Film Convert is a piece of software that can emulate a real film look for footage shot on a Red camera well beyond what present software can offer. Developed by Craig Herring and Nigel Stanford for Rubber Monkey Software it is aimed at filmmakers going for a “film look” but for a variety of reasons, including budget, need to shoot digitally.
Craig Herring’s background includes being involved in the early days of some of Wellington’s brightest business success stories. Craig started out with well-known local gaming company Sidhe Interactive when it was based in a lounge in Woburn and was working with Trademe in its initial stages. Working with innovative start-ups such as these Craig was used to jumping in, boots and all, when it came to a good idea. A few months designing bespoke film software with Nigel Sanford at Wellington production and services company Rubber Monkey they both realized there was an opportunity for a business right in front of them. “We guessed everybody had the same problems we did and nobody was solving them” says Craig.
Rubber Monkey Software (which is Craig, Nigel and Lance Lones) produces workflow products that are the bread and butter of the company but it’s Film Convert that they are really excited by. The film look is highly coveted by filmmakers but shooting on film can be prohibitively expensive, and working on footage in a post-production colour grade to get the look can take much more time than filmmakers have or can afford.
Like all good entrepreneurs Craig and Nigel needed to find the right people to fill in the blanks in their skills and knowledge. Cue Lance Lones who had worked for years at Weta Digital who had answers to the curly questions that kept coming up. “We assumed we could do it ourselves when we should have got an expert in straight away. Instead of jumping in and building something we should have gone through some solid research” says Craig “getting the expert really pays off’. “We took our idea to Grow Wellington initially. These guys were very interested in our product and they were able to advocate on our behalf when taking the idea to TechNZ (regional office), who were very receptive. TechNZ funding covered the cost of bringing in expert advice and allowed us to take the project through to completion.”
Now that the prototype has been developed Craig is looking at what potential challenges they might have getting their product to market. “One problem I think will be communicating that it’s not just standard film-look plug in – it’s actually been done properly and nobody has really taken a camera sensor and matched it to a film stock before.” Rubber Money is also looking at making the software as adaptable as possible “We may need to develop plugins for various colour-grading suites so they don’t need to re-configure a massive pipe-line or render farm, which would be a huge cost to them” The research is paying off though and is likely to provide further opportunities “ We’ve built it for the Red but we’ve got a pipeline now that can pretty much take any camera and any film stock and make them look identical.
This will be music to the ears of many small to middle sized projects who felt, until now, that a genuine film look was beyond their means. Like all successful entrepreneurs Rubber Monkey has developed a product for a growing market that hasn’t been well served in this area. Given the track record of other start-up business’s Craig has been involved with, Rubber Money Software would definitely be one to watch.