Guerrilla independents: these post pros thrive in unconventional environments where their innovation and creativity comes to the forefront - brief profiles of independent digital media companies - Company Profile

Post, March, 2003 by Christine Bunish

You can find today's guerrilla independents at home, on location and quite literally -- on the road. Brad Carvey is a veteran guerrilla independent with Hollywood credits. He and his wife, Andrea, live within walking distance of wilderness on the outskirts of Albuquerque, NM, where four rooms of their house are dedicated to the work Brad does for feature films and sports; Andrea uses them for scientific animations.

"As one of the Emmy Award-winning members of the Video Toaster development team, I had a New Tek Video Toaster and one of the few Screamer high-speed rendering networks," Carvey recalls. "Joe Conti, a visual effects guru and longtime friend, also had a Toaster and Screamer. That gave us an edge over other guerrilla post people. Over time, my capabilities have increased tremendously, but its gotten easier for everyone else to get capabilities, too. There's more competition in guerrilla post now."

For graphics, Carvey has a server and two Pentium 4 single-processor workstations running Video Toaster, LightWave 3D, dpsPerception, Eyeons Digital Fusion, Adobe's After Effects and Photoshop, and Equilibrium DeBabelizer. The room also has a Wacom monitor/drawing tablet, MIDI and sound gear, and a renderfarm, Carvey also has access to a supercomputing cluster with 500 Pentium CPUs through an agreement with the University of New Mexico High Performance Computer Center.

Carvey's credits include visual effects shots for Black Hawk Down, Kate & Lea paid and Master of Disguise. He's currently helping Joe Conti with Bugs, an original movie for the Sci-Fi Channel, which Conti has written and directed.

"The special effects will be great," Carvey predicts. "Some things, like raytracing, that we've previously avoided because they're so CPU-intensive to render, we'll be able to try thanks to the supercomputing cluster. Joe will be using LightWave, and I will composite the bugs into different environments with Digital Fusion. Andrea is developing the basic motions of the bugs, making them move correctly and look right"

Carvey says, "there are certain things in Digital Fusion -- like the scripting language, creating multiple mattes and changing their parameters over time -- that are very, very powerful and creative if you know how to use them. The same things would either be impossible or more difficult to do in After Effects.

"I started on After Effects years ago, but I don't do compositing every day, so whenever I went back to it I was always frustrated with the interface. But if I go away from Digital Fusion for a while and come back to it, I never forget the nuances of how to use it"

ON THE ROAD

Thanks to Highway Definition, a Key Largo, FL-based mobile HD video editing suite, David Cox takes his guerrilla independence on the road. And it's a very luxurious ride.

The edit suite is configured inside a 40-foot Monaco motor coach whose amenities include a large kitchen, bathroom with tub and master bedroom with TV and stereo. The interior boasts wood floors, leather-upholstered furniture and walnut cabinetry. The coach has two air conditioners and an aquaheat system that allows it to travel and work in winter conditions.

"The objective was not to strip down the bus; we wanted it to be very comfortable," says Cox. "It's a full luxury coach, and our goal was to keep it that way." While fully self-sufficient on the road, Highway Definition (www.highwaydefinition.com) is not a live event truck, he points out. "We can provide standard definition or HD productions with services from dailies screening to complete on-site editing."

The edit suite is outfitted with Apple's Final Cut Pro 3 and Pinnacle's CineWave. With Sony's HDCAM and Pinnacle's HD breakout box, the system is able to capture and play back uncompressed HD video. There's a terabyte of RAID storage and room for much more.

"One of the most beneficial things about the system is that it is capable of taking advantage of the realtime SD effects recently offered by Final Cut Pro 3 and CineWave," says Cox, who designed the system. "The new realtime color corrector: keyer and transitions that now come with the system result in great productivity enhancements." Duplication, downconverts and offline capture can also be performed in the editing suite.

While Cox expects the hub of his business will be from Miami to Orlando, Highway Definition can travel anywhere. "We can edit as you roll down the road if you're moving from location to location," he notes. The edit suite is designed to be rented out as a package with Cox providing technical support; he can also serve as editor if needed.

Highway Definition is just getting into gear but it has already done some SD, DV and DVD jobs. Several HD projects are awaiting approval and financing. Cox plans to use the coach to edit his own documentaries; he's currently working on two outdoors-related HD projects. "I'm looking at installing a two-way Internet satellite that will allow for wireless Internet connections on the set," he says.