Tom and Jerry: A global finish during a global pandemic.
“Tom and Jerry” is out today in theaters and on HBO Max! I’m excited to share how we built the color on two continents for these classic characters.
Communication
Arguably, the most crucial aspect of finishing this film is how Warner Bros Post Production Creative Services was able to support and complete this project during some of the most restrictive months of the pandemic. Key to the success of this was the communication between Burbank and London. Paul Lavoie(DI Manager), my long-time partner in crime, headed up the Burbank operations while Ann Lynch(Post Supervisor) and Alan Pritt(Post Production Manager DLL) kept everything moving along in London between editorial and VFX. All of this was over email, teams, and phone calls since travel was prohibited. The challenge here was keeping everyone on the same page between the two different timezones. Later on, we found out that would also be one of the project’s greatest strengths.
VFX
Framestore London did the VFX shots for the show. There were numerous versions of every shot, right up until delivery, and a couple after, you know… the usual. Framestore received ACES AP0 EXRs and returned the same back once work was complete with one key difference. Aside from the plates having beautiful animation when they returned they also acquired a number of matte channel layers in the EXR. Each character had mattes for their body, eyes, drybrush, and any props they were handling. This made for some extra prep prior to color, but it paid off big time when we started the grade.
Putting it Together
Conform and color prep was completed at DeLane Lea by Otto Rodd(DI Editor DLL). While we were sleeping in LA, Otto would cut in the night’s deliveries from VFX and connect all the mattes for use in the grade With the number of characters and the granularity of the mattes, I can’t begin to tell you what a herculean effort this was. At the end of his day, he would send the project files for the reels that were updated back to LA where Leo Ferrini(DI Editor) would then take over while Otto slept. Working in this way, we had a 24-hour work cycle with everyone working a normal day shift. There was a lot to do in those 24 hours. For starters, the organization that Otto and Leo imparted onto the timeline was second to none. Each character had its own layer. This layer stayed consistent throughout the whole film even if the character was not in the shot. Tom was on layer 100, jerry on 200, spike on 400, and so on. We didn’t necessarily use all the layers in between, but this kept the timeline nice and tidy. Simply put, we had a lot of layers with the number of characters and props in the film. In Protools sound speak, we used all 128 tracks.