HIGH-END POST TO SUIT ALL BUDGETS


Pro 2 into a market bristling with rival non- linear editing software. The muscle of a major computer manufacturer and its eye-opening $1,000 price tag proved too formidable for most of the competition. “The interface was pretty, it worked on an en vogue piece of kit, and you could take work home with you on a decent laptop and piece together offl ine clips,” says Ashton. “Where technology had previously pigeonholed facilities into high end features, or commercials, or corporate work, now the skill of the person using the kit became the main selling point and the facilities market opened up.”


While Apple continued to iterate fatter, faster versions of Final Cut Pro introducing Final Cut Pro Studio in 2005, Blackmagic Design was building on the success of DeckLink. “We have always embraced new technologies such as 3gbs SDI and video over optical fi bre,” says Ashton. “It’s all about trying to lead people to new tech without making them spend the earth or reinvent their workfl ow.”


This is equally true when it comes to the top- end post production service of colour grading. Until two years ago grading remained stuck in a millennium time warp. Even shorn of the need to handle physical fi lm grading systems were still sold turnkey for £200K plus. Blackmagic Design took the bull by the horns, acquired DaVinci, kept the brand but revamped the entire system with off-the-shelf Nvidia graphics cards, support for third party panels and 300 new functions.


Then it sold it sub £1k. “We changed the ethos of buying it,” says Ashton. By removing those barriers of entry yet not taking anything away from what the application can do, we have a 16GPU system that a facility in


Hollywood can buy to do a 3D stereo fi lm or a 1GPU system perfect for someone wanting to grade a corporate video.”


Innovations like this have liberated artists


from operating at fi xed desks and paying prime Soho rent giving opportunities to a new generation of talent. “The stars of tomorrow at Ravensbourne are using the same kit that we use here,” says Whitehead. “There are high end DIs, vfx shots and audio mixes out of the reach of smaller independents but you can achieve an awful lot with FCP, a good editor and an effects package.” Noting that new, thin reference grade monitors cost no less than the CRTs of old, he cautions that inexpensive software is not necessarily the whole answer. “There are a lot of headline grabbing prices but behind that you need a fully functional, calibrated environment and a fair amount of investment in infrastructure to produce high-end post production.” From SD through DV and HDV onto HD,


from tape to memory cards, and shortly into resolutions at 4K and beyond, progress has been remarkable in just 10 years. Equally remarkable is Apple’s recent FCP upgrade which has seen the interface overhauled, wedded to a 64-bit CPU to take on more complex, larger formats and all for just £179.99. Bird uses Macbooks in the fi eld for ingesting footage, running FCP and an eight-core Mac with DeckLink Studio in his offi ce to make the internationally sold Emmy award-winning underwater natural history show Jonathan Bird’s Blue World. “This kind of technology means we don’t have to have a huge production facility,” he says. “The downsizing of the camera and recorders mean excess baggage costs on travel are virtually zero.”


Price check 2001


TK/grading system Compositor


Editing workstation Vfx workstation High-end camera HD camcorder Reference monitor


£1m £225k £70k £225k £80k £30k £30k


2011


£1k – 200k £3k – 70k £1k – 10k £1k – £3k £25k


£4k – £12k £30k


Hyperdeck Shuttle


Bypass your camera’s compression and records from SDI and HDMI direct into the highest quality uncompressed video.


Compact, affordable and battery powered so it’s perfect as a fi eld recorder, costs £215


There are a lot of headline grabbing prices but you need a functional calibrated environment


Johnny Whitehead Deluxe 142


icons 21


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