AJA Video Reveals Kona 3 Card Used in Making "The Flock"

AJA Video of Grass Valley, CA announced on Monday that the KONA 3 video capture card was used to facilitate a unique 2K workflow and Digital Intermediate (DI) for the Bauer Martinez feature release "The Flock," starring Richard Gere and Claire Danes.

"KONA 3 is AJAis top-of-the-line uncompressed capture card for SD, HD, Dual Link HD and 2K for PCI Express (PCIe) Apple G5 Power Macs and Mac Pro systems, and was an integral part of the filmis Apple Final Cut Pro editing pipeline," according to Jon Thorn, the Product Manager for Desktop Products.

Mr. Thorn spoke with TMO about the Kona 3 system. "2K workflow refers to the digitization of 35 mm film from its native 4:3 format into digital video that is 2048 x 1556 pixels. That video data, which can be in dpx format, can then be imported with the Kona 3 card and edited in Final Cut Pro," he said.

Data in 2K format streams at 12.2 MB/frame or 300 MB/s and requires very capable video equipment and high speed RAID storage. The Kona 3 card, for about US$3,000 achieves the performance of equipment that cost US$10K to $15K in the past.

David Blum of Phoenix, Arizona based Catalyst FX served as the visual effects supervisor on the film, and recruited George Rizkallah of Burbank, Californiais Product Factory to develop a customized 2K pipeline that would enable the team to do a final conform on the film using Appleis Final Cut Pro.

"The Flock" is the first major feature film finished in 2K, DPX, 4:4:4 log color space, using Final Cut Pro, and both Blum and Rizkallah credit the success of this workflow to the AJA KONA 3 card.