KATABATIC DIGITAL

Rob Thomas’ “Someday”: Katabatic Digital Saves the Day

The award-winning singer/songwriter Rob Thomas has a well-loved string of hit singles and albums. His latest music video, Someday, was the #1 music video on Vh1’s Top 20 Countdown in early December 09. Director Alan Ferguson turned to Emery Wells at Katabatic Digital in New York City for the final color grading and finishing of the project, which was shot with the RED ONE 4K Digital Camera by DP Max Goldman.

“Katabatic gave us a ‘save the day’ experience,” says Ferguson. “We initially tried to do the grade at another facility that used traditional workflows and were having nothing but trouble. I did some research and found that Katabatic was the go-to post facility in NYC; these guys just get it. The venue for Someday was to be a bright, sunny, cheery day – the right background for expressing a love scenario. However, we had to shoot on a rainy, dreary day and Emery made the best of it. He went straight to work to layer the grading needed to cheer up the mood and clean up signage and artifacts. It was a big challenge and he came through for us with a wrap-up within two days.”

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Google Chrome Browser Ads

NEW YORK, January 12, 2010

The web ads for the Google Chrome Browser are mechanical depictions of the human genius behind this highly sophisticated, yet simple-to-use browser. Each new feature of the browser has a story that’s told via an inventive contraption, reminiscent of a college chemistry or physics experiment. During the color grading, Katabatic Digital in NYC (www.katabatic.tv) enhances the browser for eight web spots created by 1st Avenue Machine for the BBH agency.

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Target 2009 Holiday Ads

Target 2009 Holiday Ads: 4K Post Production at Katabatic NYC

Target’s series of 2009 holiday ads for the web are clever takes on the more humorous and very human aspects of gift giving. Emery Wells at Katabatic Digital NYC enhances their cleverness with expert 4K post production for five spots recently shot with the RED ONE 4K digital camera.

Director Josh Miller notes, “It made sense to shoot with RED for high quality data acquisition since the deliverables would be digital. With Emery being at the forefront of digital media, he has a deep expertise that made the color grading and finishing in the SCRATCH 4K workflow a straightforward, streamlined process. We did the conform and color grading in the same room, on the same system, and were able to enhance and tweak the imagery to make the brightly colored Christmas tones pop. Emery’s a pro and a great resource to me for the other RED-based projects I’m working on.”

“For color grading, the challenge was a balancing act of making the classic, bright, saturated colors of Christmas colors punchy yet ensuring skin tones weren’t unnatural. We also needed to keep the color hues consistent throughout the five ads,” says Emery Wells, digital colorist and founder of Katabatic. “Because the SCRATCH software works directly with the native RED RAW files, there’s no transcoding and degradation of the data. We can see the RED material and begin color grading immediately. This means we can fully exploit the wide color gamut that the RED RAW images provide.”

The five Target spots were all graded and finished within two days and mastered at 1080p so that a variety of deliverables could be created from one source. Wells notes, “At Katabatic we’ve built a cutting edge infrastructure that handles 4K just as easily as SD. So, you might come in today to create a spot for the web, but because we always master in HD, that same spot can be repurposed tomorrow for broadcast or even cinema projection. Some clients have started taking advantage of the ultra high-rez imagery for companion print campaigns. We can pull print quality stills from the finished ads at no additional cost to the client, which tends to go over quite well with them.”

The five holiday spots for Target were spearheaded by Bill Melton of Schematic, an interactive agency in Los Angeles that creates branding experiences for digital platforms. The cut was done at Final Cut, New York by editor Stephane Dumonceau.

RED™ for the web? Nike and Puma think so

RED™ has excited the industry with it’s massive resolution, 35mm depth of field, and low barrier to entry price point.  But some people are still thinking, ‘what’s the point?’  Especially when it comes to new media production like web and mobile devices.  Let’s explore the why’s and why nots.  Click more to read the full story. (more…)

“LA SOGA” Premieres at Toronto Film Festival

La Soga Premiered at the Toronto film festival to a packed audience this past Saturday, the 12th of September.  Starring Manny Perez and directed by Josh Crook, La Soga an edgy action-drama, combining the gritty reality of movies like City of God and Amores Perros.  It is the personal journey of a brave man who risks everything to find justice, a visceral and griping story of redemption that lays bare brutality and corruption, set in the neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic and Washington Heights, New York.

Shot in 4K and 2K anamorphic on the RED ONE, Katabatic provided complete conform, grading, and finishing services. Director Josh Crook, worked with Katabatic to create a gritty high-con look.  ”He wasnt afraid to push the image to it’s very limits” says Emery Wells, owner of the stylishly chic facility.  He continued “you typically really try to avoid things like clipping highlights, or revealing your noise floor but Josh kept pushing us further and further to create this really stunning palette.”  Click more for for before and after screen shots.

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POST Magazine explores Katabatic’s cutting edge 4K advertising workflow

POST magazine covered Katabatic Digitals unique all digital pipeline for high end digital formats such as RED and Phantom in their June issue.  Online article available here.

Katabatic Digital Opens New 4K Post Facility in New York City

Rapid Growth in Tight Economy Due to Expertise in Color Grading and Ground-Breaking Digital 4K Cinema Technology

New York City, New York – May 18, 2009 – Katabatic Digital announced today the opening of its new, state-of-the-art, post-production facility in the historic fashion district of New York City. One year ago, founder Emery Wells opened the doors of Katabatic’s original one-room studio, carrying out some of the first color grading for high-resolution 4K imagery in an all 4K digital workflow. Katabatic’s phenomenal growth is the force behind their move to a new high-end space, with a first-year client roster for 4K post production of TV commercials that includes major brands such as Marriott, Pillsbury, Pfizer, Snickers, JC Penney, MillerCoors, Crisco, KFC, Citibank, CVS/pharmacy, and Rocawear to name a few.

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“The Exploding Girl” Lead Actress Explodes at Tribeca

Our congratulations go out to Zoe Kazan, best actress in a leading narrative at the Tribeca Film Festival. Katabatic Digital provided 4K color grading and finishing on this understated and naturalistic feature, director by Bradley Rust Gray and beatifully shot by Director of Photogrpahy Eric Lin.  Executive producers Jason and Josh Diamond approached Katabatic to provide a color grade that would enhance but not take away the film’s intrinsically simple style.  Shot in 4K on the RED ONE, Jason Diamond states “We wanted to have the ability to do long lingering takes which really allow the complexities and subtleties of the lead characters relationships to be explored.  This simply would have been too expensive to shoot on 35mm.”

Colorist Dan Divine created a clean pallet that drew viewers in without over stylizing the honest portrayal  of  young romance.  Full synopsis after the break.

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Katabatic.tv 2.0

We’ve finally got around to launching our new website, or should I say, a website. Since opening our doors a little over a year ago, our presence has largely been spread via word of mouth. Our website was little more than our contact information. Over the past several months we have been methodically planning and designing our brand and we are thrilled to finally debut it to the world.

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Advertising in 4K - Assimilate Case Study

Assimilate Inc, makers of the SCRATCH™ digital intermediate suite, recently interviewed Katabatic to gain insight on our ultra high definition work being done in the advertising market. Full PDF case study here.