While the technology curve continues to be steep with new innovations making an impact both on the creative and business fronts, sometimes the cause and effect can get lost in the shuffle as companies scramble day to day to maintain a positive momentum.
So SHOOT thought it a good time for reflection, asking post/editorial executives and artists to assess how new advances in hardware and software–as well as how new ways of doing business–have come to roost and affect their professional lives.
We posed the following question:
What new technology (i.e., software, hardware including post equipment, HD camera lensing) and or way of doing business (workflow, creative partnerships) has positively or negatively impacted your creative role and/or business model this past year? Please explain–and feel free to cite a recent project that reflects this impact.
Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received:
Steve Beal,
president, Bionic, New York
Earlier this year, our company, the creative boutique Bionic, announced a strategic alliance with our friends Flying Machine, one of New York City’s top branding firms. The idea was to make our design, editorial and audio services come together with the incredible expertise of Flying Machine’s Micha Riss and have him serve as creative director for Bionic on campaigns and projects.
The evolution of this idea came after we had watched some mega-post houses of the 80’s and 90’s like National Video and Editel drastically over-reach with their offerings. A CD on the level of Micha is extremely hard to find, and after we had collaborated on several successful projects, we realized that in these tight economic times, why not forge a creative alliance instead of launching our own competing department?
As we’ve learned first-hand, finding the right alliance can be a very cost-effective way to grow your business. Both of our companies feel extremely fortunate to have found a relationship like this that is mutually beneficial: We’re perfect puzzle pieces fitting together, tapping into each other’s work, contacts and building up our reels.
The proof is in the bottom line–at Bionic we’re seeing close to a tripling of revenue for our graphics department, with the added benefit that work is spilling over into our editorial and audio suites. Together, we’ve teamed up to give Eye2Eye Digital a full promo package for the HBO original movie My Zinc Bed. We’ve also created a double width HD presentation with plenty of 3D animation and special FX for 303 East 33rd Street, the first green condominium in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood. More is on the way.
This creative alliance with Flying Machine has gone far and beyond any technology upgrade we could have made.
Roe Bressan, president/COO,
Bluerock/Spontaneous, New York
High-definition technology has provided a tremendous opportunity for Bluerock and Spontaneous to partner with production companies and advertising agencies to foster a renewed sense of the creative collective. As editors and designers, we are collaborating more than ever before utilizing all that technology has to offer to tell the client’s story. Obviously, the lack of an industry HD standard is challenging, but we accepted a long time ago, that a formula work flow was a thing of the past. We hooked our wagons to understanding as much as we could about the HD universe and have worked actively to share that knowledge with our clients, educating, protecting and creating with them simultaneously.
Jon Ettinger, managing director,
FilmCore San Francisco, Santa Monica, New York
The future is here. After much discussion surrounding “digital workflows,” the industry has finally begun to make good on the promise of a “tapeless” environment. That is not to say that everything is completely sorted out. In fact, given the many options for acquistion (Red vs. Phantom, for example) and finishing (What flavor of HD would you care for today, sir?) the world of postproduction has never been more confusing. The good news is that after many years of post being perceived as “easy” to do, the pendulum has swung back toward the many well educated and experienced post professionals in our business. I cannot imagine a responsible client trying to do a complex job these days without a team of well-informed post folks. Once again, experience counts.
Samantha Hart, co-president,
Foundation Content, Chicago
On the post side of things, we can’t say enough about the Xsan infrastructure that Apple has put in place for us. We have been able to handle a much greater HD workflow as a result of our extensive storage capabilities and the efficiency of the system. We are currently augmenting our Xsan with SAS drives to help facilitate our render farm as our graphics division has also significantly expanded in recent months.
But our greatest advancements as a company continue to be due to our dedicated and talented staff and the creativity they bring to each and every project.
Igor Kovalik, editor/partner,
Beast, bicoastal and Dallas
The last year has seen a significant paradigm shift in postproduction. For years, the editing workflow was pretty much standardized. Images were captured on film, dailies would arrive on tape, editors would cut, approved cuts would be transferred, onlined, mixed and delivered. With few variations, this was the dominant model that’s been in place as long as most editors have been cutting.
This is no longer the case. Increasingly jobs are presenting new challenges to not only Beast’s workflow, but our business model as well. With the recent advances in camera technology, “asset acquisition” takes on many forms as does the delivery medium. This spring, I worked on three back-to-back RedCam jobs. No two shared the same workflow. With the emergence of new technologies, the offline shop is now becoming a lab as well. We are now handling drives straight out of the camera. Extracting the files and getting them into Avid/Final Cut can add days to the process depending on the amount being shot (which in these formats ALWAYS ends up being way more than film). Seldom does the schedule and/or budget account for this. Furthermore, there is the added liability of handling “the negative” in the form of the drives.
Finishing adds a whole range of new options as well.
Although exciting on many levels, these new technologies put added pressure on the offline shop to effectively handle the expectations of each project and the limitations created by its specific workflow. Not only do our assistants need to be completely aware of the latest technical advancements, but the producers need to have an equally in-depth knowledge. Given the current economic climate and the lack of clients’ experience with some of these formats, the need to protect the project as well as the company is greater than ever.
Craig Leffel, senior colorist/partner,
Optimus, Chicago
I would say one of the biggest impacts in the last year for us at Optimus is Non-Film Acquisition Imagery. Digital motion picture cameras have been a long time in coming, and it’s a really exciting time. It seems like every time a new camera is released, a new workflow needs to be addressed. It’s been really rewarding to work with Knox McCormac, our director of operations, and guide our staff and clients through the educational process, because this is really new for everyone. The frustrating part is the conversations that sometimes happen on set that are out of our control… sometimes through misunderstanding or just plain misinformation, the idea gets communicated that shipping massive amounts of data into a post house will be “No big deal” or “It’s digital, that means you can start working in no time”–and all that happens on our end is that we have to start raising red flags and running for cover…. because no one wants to hear that things just got harder or slower. Here’s a little math for you–if your production runs at 24 frames per second–that’s 86,400 frames per hour. Those frames have to be moved from set to post, and then converted into something an editor can edit comfortably with. That does not fit into the realtime language we’ve all been speaking the last 20 years. Right now it’s technology dependent, and that will change over time. What is clear is that the process has changed forever, and the language and expectations we currently use are clearly in need of change. At Optimus, we regard this as a tremendous opportunity to help ease our clients into a new dynamic given our familiarity with the strengths and pitfalls of the latest “gifts” technology has brought us.
Elad Offer, creative director/owner
DIGIT, Los Angeles
1. The most groundbreaking is the evolvement of really early and close cooperation between us as a VFX and design house and advertising agencies. We are becoming more and more involved early in the projects–all the way to the client pitch and in some occasions even in helping the agency get the business in the first place. Being called in early really allows us to play a creative role and bring new looks and new possibilities to the table and have them incorporated seamlessly into the creative rather than struggling later in the process with what are some times conflicting approaches.
2. An important technological innovation has been the introduction of P2 cameras or other high-definition, relatively low cost “prosumer” cameras with direct to drive capabilities. This has totally revolutionized our ability to do pretty complicated and elaborate tests for our clients without a huge expenditure in shooting costs. We can go out and grab the elements we need at a high resolution without much trouble and that extends our abilities to try things out before committing to a real shoot.
3. The introduction of direct to hard drive pro cameras like the Red and Viper is slowly starting to revolutionize our business but not only in the way that most people think but rather on the coloring side. Because we as a postproduction house get delivered high definition but even more importantly, high bit-depth, image sequences to work with, we can now do in the online practically the same amount of color work that the colorist can do directly from the film. We are starting to see more projects where the telecine facility is no longer part of the process and all the coloring gets done in the online; there are many advantages to this: reduced cost, much improved “power windows” (we can use free form garbage masks and rotoscoping to single parts of the image out as well as use automated trackers and other new technology), flexibility of the pipleline and so on but the biggest advantage to the client is that we are doing the coloring in the context of the edit and can check it while its playing; there is no longer a worry of having to go back to do a “tape to tape” or fix some shots because they don’t look right when cut in.
4. On the 3D CGI side a huge leap forward has been made in the quality and ease of use of tracking systems; we’ve reached a point where we can track in 3 dimensions, relatively painlessly, almost any scene. All that’s needed is enough visual cues for the algorithms to snap on to. What this means is two fold: first, us VFX sups can be a lot less annoying on set and put a lot less demands on production in order to get the quality of the tracking we need; most of the time the director can just shoot with a completely free camera and we can still insert CG elements in later. Second, it is much easier now to insert CG elements into shots that were never shot with that in mind opening up many new creative opportunities and also allowing us to fix more things, more quickly and more easily, once already in post.
Dominic Pandolfino,
CEO, Nice Shoes, New York
Smaller, faster, cheaper–that has been the mantra for years. Now add to that, “one-stop shopping.” This addendum to the list is the latest pendulum swing to our changing landscape. When we started Nice Shoes, the operative word was “boutique.” Now, our clients want all the services in one location, the obvious advantage being the ease with which work gets done, together with the ability to package the project to keep costs down. In order to facilitate this process, Nice Shoes is planning on consolidating our different services at one location.
Additionally, we are looking at different technologies that will help us to continue to do a better job and work more efficiently. Clients sometimes don’t appreciate the advantages in technology that enhance their experience and speed up the workflow–they just know that when they come to a place like Nice Shoes, the job is flawless. What people should know is that not all technology is created equally and not all companies buy the same equipment. That takes talent, engineering, time, experience and money. We feel firmly that it’s important to continually invest in the infrastructure.
Nice Shoes recently completed a multi-million dollar purchase of a new color correction system for telecine. The largest installation of Baselight systems worldwide, it allows us to employ multiple colorists on the same project at the same time, as well as employing the most advanced compositing and tracking tools, in our opinion.
To complement our visual effects and design artists, we have increased the size of our render farm that allows them to work at the highest levels without having to stop the process. The slowdown that is sometime experienced in HD, due to processing, takes place in the background at Nice Shoes, transparently.
The most talented artists want to play on the best equipment. This is our mantra.
Michael Saia, editor/partner,
jumP, New York
While technology alone never really impacts our creative role as editors, we are and have always been in addition to storytellers, the managers of the postproduction process. In that role, we’re currently faced with a variety of HD formats; Red, P2/DVC Pro, XD CAM, etc. Managing a workflow for media that arrives on a drive, or a card, as native camera files can be tricky and continues to evolve. Working resolutions that ease storage issues and rendering times need to be agreed upon and standardized within our company, with an easy way back through the up–res process to a finished cut.
This all requires a working knowledge of different HD codecs, and the tradeoffs of space requirements, vs artifacts and processor performance in these different compression schemes.
Longer form projects in these formats or even mixed formats present other issues: do we store on our company media sever or purchase free standing RAIDS dedicated to a project? The latter solution compromises the ability of editors to share in a project, but storage space continues to be a reality.
Managing expectations throughout that process can also be tricky in that there exists a natural expectation that startup times on a project will be instantaneous, and since so much can be done on a desktop, “can’t we just color correct and mix it right here, right now?” The answer of course is generally yes, with a caveat of “how good do you want it to look and sound?” if the answer is “really good”, then shouldn’t a colorist color it, and a mixer mix it? And that gets us back to our traditional role of managing the post process. Once again, with a new set of tools and challenges. It’s not unlike twenty years ago when we moved off of moviolas and into an electronic environment. Tools change, but the demands and rewards of the craft remain largely unchanged as long as one is willing to evolve.
Kelly Vander Linda, editor/partner,
Collective, Seattle
The biggest technological challenge Collective has faced in recent years is the advent of tapeless media such as P2, XDCAM, and Red. We don’t see a great amount of this work as film is still our clients preferred standard, but it is making inroads.
We fully upgraded our suites to both Avid Nitris DX and Final Cut Pro to help accommodate for new tapeless formats and HD. Each new tapeless format requires some research and testing. There is a lot of pressure on both FCP and AVID to stay up to date, and so far they are doing a great job, but it does take time. Up until our upgrades we had to ask the production company to transfer the footage to a master tape format such as HDSR.
Helping the client understand the risks of tapeless media is another hurdle. The footage is stored on a disc. And discs can and do go bad. Plus longevity of the media is more at risk. We ask that the production company keep a backup of the files before they ship to us.
We are in the middle of a low budget XDCAM job. They used the newer Sony EX-1, which required some extra steps prior to loading. But once done, it loaded fast and we immediately began cutting in high definition. The end product is going to be SD so we will down-convert and layout the final product to a Digibeta.
From here we may do tape-to-tape color grading in a telecine and add graphics in online. This workflow eliminates the need for the colorist and online folks to work directly with the files.
Creatively, for us as editors, it doesn’t make a difference. We can still tell our stories with it.
Steve Wild, president,
Grace & Wild, Inc., Farmington Hills, Mich.
It’s certainly no secret that our Detroit-based advertising community has endured a great amount of pressure recently.
Grace & Wild has countered that pressure by continuing to evolve its services to the needs of the marketplace.
This past year, Grace & Wild made a large investment in DI workflow technology for its Postique post facility. The new equipment, a Thomson Spirit 2K scanner, da vinci Resolve color correction workstations and DVS server and storage equipment, interfaces with our Flames/Inferno and Quantel iQ/eQ environments to improve productivity and technical capability. Our clients have been very receptive to the improved workflow and we have been awarded several projects based on our investment in this technology.
In response to client interest in multi-channel delivery services, we have developed alternative skills oriented to new media content creation and distribution. This has broadened our resources in a transitional marketplace. Producing images and re-purposing them for use in multiple media formats is a common request now. We are able to provide customers with services that span beyond traditional broadcast to include web, mobile, podcast, print, digital signage, etc. Production, editing and CGI (3D) services created by our Emerging Media Solutions and Division X groups for clients such as Toyota, Border’s Books, Alticor (formerly Amway) are prime examples of this new trend.
Also, the State of Michigan passed a very lucrative film incentive package in April of this year. Grace & Wild’s hdstudios and Filmcraft Imaging divisions have benefitted from several projects that were attracted here due to the program. The lab at Filmcraft Imaging has been busy processing film for a wide range of projects; documentaries, independent films and major studio features. At hdstudios, projects include crews and equipment rental for those shooting HD, sound stages, editorial and dailies services.
