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Watch my Showreel

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This is a mix of some hand-picked videos from different projects over the years.

 

If videos do not play, please go directly to YouTube

© SLFILM, Sebastian Leitner

Teaching Proof & Reviews

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Seminars and Workshops


3-day in-depth training course on Cinema Mastering, DCP and KDM
for five time Oscar® nominee CARTOON SALOON (Ireland) in June 2021
together with Carl Hetherington (developer of DCP-o-matic)

 

Sebastian and his colleague were able to take us on a two-days journey through the art of filmmaking, exploring the technical aspects and settings of filmmaking and editing as well as the art of dramaturgy and narrating stories. His workshop was a valuable help in developing our projects further and was a perfect combination between „hardware“ (technical requirements) and „software“ (personal skills) needed when trying to develop meaningful videos.

Elisabeth Korinth (Interactive Heritage Map of Syria, a project of the Museum for Islamic Art)
Just wanted to say thanks so much for writing this ebook! The DCP I created worked perfectly (and looked amazing) when I previewed it in the cinema and I doubt I could’ve produced it so quickly and confidently without having read your recommended methods. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and expertise with filmmakers for such a reasonable price.

Mark, Buyer of my ebook on DCP mastering)
A strongly recommended masterclass imparting important knowledge about Digital Cinema Mastering which cannot be found anywhere else. DCP creation has taken on an important role today. Sebastian Leitner shares many years of experience and his know-how. A step-by-step guide to a professional DCP.

Ehsan Haghighat, Head Instructor Film at SAE Institute Berlin
Der Unterricht ist vom Inhalt und Umfang der, den wir uns schon früher in anderen Kursen gewünscht hätten. So sollte eine Vorlesung sein! Es ist mitnichten selbstverständlich, technische Daten unterhaltsam als auch zugleich inhaltlich dicht vermittelt zu bekommen.

SAE Student, Abschlussklasse 'Finishing and Mastering for Broadcast and Cinema'
A big thanks for your excellent skills in delivering huge amounts of info to our team at the IFI. Everyone came away happy and with new insights. Sure enough, a week later, we put those new skills into use when we received a DCP and discovered the sound was only coming from the left channel. We were able to re-map the sound with perfect results for our sold-out show of three hundred.

Paul Markey, Senior Manager at Irish Film Institute'

 

Seminar/Webinar Examples

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The following are common workshops I’ve been teaching in German and English since 2020. There are also more individual ones available, for single audiences or groups, online or offline. Some are available to listen in at SAE Institute Berlin on a regular basis.

Book a Course

 

  • VIDEO FORMATS & CODECS
    Technology is constantly advancing and new, better formats and compression algorithms with exotic-sounding names or simply a sequence of numbers are constantly emerging. Cinema, TV, the web and computers all use different codecs. In this basic course by professional editor Sebastian Leitner, you will learn what is actually behind all these things and what digitalisation and signal processing actually mean.

 

  • VISUAL COMPOSITION IN FILM
    How is tension created, what makes a filmic image or photo immersive? What is the central theme of image design, how do we perceive the world through the camera’s eye and where do all these unconscious impulses come from? In this basic workshop by director and filmmaker Sebastian Leitner, you will learn the most important connections between subjective reality, interpretation, manipulation and dramaturgy of the image section and its content.

 

  • MOVIE MAGIC: THE LANGUAGE OF FILM
    The illusion of colourful worlds and dangerous action scenes is created primarily through one thing: manipulation. In the media, the view through the camera, an edit and the montage of images are never objective, even if you actually want to work as a documentary. However, this is how stories can be told and emotions made tangible through skilful psychology. A short excursion into the basics of storytelling by professional editor and filmmaker Sebastian Leitner.

 

  • SCRIPT PITCH & STORY SALES
    By industry standard, sell your idea or book. What is expected with this, especially American, standard? This webinar will shed light on the reality of big players like Netflix: How does the pitch make an impression? What are they looking for? What is an exciting world? Characters or plot more important? Filmmaker and producer Sebastian Leitner will give you an insight into the film business to prepare you for submissions and offers.

 

  • UNDERSTANDING THE LIMITS OF A.I.
    Why ‘Skynet’ won’t replace artists (yet). It’s about the media and the use of AI, more precisely about the use cases of generative artificial intelligence. What role humans play as operators, and why more knowledge and craftsmanship are needed to achieve satisfactory results with AI. An overview of the areas of application of AI in film and media, as well as an open discourse on its limits and restrictions.

DCP Webinar & eBook

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(Online) Training: Become a DCP-Professional (Resolve Workshop):

Please get in touch for a price estimate. Costs depend on group size and extent.
Alternatively, you can book me for 1:1 online tutoring via Skype or Zoom.us.
  See reviews and testimonials for my seminars and webinars  

I teach DCP-creation (Win/Mac) with all aspects of the audiovisual mastering process, including subtitling, transfer (linux cloning) and QC. You can book me for group or individual (online) tutoring in German and English or purchase one of my workshops: Davinci Resolve Studio (since v15) added the best cheap but professional way for DCP mastering (Kakadu J2K) but it’s a lot more complicated than that with many potential issues. The crucial work takes place before and after encoding. Digital cinema has been around since 2002 and gains more importance by the day due to movie making and festival screenings more ubiquitous. My goal is to teach you how to deliver fully DCI-compliant DCPs with 100% playback compatibility – while also making sure it looks and sounds as intended! I will get you to a level to offer DCP-mastering yourself and take care of all your delivery needs.

 

E-BOOK PDF

  • Download the starter version of my DCP-mastering e-book to familiarise yourself with available tools and the basic workflow.

FREE
25 Pages, limited content (no screenshots or walkthroughs)

Deutsch English

  • Purchase the FULL version of the e-book with all workflow tutorials (incl. Resolve Studio 16+, Audio and QC tools) and extras.

€ 9.00
51 Pages, complete content, app tutorials and more

Purchase Bilingual

Please provide your email address to receive products and use ‘friends‘

 

VIDEO COURSE

  • An extensive 6 hours video masterclass with exclusive materials and hands-on examples in Resolve Studio (not lite) & QC tools. Pro-Insights, complete guides, tutorials and trouble shooting. In English with live audience. This is your complete resource to learn and understand DCP-mastering for a global market. Read what’s included

€ 99.00
Learn every step about cinema mastering and DCP creation

Purchase English

Please provide your email address to receive products and use ‘friends‘

 

FIX COLOR/GAMMA SHIFTS ON APPLE RETINA DISPLAYS

Maybe you’ve noticed but many people suffer from this (and have not found a solution over years) – it’s not really a bug, more of an Apple-feature gone wrong (sounds familiar?). When you have .rec709 (or similar low range) content it gets stretched to P3 and not look consistent across all sorts of software and browsers.  Apple introduced something called ColorSync a longer while back, initially meant for images (print/scan/preview) only. A shorter while back Apple broadened its functionality to cover video as well – to ensure display accuracy across all Apple devices and systems. This mainly concerns internal/External Apple Retina Displays and supported LG UltraSharp Thunderbolt ones, but might also help on other configurations such as MacBook Pros.

So, cool, macOS now makes sure your pictures and videos look the same on all (Apple) devices – but there is a catch: only Apple software (well, mostly*) supports this – namely QuickTime, Safari, Final Cut Pro X and QuickLook) – and you will run into lots of troubles with other, non-Apple, apps (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro, VLC or say Firefox and YouTube), obviously this color sync would not work on a non-Apple hardware product as well, so expect strong shifts in color and gamma in “the real world”.

The reason being ColorSync enables certain LUTs for your graphics card in the background on a system level to compensate and shift non-wide gamut (like .rec709 or sRGB, which most video is!) color+gamma levels accordingly, trying to make the best of your P3 display. It sounds highly advantageous and cool but in the end you just don’t see the “real” image, meaning its raw values but shifted ones instead. You want to see a truthful reference image which is certainly possible on those really great Apple (cinema) displays. If you do have wide gamut (P3, .rec2020 or similar) source video, you should NOT apply this hack but transform in the end to have a .rec709 check-up as well.

If you go into Display Preferences (in your system preferences) and change the tab to “color” you will see you can choose from a bunch of ICC profiles, which are all basically LUTs for your graphics card. Don’t play around with it too much but definitely disable “True Tone” on latest Mac models. By default your Mac uses one that matches your screen Apple put in and optimized. BUT ColorSync is working its “magic” in the background and screwing with the otherwise well calibrated levels to transform any signal to P3. While not every display can natively display P3, it can certainly run rec709 or sRGB which will both look a lot punchier/contrasty and that’s the way it should be on such high-performance LED screens.

One solution (a rather pricey one) would be having a professional calibrate your system and screen so you can actually see the right color/gamma values depending on your environment without the system interfering. Another, free and quick, solution is below.

You might say: “But isn’t having a wide gamut P3 display better for working with color and gives more control over details?” My answer  to that: “Only if your source video is wide gamut (not necessarily P3 but say rec2020) as well and you know what you are doing since the outlet (where your audience will see the video) has to support it as well!”. In nearly all cases your source is rec709 gamma 2.4 (legal range), which is the international HDTV standard and therefor most cameras record in rec709 (which is basically sRGB but with 20% more gamma, sRGB being 2.2). If you work with certain LOG algorithms or special format flavors this might differ but you have to think about your outlet and audience. What are they going to see? The smart choice is to stay within rec709 or sRGB because those are the only thing, everybody can see and display! Computer systems and monitors operate in gamma 2.2 as standard setting, the web operates within gamma 2.2 as well – so sRGB is the best choice which means: rec709 should be the way to go (yes, gamma is different but on modern, bright LED screens this is fine).

The quickest, free solution is easy but kind of secret and not well documented at all! You need a display profile that circumvents ColorSync, tricking your system into displaying raw values only without transforming them! And the only profile (provided by Apple in 2012 by the way) to do so is called HD 709-A. Some people don’t have it for some reason even though it’s by Apple, so you can download it below (and put it in “User/Library/Color Sync/Profiles”)! It will take care of this tedious issue once and for all. In my experience, color and gamma are consistent across all kinds of different systems and hardware setups – yes, even broadcast monitoring/referencing setups. NOT cinema obviously, since the color standard there is DCI P3 in XYZ levels – not RGB (this is how all digital displays work).

Download HD 709-A.icc

* There is one professional video player supporting ColorSync besides QT X: “Switch” by Telestream (free with watermark)

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DCP Service Info

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Digital Cinema Mastering – On location in Berlin or via online transfer

Please get in touch for a price estimate. Costs depend on length, specs and services needed.

DCP has been the international digital cinema standard since 2002. This is what cinemas usually show and it needs to be perfect to fulfill the high standards and strict guidelines. Many believe it’s easy to create DCPs yourself but the fact is, many cinema servers are old and outdated. Cinema equipment in expensive and not everyone invests in software updates. This is were I come in: I offer professional and high-quality DCP-Mastering and have the experience to guarantee 100% playability worldwide – I will stick to the conservative IOP specs as much as possible (depending on your needs and wishes).

I provide special pricing solutions for independent and student productions as well as short content like ads.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch and ask if anything is unclear. Looking forward to mastering your movie!

Basic services include:

  • Conforming to worldwide DCI-interOP specs (2K or 4K, 5.1 or 7.1 Surround)
  • Frame rate conversion to 24p (IOP safe) and resizing to scope or flat
  • Optional DLP XML subtitles (soft) made from subtitle files like SRT/STL/SSA/…
  • Or subtitles burned-in (hardcoded) following universal formatting standards
  • Color and gamma space conversion for DCI P3 standard to match your source master
  • Unencrypted only for best compatibility and instant access
  • DCP-Masters on HDD (CRU optional) in 100% compatible Linux ext2 format
  • DCP will be thoroughly tested and validated to ensure compliance

MORE INFO

Extra services include:

  • Complete subtitles generation (+ mastering) based on a dialogue list or transcript
  • BluRay as backup in 23,98, 24 or 25p, optionally with hardcoded subtitles
  • Copying: DCP-Clones in Linux ext2 of master (+ validation)
  • DCPs up to 20 minutes can be hosted on my high-speed server for download (zip)

Customer provides:

  • HDD 2.5″ or 3.5″ (nude) with either CRU DX115 carrier or external USB3/eSata interface per master/clone
  • Subtitle file or track per language, synced to picture timecode (no formatting)
  • ProRes 422 HQ or 4444 | 10 or 12 bit recommended | GoPro Cineform or DNxHR as MXF | in 1920×1080 (16:9) or 2K/4K equivalents
  • Screenshot proof “as you see it in your software” | Information about range, color and gamma space used
  • Surround mix (out of a sound studio) embedded in video file or separate mono channels in PCM 24bit 48Khz

You can either bring by or send me a hard drive with the needed files via courier or postal mail – if you want me to use that HDD as the DCP-master, make sure it fulfils the specifications. Alternatively you can provide me with a download link of your source master and have me take care of the rest, adding purchase costs of needed hardware to your bill. Short content can be delivered fully online as well as separate audio mixes.

Side notes:

  • Avoid padding, try not to resize or conform yourself
  • Give me the native frame rate and format (no compressed MP4-files)
  • Let me recommend the best subtitle practice for you
  • If you don’t have Surround, providing 3.0 (dialogue separated on a mono track) is recommended
  • Stereo is possible but not recommended for feature films (only trailers and commercials)
  • No need for a special Dolby audio mix but consider at least R128 and a max. total volume of -6 db
  • Map and name audio channels according to Surround guidelines: name_channel.wav
  • If you can (Premiere Pro, Avid MC) switch on “Render at Maximum Depth” and “Max Render Quality”
  • A professional audio mixer can help bringing your movie to life on the big screen, as does a professional color grader
  • You cannot watch a DCP at home, please go to a (certified) cinema near you and arrange for a test screening
  • SSD media like memory keys is not recommended for DCI delivery.
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