The Producer Report: File-based production
likely to employ a data wrangler, but their exact roles can differ. “When we supply a data wrangler we make it
clear that they are not pushed into a corner of the room to do it,” says Wiggins. “PMs can look at the savings made on tape stock and digitising and put that money toward an experienced wrangler. Most producers have a first-hand experience of something going wrong and often those can be prevented if the person handling the data is given time and space to do it – and if they are qualified to do it.” On productions with tight budgets, multi-
skilling comes into play. Sound recordists and camera assistants need to be able to fill the gaps. On Sky1’s An Idiot Abroad, Riley had to account
for the fact that the budget wouldn’t stretch to an extra person travelling and filming at locations including Machu Piccu, Rio and the Great Wall of China.“You need to think about backing up – when and who does it,” she explains. “We didn’t have time to add two to three
hours each day onto an APs already long 13 hour schedule so with such a small team we had to build in time during the day for them to drag and drop rushes to hard drive. We also hired as many SxS and CompactFlash cards as we could so that the team didn’t have to back up every night.” She also employed a production assistant in-
house to take XDCAM proxies as they came in from the field, transfer them to memory sticks as QuickTimes and copy them to Mentorn’s logging system CatDV. While
essential role is to back up and transcode media on-set, providing a near instant edit copy and
the data technician’s
on-set playback and at least one archive copy, alternatively cards can be rotated to a post facility where similar back-up duties are carried out.
CHECK WITH YOUR INSURER The golden rule is to back up, back up and back up again with LTO and Optical Disc popular choices. Insurers will differ as to how many drives the media needs to be transferred to. Typically three will do the trick, although some insurance companies are reportedly more lax. “Current hard drives are not an accepted archive storage solution as they contain greased internal mechanisms that can fail if not used on a regular basis,” warns Wiggins. “Check with your insurers about accepted formats for archiving,” he advises. “Don’t wait until after the edit to archive or you’ll never get round to it. It’s best practice to build archiving in to your workflow immediately after shooting.” The broad outline of a workflow should now
be in place – but the fine detail of particular acquisition formats and post routes needs nailing. One
necessary to meet
consideration for HD productions the
strict criteria of
broadcasters like Sky is to record at a minimum 50Mb/s. While XDCAM HD 422 (PDW 700/ F800 and PMW-500) hits the mark, producers wanting to use the versatility of the lightweight PMW-EX1R, EX3 or F3, which record 35Mb/s, have a choice to make. One is to shoot to SxS cards as normal and
include the footage as part of the 25 per cent of non-HD material permitted. Live studio shows, for example, will be shot using HD studio kit but VT inserts can be recorded at lower bit rates, saving on budget and still hitting the quota. The second option is to attach a third party
recorder to the camera, capable of 50Mb/s. Two of the most popular are Convergent Design’s NanoFlash and the Atomos Ninja, however
32 theproducer Summer 2011
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