London's new Outpost: Outpost's new UK location is based on the virtual suite concept—breaking the traditional post model

Post, Dec, 2004 by Bob Pank

Walk into Outpost Digital (www.outpostdigital.com) and you may think you're at the wrong address. There's no reception with a big panel screen running the show reel and you're in a big, bright, open space. You'll see a number of screens and work desks around the sides and a few rooms off, but you are actually standing at the heart of an HD virtual environment. This is the major part of the 5,500 square-foot facility that opened its doors in late September.

The London base of Outpost Digital Group joins facilities in New York and Los Angeles. Unlike the usual product-classified rooms, here there are four rooms that are virtual suites--having no fixed equipment beyond three picture monitors and 5.1 audio. They can be instantly customised according to client and project needs with the required equipment allocated to the room via routing and a novel control system.

The whole facility has all its resources housed in one remarkably small equipment room. Eleven terabytes of storage, 26 Apple G5s and a Discreet Burn renderfarm running on IBM hardware do not take up much space these days. Routing systems from Quartz switch the required control and monitoring signals to the "virtual" rooms under control from a Pharos Pilot routing controller. When managing director Antony Adel reaches for a tablet PC and taps on a couple of screen icons to switch the input of the large panel screen, you begin to realize just how different Outpost Digital is.

"We're breaking from the post model," Adel explains. "All the routing control is totally wireless, so we can switch anything to anywhere from anywhere. The four suites can have access to seven environments: Discreet, Avid Adrenaline, Final Cut Pro HD, Pro Tools, After Effects, Shake and Maya."

"Workflow" has been an industry buzzword for years now, but this is perhaps the most marked example of new thinking used to bring some very different and streamlined ways of collaborative working. The linchpin of any modern workflow is the storage and networking solution, and here, Outpost Digital is the first UK company to use Apple's Xsan. Adel points out the pros and cons: "The software's not released yet so, although we have the advantage of a lead, we also had to work our way through the wrinkles."

The arrangement depends on being able to divide and share tasks. Enter the "hot desk." Forty-six of these Apple G5 control and monitoring stations are positioned all around the central room so that producers and compositors can cut and prepare detailed packages even while the final edit proceeds in a suite. The networking does more than just make work simultaneously available to all that need it, it also keeps everyone informed and in touch. Those in the suite can see and use the results of the hot desk tasks, for example: running with the latest updated timeline, as and when they are created, while also seeing and talking with those involved. Those at the hot desks can also see the results of their work as it is used in the final cut.

Outpost Digital has taken this theme a big step further. By extending the network out to the Internet and giving customers 17-inch Apple PowerBooks, complete with Webcam and microphone, they can have the same access and communications as they do in a suite or at a hot desk. This means not just virtual rooms but virtual customers too!

Amid so much change you might think that the customers may feel out of place or lost on unfamiliar ground. Not a bit of it! Outpost's recently arrived director of production, Jonathan Davies, reports only positive customer reaction. "The light--they immediately comment on it. Unlike the typical Soho houses, here, there are windows. The majority are not technology suites. The novelty of that sort of 'black box' post production has gone and the pressure's always there to get on with the next production. Whereas clients used to have to be around for, say, 12 days, now they only need to be here occasionally. They can log on and see what's happening, approve shots, make adjustments and so on without being here."

This is a big change for post workflow, but Outpost Digital is trying to do more. "U-matics are way out of date, yet agencies still want to view on them," Adel notes. "We are set up to burn DVDs and I'm hoping to convert our customers to this altogether better technology."

The workload at Outpost Digital is building rapidly. Projects already include a commercial for PlayStation 2, two music videos for Roc-A-Fella Records and over 200 shots for a new feature, Adel talks of the future, "It's going to be more to do with features and commercials. We've partnered with Digital Film Lab (www.digitalfilmlab.com) as they have the film-in and -out expertise. It makes sense to work with someone who fully understands this field. Then we can concentrate on what we do best and do the shots here."