Ron Howard s Rush Graded on DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design today announced that Company 3 in London has used DaVinci Resolve for color grading Ron Howard's F1 racing biographical action film Rush.

Chris Hemsworth (James Hunt) in Rush. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. Universal Pictures

Rush portrays the exhilarating true story of two of the greatest rivals the sport has ever witnessed, drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Set against the sexy and glamorous golden age of F1 racing, Rush follows the two drivers as they push themselves to the breaking point of physical and psychological endurance, where there is no shortcut to victory and no margin for error.

Chris Hemsworth (James Hunt) and Daniel Bruhl (Niki Lauda) in Rush. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. Universal Pictures

After a catastrophic crash during the 1976 German GP at the N rburgring, which could have killed Lauda, he returns to face rival Hunt in their pursuit of the World Championship. Anthony Dod Mantle was the film's cinematographer and he presented Company 3's senior colorist Adam Glasman with an intriguing challenge.

While Rush was shot using a variety of different digital formats, Howard and Mantle also wanted to incorporate original race footage from 1976 shot on 16mm and 35mm film. Ron and Anthony felt this would help to recreate the thrilling race sequences and give Rush some real F1 production value, says Patrick Malone of Company 3 London.

The overall goal during the grade was to create a look that would bind both digital and archived film material together, giving Rush a seamless look throughout. Our brief was to give the film a 70's period feel with a modern slant. Inspiration for the colour palette came from a lot of the readily available archived 8mm, 16mm and 35mm footage of the 1976 World Championship.

While the traditional look associated with the period is one of desaturated, almost sepia colors, Anthony wanted to push color into the cars so they looked more bold and striking. In addition, he wanted each of the grand prix races to give their own unique feel to reflect the drama and dynamics of the '76 championship.

Daniel Bruhl (Niki Lauda) and Ron Howard (Director) in Rush. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. Universal Pictures

Take for example the opening scene at the N rburgring, which is a pivotal moment. This had a very stormy, almost menacing feel to it as the film builds up to Lauda's crash. This is a very bold sequence, which Adam achieved by adding in more saturation while being careful not to crush the information out of the image, says Malone.

Company 3 London has also used DaVinci Resolve recently to complete the grading of Edgar Wright's science fiction comedy The World's End, Zombie epic World War Z and British action comedy Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.

Chris Hemsworth (James Hunt) in Rush. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. Universal Pictures

About DaVinci Resolve

Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve is the world's highest performance on set, editing and color correction solution for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux computers. DaVinci Resolve supports more real time color correction than any other system because it's not limited by the performance of the computer it's running on. DaVinci Resolve eliminates this performance barrier because it's based on a cluster of high performance GPU cards, so all processing is always real time. DaVinci Resolve has the power of a true real time performance solution so handles complex color grades even when using dozens of primaries, secondaries, Power Windows , multi point tracking, blurs, and more. DaVinci Resolve provides incredible performance in a low cost solution which can be easily upgraded by adding extra GPUs for supercomputer power to handle 4K resolutions, stereoscopic 3D and real time grading direct from raw camera files such as ARRI RAW, RED RAW and Sony RAW files which can be handled with ease.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world's highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design's DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability, while the company's Emmy award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including stereoscopic 3D and 4K workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. For more information, please check http://www.blackmagicdesign.com.

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