Trevor Beattie, founder of new London-based advertising agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay (BMB), is bored with being asked about the future of advertising. “But I’m excited by the belief that it has one,” said the visionary advertising veteran, who is the featured speaker for a Master Class on Advertising scheduled as part of the 2005 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC), Sept. 8-13 at the RAI Convention Center in Amsterdam.
The former creative director and chairman of TBWA/London, perhaps best known for his campaigns for FCUK and Wonderbra, continued, “Do I know what that future holds? What shape it will take? What evolved role advertising will play in our hectic lives? Whether we will find ways of making the newest of new media pay as much as the traditional streams? What ‘branded content’ means in reality? No.
“But I do know that the phrase ‘answers on a postcard, please’ suddenly seems grossly out of date. Defining what our answers will be on in the next few years is what it’s all about. There lies gold.”
Beattie and likely more than 40,000 attendees will be searching for gold next month in Amsterdam–in areas including advertising, television and cinema entertainment, and emerging fields such as mobile applications.
With IBC’s home in Europe, it’s no surprise that there will be a full day of sessions dedicated to examining new mobile applications. It is expected that digital telephones and handheld entertainment devices will begin to carry more elaborate and developed video, audio, and multimedia services. And market research shows a public demand and a willingness to pay. So mobile application sessions were created to answer questions such as: What kind of media content is right for the mobile world? What are the killer applications for users on the move? Who could provide such services? What is the business model? And what technology should be used to deliver such services?
This year the IBC is also launching a “Mobile Zone,” which was created to bring together the latest advances in technology and applications to demonstrate the possibilities and opportunities arising from this growing area of interest.
FUTURE-PROOF POST
In addition to the conferences, the IBC exhibition hall always attracts a lot of attention. For many in post, software-based color correction systems, finishing tools, servers, scanners and other technologies used for Digital Intermediate (DI) style workflows are top of mind this year–and perhaps most important is putting them all together in a seamless workflow.
“One of the key points for us is interoperability,” reported Rainer Knebel, VP of digital intermediate services for Ascent Media Creative Services, which encompasses post houses including Company 3, Santa Monica and New York. “This is a big area; and there’s still a lot of work to do. Color correction tools don’t [always] talk to the conform tools; and conform tools [don’t always] talk to restoration tools. We have had probably most of them here [at Company 3] for testing. We continue testing, and we talk to vendors and discuss the workflow with them.
“The [manufacturers] have to commit to operate with third parties and provide APIs to make the workflow work,” he asserted. “We don’t think that one company can provide us all the features that we need. We like to cherry pick the products that work the best for our workflow and our demands.”
When asked about color grading tools in particular, Knebel explained, “When we evaluate color correctors, we want to make sure they are future proof. The investment is too high, we cannot make another investment in color correctors or postproduction tools in one or two years from now.”
Most of the color grading systems at IBC will be technologies that have already been shown at events such as the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention last April, but most manufacturers plan to arrive at IBC with new versions and more developed feature sets. Some of these exhibits will include guest colorists from the commercial industry. For instance, U.K.-based Pandora International is showcasing its new PiXi Revolution color grading and digital intermediate system with demos from Seamus O’Kane of The Mill, London and New York, Colin Harrison of Park Road Post, Wellington, NZ, and Damien Van Der Cruyssen, of Medialab, Paris.
The “workflow” tools are also evolving. For instance Mathematical Technologies will demo the latest upgrade to its Control Dailies workflow system that now supports an HD RGB 4:4:4 work flow (previously it supported 4:2:2; now it supports both). “A hot topic right now is HD 4:4:4 workflow for digital intermediates,” said Pat Howley, MTI’s worldwide director of sales. “For DI work, a lot of facilities are using HD, rather than going to 2k, so we are addressing that with Control Dailies. It became important because facilities want to do ‘economical DI’.” The new feature set also includes a 24p workflow for video-oriented dailies.
At this stand, don’t miss a demo by MTI board member Larry Chernoff, who founded Beverly Hills consulting firm Chernoff Touber Associates and is chairman of Ascent Media Creative Services. Chernoff previously dazzled showgoers at NAB with his enthusiastic demos of the product, which was developed with his input.
In editing and compositing, look for continued competition among companies including the 4A’s. No, not the American Association of Advertising Agencies. At IBC, this is Avid, Apple, Autodesk (formerly Discreet) and Adobe.
With regard to Avid, IBC attendees will get their first look at Tewksbury, Mass.-headquartered Avid Technology sharing the stand with its newly acquired video creation and distribution tools supplier Pinnacle Systems. The deal closed last month and was valued at roughly $462 million.
“The completion of this acquisition immediately strengthens Avid’s ability to serve the industries that ‘Make, Manage and Move Media’,” said Avid president and CEO David Krall, explaining that at IBC “people will be wanting to see how Pinnacle fits into the picture; I think we will be able to give them a very clear sense of that direction.”
In the editing space, Krall reported that Avid would continue to develop the Pinnacle Liquid nonlinear editing family, which will be offered both in the company’s professional video and consumer divisions. When asked how Liquid fits into a video division that already offers many nonlinear editing options, Krall explained, “Liquid has a number of capabilities that [the Avid nonlinear editing products] don’t have, like HDV editing. So Liquid is a different product–We are going to use Liquid in specific market segments not currently served by Xpress Pro.”
When asked for some insights into future plans, Krall responded, “We actually have been marching to a pretty consistent strategy since 2000 of ‘Make Manage and Move Media’.
“That strategy doesn’t have a gaping hole,” he said. “But we can also find new opportunities… The way we’ll look at any additional acquisitions is as a natural extension of that theme. We will have more [acquisitions], but I think this is the largest one we will be doing for a while.”
Meanwhile, U.K.-based Lightworks is quietly looking to get into commercials with a planned IBC debut of the new Alacrity MR editing system that offers multiformat SD and HD support, with the familiar Lightworks Touch interface. The system initially targets commercial and television editors who want a system with HD support. In conjunction with this announcement comes the introduction of a configurable server product from Lightworks parent Gee, the Geev MR (multiresolution), which was developed to work with the new Lightworks system in a networked environment.
DIGITAL CINEMA
A factor for companies considering DI-style workflows or creating content for digital cinema distribution will be the recently announced (SHOOT, 8/5, p. 1) Digital Cinema specification from studio consortium Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI). These specifications are designed to help theatrical projector and equipment manufacturers create a uniform and compatible digital cinema system–the spec also becomes a sort of target for post.
Major elements of version 1 of the DCI distribution spec include 2k (2048 pixels of horizontal resolution x1080 vertical; 24 or 48 frames per second) and 4k (4096 x 2160; 24 frames per second) image resolutions, as well as 16 channel, 24-bit audio.
“[The completed DCI spec] will impact postproduction, but postproduction is already being impacted by so many other forces. What is the best product flow throughout the DI process?–it adds yet another variable to an already complicated mess.” related Jerry Pierce, senior VP of technology at Universal Pictures, a DCI member.
To educate attendees, IBC will host a Digital Cinema workshop for the postproduction industry. Here, DCI CTO Walt Ordway, past DCI VP of technology Howard Lukk (now executive director of production technology at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank), and others will present a summary of the key elements of the spec and discuss its impact on post. This includes Steve Bergman, managing director of Hollywood-based E-Film, who is scheduled to discuss how post houses in Hollywood are currently preparing movies for digital cinema release; and Paul Collard, VP of film and digital services at Ascent Media, who will provide a view from Europe.
