Soho Images helped to paint a riveting portrait of Nazi-occupied Holland in providing Digital Intermediate and other post services for BLACK BOOK (ZWARTBOEK), Director Paul Verhoeven gripping tale of love and revenge at the end of World War II. The first film shot by Verhoeven in his native Netherlands in more than 20 years, BLACK BOOK will represent that country in next year Academy Awards foreign-language category.

Although BLACK BOOK was shot in Holland, Soho Images, in the heart of London, was selected to process film rushes and produce video dailies. Additionally, the facility transferred several high definition video plates that were projected as background elements and viewed through the windows of a moving train.

After the production wrapped, BLACK BOOK returned to Soho Images where the film was scanned at 2K using Arri scanners prior to conform and final color grading in the facility unique, real-time grading theater.

Soho Images Senior DI Colorist Rob Pizzey initially spent three days with Director of Photography Karl Walter Lindenlaub in grading sections of the film to set a look and feel and create a ‘color bible.’ ‘From there, I completed coloring the film using a DaVinci 2K Plus,’ recalled Pizzey. ‘Its real-time color grading was perfect as I used a lot of secondary layers to achieve the look.

‘At the end of the process when Paul Verhoeven viewed the film, he asked for a slightly lighter look to create a more optimistic feel as he thought the story was already very dark. That was easily achieved, again in real-time, by applying global updates across the entire film.’

Lindenlaub said that he didn’st want a look that felt unnatural. ‘That can be distracting in movies,’ he observed. ‘I wanted the look to be subtler but still have something of a period feel. It was a good thing Soho Images also did our processing. They checked for focus and gave us great negative reports.’

Soho Images Senior Editor Rob Gordon conformed the film.

Soho Images is located at 8-14 Mead Street, London W1F 0EQ, United Kingdom. For more information, phone +44 (0) 20 7437 0831.

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