ITV Studios Norway, part of ITV Studios Nordic has adopted Avid Everywhere to streamline its media production and management, and facilitate remote collaboration across its facilities in Norway, Sweden and Finland. The Avid platform will enable ITV Studios Norway to accelerate its production of entertainment shows, while gaining significant operational efficiencies and cost savings.
Part of ITV Studios UK, the UK’s largest commercial production company, ITV Studios Nordic produces or co-produces more than 40 leading international television programs for broadcasters in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland–including Keeping the Nation Alive, Night Patrol, Come Dine With Me, Hell’s Kitchen, and The Chase.
Faced with handling a rapidly growing volume of media across its sites, while working with an outdated, labor-intensive and inefficient infrastructure, ITV Studios Norway was quick to see the benefits of the Avid MediaCentral Platform. Remote collaboration has enabled production, editorial and engineering teams dispersed across the region to easily work together in real time to create, manage and distribute compelling content. By centralizing its content management workflow, the company can more efficiently and cost effectively manage its production pipeline. And automating existing manual ingest and transcoding processes has further reduced operating costs.
“Our first priority is to create compelling and entertaining content to help our clients attract and retain audiences. But we were spending too many man-hours performing mundane tasks, and couldn’t access and manage our content easily, which led to production inefficiencies,” said Jon Sverre Høiden, COO of ITV Studios Norway. “By investing in Avid Everywhere and getting on the platform, we now benefit from a tightly integrated, open, end-to-end workflow that has vastly improved our operational processes and productivity.”
The workflow, installed by local Avid partner VideoUtstyr, comprises solutions from the Avid Media, Avid Artist and Avid Storage Suites. Centered on the Interplay | Production Facility Package, ITV Studios Nordic benefits from Interplay | Production asset management and remote workflow capabilities, including Avid MediaCentral | UX and Media Composer | Cloud. On-premise editing is handled by Avid Media Composer | Software and the workflow is supported with Avid ISIS 5500 shared storage.
Review: Writer-Directors Scott Beck and Bryan Wood’s “Heretic”
"Heretic" opens with an unusual table setter: Two young missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are discussing condoms and why some are labeled as large even though they're all pretty much a standard size. "What else do we believe because of marketing?" one asks the other.
That line will echo through the movie, a stimulating discussion of religion that emerges from a horror movie wrapper. Despite a second-half slide and feeling unbalanced, this is the rare movie that combines lots of squirting blood and elevated discussion of the ancient Egyptian god Horus.
Our two church members — played fiercely by Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East — are wandering around trying to covert souls when they knock on the door of a sweet-looking cottage. Its owner, Mr. Reed, offers a hearty "Good afternoon!" He welcomes them in, brings them drinks and promises a blueberry pie. He's also interested in learning more about the church. So far, so good.
Mr. Reed is, of course, if you've seen the poster, the baddie and he's played by Hugh Grant, who doesn't go the snarling, dead-eyed Hannibal Lecter route in "Heretic." Grant is the slightly bumbling, bashful and self-mocking character we fell in love with in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but with a smear of menace. He gradually reveals that he actually knows quite a bit about the Mormon religion — and all religions.
"It's good to be religious," he says jauntily and promises his wife will join them soon, a requirement for the church. Homey touches in his home include a framed "Bless This Mess" needlepoint on a wall, but there are also oddities, like his lights are on a timer and there's metal in the walls and ceilings.
Writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Wood — who also... Read More