‘LORD OF THE RINGS’ TRILOGY DIGITALLY GRADED BY 5-D COLOSSUS

THE filmmakers behind ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ have gone back to media solutions developer 5-D to enhance the visual effects on the remaining Rings pictures.
The company’s 5D Colossus, a software-based, digital grading and finishing solution developed in collaboration with Colorfront, was used to grade and master over 3000 shots for New Line Cinema’s ‘The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring’, and is now being used to grade and master the second and third movies in the trilogy, ’The Two Towers’ and ’The Return of the King’.
5D Colossus is the first system to be specifically developed for the digital grading and mastering of feature films.
The ‘Lord Of The Rings’ director Peter Jackson said: “I had always hoped that we would bring Tolkien's world of Middle-earth to life on film, and these grading tools ensured it has happened. As a director, 5D Colossus allows a wonderful hands-on involvement for creating a special look for the film. It allows us to push the look of the film from reality into fantasy. It’s fast, friendly and I love using it. I'm a huge fan and am sure it will contribute to changing the way that films are graded from now on.”
The 5D Colossus delved into more fragile parts of the colour spectrum to deliver a burnished, aged texture to scenes within the film.
The 5D Colossus is a scene-based colour correction tool dedicated to making the grading of multiple scenes as fast and as efficiently as possible. The machine is a high-quality, graded digital datamaster that can be used to prepare digital negatives, film release prints (via laser recording), digital projection masters, and mastering for high definition and SD video, DVD and the internet. (GMcG)