Tag: Michael Cioni

Frame & Reference Podcast: Michael Cioni, CEO & Founder of Strada

Kenny McMillan (Instagram)
April 18, 2024
Frame & Reference (Twitter, Instagram)

Frame & Reference is a conversation between Cinematographers hosted by Kenny McMillan of OWL BOT. Each episode dives into the respective DP’s current and past work, as well as what influences and inspires them. These discussions are an entertaining and informative look into the world of making films through the lens of the people who shoot them.

In this episode, we’re joined by my friend Michael Cioni to talk about his new company Strada (YouTube).

Michael is a serial entrepreneur whose career includes numerous awards for his creative work and technical achievements. He is an accomplished director, cinematographer, musician, four-time Emmy winner, member of the Motion Picture Academy, and Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers.

A U.S. patent holder of digital cinema technology, Michael was the founder and CEO of the post house Light Iron where he pioneered tools and techniques that emerged as global workflow industry standards. After Light Iron was acquired by Panavision, Michael served as product director for Panavision’s Millennium DXL 8K camera ecosystem.

He then joined the cloud startup company Frame.io where he served as Senior Vice President of Global Innovation. After Frame.io was acquired by Adobe, Michael led numerous workflow innovations including the breakthrough Camera to Cloud technology program as Senior Director of Global Innovation.

He continues to be motivated by the desire to democratize professional workflows and focuses his efforts on inventing new ways for filmmakers to create through his technology. Michael is a well-known and gifted speaker, advocate for the community, and serves as a mentor and educator throughout the global media industry.

Listen to the podcast:

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Frame & Reference is also supported by:

  • Filmtools, the West Coast’s leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs.
  • ProVideo Coalition, a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post coming out of the industry.

Colorist Ian Vertovec’s Instagram Notes on His Work for David Fincher

Ian Vertovec & Michael Cioni
March 17, 2019
Ian Vertovec (Instagram)
Michael Cioni (Instagram)

Ian Vertovec is Supervising Colorist at Light Iron, which he co-founded, a Panavision company specialized in dailies, digital intermediate, archival, and data services for projects originated on file-based motion cameras.

View this post on Instagram

Reposted from @ianvertovec – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Dir: David Fincher DP: Jeff Cronenweth One of the best technical and creative accomplishments of our team's career was collaborating on this film. GDT included scenes shot on the first RED Epic camera (mixed in with lots of RED ONE MX) and was the first 5K RAW DI. We had to work with Quantel at the time to innovate a new way to do DI in a 5K extraction and display in 4K. It was our first time making 5K DSM non-scaled 2.40 and 1.78 masters so no blow-up was required for deliverables. It also means there is a 4K 4:3 version somewhere! The creative techniques and technology discovered on this film went into hundreds of films we did thereafter. Sometimes I travel the world and people ask, "How do you get RED cameras to look so good?" I tell them, "Don't worry so much about it. We all have access to the exact same technology to make these pictures look great. The difference is in who actually touches the tech." Colorist @ianvertovec is the key to these images and leads the Light Iron creative team to bring the best color regardless of the camera. Now you can follow his colorful journey on Instagram. Follow @ianvertovec #thegirlwiththedragontattoo #davidfincher #rooneymara #danielcraig – #regrann #regrann  #redcamera #redepic #redcamerausers #lightiron #lightironcolor #digitalintermediate #colorcorrection #cinematographer #cinematography #resolution

A post shared by Michael Cioni (@michaelcioni) on

Michael Cioni: The Rhythm of Resolution

LumaForge (YouTube)
May 3, 2018

Over the last few years, 8K has become accepted as an acquisition format for 2K & 4K delivery. Michael Cioni, of Panavision & Light Iron, believes that it is time to start pushing 8K as a distribution format. Listen as he challenges common misconceptions about the validity of 8K exhibition.

Cioni uses Moore’s Law to explore the idea that the resolution of our capture and delivery of video will continue to grow far into the future. In the early years of Light Iron, Michael and his team faced many challenges in moving from a 2K to 4K digital intermediate for their customers. But they overcame those challenges and are now working toward supporting 8K distribution.

Check the comments from the future

Colorist Podcast: Ian Vertovec, from Light Iron

2018-01-16 Colorist Podcast - Episode 20. Ian Vertovec

Episode 20

January 16, 2018
Colorist Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Colorist Society International and Mixing Light.

On this episode of the colorist podcast, I talk with Ian Vertovec, Co-Founder, and Senior Colorist at Light Iron.

Ian has colored major films “The Social Network,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and “Gone Girl.” And more recently, he has colored the TV shows “Baskets” for FX and “Glow” on Netflix.

Originally from Chicago, Ian focused on photography, then moved on to digital compositing. He later co-founded two post facilities in Los Angeles: Plaster City, then Light Iron. Out of necessity, he moved on to color at his company. He found his combination of photography and compositing matched perfectly for a career as a colorist.

In this podcast, we talk about:

  • Coloring David Fincher films and working with extremely dark images
  • The challenges of working on VFX heavy projects
  • Making HDR look both cinematic and realistic
  • Advantages of working with high-end systems like Quantel Pablo
  • The difference between working on TV and films
  • How experience with compositing served him as a colorist
  • Bringing life to images using texture
  • Using film emulation LUTs in his workflow
  • Comparing different cameras as a colorist
  • Using ACES in a color managed workflow
  • Keeping grades simple, clean, and efficient

Listen to the interview

Tech Media Planet: The Social Network

Episode 22

December 6, 2010
Tech Media Planet

Colorist Ian Vertovec from Light Iron Digital takes us through the ins and outs of color grading one of this year’s biggest hit films “The Social Network”.

Listen to the interview

Dolby: Ian Vertovec and Michael Cioni, from Light Iron

September 2, 2011
Dolby (YouTube)

Playlist:

The Beauty of Large Format 8K

DXL Channel (vimeo)
December 20, 2017

Presented live at Camerimage 2017, this provocative presentation examines the psychology, physiology, and physical relationships between resolution and sharpness. Panavision and Light Iron experts Michael Cioni, Dan Sasaki, and Ian Vertovec present a fresh perspective on how the pursuit of cinematic smoothness is tied to the race for resolution.