‘Alien vs. Predator: Requiem’ editorial team relies on Final Cut Pro, KONA 3

The editorial team responsible for the new Twentieth Century Fox release "Alien vs. Predator: Requiem" relied on Apple Final Cut Pro and AJA’s KONA 3 video capture card to integrate its workflow with the pipeline at visual effects studio Hydraulx.

The effects-heavy film, directed by visual effects artists and commercial and music video directors the Brothers Strause, was shot on 35mm three-perf film, which allowed Hydraulx to cut the film at a 1080i resolution, lay down previews to a D5 deck and go out to an HD deck for studio reviews before finishing the film at EFILM with a 2K DI scan and film output.

The editorial pipeline employed five KONA 3 cards, one each for the projection system, an editor system, a visual effects editor system, a utility system and an assistant system.

Ryan Chavez, the movie’s visual effects editor, said he used the Apple Final Cut Pro, KONA 3-based workflow for several reasons including the performance and reliability of the setup and the flexibility gained by making creative changes and outputting without a traditional online interface.

KONA 3 is an uncompressed capture card for SD, HD and dual-link 4:4:4 HD for PCI Express (PCIe) Apple G5 Power Macs and Mac Pro systems. According to Chavez, its downstream keyer made the editorial team’s lives much easier. "The real-time keyer saves us hours — we can load images with an alpha channel and it goes straight to tape," he said.

For more information, visit www.aja.com.