I founded Tessive in 2009 because I had noticed that some of the math I’d worked on in X-ray CAT scanners would apply to movie cameras. I’d been thinking about how our X-ray systems were better than our competitors specifically because we allowed the detector to capture images for the entire exposure time while in motion around the patient’s head. This introduced motion blur, but mathematically that was very important, as it improved the sampling characteristics of the system and made for much more accurate renderings of the patient anatomy.
Some of my first scribbles about the waveform for a movie camera shutter.
When trying to explain this counterintuitive idea to my colleagues, I kept talking about motion blur in movie cameras, and how stop-motion animation never “looks” right. Movie cameras intentionally allow motion blur in each frame, which is a key feature in making the final move look right to moviegoers. But as I was explaining this math, I realized that even movie cameras weren’t doing it right.
So I set out to make a better shutter for movie cameras! Instead of a sharp waveform (closed shutter opens rapidly, then closes rapidly), I designed a system to make a “soft shutter”, where the exposure ramps gracefully from opaque to clear and then back to opaque over the course of the exposure.
I brought in a partner to help with the project. He did all the electrical design, board layout, and assembly. He also figured out how to put it together, helped shoot all the footage, and did a million other things. I did the firmware and sourced the parts and made the signal theory math work (as well as the finances.)
We went to our first trade show with a fully working product in June of 2011. The show was held at the Paramount Studios lot, and we showed up with this crazy idea. The first thing we would do is show how the system fixed the “wagon wheel effect” in-camera, live on the show floor. Then we had a reel of test footage we’d shot, and the overall look of the footage was apparent. With just two of us to staff the booth, it was exhausting, but so exciting.
Immediately after the first show, we were invited to go to the UK to use the system on some test footage at Shepperton Studios. We had some emergency engineering work to do to get the system synchronized with the ARRI Alexa digital cinema camera, which was rapidly becoming the most commonly used camera in the industry.
The system was available as a rental item, which is the typical way for the movie industry to acquire equipment for a shoot. We would talk to rental houses in the LA area and place systems on consignment, then work directly with cinematographers to encourage rentals. We did our own demonstration footage, and had great relationships with rental houses.
The utility of the product was immediately recognized, but the actual implementation was a bit difficult. The liquid crystal had to be placed into the filter tray, and the drive box attached to the camera. Then the shutter had to be synchronized to the camera frame time, which was accomplished using a “calibration wand” we provided. This phase calibration was easy enough to do, but it’s another step in using the system.
Ultimately, the patent and IP for the Time Filter was sold to a digital movie camera company, and we worked with them to integrate the technology directly into their camera. This solution was much better, and provided a seamless solution for the end-users. We worked for about 9 months to get the whole integration completed.
