Technicolor's Postwork on Lincoln

Director Steven Spielberg, and writer Tony Kushner, along with multiple Academy Award-winning actor, Daniel Day Lewis have created a tour-de-force portrait of American president Abraham Lincoln during the last months of his life as he moves the country towards abolishing slavery before the end of the Civil War.

Photographed and edited by Spielberg’s longtime collaborators, Janusz Kaminski and Michael Kahn, ACE and produced by the director and Kathleen Kennedy, the film was adapted from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals. Lincoln features a stunning cast of supporting actors led by Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Straithairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, and Tim Blake Nelson.

Filmed on various locations in Virginia and Chicago, Technicolor-Postworks’ New York imaging facility provided front-end dailies (handled by Chris Gennarelli) and technical oversight to the negative processing, with full digital intermediate and finishing services provided from Technicolor’s Hollywood imaging facility led by supervising digital colorist Michael Hatzer, second colorist Chris Jensen and DI producer Bob Peishel.

Lincoln got a 4k finish at Technicolor’s DI facility in Hollywood.

The project was scanned at 4k from original camera negative on Arri film scanners.

Hatzer grades on the Autodesk Luster for real time color correction. We then created a 4k film out, a 4k digital cinema version and a 2k digital cinema version-giving digital viewers in theaters utilizing 4K projection, the ability to experience true 4K resolution

Hatzer said “It was an amazing experience working with Steven and Janusz on such an important film like Lincoln. They both have such superb eyes and creative vision, they knew exactly what they wanted to create in the DI with that beautiful negative.”

Disney also brought all of their theatrical trailer finishing and the color correction on all of the broadcast television spots to Technicolor’ Marketing Services group, maintaining the artistic integrity and consistency of the work.