feature post production
used to a much greater quality of picture and sound. Internet connections in regions around the globe are now capable of streaming HD videos to our laptops and smartphones; our ‘acceptable’ quality levels have become higher.
Challenges: sound and colour grading
Having said that professional editing systems are certainly needed to deliver professional videos on time and in a managed process, what does this desire for higher quality mean? What stands out in today’s crowded
space of television programmes and movies are higher quality productions. This may be from a creative or storytelling point of view, but certainly higher quality sound and pictures are also key differentiating factors. Looking back again to what people watch online, around two thirds of the 20 most viewed videos of all time on YouTube are not user-generated content, but rather professionally produced video clips. TV and film productions have already
moved or are in the process of migrating onto tapeless production workflows, with main players upgrading from SD to HD and the film industry converting rapidly to D- cinema. These changes are adding more challenges to audiovisual content creation, whilst offering more creative options. The two main areas where we can see significant changes are colour grading and audio post production.
Richer picture
Let’s talk picture. The big names in camera manufacturing (such as Arri, Sony, Panasonic, Red, Canon etc) have introduced tapeless or file based cameras for the television and film industries at decreasing costs. An independent producer can now shoot HD, 2K, or even 4K videos using one of these cost effective cameras. A producer sitting in his or her edit suite in Cairo, Beirut, or Abu Dhabi now has access to millions of pixels that they would never have imagined having access to previously. These large frames capture a lot of details resulting in a richer picture, at the same time revealing any flaws in the picture capturing process, especially in lighting and colour balances. Colour grading has accordingly become an essential step in the post production finishing process for shot-in-high- resolution content.
The colouring tools in regular
It is really all about quality. If we want to reach wider audiences with the sound and picture quality expected by today’s demanding viewers, then we have to pay further attention to the picture and sound post production finishing processes. This applies not only to feature films and TV commercials as used to be the case, but for a wide range of genres of audiovisual content including drama and documentary productions.
professional editing software have become mature and affordable: you can now do colour correction and grading using the low cost ‘Color’ in FCP, or Avid’s colour correction toolset, or DaVinci Resolve. But what is expected from the high-end colour grading systems is the processing of high-resolution footage in real-time with reliability and flexibility. The advantage of using high-end
specialised colour grading systems, and expert colourists, is that colour grading is a demanding creative and technical process for any genre of production. Flexibility and responsiveness cannot be compromised for any finishing process and the reliable performance and consistency of results combined with the ability to manage different colour grading workflows are essential. The range of input resolutions and file formats captured today from various camera systems is so wide that the specialised colour grading system should be able to import and process footage in mixed raw formats with increased accessibility to colour data in all data workflows. ‘Over the shoulder’ grading, where the producer or director is in the room with the colourist requesting modifications and trying various grades, can only be efficiently carried out when the colour grading system allows for such actions to be completed instantly and in real time, without wasting time rendering. Our post production facility in Abu
Dhabi was busy recently finishing a 30 episode historical Arabic drama series that was broadcast on many regional TV channels during the holy month of Ramadan. The producers recognised the need for a higher quality picture as an important factor for their production to stand out from the crowd during the highest viewership season of the year in the Middle East. Many challenges were faced during the process including discovering that the raw footage arrived in multiple frame rates which we managed to find solutions for with the tools available at twofour54 intaj. Last minute changes to the content were required at the final stages of the finishing process as historians were providing comments on the script and the historic sequence of events to make them as precise as possible. This meant re-editing and modifications had to be performed directly onto the grading system. The producers also wanted the series to have a ‘studio quality’ finish, which is
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only possible to get on time and to the quality standard requested, using a high-end colour grading suite such as the one we have at twofour54 intaj. The results were amazing and the producers now believe that it is no longer necessary to travel to Hollywood or London to get the results they were able to get on their doorstep in Abu Dhabi.
Sound: the other half of the picture
Sound should not be forgotten. As the picture gets richer and more details are available to viewers on larger screens, viewer expectations for a higher quality sound has also increased. Sound should be taken seriously in the migration process from SD to HD. Some people argue that the opportunities and sound features that HD offers broadcasters and producers exceeds what an HD picture offers in comparison to SD; larger frame size and better quality image are obviously important, but broadcasting 5.1 surround sound, for example, may be even more valuable. The importance of surround sound has just started to become recognised by regional broadcasters with premium content suppliers (acquired movies, TV series and sports) providing their productions and live feeds with 5.1 surround sound embedded. On the post production front, sound
editing, mixing and finishing have recently received more attention within the Middle East media production industry. Knowing that entertaining the audience means offering them a richer experience, the processes needed to offer the higher quality sound requires higher end systems with advanced toolsets. For serious audio finishing you need the sound quality, stability, high processing power and unlimited track count that only high-end software and hardware systems can provide.
It’s all about quality
It is really all about quality. If we want to reach wider audiences with the sound and picture quality expected by today’s demanding viewers, then we have to pay further attention to the picture and sound post production finishing processes. This applies not only to feature films and TV commercials as used to be the case, but for a wide range of genres of audiovisual content including drama and documentary productions.
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