AlphaDogs Post Production Takes a Time Travel Adventure

BURBANK, CA, June 11, 2011 (Press-News.org) AlphaDogs Post Production has completed work on the thrilling Sci-Fi action adventure film, Time Again. Described by Director Ray Karwel as Time Cop meets Die Hard, the story follows a mysterious woman as she helps prevent a notorious underworld criminal from getting his hands on a set of strange coins that can tip the balance between life and death.

Director Karwel chose AlphaDogs because they were able to provide all post services under one roof while working within a tight budget. Karwel comments, "AlphaDogs offered flexibility in helping me stay within my budget. Having all the post services at the same location eliminated any potential coordination and communication problems that can arise when you have different post facilities working on only one aspect of the film."

Senior Animator and Designer Russell Frazier created shots to establish the geography of the film, which required locations from around LA to appear adjacent to each other. Various angles showed changes essential to key points in the time-travel story. Frazier comments, "Footage from principal photography served as the base for some of the shots. Others were created entirely from digital stills shot during post at the original locations." Photoshop was used for primary retouching and After Effects to combine the retouched stills with live action. This included restoring camera movement and traffic to the finished shots.

Founder and President of AlphaDogs, Terence Curren finished color correction for the film. The director needed distinct looks for the two different time periods. A bright Kodachrome look for the present, and a cool look for the past. Because the film was not shot in this manner, the entire look was created in post using the Avid Symphony color correction toolset.

Due to the constrained budget of the film a good deal of relighting had to be done in post. Curren relied on Avid Symphony's spot color effect, which takes the place of what power windows would do in DaVinci. "We had to darken a lot of different areas in shots to elevate the suspenseful mood. In moving shots that tracking engine comes in very handy combined with spot color correction." Curren said.

Curren comments, "The director was doing some of his own effects work in After Effects. We stayed coordinated so that he would be using my color corrected footage to apply his effects. If he were to add blood to an uncorrected shot for example, then I corrected it afterward, the blood may not look good in the corrected shot. Working with the color corrected shot we could see exactly how it would look while he worked on the effects."

A 5.1 surround mix is essential for an action feature and Alphadogs Audio Mixer Isai Espinoza utilized their extensive sound library to develop the surround soundscape with the help of the Avid Artist Series control panels. Espinoza comments, "I especially liked the MC Control v2 surround touch screen that allowed me to loop a scene and orient the effects in space. Also, having powerful plugins to gain and clean up the low production audio recorded on set allowed me to spend more time on the mix and not be as concerned about deficient dialogue."

Time Again was written, produced and Directed by Ray Karwel for Nasty Strangers Productions.

About AlphaDogs: AlphaDogs is a full service post production company. Operating in the heart of Burbank's media district, AlphaDogs offers state of the art editing bays, color correction, audio mixing, visual effects, production offices and equipment rentals. To learn more http://www.alphadogs.tv