management enabled design of the final look with specific guidelines that required:
- SHOWLUT Creation: A color chart was shot with correct exposure and white balance, then developed in RAW. The gain was adjusted to achieve the correct grey levels and maximum luminance, forming the basis for the SHOWLUT.
- GLSL Programming: Mistika’s GLSL programming capabilities allowed for real-time image transformation within ACES, ensuring the desired visual style was consistently applied.
HUMAX’s choice: The technology that makes a difference
HUMAX have been using Mistika Ultima for many years and their choice was driven by its robust capabilities and versatility:
- Real-Time Production: The ability to start production work immediately in a non-linear time space, crucial for live music content and other long-format productions.
- Comprehensive Color Grading: The advanced color grading and transformation tools cater to a wide range of content types, enabling on-the-spot adjustments.
- 8K Content Handling: Mistika’s capacity to handle 8K content allows HUMAX to produce high-resolution works, meeting the growing demand for ultra-high-definition media.
Through their innovative use of Mistika Ultima and meticulous attention to detail, HUMAX consistently creates high-end content. The collaboration with Mistika guarantees that their work achieves the highest standards of quality and visual excellence, further cementing HUMAX’s reputation as a leader in professional video production.
