Talking about the DTV revolution: Discussing workflows for the present and future of post production - Special Report

Post, Dec, 2002 by Daniel Restuccio

LOS ANGELES -- The slew of recent high-tech seminars and presentations hosted by the Hollywood Forum, the Hollywood Post Alliance, Quantel and Kodak brought some fresh clarity to the chaos created by the DTV transition. This new lucidity comes from the fact that the transition is no longer coming -- ft's arrived. Post houses and vendors are sharing their knowledge about practical production and posting workflows, and profitable business models. These are working pipelines that are kicking out high definition episodic television, feature films and commercials.

THE DIGITAL STUDIO

Michael Stroud, CEO of Hollywood Forum (www.ihollywoodforum.com) said that his recent conference, The Digital Studio, focused on the strategic and business end of the digital revolution, and HD and visual effects production. "Studios are trying to find out how to best spend their money."

The studio-level people, Stroud explained, are asking what parts, and to what degree, they should make digital their production process, and what new methods of acquisition are there? At the independent level they want to know, what are the specifics of cost-effective digital production?

HOLLYWOOD POST ALLIANCE

The Hollywood Post Alliance (www.hpaonline.com) held its "Post on the Edge" learning and sharing session hosted by HPA president and Laser Pacific exec Leon Silverman at the Wheel of Fortune set on the Sony Studio lot. Themes ranged from creativity to vision to survival. There was discussion about HD, digital asset management and how to retain and train good talent Everyone reiterated the point that the post industry has always survived dealing with changing technology. It's never been about the gadgets but the artists behind the keyboard said Damon Webster, director of advertising production at Saatchi & Saatchi.

Larry Chernoff, president of the creative services division of Ascent Media (formerly Liberty LiveWire), said that while technology will continue to make things smaller survival is about the ability to efficiently process the entire loop of post from beginning to end. "Right now," he continued, "we have digital silos with videotape as the bridge. In the future everything will be tapeless." He also addressed the constant struggle of re-conceptualizing the new posting environment, and offered the insight that, "Business models don't last very long. Three months from now you have to change the whole model."

"When a new wave of technology hits is everybody's job gets redefined," said ACE editor Steven J. Cohen. "Am I going to be smart' enough to figure out what my new job is?" He cited the fact that nonlinear editing systems include so many features that he often is expected to wear many hats, not just cut picture but also template preliminary visual effects, dialogue and sound mixes.

On a practical level, Webster said that Saatchi & Saatchi recently installed an iBeam system (www.ibeam.com) where archives of all their digital media sits on a server in London. Global partners and senior management, he said, didn't have access to assets quickly enough. Now, anybody on the network can download media to their set-top boxes and bum their own tape. So for him, it's not swapping from videotapes to DVD dailies, both of which can get lost or delayed being transported. In his time critical business "hard drives and big pipes" are the answer.

FOCUS ON THE FUTURE

Quantel (www.quantel.com) hosted two days of high-tech seminars and discussions called "Focus on the Future" at the Director's Guild, Topics included the future of post, choices in acquisition, wrangling data, building the digital workflow, among others.

Quantel's solution to posting multiple digital formats is its integrated editing, effects and color correction system iQ. Centered on the concept of resolution co-existence, multiple format sources get put on Quantel's servers and output to whatever flavor of digital you want In LA post houses such as Modern Film &Video and Post Logic have embraced the system to manage their growing HD posting businesses.

Merle Sharp, director of engineering at Post Logic Studios, (www.postlogic.com) was at the conference and said the essence of the new post paradigm is how fast can you move the data around. "When I can offer my clients the ability to move 2K files around in real-time that's a good business opportunity for me." He's building a digital cinema theater not just for mastering data for a digital cinema, but to create a sophisticated environment where cinematographers can come and color correct their movies on a big screen for digital intermediates.

Sunset Digital (www.sunsetdigital.com) also has new business trickling down from the film world. Ron Burdett, who was present at both the Quantel and HPA events, said his shop is currently cutting three feature films on to D-5 for film out "We did the film-to-tape transfer," said Bob Brian, executive VP of Sunset "They brought back their list conform, We did a nonlinear assembly in Discreet Smoke and a full color correction."