The weekend before Super Bowl XXXIX, the National Football League (NFL) spot “Tomorrow”–which featured NFL players singing the classic “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie–was lensed on location in Miami and in the Florida Keys. Meanwhile, editor Chuck Willis of bicoastal/international Cut + Run got a glimpse of his own tomorrow–he was sitting under a palm tree on the beach, simultaneously cutting the spot on a laptop computer with Avid Technology’s XPress Pro nonlinear editing software.
Changes are afoot, and much of that is prompted by advancements in technologies such as editing software. This can make editing a portable process, and an increasing number of editors are starting to take their work out of the edit suite–and on location, on the road, or simply home for an early night. Sometimes, these capabilities can be critical, as Willis learned on the NFL shoot.
Super Bowl spot production is notorious for painfully tight deadlines, and this year was certainly no different. Production on “Tomorrow,” directed by Matt Aselton of New York-based Epoch Films client-direct for the NFL, got the green light at a very late date; it was shot the weekend before the Super Bowl, and the spot was delivered the day before the broadcast.
“I never had a schedule that compressed,” says Willis. “We never could have finished on time without that technology. But it wasn’t difficult, and it wasn’t a hardship to work that way. It was easy and comfortable, and [the portable editing technology] made it possible.”
Admittedly, he also enjoyed the opportunity to work on these beachfront locations. “It was great,” he says, acknowledging that this luxurious “editing suite” would not have been an option a few years ago.
From the laptop, Willis output the final EDL (edit decision list) for the film to tape transfer and postproduction, all of which stayed in Miami. The film to tape was completed at Cineworks Digital Studios, the conform at Manhattan Transfer-Miami, and the sound mix at Outpost Digital. That was the first time Willis visited those sites. “The facilities were really good; I was impressed,” he says.
At Cineworks, Willis had an extra treat; he was reunited with former Tape House president Mark Polyocan, who now serves as Cineworks’ director of sales and marketing. “He really held our hand through that part of the process,” Willis compliments.
Obsession with UP Sessions
When one looks back at the state of advertising, the 2005 Super Bowl may be remembered as the event where agencies finally produced a notable number of HD commercials. Certainly not the majority, but still enough to get the HD dialogue going.
One of those, for CIBA Vision, the eye care unit of pharmaceuticals/consumer health company Novartis, was finished in HD, but more importantly, it gave editor Charlie Johnston of bicoastal Lost Planet a new collaborative experience.
The spot was directed by Jim Sonzero via bicoastal/international Believe Media for Grey Worldwide, New York; it featured visual effects by Santa Monica-based Method and a film transfer from colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3 in Santa Monica. (Sonnenfeld is also president of Company 3.)
To save travel time, Johnston and Sonzero participated in the transfer session by watching a monitor at Company 3 New York, using UP Sessions, a new satellite service that enables remote collaborative color correction sessions in real time; the service is offered by Company 3 with satellite support from its parent company, Santa Monica-based Ascent Media Group. (Method is also an Ascent Media Group company).
“It was perfect,” Johnston reports. “The guys from Method were with Stefan [in Santa Monica], and it was also as if Stefan was in the chair in New York. It was flawless; we could include everyone without flying.”
HD Completion
As for the HD portion of the post equation, most editors reported that they simply cut the spot in traditional standard definition, but in “widescreen”–that is a 16:9 aspect ratio for HDTV as opposed to today’s 4:3 standard definition.
That was the case for editors such as Jim Ulbrich of New York-based 89 Editorial. Ulbrich used an Avid Media Composer to cut “Moments” direct for NFL Films and directed by Don Cheadle, which was created from stock footage originating on 35 mm film (film is an HD medium). After the standard definition edit, post was completed in HD.
But even when the editor cuts in SD, it is still important to understand the finishing process.
For instance, Johnston explains that, per an equation provided up front by Method, he cut the CIBA Vision spot in PAL to only 28 seconds. In order to make the HD less cost-prohibitive, the visual effects were done in PAL (25 frames per second). The frame rate changed when the effects were up-resed for HD delivery, which translated into the finished :30.
The aforementioned HD spots were lensed in 35mm film, but another, “Elope” for Cadillac, was lensed and finished in HD video. (The spot was directed by Antony Hoffman of bicoastal/international @radical.media for chemistry, Troy, Mich., and Leo Burnett USA, Chicago.)
Editor Matthew Wood of the Chicago office of The Whitehouse, notes that the while he did not use a portable editing system on “Elope,” producers should be aware that if one uses an HD video, one can take the feed right from the camera and start editing during a shoot with a laptop system.
He also cautions that with HD, varying frame rates need to be watched, For instance, “If you shoot HD slow motion [60 fps interlaced, or 60i], then when you load it in a [standard definition] Avid you don’t get a true representation of the slow mo. You need to get the images processed [in another tool such as Discreet’s Flame compositing system]. This is because 24p [24 fps progressive scan] looks filmic; 60i looks more like video.”
Wood concludes that with HD on the horizon, it is time for editorial to go HD. “We are looking into getting an HD Avid so that we could load HD into the system,” he reports. “That means that what you do in the HD Avid is what you get out of it. You want to see the quality that was shot.”
With the costs of HD capable nonlinear editing systems getting lower–and the demand for HD only expected to grow–this is likely to be among the next areas of retooling that the commercial industry experiences. The question is at what speed will the industry make this transition?