Starring Orlando Bloom, Milla Jovovich, Christoph Walz and Strawberry - the well-known story of the Three Musketeers is being retold, but this time with cutting-edge 3D technology. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and edited by Alexander Berner, the film utilized Strawberry for its collaborative editing. The chief editor has told us about the ins and outs of the shoot, the challenges of the 3D workflow and how Strawberry managed to meet these complex requirements.

Once again we are witnessing the story of audacious young D’ Artagnan along with the three former legendary Musketeers. Now they must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer who has set out to seize the French throne and engulf war-torn Europe.
The 17th century French setting, the lavish costumes, not to mention an ambitious rebuild of a capacious boat, are grandiose and draw the audience immediately into another world. On the technical side, “The Three Musketeers” is characterized by opulent scenes and superb stunts, all showcased through modern 3D technology. A multicam workflow is created through the choice of multiple cameras—up to four Arri Alexas in four units.

Alexander Berner (Digital |Editors) and his editing team received up to 6 hours of material each day with which to prepare the dailies. However, this was certainly not the only challenge. The biggest question was how to create an optimal 3D workflow for an action movie that utilized fast cuts. Berner and his team watched myriad released movies of this type, yet they still had to learn everything from scratch as the 3D workflow meant a completely new dimension for the team.

3D offers different choices and techniques than does 2D. According to Berner, you could even say it is a “philosophy you choose.” Anderson, the director, who is well-known for the “Resident Evil” series, chose here to work within the filmmaking concept of convergence, a purposeful technique used in digital technologies and moving imagery.

Special attention needs to be paid to “focus,” especially when creating a movie with fast cuts, since the brain needs to adjust to the same depth of field for any given cut. Otherwise, the movie will literally give the audience a headache. To have a clear orientation of where the foreground and background are, the editing team of “Avatar” shared a trick of the trade with Berner. Putting markers on the screen helps to denote the depth of field and to get the proper orientation within a three-dimensional space. Matching the distance allows for fast cutting, just as would be possible in the 2D experience.

Another great challenge of the post production phase of this film was the split of the production for the director’s cut. While the chief editor was situated in Los Angeles to work on the director’s cut, the assisting editing team stayed in Munich. This put Strawberry to the test. The two Strawberry servers were mirrored in order to gain a snapshot of the production available on both systems. The most up-to-date versions of the works in progress stayed in perfect alignment, regardless of the different time zones. Each night, the assistant editors in Germany uploaded the daily footage and rough cuts to the L.A. server, ensuring that everything remained synchronized over the entire editing progress. Since all the Strawberry databases had been previously mirrored, the German and U.S. edits maintained the same structure of projects and metadata

Berner and his team are still finalizing their work on the film, which will be released this year. The finished product will be a modern-day accomplishment—a film characterized by technical innovation, magnificent scenes and beautiful atmosphere.


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