L.A.-based post house Cinelicious contributed post services for three Sundance 2014 premiere films, Michael Tully’s Ping Pong Summer, Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood and Jeff Preiss’ Low Down, all shot on 16mm and 35mm film.
“Film is alive and well even at the independent level, and we are excited to have worked three films included in this year’s Sundance lineup,” said Cinelicious’ Paul Korver. “If you look at the winning films each year, overwhelmingly they are shot on film. It’s a great validation of the enduring beauty of celluloid.”
A family vacation during the summer of 1985 changes everything for a teenage boy obsessed with Ping Pong in Ping Pong Summer starring Susan Sarandon, Amy Sedaris, Lea Thompson, John Hanna and Judah Friedlander. Cinelicious provided S16mm dailies, DI final film scanning and color with colorist Alex Bickel as well as final mastering services for the film, which was written and directed by Michael Tully and lensed by Wyatt Garfield.
Starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater and Ethan Hawke, Boyhood written and directed by Richard Linklater, had a special preview screening at Sundance. Cinelicious provided post workflow consulting and 2.5K oversampled DI scans for the film, which was shot on 35mm intermittently over a 12-year period, and tells the story of a divorced couple and examines their relationship with their son.
Told through the wise eyes of his young daughter, Amy, Low Down chronicles the torrid, true life of jazz pianist Joe Albany and stars Lena Headey, Taryn Manning, Peter Dinklage, Elle Fanning, Burn Gorman, Caleb Landry Jones, Glenn Close, Tim Daly and John Hawkes. Born into her beloved father’s unorthodox segment of society, Amy’s improvisational adolescence evolves in the shadow of Joe’s struggle between his musical genius and a suffocating heroin addiction. Cinelicious contributed early image consultation comparing camera test images from the Arri Alexa to Super 16mm for Preiss and DP Chris Blauvelt.
“It was immediately apparent that film had all the atmospheric advantages,” said Preiss. “The comparison showed an organic painterliness nested in the image that’s just not in digital’s vocabulary, and the anamorphic lenses we used gave the small gauge format a special gravitas not usually associated with 16.” Cinelicious provided 2K DI scanning and dailies for the film, part of the U.S. Dramatic selection.
This is Cinelicious’ second year providing DI services and its second year contributing to films featured at the Sundance festival. Last year, David Gordon Green‘s Prince Avalanche, starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, premiered at Sundance 2013and was picked up by Magnolia.
