COMEDY DRAMA
CASE STUDY HOLY FLYING CIRCUS
The controversy surrounding the release of Monty Python’s 1979 film Life Of Brian was the subject of BBC4’s 90-minute comedy drama Holy Flying Circus.
Despite a modest BBC4 budget
“DNx36 is a brilliant codec which means you can see all the detail you need.”
Billy Sneddon Comedy editor
writer Tony Roche penned an “amazing, mad homage to Monty Python with 32 speaking parts, a huge number of locations as well as animation, puppetry and fight sequences,” recalls co-producer Kate Norrish from Hillbilly Films. “It was hugely ambitious and this had a big impact on our choice of post,” says Norrish. “It was such a tight delivery schedule we needed to use editing technology which we were sure could finish the job on schedule.” For editor Billy Sneddon the challenges were to maximise the show’s comedic impact within a
very tight timeframe. “It was all shot in four weeks – I still don’t know how they did it!” says Sneddon who adds that the tight time-frame meant that there was no room for error in either production or post. Sneddon insists on Avid, with Hillbilly using Sneddon’s own Symphony Nitris DX supplemented by a second hired in machine – both linked to Unity ISIS shared storage. Shot on Red it was decided to offline at Hillbilly and leave the conform to post house Envy where the show was also onlined and graded. “Avid Media Access has certainly made a big difference to editing with Red,” says Sneddon. “The Red memory cards were taken by the on set data wrangler and transferred to drives and backed up. Rushes arrived at my edit on a LaCie drive where
COMEDY DRAMA POSTED ON AVID SYMPHONY NITRIS DX
• Fast turnaround editing on Avid Symphony Nitris DX • Red rushes transferred to LaCie drive before transfer to Unity storage and transcoding to DNx36 for offline
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they were transferred onto Unity and transcoded to DNx36 – the low-res Avid codec used in the edit. It’s a brilliant codec which means you can see all the detail you need.” Sneddon, one of the industry’s most highly rated comedy editors, has always edited on Avid and finds that he doesn’t need to skill up on other editing systems because it remains the platform where the best work is edited. Over the years Sneddon has noted that Avids have become more powerful, but the demands placed on the edit platform have also increased with HD. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the instant, seamless nature of Avid workflows. “I tend not to notice the edit platform I am working on. I find that the only time I notice technology is when it doesn’t work.”
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