FEATURE
Broadcast TECH
Clockwise from bottom left: action shots at Studio 66; the facility’s control room; Hustle; Absolutely Fabulous; How To Cook Like Heston
“In terms of the loss of offline
business, most of our work takes place online anyway, and desktop editing allows greater collaboration at the earlier studio or shooting stages. For example, we can generate an animatic or storyboard before a shoot, and these shots can be replaced with the actual digital foot- age from a studio shoot. Clients, including production companies, can walk away with assembled offline projects directly loaded into their laptop.”
Providing support In such an environment, Sangan says, the most important element facilities such as BBC S&PP offer is a high level of technical support and advice – especially now that the lines are blurred between old broad- cast technologies and new IT skills around file-based acquisition. “Clients need our expertise
more than ever. There are more codecs, cameras and opportunities to get the acquisition process wrong, which means more cost and more stress in the post-produc- tion world,” she says. “We offer a
friendly, human, non-techie inter- face to hand-hold and help clients deliver confidently within budget and on time.”
This ties in with comments made at BVE North by Mark Harrison, controller of production, BBC North, and the corporation’s lead for the Digital Production Partnership, about post houses “stepping up to the plate” and doing more to help production companies move away from tape. “The world has changed and our
responsibility as a post-production provider lies in supporting and advising before a frame is shot,” says Sangan. “We have been stepping up to the plate – guiding clients and coming up with creative solutions when, for example, the wrong set- ting is chosen, a production wants to use a new bit of kit, or spontaneous decisions are taken about formats.” Molinare adopted file-based work- flows years ago when it embarked on digital feature film post-produc- tion. “Much of the expertise we gained has translated perfectly into broadcast post-production and few of our projects are now tape-based,”
18 | Broadcast TECH | January/February 2012
says Molinare head of R&D and workflow Richard Wilding. “Some productions that are new
‘No longer do we have silos of acquisition and post – post
has to be involved before a
frame is shot’ Julie Sangan, BBC S&PP
to file-based workflows may find the prospect initially daunting but we are able to talk them through the process, demonstrating how robust a carefully planned workflow can be and the advantages it may offer. We always plan a workflow closely with the production to ensure our serv- ices are tightly integrated with the data wrangling and editorial team, and thereby ensure that the benefits and costs are directly aligned to the needs of the production team.” Prime Focus says because clients
are faced with infinite choices of formats, frame rates, file types, media management and workflows, it almost always gets involved with a production before any material is shot. “These choices now face every
production, large and small, and many have hidden costs and com- plexities in a way that did not exist before,” says Bray. “We are a source of advice with reliable technical, operational and creative staff, all of whom have extensive experience of
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