FILE-BASED WORKFLOW
MANAGING TAPELESS CONTENT WITH AVID
Pippa Considine profiles an assortment of recent productions that have benefited from file-based workflows using Avid
“The key to the file-based tapeless workflow is the media management and Avid is very good at this”
MANESH PATEL Technical operations manager
CLEAR CUT PICTURES
After years of watching the wave slowly breaking, file-based or ‘tapeless’ production has now become a reality. Productions from daytime quiz shows to high-end dramas are being captured straight to file, creating a new world of workflow. The Farm Group posts a raft of file-based programmes, including recently Carnival Films’ ITV period drama Downton Abbey. For this, P2 files [from Panasonic’s file- based cameras] were ingested into Avid Media Composer using the AMA (Avid Media Access) feature. “The AMA allows the Avid to link to the original media and transcode it rather than having to import then transcode,” explains The Farm’s technical director David Klafkowski. Once the offline was completed, the final sequence was loaded into an Avid Symphony and the original media relinked using AMA. A pre-grade online then took place to ensure everything was in the right place. Next, the full resolution MXF media was moved onto one of the Farm’s SANs, from where the Nucoda Film Master could pick it up for the grade. The graded media was then taken from the SAN and the final online completed on Avid DS. “It’s really a very elegant solution and when planned correctly works very well,” says Klafkowski.
CUTTING OUT TIME-CONSUMING
The Farm works on file-based productions using Red, Alexa, Sony’s EX and Panasonic’s P2. Tape and particularly film are becoming a rarity. It also handles the Sony XDCAM post production workflow for ITV’s X Factor and C4’s Deal or No Deal. “With version 5 of Media Composer, most file formats are catered for and the workflow tracking is not a problem” says Klafkowski. At Clear Cut Pictures, technical operations manager Manesh Patel agrees: “There are so many different variations of tapeless cameras, but the Avid can handle all of them. It’s also capable of multiple different flows of tapeless media on the same timeline.” Clear Cut Pictures has just finished work on Aluna, a file-based feature shot on Canon 5D and 7D. Aluna is a documentary revisiting the Kogi tribe, shot on location in Colombia. The footage was transferred from Compact Flash cards to a drive which was delivered to Clear Cut, where the media was ingested and converted to Avid DNX files. These then went onto the Avid Unity shared storage system.
“We were then able to generate QuickTimes to upload to our Clearview site so clients can monitor the progress of a job – they can download edits and review sequences.”
TRANSCODING WITH AVID MEDIA ACCESS • “The Avid Media Access allows the Avid to link to the original media and transcode it rather than having to import then transcode,” explains The Farm Group’s David Klafkowski about AMA’s time-saving credentials
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