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Home » The Room Finishes Bruce Springsteen’s “Hunter of Invisible Game”

The Room Finishes Bruce Springsteen’s “Hunter of Invisible Game”

Finishing editor and colorist Ben Murray continues collaboration with director Thom Zimny on short film inspired by song from “High Hopes” album.

Final post production for Hunter of Invisible Game, the new short film from Bruce Springsteen and Thom Zimny, was completed at The Room, the finishing boutique located within Technicolor-PostWorks, New York. The Room’s Ben Murray conformed the film and applied the final color grade, working in collaboration with filmmaker Thom Zimny, who co-directed with Bruce Springsteen.  

Hunter of Invisible Game, which debuted this month on Bruce Springsteen’s website, is based on an extended version of a song from the album High Hopes and was created as a gift for his fans. Springsteen also stars in the film, an impressionistic story of a lone traveler making his way through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

“It’s a project Bruce and I had been talking about for a year,” recalls Zimny. “We expanded the music by giving it an opening, making it a piece of about 10 minutes. In the cutting room, we pushed the film to be something that isn’t a straightforward, linear narrative. Rather, like the music, it evokes feelings that keep the storyline open.”

Zimny and Springsteen shot the video in northern New Jersey, including on the grounds of an abandoned World War II era military base. The old fort’s crumbling structures and overgrown landscape provide the backdrop for the film’s powerful score.

“It’s a sprawling military complex with interesting contrasts between nature and decay,” recalls Joe DeSalvo, the film’s cinematographer. “You have weeds, tree branches and other natural elements pushing up through concrete and rusty metal.”

The imagery throughout has a cinematic quality with many broad vistas of windswept fields. The lighting is soft and subdued. The editorial rhythm is graceful and deliberate.

The poetic quality of the visuals was further enhanced during grading sessions at The Room. “I set an initial look on the set with the DIT,” recalls DeSalvo. “Once we had a cut together, Thom and I looked it over and I gave him my notes; The Room took it from there. “

“I like to filter the camera and determine the look through the lens to give the colorist an indication of where I’m going,” DeSalvo adds. “He can then back off on it or add to it. On this film, I used chocolate filters, sepia filters and diffusion. We tweaked it with the DIT on set, then Ben took the final step, applying the polish. He did a great job; he nailed it.”

Murray worked with Zimny during grading sessions. The colorist had previously graded Zimny’s documentaries on the making of the Springsteen albums Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. “I’ve known Ben for 15 years and, much like I have with Bruce, I’ve developed a shorthand with him,” says Zimny. “I can come in with a new project and feel comfortable that he is going to bring something to it that I wasn’t expecting.”

For Hunter of Invisible Game, Murray and Zimny used color not only to enhance the look of the film, but also as a narrative tool. Their aim was to sharpen the emotions of the story, which, at its core, is about a man’s “hunt” to recover his lost humanity. “Bruce and I feel that a key part of the storytelling is how the image ends up,” says Zimny. “And that’s why I come to Ben. He finds the place that we were trying to reach.”

Murray says that he finds Zimny’s experimental approach to color invigorating. “What I love about working with Thom is that it’s all about the process, the journey,” he observes. “He doesn’t come into the room with answers.”

“Thom has a unique focus and vision, which he comes to me to enhance,” Murray adds. “I am there to help him bring it to fruition. At the end of the process, I help him achieve what he envisioned at the beginning.”

The added time and attention applied to the film in post paid off, says Zimny. On his website, Springsteen calls Hunter of Invisible Game “one of our best.” “A big part of our excitement about this film is in its cinematic quality, and a lot of that was found in the color correct,” Zimny concludes. “Ben has the ability to go through it shot by shot and find the texture and the soul of what is needed. Often it was in the smallest details, minute things, but they added up. I walked out with a piece that was better, a more powerful film.”

About Technicolor – PostWorks New York

Technicolor – PostWorks New York is the East Coast’s most comprehensive digital motion picture and post-production facility, employing an exceptional team of artists, engineers and project managers to serve our clients through the film and TV finishing process.

Offering data workflows, film processing, telecine/scanning, non-linear editorial and HD picture finishing, digital intermediate and film recording, high-volume encoding and high-speed data transmission, as well as comprehensive film and TV sound services on nine mix stages, Technicolor – PostWorks New York serves as one source for every post production requirement.

For more information, visit http://www.technicolorpwny.com

 

Community & Partner Links

How Sony’s New Virtual Sound Technology Can Change How We Hear Films

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

NJ – Governor Murphy signs $14B Incentive Program Bill – the NJ Economic Recovery Act of 2020

 Film tax credits — amending existing programs to include provisions for so-called New Jersey film partners and New Jersey film-lease partners and allowing an additional $200 million of tax credits annually over 13 years.

Click this link if you want to read the full article on the Lexology site. http://bit.ly/35NtDx6

Film Commish announces date for production restart

In her December 18, 2020 news update, MOME Commissioner Anne del Castillo announced that the Film Office is now accepting permit applications for production activity that begins on July 27th.

She also announced awards now (Awkwafina) and more. To read all of the Film Commish’s bloggy sort of news column, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Nikon to Stop Making Cameras in Japan

Nikon has fallen on hard times as of late as its camera sales have cratered, and now there’s a new indicator of how dire its financial situation is: the company is reportedly pulling the plug on making cameras in Japan after over 70 years of doing so.

To read the full article on Petapixel’s site, click here.

NVIDIA Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

 

 

 

Union Health Plan Dodges Film Workers’ Suit Over Virus Relief

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Russo Brothers Received Close to $50 Million From Saudi Bank

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.

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