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April 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


TVBEurope 43 The Workflow


for the facility’s offlines, QC and viewings. The first floor is a total replica of the third floor in terms of suites. “We’re finding that they’re very popular because they’re such big, light and airy rooms,” says Forde.


The second floor is the tech


area, where Charlotte Street’s MCR is situated. The majority of the equipment here also came from Television Centre. “We’ve got quite a big MCR, which is quite unusual for a town post facility,” says Forde. “This is manned 24/7, so any tiny piece of media that comes in, in whatever format, always goes here first after it has been logged in downstairs. Nothing leaves this building without passing through here, either as a file or as a piece of hard asset.”


Positive competition Forde recognises that there are going to be times when Charlotte Street needs to overspill elsewhere. “We’re starting to have quite extensive discussions with some other facilities in the area,” she reveals. “We’re sending some of our audio out to an audio only house because we’re already overflowing. What we’ve always struggled with is location. Now that we’re here it’s taken that barrier away.” But how does the workflow


differ to that of Television Centre? “I don’t think there’s a massive change in the workflow,” says Kruger. “Something that we didn’t do in the old building is the Smoke, Flame and Lustre access to Object Matrix MatrixStore, so we give them more storage to push jobs back and forth.” Another change is that additional storage can be brought in on a job-by-job basis. “I like dedicating a lot of storage to jobs,” says Kruger. “I don’t like dedicating little bits and then charging the client more and more.” Post production projects


signed for the new site include Mrs Brown’s Boys, The Matt Lucas Awards, Beat the Pack, Goodbye Television Centre, Let’s Dance for Comic Relief, The Editors, The British Animal Honours 2013 and Friday Download. BBC S&PP continues to


operate an editing and finishing facility at BBC Elstree to service its contract with EastEnders and also offers fast turnaround facilities to support studio operations.


Film to digital shifts storage and collaboration challenge


By Melanie Dayasena-Lowe


POST PRODUCTION house Framestore has chosen Quantum’s StorNext File System and Storage Manager to improve its digital workflow and automate data management, resulting in a 30-60% saving in data management time. With StorNext software, Framestore can collaborate on its entire workspace of 130TB of content, as well as automatically migrate assets across the workflow from edit to archive. Framestore uses a variety of edit and finish tools including Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer and Autodesk Flame, Smoke and Smoke on Mac. StorNext provides Framestore with shared access to its workflow tool set across a variety of platforms including Linux, MacOS X and Windows OS. Speaking to Laurent


Fanichet, Quantum product marketing manager, big data — EMEA/APAC at BVE in February, he explained why this solution fitted storage requirements. “Framestore decided to put in place our StorNext File System to share files so that the editors could access it in realtime. Whether working on Windows or Macs, it’s completely transparent to them.” Andy Howard, head of


Framestore’s engineering team that focuses on commercials, adds: “The StorNext File System is able to provide high quality realtime video playback, and can handle multiple streams” Howard has seen a change in industry practice over the past two years and knows the impact it has had on the company’s business model. “Everyone had been shooting 35mm film, and suddenly there was a huge drop off. From the smallest commercials to the biggest feature films, people switched to electronic camera formats. So we ended up with tens of thousands of files per project, which required a new shared storage production workflow.” In the past, Framestore used Thomson’s Bones to scan in


Framestore, which has worked on Wrath of the Titans, uses Quantum StorNext for


collaborative work


library to provide asset protection throughout the workflow process. Removing a manual process for managing archives, StorNext Storage Manager automatically moves terabytes of content through primary to nearline storage and also cost-effective tape. With this policy-based migration, Framestore frees up resources, in some cases improving content management efficiency up to 60% and providing more time to deliver projects on time. Howard adds: “Its ability to


crews are no longer constrained by the high cost of chemically processed film.


Content grows Howard knew that data tiering could offer an effective solution to this challenge. Rather than having a person decide if it was time to move a file to cost-effective storage, Framestore needed something that would automate movement of data through multiple tiers of storage. “The way we look at it, we


Laurent Fanichet: “Whether working on Windows or Macs, it’s completely transparent to editors”


have to speed things up if we want to do more projects,” Howard says. “We could throw


manage collaborative work from several operators working on a single project at one time is very useful when delivering visual effects on very tight deadlines.” In the future, Framestore plans to make use of StorNext Storage Manager to replicate assets automatically between its UK and New York facilities. Howard estimates that 70% of the benefit from replication will come from sharing workload between the two sites. The remaining 30% is expected to result from strengthening the company’s disaster recovery capability. Additionally, by having the same storage management software in both locations, people will find familiar equipment and processes as they move between offices. “We do quite a bit of


collaborative work between the offices,” Howard says. “The goal


“We have to speed things up if we want to do more projects. We could throw more people at our work, but that’s expensive. Or we could automate a lot of tasks…”


Andy Howard, Framestore


film, convert it to data file format for editing, colouring, transcoding and other production work, and then return the processed files back to film for cinema and television release. Now the former film footage arrives as digital video and audio files, and there is more content than ever before because camera


more people at our work, but that’s expensive. Or we could automate a lot of tasks. That’s what Storage Manager allows us to do.” To address the management challenges and costs of handling growing amounts of content, Framestore uses StorNext Storage Manager and Quantum’s Scalar i500 tape


of the company in the next two years is to have all of the sites be as similar as possible so staff can go anywhere and be in a familiar environment. Two or three years ago people tended to work in isolation on projects, but now it is all about collaboration and huge numbers of files being shared by everyone,” he says.


Photo credit: Framestore and Warner Bros. Pictures


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