CONTINUING DRAMA
for HD location shooting. One of the vehicles was to be key to the switchover, acting as the control room and vision gallery – parked on the studio floor of the Coronation Street facility in Manchester for a week whilst the SD infrastructure was replaced.
FASTER CLIP ACCESS New HD camera technology was also added to the mix in the shape of six Ikegami 79EXs for the studios and Panasonic P2 camcorders shooting to 64G memory cards for location shooting. Avid technology included two Avid AirSpeed Multi Streams per gallery enabling the recording of four streams of HD (12 streams across the installation’s three galleries) recording to ISIS 7000 shared storage. This formed the cornerstone of the new production and post production workflow, enabling the craft, edit and dubbing suites to playback HD media simultaneously. Editing platforms included
Avid Mojo DX offline suites and Avid Symphony Nitris DX finishing, with dubbing on Pro Tools. Avid Enterprise’s senior application specialist Lawrence Windley comments: “The speed and turnover of the production schedule means you can’t reshoot anything and you can’t afford to lose rushes. So automated back up with the AirSpeed Multi Stream cache, plus ISIS storing two copies and then asset management
through Avid Interplay archiving onto LTO tape was key.” ITV’s Stan Robinson points out that one of the beauties of the new production workflow is that editors can get much faster access to material – with script editors and directors able to add comments to the rushes electronically. Another powerful parts of the
Avid toolset is its file sharing and asset management capability enabled by Avid Interplay. This makes it easy for production assistants, script supervisors and editors to find and browse material for continuity checks. Robinson adds another big plus is that the whole workflow is safer and more secure. “With the old tape-based system because we always worked at pace there was the danger of over- recording as you rewind a tape to review it. Now it’s virtually impossible to delete or over- record – which has taken a huge weight off the camera operator’s shoulders. They all love the new system. “ Avid’s ITV account manager Dave Scott concludes: “We managed to achieve the on air production deadline in an extraordinarily tight time frame with no effect on output. An installation and change management project which would normally have taken nine months was delivered in a fraction of that time – a testament to the commitment of the teams at ITV and Avid.”
MANAGING CHANGE WITH AVID
“Integrating a new file-based production and post production workflow into a show such as ITV1’s Coronation Street – while it’s still being produced – is like changing the tyres on a juggernaut whilst it’s still driving along,” explains Avid’s professional services and workflow consultant Jason Plews. “What we did was manage that transition by getting small teams of champions together looking at how life would be different for them under the new system,” explains Plews. Editors and script supervi- sors were encouraged to air concerns early about changes, which were addressed with tweaks to the production workflow, right down to detailed naming conventions. Avid’s Lawrence Windley adds: “Getting the sup- port of the script supervi- sors was key because the naming of the clips is much more crucial in post production, meaning that the supervisors’ role is much more significant.
TAKING THE STREET HD
Avid had just three months to design and integrate a state-of-the-art file-based HD production and post workflow for one of the UK’s biggest shows – while it was still being produced
AIRSPEED MULTI STREAM
AirSpeed Multi Stream is the fast-turnaround media production standard for multi-format HD and SD record and playout. For more information: www.
avid.com/US/products/ AirSpeed-MultiStream
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