Avid Customer Stories

Arab Telemedia Studios Pro Case Study

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:00:00 Z

Arab Telemedia Studios Bringing Future-K Production to the Middle East

Arab Telemedia Studios has modernised its content workflows and storage system with a raft of new Avid solutions that will enable it to undertake 8K productions seamlessly. BroadcastPro ME brings you the lowdown.

With more broadcasters and content creators pushing forward with UHD/HDR announcements, high-resolution content is gaining popularity with Arab audiences and producers alike. Jordanian firm Arab Telemedia Studios sought a comprehensive end-to-end upgrade from long-time partner Avid to go beyond 4K and meet future 8K production requirements; earlier this year, it announced a new end-to-end upgrade and multi-year subscription agreement with Arab Telemedia Studios (a subsidiary of Arab Telemedia Group), as part of the company’s push towards future-proofing high-resolution productions and workflows.

Arab Telemedia Group’s office in Jordan (Image credit: www.broadcastprome.com)

In recent times, Arab Telemedia Group, founded as a family business in 1983 by late producer and director Adnan Al-Awamleh, has been transformed into an independent commercial media enterprise specializing in producing rich content in different genres that has built a large and loyal audience across the Arab world, such as the first-ever International Emmy award-winning series The Invasion, The Sons of Al Rashid, Al Hajjaj and Malik Ben Al Rayeb.

Under CEO and producer Talal Al-Awamleh, the company offers filmmakers and production companies the opportunity to benefit from its production services and latest technologies to produce outstanding content. In addition, it licenses and distributes thousands of hours of content to a variety of platforms and networks. To achieve its goals and produce high-quality international films and television, it uses the latest Avid technologies to fuel its existing production workflows and power its roster of acclaimed cast and crew.

The long-term relationship between Avid and Arab Telemedia Group stretches back to 2015, when the production house was searching for a partner to help deliver cutting-edge solutions to boost operational efficiency and improve the quality of its productions. Faced with fierce competition, rising viewer demand for content, and ever-shrinking production budgets, ATG chose Avid to provide the technologies needed to improve operational efficiency, deal with the challenges of working in 4K, and quickly produce a large volume of media under tight deadlines.

The deal made the company the first Middle East production house to base its workflows around 4K productions and the Avid DNxHR codec, enabling it to quickly adapt to the evolving requirements of high-resolution media and produce content in 4K without dramatically straining the production infrastructure. It included advanced media management solutions from the Avid Media Suite, including Interplay | Production and Interplay | Archive media asset management systems, Interplay | Capture ingest control, and Avid MediaCentral | Cloud UX, the cloud-based, web front-end to the Avid MediaCentral platform. To effectively archive a massive volume of 4K media, Arab Telemedia Group deployed media storage solutions from the Avid Storage Suite, including multiple ISIS shared storage systems and AirSpeed servers.

With Avid Everywhere, contributors throughout the organization could quickly gain access to and monetize the extensive archive of valuable media assets. Media Composer video editing software with Avid Resolution Independence also gave Arab Telemedia’s creative teams the ability to acquire, edit, and deliver content in any format and resolution, 4K and beyond. Media Composer’s floating licensing enabled the company to share licenses across its entire network and scale workgroups on demand.

Arab Telemedia Group returned to Avid when it realized that its older tools and systems needed an upgrade. Aside from naturally occurring system failures in legacy storage hardware, which posed a threat to the secure retention of highly valuable archived material, present solutions had reached a point in the technological cycle when they couldn't keep up with current technology. Even though the hardware could still be relied on, it wasn’t ready for the demands and strains of future high-resolution production workflows.

In addition, much like other productions around the world, creative teams adjusted remarkably quickly to the increased need for remote editing and collaboration during the Covid-19 pandemic. The introduction of newer ways of working and processes provided a new work-life balance for teams used to working within the safe confines of their homes for the past two years.

This not only increased productivity and benefited those looking to express their creativity, it also shone a spotlight on the challenges of dealing with variable internet speeds away from the turbocharged studio-grade hardware, and the need for better and more efficient software-based solutions in the cloud. With more editors working from home, Arab Telemedia Studios needed to move away from the original installation prioritizing hardware-based workflows in the studio, to adapt to remote working and globally distributed workflows.

Raad Haddadin, Senior Vice President for Technology at Arab Telemedia Group (Image credit: www.broadcastprome.com)

Regardless of how new a system is, there comes a point in time where an upgrade is needed – either to keep up with the latest technological advancements or due to newer demands on productions, the cycle always reaches a tipping point. We also needed to increase our storage requirements both from a bandwidth and transfer of files perspective.

We knew it was time to upgrade so that our productions using the latest cameras and tools can match our post-production workflows and enable us to continue delivering on our award-winning work.

Raad Haddadin,
Senior Vice President for Technology at Arab Telemedia Group

Avid pushed Arab Telemedia Group to not only upgrade its systems to the newest available versions, but also to enhance existing workflows. This upgrade required modern technologies and solutions that could provide reliability and predictable spending while allowing the same degree of creativity from creative teams working remotely. Working on high-profile projects as an editor can be daunting, however, as it requires open collaboration with hundreds of other editors and contributors, using myriad tools and screens.

That’s why Avid introduced ATG to MediaCentral, a fully modular platform that connects and integrates Avid and third-party partner solutions to streamline and accelerate production workflows. With this integration, it adopted resolution independence across many MediaCentral-enabled solutions, including Media Composer and MediaCentral | Production Management, allowing teams to work with and manage high-res and UHD media as easily as HD and SD media, and have it displayed consistently across all different tools.

With the adoption of subscription-based creative tools and content platforms by a growing number of post-production houses, broadcasters, and other content creators, Avid decided it was time to introduce Arab Telemedia to subscription-based creative tools and content platforms, for optimally flexible and scalable workflows that ensure production resources are always available.

As a key requirement in allowing remote access to teams regardless of physical location or time constraints, the new subscription agreement to the latest Media Composer I Ultimate editing software removes reliance on perpetual license software and ensures editors are equipped with all the required tools. It also enables editors to work from anywhere without changing their workflow and to extend collaboration to assistants, showrunners, producers, and other creative contributors. This floating model of license subscription not only allows anyone as many seats as needed, whenever needed, it also increases predictability when overseeing operational spend.

This upgrade means that Arab Telemedia Group’s creative teams will be able to tackle all future productions remotely while reducing overall costs and carbon footprint

Raad Haddadin,
Vice President for Technology at Arab Telemedia Group

MediaCentral | Collaborate was also deployed to empower teamwork and connect teams in the studio, in the field and at home, across any device. Building on the need to collaborate remotely, it allows teams to plan stories, gather resources, and delegate assignments to tracking tasks, topics, and ideas. The fact that this is available as a phone or web browser app thrills editors, who can now take advantage of working together seamlessly from anywhere, without added travel costs or other operational expenses.

The upgrade also prioritized the replacement of legacy Avid ISIS storage systems with an Avid NEXIS | E4 shared storage platform, enabling any number of editors using Avid and third-party tools to connect, share media and collaborate on projects in real time from anywhere. The world's first and only software-defined storage platform that enables true storage virtualization for any media application, this powerful system delivers unmatched flexibility, scalability, control, and extensibility to Avid MediaCentral platform applications. It helps accelerate Arab Telemedia Studio’s team's workflows and is future-ready in that it grows with every production need.

“Now, armed with the latest production tools across both software and hardware, this upgrade means that Arab Telemedia Group’s creative teams will be able to tackle all future productions remotely while reducing overall costs and carbon footprint. With more pressures globally and inside the MENA region for faster, better and more cost-beneficial, sustainable productions on the agenda, we have a great future ahead of us,” says Haddadin.

Got questions or need advice on future-proofing high-resolution productions and workflows?

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This article was first published by: www.broadcastprome.com | July-August 2022

How to Handle a Massive Post-Production Project? Easy: Cloud Video Editing

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 00:00:00 Z

By any standards, this post-production project was colossal. It included an on-location reality show; a cast of 14; 25 cameras shooting 24/7; 2,500 hours of footage; a large, distributed team; and only four weeks to ramp-up a post-production process to begin as soon as filming wrapped.

White Label Productions, producers of the show All Star Shore, a Viacom production for Paramount+, needed full-service post-production that encompassed audio, editorial, recording, mixing, and finishing. Producers turned to Eggplant Picture & Sound, a boutique post-production house based in Toronto, Canada. Eggplant’s project leaders, along with Bruce Fleming, the boutique’s partner, and Joseph Murnaghan, system administrator, knew their best option was an innovative cloud video editing solution. They chose Avid | Edit On Demand and recently shared their project experience with Avid.

Eggplant Picture & Sound project experience with Avid | Edit On Demand

“It's the biggest show I've ever seen like that. The proxies ended up being 60 terabytes,” Murnaghan says. “It's a massive amount of data.”

Eggplant producers had to quickly find a collaborative workflow for the 26-member team of editors, story leaders, and executives located in diverse geographic areas. Fleming and Murnaghan realized that creating an on-premises studio was not realistic.

“In the current environment, it would have taken so much lead time to get the gear and everything in place that it just wouldn't have been possible,” Murnaghan says. “We had to find a solution to have everybody work together.”

If you need to start a job in a couple of days, going to the cloud is pretty much a no brainer if you have a quick turnaround. That's where Avid | Edit On Demand solves that. I can add a seat in 15 minutes.

JOSEPH MURNAGHAN
SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR, EGGPLANT PICTURE & SOUND

Avid | Edit On Demand offered the Eggplant project multiple advantages including speed, ease of use, security, and a unique SaaS on-demand option to scale up and down as needed.

“With Avid | Edit On Demand you place the order, set up your workspace, and you could be up and running in a day or two,” Murnaghan says. “You don’t need to move facilities to get everything done.”

Eggplant quickly created its Avid | Edit On Demand workflow. The substantial footage was processed into DNX45 proxy, then uploaded into Avid | Edit On Demand, allowing assistants to begin the sync mapping process of laying out the day's footage.

“This is a large multicam shoot. When you have 12 people working and they're all in multicam mode, you're talking about hundreds of megabytes per second, even in proxy mode,” Murnaghan explains. “The playback on the stories that they're working on is very high end. On the Avid | Edit On Demand workspace side, we have 1.2 million individual files.”

The best thing about Avid | Edit On Demand is easy access and collaboration. It kept us on schedule. We wouldn't have been able to deliver the project without Avid | Edit On Demand.

BRUCE FLEMING
PARTNER, LEAD/SOUND, EGGPLANT PICTURE & SOUND

As an administrator, Murnaghan calls the ease of setup and management “one of the best features” of the Avid | Edit On Demand cloud video editing solution.

“And, they're continuing to develop. You can tell this product is constantly evolving. They're trying to make it be the best experience for the administrator and the users themselves,” Monaghan says. “Here's the keys to the admin portal and you're up and running.”

The ability to create a remote workflow using Avid | Edit On Demand is a huge advantage for post-production houses.

“The footprint that we need now on projects is less. We don't have to house 15 or 20 editors in the building,” Fleming comments. “It opens up the borders for us a little bit as well in terms of looking for editorial staff. We're able to use U.S. editors, and we're able to use international editors.”

Both Fleming and Murnaghan credit the SaaS subscription option with simplifying remote collaboration.

Eggplant plans to incorporate Avid | Edit On Demand in upcoming projects and utilize the same cloud video editing workflow used for All Star Shore.

See what Avid | Edit On Demand can do for your post-production business.

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Making the Switch: Editing 9-1-1 with Avid Media Composer’s New Interface

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 00:00:00 Z

Inside the edit bay on the hit Fox drama 9-1-1, a new character's making a big splash: the latest Avid Media Composer.

We caught up with Editor Bryan Colvin and Co-Producer / Editor Ravi Subramanian to chat about their experience learning the new Media Composer UI and their advice for editors who are still wary of making the switch.

Inside the New Media Composer Interface

"The NLE has never been snappier," says Bryan. "All the great features we know and love are still there, with a lot of new small feature additions that are very welcome, like swapping audio channels on a region, new selection tools within the timeline, and mixer tool menu items being mappable.

"But mostly, I've really felt the responsiveness improvements under the hood while editing. The tool really melts away and lets me focus on the creative aspects of the edit. I am very impressed with Avid's recent commitment to vastly improving this tool we all love to use."

Ravi agrees. When asked what he likes about the new Avid Media Composer, he offers one word: "Speed."

Learning to Love the New Media Composer UI

Bryan has grown to love the panels in the new Media Composer UI, which gives him plenty of flexibility to organize his workspaces. "I love being able to group audio tools in a panel that can float on its own. The panels, plus bin tabbing, plus floating bin containers, just gives you even more options to lay out what works for you," he says. "Docking panels together in categories and being able to select them on the vertical side bar has been a really nice space saver that lets me have more tools ready to access, but slightly tucked away for screen real estate."

Ravi too has found a custom set-up that works for him. "The panels allow me to use a 38-inch monitor at 3840x1600 as my main screen and a second display at 1080 for playback." As an added bonus, "this allows for a remote client to not push that much data from our remote stations to our client computer."

Why Upgrade? In a Word, Speed

Beyond support for new standards and hardware, Ravi and Bryan both point to speed as the main reason to take the plunge with the latest version of Media Composer—the many small improvements add up to big efficiencies when deadlines are looming.

Bryan further explains, "Editors will enjoy the snappiness of the updated NLE, with a lot of new, small features that add up to a lot for keeping us on track with the creative edit, while maintaining all the great aspects we are used to and depend on daily. AEs will absolutely enjoy the newer features, such as timeline selection tools to quickly select all muted clips to remove for turnovers. The added 'Create Sequence Based on Selection' option is such a time-saver for many situations. AEs doing a lot of temp sound work or mixes will very much enjoy the newly mappable mixer tool menu items."

Making the Switch

Ravi offers the following advice for editors who are still hesitant to get used to a new UI: "Give it a chance. I know a new UI can be off-putting, but it took me less than a day to get used to it, and now I prefer it. It's like editing. You are given new footage, and you need to adapt every day to what you get. The new UI is the same thing."

Bryan feels similarly. "The panels aren't that wild. Don't fear them," he says. "I honestly think you are missing out on one of the greatest versions of Media Composer that's existed by avoiding this update. Spend a day getting used to the new UI. The alt/option modifier is your friend when you dock panels and bins around."

Parting Thoughts

"The current creative spirit of the development team excites me greatly. When you are using Media Composer, you can sense the intention behind the software," says Bryan. "I do believe the dev team struck a balance in pushing things forward without undoing the things we love. That's no easy feat."

Ravi states, "I think editors like their workspace to be stable, without too much disruption, and they don't want to have to learn too many new things. While I agree with that, I think the new Media Composer can act like the old version but also allows one to re-think the relationship with the workspace. It can give you new inspiration, create new workflows, and force you to interact with your tool in a different way. This type of change can help you grow creatively. The new version does not get in the way of your old workflow; it just enhances it and opens up new ways of thinking."

Access the latest version of Avid Media Composer

The latest version of Avid Media Composer is now available as a free update to all current Media Composer subscribers, as well as perpetual license owners with an active Software Updates + Support Plan. Got an old Media Composer perpetual license? Check out your upgrade options here to get current. And if you don’t have Media Composer, subscribe or give it a try now!

ITV Daytime Transforming Production Workflows with Avid and Microsoft Azure

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 Z

As media companies and content producers around the world adjust to the new normal of working remotely, many are faced with the challenge of how to create a production environment that can function both on-premises and in the cloud. ITV Daytime, responsible for the daytime programming block on Great Britain’s ITV network, faced that precise scenario when the pandemic hit. The network responded by partnering with Avid, Microsoft Azure, and Support Partners, a London-based firm that helps companies migrate to the cloud, to reimagine its Daytime editorial department as a hybrid environment that could unlock the benefits of the hyper-scale cloud to meet new team expectations of a more flexible work environment.

ITV Daytime Customer Use Case Videos

ITV Daytime imagined the production possibilities, unlocked the cloud’s capabilities, and transformed itself. Get the whole story

ITV Customer Use Case | Journey to the Cloud

See how ITV Daytime faced change

ITV Customer Use Case | Legacy Processes and Challenges

Discover how ITV Daytime built a new process from idea to launch

ITV Customer Use Case | Collaboration

Maintaining the user experience despite major digital change

ITV Customer Use Case | Benefits of Remote Workflows

No “same old” for ITV Daytime

ITV Customer Use Case | Response of the Production Team

Improving user experience while reducing footprint

IT Customer Use Case | Key Barriers to Adoption

No extra equipment needed for the cloud

New Cloud Workflows

For ITV Daytime, there were three primary goals for shifting workflows to the cloud:

Enable a hybrid, secure, quick-to-deploy production environment with the ability to add or remove resources at a moment’s notice
Create a modern and sustainable work environment independent of physical location to support creative teams working from anywhere
Use familiar Avid creative tools on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to ensure that ITV editors always have access to the latest software in a secure environment that optimizes long-term archiving and disaster recovery

Tim Guilder, Head of Production Technology for ITV Studios, explains, “Our business has really changed in the past two years, and we needed a new way of working that didn't involve several different parts of the business footing the bill. We needed to be more agile, to be able to spin resources up and down when production needed that extra bit of licensing and/or delivery of extra kit in tight turnaround situations. Then the global pandemic arrived, and our technology leadership said, ‘OK, we're ready to have a go at this’ and see how we can harness the cloud to enable a new way of working. The global pandemic was the catalyst for change and enabled the dedicated focus of the technologists to find out how to work in a different and more modern way.”

Mapping the Journey to the Cloud

At the outset of the project, teams from Microsoft, Avid, and Support Partners set out to design a scalable Azure-based Avid workflow that was compliant with both Microsoft and Avid best practices, as well as ITV corporate standards. The first step was to map out ITV Daytime’s TV production workflows and perform an audit of the technologies deployed. Avid and Support Partners worked closely with ITV Daytime technology and production groups, as well as with the network’s editors, to develop architecture designs and a project plan for migrating key workflows to the cloud. ITV’s Azure Foundational Services team was involved to make sure the plan aligned with cloud best practices.

Security was a key consideration: The solution had to ensure access only for properly credentialed users. This challenge was resolved by employing Leostream software as a connection broker, effectively linking the environment with ITV’s corporate Active Directory and multi-factor authentication provider.

Deployment Approach

Taking a disciplined approach to rolling out the new solution, ITV initially deployed staging and production environments for robust testing and gap analysis. Its testing involved reviewing service offerings such as Avid | Edit On Demand, a turnkey SaaS solution that auto-provisions all resources needed to deploy a high-performance editorial environment in the cloud. Avid | Edit On Demand leverages the same Media Composer and Avid NEXIS file system users rely on in their on-prem environments, allowing ITV’s editors to quickly discover that cloud editing can be delivered with the performance required for collaboration from anywhere.

As the project matured, ITV turned to a more customized Avid NEXIS solution. The result was a hybrid cloud editing environment that enabled editors to access, edit, and seamlessly move content to and from their on-premises workstations to the cloud, and collaborate with team members from any location.

“ITV Daytime has been a long-time customer of Avid, and we were eager to work with their team, along with Microsoft and Support Partners, to deliver a secure, cloud-based workflow,” said Craig Dwyer, vice president of global cloud & SaaS practice at Avid. “In so doing we provided a pathway for others in the industry to quickly deploy a scalable production environment in the cloud, with the ability to dial resources up and down as needed, while letting editors work from anywhere on the software they know—and to do it securely.”

Once the new platform was up and running, the ITV Daytime team sent a survey to its production group to gain feedback about the experience of moving to the cloud, as well as to learn how it might improve working environments for both producers and editors. An unexpected outcome of the survey was the excitement of editorial team members to be able to work from home, providing them with a better work-life balance, in addition to being more efficient.

“At Microsoft our goal is to empower global teams to collaborate seamlessly and securely, and through our partnership on this project with ITV, Avid, and Support Partners, we are able to do just that,” said Simon Crownshaw, director of worldwide strategy for media and entertainment at Microsoft. “And, with leading companies like ITV committing to embrace the power of the cloud for production, this is just the beginning of enabling media organizations to achieve things never thought possible by harnessing the power of cloud.”

Harry Grinling, CEO of Support Partners, adds that sustainability was another objective of the project. “It's been really interesting understanding that ITV’s sustainability and environmental goals closely aligned to Microsoft’s zero-emissions goals,” he said. “Factoring this in with other important levers, such as accessibility, elasticity, and scalability, the new environment aligns tightly with ITV’s goals.”

The Results

ITV Daytime editors can now complete programs from nearly any location, including their homes. Plus, the network has the flexibility to navigate any future needs for scaling production resources up or down and creating remote working environments for their editing teams. Additionally, Microsoft Azure provides the required content security for ITV’s assets, which includes cloud archive. Moving these assets to the cloud has created increased production capacity, allowing ITV Daytime to take on new productions without requiring additional office space or editing bays.

The ITV Daytime solution was deployed as a repeatable and scalable foundation so that it could be used across other business units at the network. In addition to reducing the need to invest in new hardware every five to six years, the solution also reduced ITV’s carbon footprint—meeting another key corporate goal—while enabling its teams to always work on the most up-to-date software.

Changing to a new way of working can be difficult, especially when it affects the workflow for artists and editors. Moving away from a legacy process requires measurable and tangible steps, as well as the expertise to ensure that production environments created in the cloud are optimized for the end user and represent a true benefit to content creation. The cloud-based production environment architected by Microsoft, Avid, and Support Partners for ITV certainly achieves this goal. The proof is in the pudding, as they say: ITV has already aired ten episodes of John and Lisa’s Weekend Kitchen using the Azure-enabled Avid environment from inception through to broadcast.

See how Avid | Edit On Demand can benefit your business.

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Why Promising Audio Careers Start at Collarts

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:00:00 Z

Australian College of the Arts, known as Collarts, is a rapidly expanding creative arts institution located in Melbourne, Australia. The school has gained a reputation through its 30-year history for delivering high-quality education that keeps students on the cutting-edge of evolving demands, trends, and technology in the creative industries. It’s also an Avid Learning Partner, with the official Pro Tools curriculum baked into the coursework, enabling staff to teach and certify students on the tools and workflows needed in the field to put them ahead in the job market.

We spoke with the head of the Audio Production department, Jason Torrens, who’s been at Collarts since its beginning, to learn more about the college and its offerings, what makes it special, and how Avid plays a role in both.

What kind of school is Collarts?

Collarts is short for Australian College of the Arts, and we’re taking that title pretty seriously as we expand our course offerings. Collarts offers a wide range of diplomas and degrees, and by the time I name them all, there will likely be a new one added. We started with Music Performance, Entertainment Management, and Audio Production, and now, we have over 12 different disciplines on offer, including Interior Design, Animation and VFX, Screen and Media, Fashion and Sustainability, and much more. We also recently added Photography, Comedy, and even some post-graduate degrees.

Fast expansion has always been the trend—we can’t build the campuses fast enough. And it helps that we even have an awesome marketing team that has worked to create a strong and accurate visual representation of what it’s like at Collarts: fun, cool, cutting-edge, and highly inclusive.

What degrees are popular at Collarts?

Right now, Music Performance and Music Production are two of the most popular degrees. People want to play, sing, and make beats, so there’s a lot of interest in these disciplines. And, having recently begun offering most of our courses with a fully online option, we are finding even more expansion around the country and even some new students from overseas.

What fields and jobs do audio students typically go into after Collarts?

Graduates from the Audio Engineering degree find themselves in quite a wide variety of work environments. Live sound and the AV industry are both common, which we see as very important growth areas for employment opportunities. Post production is also the obvious strong area which we’ve had some students find work in. We’re pushing hard to be the leader in feeding that industry with quality graduates as we grow. Other areas include studio work, the installation industry, events, and even audio forensics and audiology. It’s really an amazing world—students take what we teach them and use what they’ve learned across a massive arena of opportunities, depending on their interests.

What role does Pro Tools play at Collarts?

Pro Tools plays a central role in the audio engineering degree and it’s an option for other students in one of our electives. The audio engineering degree has Pro Tools 101 and 110 integrated into the degree, which, therefore, gets our students their “User” certification as part of their normal curriculum.

All of our Music Production students are also exposed to Pro Tools, but it’s not as tightly ingrained into that degree as it is in Audio Engineering. We’re planning to extend this into the operator levels with music, post, and live sound too, because as a school, you have to teach what the industry is using—and they’re using Pro Tools.

Collarts has two rooms with full Pro Tools | HDX setups. In Studio One, we’ve combined an SSL AWS 48 with a matching 48 channels of Pro Tools | HD I/O, Pro Tools | SYNC HD, and all the lovely Avid software that goes with that. And in our Theatrette, we also have Pro Tools | HDX, as well as a Pro Tools | MRTX, Pro Tools | SYNC HD, and an Avid S6 console, all connecting with the Dolby® RMU and 20 JBL speakers—most of them 7 series. This room is a showcase for Avid, Dolby, and what’s possible for the current standard of post production.

Aside from these rooms, we have Pro Tools Ultimate set up on more than 80 computers in our computer labs, as well as six set up in other studios. We also have plans to expand more into the Avid environment with an [Avid VENUE] S6L, Media Composer, and an Avid NEXIS—at least. In addition, we run Sibelius for the music performance department with me and one other teacher certified to teach Sibelius to our students.

Why Pro Tools? How do your students react to learning the software?

A production student said very recently, “The courses that get you familiar with Pro Tools make you want to use it.” Our students love having the skills in the platform and seeing what it can enable them to do, and they’re always amazed at how deep it can go. Plus, the fact that Pro Tools is the leader for studio work and post production gives them the confidence and assurance that they possess the skills that are employable.

Our audio department feels a great benefit from having the Avid curriculum embedded in the courses. It allows students to work through a set series of steps that make sense, and it makes the learning and teaching smoother—especially when students see the tools in action in the various contexts, like recording studios and post workflows. Once students are certified, it’s very encouraging to see how quickly they add their certification to their resume. Our students get jobs from having their certification on their resume all the time.

How was Collarts able to overcome the challenge of remote learning?

Collarts rose to the challenge when we needed to adopt remote learning. Students were able to control mixing consoles like the Avid S6, live sound consoles, and even lighting rigs from home, and from anywhere in the world. And the Avid education curriculum was able to continue as usual, which shows the amazing capability of Avid’s tools and platforms to work remotely. Plus, Avid provided software for the students and allowed exams to take place online… it felt like a family of legends making the impossible not so impossible.

One of our students who learned Dolby Atmos during a lockdown did such amazing work that it’s currently featured on the Dolby website.

What’s in store for the future of Collarts?

Collarts has plans to integrate more Avid solutions into our education because it simply works. From Media Composer in the Screen & Media degree to the VENUE | S6L and live sound certifications, and even through to the more high-level “Operator” certifications that our students can complete.

The benefits of our integrated Avid education doesn’t end when students graduate. The industry connections that come with being a part of the Avid family are simply not found elsewhere. From Avid Learning Central to the Avid Media Campus, we are seeing our future looking quite bright with our Avid associations.

Dolby is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories.

A Remote Avid Post-production Workflow Saves the Day for Original TV Series

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 Z

Planet Earth is in turmoil. A global disaster has upset the world order, forcing people everywhere to face their deepest fears and learn to live in a society that will be forever changed.

This is the plot line for an original TV series that began airing on a major streaming service in late 2021. Of course, it also applies to real life in the form of the global COVID-19 pandemic. These dual storylines converged in March 2020 shortly after principal production on the show was shut down, leading the series’ producer in charge of post-production to rethink his usual approach to editing. A scary proposition for sure, but one with a true Hollywood-style happy ending.

A character-driven sci-fi drama, the series was being shot in four cities on four continents. Editorial was scheduled to get underway in the Beverly Hills offices of one of the participating production companies, but that plan was rendered obsolete when the pandemic hit. The company had already built-out six bays by that time—three for editors and three for assistants—around Avid Media Composer workstations connected via Avid NEXIS shared storage.

When the shutdown went into effect, the producer was forced to look at alternatives for post. His options were limited. After test driving a number of remote editing systems, including one offered by his current editing vendor, he found system reliability to be a common, unsettling issue. “I couldn’t afford to have showrunners and producers watching new content and having the media jump or pause or not be in sync,” he said. “That would have been a true disaster.”

Then he called Remote Picture Labs (RPL), a Burbank-based company that has partnered with Avid to provide media companies and tier-one sports organizations with high-performance remote collaborative editing over a private cloud infrastructure. The RPL solution allows editors, assistant editors, and producers to work from anywhere using virtual Media Composer workstations connected to centralized Avid NEXIS shared storage—and experience the same picture, audio quality, and data throughput found in on-premises edit bays. Redundant power, cooling, and connectivity assures the reliability demanded by time-sensitive television production schedules.

Delivering High Performance and Content Security

RPL allocated 40 TB of storage for the series, with each episode preloaded onto Avid NEXIS servers to allow the editorial team to begin working as soon as they were able. The virtual workstations were set up in the home of each assistant and editor, the network later expanded to also include four visual effects editors. Dailies were produced in a lab in New York and then sent to the editors’ virtual machines.

Each workstation included three HD video monitors and a pair of speakers and was provided a full 1 GB symmetrical connection to enable high-speed data transfer. Teradici® Cloud Access Software and PCoIP® technology were employed to compress, encrypt, and transmit the data to 10ZiG V1200-QPD zero clients at each workstation. No media was ever actually downloaded to the workstations, only pixels, which helped provide consistent high performance and security. The PCoIP protocol is secured by AES-256 encryption and adapts dynamically to network conditions in real time, further contributing to the highest level of content protection. Once editing was completed, material was transferred to a finishing house in Los Angeles.

While it’s logical to expect that a remote editing architecture might impact performance, video quality, and even creativity, it never happened. “RPL was able to remove the fear of the unknown, of not knowing if the system would work or not,” said the show producer. “Their systems have been completely reliable, and that’s where they really picked up the ball and saved the day for us.”

Teradici and PCoIP are trademarks of Teradici Corporation and are registered in the United States and/or other countries. Any other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners.

Pinewood Studios Achieves Ultimate Flexibility with Avid S6

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 00:00:00 Z

For over 85 years, Pinewood Studios has enabled storytellers around the world to bring their visions to life on both the big and small screen. Its iconic film and television studio lot in the UK—home to some of the most enduring screen classics, including James Bond, Star Wars, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe—houses 24 stages, an underwater shooting stage, seven theaters, and three TV studios just outside of London. Its sister studio lot—Shepperton Studios, which houses another 14 stages and 11 theaters—is a short drive away.

Production companies big and small gravitate towards Pinewood because of its history, as well as for its world-class audio post and localization services. And for decades, Pro Tools has been the cornerstone for all things audio, with all mixing theaters and sound suites based around its hardware systems, software, and control surfaces for recording, editing, and mixing.

“Our customers span from multimillion-pound budget feature films with major studios to small independent films and broadcast TV for the UK,” says Jens Christensen, Post Production Director at Pinewood. “So we really cover any type of post-production sound… I think the thing that really sets us apart is the number of theaters available and that everyone here is driven by a passion for what they do.”

In the last few years, the post-production team has been upgrading their mixing theaters, replacing older Euphonix System 5 consoles and ICON control surfaces with the fully modular Avid S6. Most recently, Pinewood upgraded its Powell Theatre—the biggest mixing theater in the UK—with a dual-operator Avid S6 control surface providing 32 faders on each side.

Jens Christensen (left), Post Production Director, and Paul Govey (right), Post Production Operations Manager, in front of their dual-operator 2 x 32-fader Avid S6 control surface in Pinewood Studios’ Powell Theatre. Photo by Kevin Baker

Maintaining tradition with modern advances
The decision to choose S6 not only gives Pinewood’s clients and in-house team console familiarity across all theaters, but it also allows all work to be done on a single platform of Pro Tools and S6, giving them more flexibility and efficiency to handle the busy schedules and inevitable last-minute changes.

“We had ProControl surfaces initially and when they became end of life, the natural step was to get the ICON control surfaces to replace those,” Christensen explains. “Most of them have now been replaced by S6.” The studio currently has 14 S6 control surfaces.

A big factor in that decision was EUCON, the Ethernet protocol that Avid control surfaces use to communicate with Pro Tools and other audio and video applications. With EUCON built into S6, mixers have deeply integrated and intuitive touch and tactile control of Pro Tools and plugins, plus remote control of all sources and speaker sets for monitoring.

Alex Symeonides, Junior Re-Recording Mixer at Pinewood, explains the reason behind the latest acquisition.

“We wanted to retain that traditional film mixing workflow. We still have multiple playback rigs in the theater… And there are a lot of ergonomic features for the S6 that really benefit the re-recording mixers. That in combination with the PEC/DIRECT metering—which is an essential part of the S6—and retaining the fantastic integration with Pro Tools is what makes it attractive to us. It’s just excellent.”

Gaining the edge on localization and the Dolby Atmos demand
The other deciding factor was finding a solution that would give the studio the most flexibility to accommodate different client needs and optimize the workflow of all the localization mixing the team was doing for “probably the biggest studio in the world,” according to Christensen. But before making the decision, Christensen researched what other mixers were using.

“We have connections to many mixers in LA, and I asked them, ‘What are you mixing on at the moment?’ And they kept sending me pictures of S6 consoles sitting on top of other consoles wherever they were… It was a bit of a gamble because we are the first big mixing facility in the UK to go with a dual S6 in our main room, but I think that’s where audio post is going, and it gives us the flexibility to bring in 99% of the post projects that are out there.”

The studio also upgraded the theater’s routing and monitoring capabilities with a single Pro Tools | MTRX audio interface, enabling mixers to switch between different monitoring setups in the room quickly and easily. With the combination of Pro Tools, S6, and MTRX all communicating together over EUCON, the team and their clients have the speed and flexibility they need to handle the most demanding mixes and workloads.

“On the creation side, because of the type of content we’re dealing with, we’re doing Atmos on pretty much everything,” Christensen says. “On our localization side, on a big animation title we could do 45 versions [of a mix] and maybe 30 of those will go Atmos. There’s a big demand for it.”

Paul Govey, Post Production Operations Manager at Pinewood, agrees adding, “A lot of the time, it actually seems to be the streaming clients that want Dolby Atmos® rather than the theatrical clients. We’ve also noticed that some Netflix titles will quite often ask for a Dolby Atmos HE [Home Entertainment] version, even if the theatrical version of the film isn’t a Dolby Atmos mix.”

The Adrian Biddle Theatre at Shepperton Studios features a 24-fader S6 for mixing, mastering, and ADR recording.

Empowering clients
So, what do Pinewood’s clients think about the upgrades? According to Symeonides, “Our clients so far have been very, very happy. They’re able to actually use the S6 as if it were a System 5, so it feels familiar and something that they’re glad to be in front of and use.”

Govey adds, “Some of our clients have very firm ideas about how they like to mix. We recently had what you might call a traditional console guy in to mix, and he was actually saying that the new S6 install—particularly with the two knob panels per fader—was brilliant and that he felt like he was mixing on an S5.”

That client happened to be BAFTA-nominated re-recording mixer Adam Scrivener, whose credits include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Parts 1 and 2), The Gentlemen, Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, Roma, and V for Vendetta. And he had this to say about his experience:

“Working on Pinewood’s new S6 in Powell Theatre reminded me how liberating a well-configured console can be in the mix. I love having the full complement of knob modules to allow inline access to EQ, while the PEC/DIRECT panels and pan modules make it feel how a console should. The whole setup was rock-solid.”

For Pinewood, knowing that their clients are happy and can achieve what they set out to do, efficiently and in the highest quality, means everything.

Dolby and Dolby Atmos are registered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories.

How Full Sail University Stays Ahead with Avid

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:00:00 Z

"If you're serious about your dream, we'll take your dream seriously." That's been the mission statement of Full Sail University ever since its founding in 1979—and it still holds true today.

Based in Winter Park, Florida, Full Sail University has built a reputation as one of the premier entertainment, media, art, and technology schools in the world, offering degree programs across many different areas of study, including Music & Recording and Film & Television. And its graduates have gone on to work with the biggest names in music and on the biggest films and television shows around the world, with countless GRAMMY, Oscar, and Emmy wins and nominations.

So, how does the school attract such motivated students? In large part, it's because Full Sail sources its instructors and technological infrastructure straight from the industries themselves. And its accelerated curriculum is designed to train students on only the most necessary and pertinent tools and techniques they need to know to land their dream job, enabling graduation in half the time of a traditional bachelor's program.

That's why Full Sail has had a long relationship with Avid that goes back decades, enabling the university to keep its finger on the pulse of technological innovation while giving students access to the latest industry tools. The university recently refreshed its Pro Tools, Media Composer, and Sibelius software and upgraded its dubbing stage with a dual-operator Avid S6 control surface.

Check out a timelapse of the school's S6 installation.

But it's not just the tools that ensure student success—it's also the teachers and the level of expertise and experience they bring that set Full Sail apart.

Teaching through technology, mentorship, and Project LaunchBox

All students receive a laptop and software in their LaunchBox, which is unique to each degree program, enabling them to create whenever inspiration strikes—on campus or at home.

At Full Sail, not only do instructors have a deep understanding of the tools and technology they teach, but they're also active practitioners participating in their industry. This makes them uniquely qualified and a desirable mentor to learn from.

"Our traditional Full Sail teacher is from the industry, first and foremost," says Brian Smithers, Program Director of Audio Production. "There are academic credentials required as well, but I'm a performing musician. We have faculty members who have made AAA games… I think the fact that the students know that we have gone where they hope to go puts a lot of credibility and faith in our ability to lead them in a really pragmatic and efficient path toward their dreams."

A central feature to the Full Sail education is the LaunchBox, which each student receives whether attending online or on campus. For the Audio Production degree program specifically, which is offered online, the LaunchBox contains all the core tools a student will need to complete their program, including Pro Tools | Ultimate (now replacing Pro Tools), a microphone, laptop, headphones, and monitors. In the Film & Television degree program, students receive a similar box, now with Media Composer | Ultimate instead of Media Composer.

In addition to the hardware included in the LaunchBox, students have 24/7 access to their files, software, and coursework, enabling more time to explore the tools and get ahead outside of the classroom. For Film & Television students specifically, the school's Avid NEXIS storage infrastructure enables them to access their work from any Media Composer workstation or post-production classroom on campus.

On campus, film students learn and experience all facets of moviemaking—from pre to postproduction—including shooting scenes on the university's backlot.

But the recent idea to refresh the Avid software in the LaunchBoxes to the "Ultimate" versions—the same software used on campus—came in part due to the COVID pandemic.

"When COVID first hit, we were able to allow our campus students some access to Pro Tools | Ultimate and Media Composer | Ultimate for a 90-day period, thanks to Avid's generosity, even though they weren't in the labs for a couple of months," Smithers explains. "That was kind of one of the things that led us down this train of thought."

Scott Dansby, Director of Industry Relations, agrees. "That was a huge help at the beginning of COVID. We were still able to provide some of the same tools to students who had to transition very quickly from being a campus student to an online student. They were able to access a lot of the same features and functionalities that they would have normally learned inside a studio or lab from home. We didn't have to make a whole lot of changes to the curriculum for them."

For Audio Production students, having Pro Tools | Ultimate in their LaunchBox gives them access to the same advanced functions previously only available to Recording Arts students.

"Having Pro Tools | Ultimate enhances our students' ability to delve into surround sound and to actually pursue Operator-level certification," Smithers explains. "The fact that they can actually practice these advanced workflows on their laptop at home is a real help."

Taking full control with Avid S6 and Pro Tools | MTRX

Of course, the LaunchBoxes are just a fraction of the technology and training offered for campus students. For use within the Recording Arts Bachelor's degree program, Full Sail currently has 42 Avid S6 control surfaces—and Michael Orlowski, Full Sail's Media Systems Engineer, has been the brains behind all the acquisitions.

"We purchased 25 S6 M10 consoles back in 2014 [replacing Control|24] and we split those up into two 12-station labs for our workstation advanced courses into Pro Tools," Orlowski recalls. "That install and use case worked out so well that in 2019, we replaced our Avid ICON D-Control consoles."

For those upgrades, the school purchased 16 more S6s for use in four surround post suites (configured with Joystick Modules) and 12 individual mix rooms in the school's "Mix Palace" lab. And just a few months ago, it upgraded its dubbing stage with a new dual-operator S6, which provides 48 faders on each side, replacing a System 5.

A dual-operator Avid S6 now serves as the centerpiece of Full Sail's dubbing stage, pictured with (L–R) Scott Dansby, Brian Smithers, and Michael Orlowski.

"Having students [get familiar with] using an S6 and progressing into the advanced labs like the dub stage using a similar surface—the onboarding to get them ready for the lab has dramatically reduced," Orlowski says. "They're up and running within the first 15 minutes… What we love is that S6 brings a unified console experience throughout the entire program. We're seeing more courses able to take advantage of the labs, and we're able to utilize our S6s across multiple degree programs, which is huge."

Each S6 is accompanied by a Pro Tools | MTRX interface to handle routing and monitoring, which greatly simplified the workflow.

"What we love about the MTRX is now having the accessibility of Dante audio," Orlowski says. "We're using Dante Virtual Soundcard to bring a surround feed out of the Mac, so students can now audition stems in surround directly from the computer on the same speakers as they would be using when actively mixing. So, what used to be complicated routing to get preview audio into the ears of our students, now goes through the MTRX and Dante."

The question of software choice

While Full Sail has utilized Avid products extensively throughout its curriculum for decades, Smithers is keen to point out that software is a personal choice—except for Pro Tools.

"Our general philosophy is that we teach tools, techniques, and concepts—not software products," Smithers stresses. "But Pro Tools is an industry imperative… and it would be a disservice for us not to make sure our students are well-versed in Pro Tools."

Dansby agrees: "What Brian said about Pro Tools rings true for Media Composer… For our film and video students who decide to go into postproduction, Avid will probably play a pretty big role in what they're doing."

Learn more about Full Sail's programs here and check out what its graduates have done.

Students enrolled in the Show Production degree program get hands-on live sound mixing experience using Avid VENUE | S6L.

Blame Game EXP feat. Harry Shotta in Dolby Atmos

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 00:00:00 Z

Blame Game EXP featuring Harry Shotta is an 18-minute music experience comprising four tracks and five-part audio cinematic scenes. This piece explores socio-economic issues such as crime, poverty, deprivation, and mental health. The story is told from different perspectives reflected in the lyrics and narrative transitions that help the audience to better understand the complexity and dynamics of the depicted relationships.

The aim of this collaboration was to bring together conventional music production and songwriting with the narrative sound design and new generation immersive audio technologies—such as Dolby Atmos® —usually associated with cinema and gaming. The use of spatial sound design for narrative components and cutting-edge Dolby Atmos audio format for music mixing brings the audience face to face with the stories unfolding throughout. Blame Game EXP showcases the true potential of immersive storytelling to on-demand music streaming.

We wanted to engulf our audience in music as well as physical environments. The project utilizes a number of experimental techniques including recordings with ambisonic and wearable binaural microphones that offer a new sound to the listening experience typically not included in conventional stereo music productions.

-Oliver Kadel 2021

During this project we really enjoyed experimenting with a number of recording and mixing techniques. Some scenes were recorded with the Ambeo first order ambisonic microphone, which essentially captured the scene like a 360 camera by recording positional information in all directions. This was subsequently decoded into 5.1 and then integrated into a 7.1.2 channel bed within Pro Tools. Other scenes featured native binaural recordings recorded with a wearable Sonic Presence SP-15C microphone. Using pre-binauralized audio as an input source to the Atmos mix may sound, and indeed is, paradoxical. However, rules are there to be broken and we highly encourage experimentation of any kind. Personally, I found this technique was effective at portraying a scene from the first-person perspective POV as the native binaural recording captured in action can be hard to replicate with object mixing alone with the desired amount of viscerality. Whilst working wonderfully for the headphone mix, the downside was that the binaural elements did not translate well to loudspeakers, but ultimately an optimal balance could be found to satisfy both delivery methods from a creative standpoint. Lastly, some scenes were completely invented and brought to life with sound design and spatialization utilizing beds and objects. It was fun to mix and play with these formats within a single piece. As always, there is no right or wrong way to do everything - different ideas require an individual approach.

Our technical approach was to produce a spatial mix with the channel beds and objects across the spatial audio resolution of the 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos layout. This format offers true 3D audio on loudspeakers and headphones, thanks to binaural processing. In comparison to legacy formats such as stereo and 5.1, Dolby Atmos' 7.1.2 channel layout, coupled with object-based audio offers a height dimension, which can be reproduced even over headphones, when filtered with a set of Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs). An HRTF is a pair (left and right ears separately) of filters which capture the spatial cues encoded by the human anatomy, including the size and shape of our ears and head. These filters can be used in real-time to impose the spatial cues onto any audio signal, such as an immersive music mix, and offer a level of immersion not possible using traditional stereo headphone reproduction.

The Dolby Atmos Renderer offers a selection of HRTF distances ('near', 'mid' and 'far') which gives producers and mixing engineers control over how much spatial effect is applied to individual sound elements in their mix. In Blame Game, the spatial processing was emphasized on the narrative, diegetic components which bridge the musical tracks together, while for the music itself, the spatial processing was used conservatively to preserve the timbral fidelity and punchiness expected from Hip Hop. The human brain is incredibly adaptive and can familiarize itself with spatial cues within a short timeframe. Having control over how much and when, the spatial effect is applied to individual, or groups of sound elements offers a very powerful set of tools that can combine conservative "center-stage" mixing with immersive object arrangements that occupy the full three-dimensional space. This is not possible using traditional, non-spatial approaches. The result is a set of completely novel and creative strategies to please and excite your listener. In the same way that the creative decisions made during the arrangement and production of a mix can create contrast and dynamism between the musical sections, so can spatial processing reveal new dimensions to the immersive auditory experience for producers and mixing engineers.

Dolby Atmos is currently supported on the Apple Music platform along with several other major music streaming platforms. We believe that in the immediate future, more and more members of the global audience will gain access to this content as the evolution and adaptation of immersive audio continues across the industries. Furthermore, we are very excited about the introduction of a head-tracking feature on a number of consumer devices. This technology is typically built into earphones or headphones that work wirelessly through Bluetooth. The head-tracking gives three degrees of freedom (3DOF) movement in relation to a center-stage of the content thus adding a whole new dynamic dimension to the listening experience that most regular listeners are not currently familiar with. We believe that spatial and interactive audio in the next decade is going to become a key differentiating factor and an indispensable aspect of immersive communication, storytelling, brand advertising, music streaming, and podcasting. It's a truly exciting landscape for modern music and other audio content creatives.

The AvidPlay platform has been instrumental when it came to the distribution of this piece. With currently limited options we wanted to maximize the outreach by making the content accessible on all platforms that support spatial audio with Dolby Atmos. AvidPlay is a one-stop shop covering all key metadata and distribution features and currently supports Apple Music, TIDAL and Amazon Music HD as well as the rest of the streaming platforms that only support stereo playback. The project was released on the 8th of September 2021.

ARTIST: Harry Shotta

PRODUCERS: Macky Gee & Erb N Dub

ARTIST MANAGEMENT: David Ross

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Oliver Kadel

MIXING ENGINEER: Oliver Kadel

LABEL: 1.618 Music

Special mention to Oliver Scheuregger, Mathew Neutra, Dylan Marcus and Emma Rees for their contributions and support across this project.

Harry Shotta

https://harryshotta.com/

Harry Shotta is an award-winning international MC who has travelled the globe touring since he exploded onto the Drum N Bass scene. He is a Guinness world record champion achieving the title of 'most words on a song' beating Eminem's "Rap God" back in 2017 with his epic display of double-time speed rap on "Animal". Harry has also written the first Rap AR experience Consequences which was launched at the Future Of Storytelling Festival in New York in 2018. This was followed by a showcase sponsored by Bose at the Raindance Immersive Festival in 2019. Continuing his passion for weaving storytelling into musical soundscapes, Harry's latest journey into thought-provoking lyrical narratives finds him breaking down the story of a troubled boy over four different tracks.

Author: Oliver Kadel
https://www.1618digital.com
Oliver Kadel is an award-winning audio engineer and sound designer based in London, specializing in spatial and interactive audio for new generation immersive media. Since founding 1.618 Digital in 2014, Oliver and his team have worked on audio for over 100 immersive projects. Alongside industry practice, Oliver lectures at the University of West London, teaching Immersive Audio on a master's program. Most recently, Oliver embarked on a PhD at the University of York AudioLab, researching the impact of spatial psychoacoustics in the context of learning and training in Virtual Reality. In early 2018, Oliver launched the Immersive Audio Podcast, hosting industry experts and influential guests to discuss all areas of immersive audio and the XR industry. The podcast has been highly commended as a valuable source of information for industry professionals, academics, and students, representing numerous segments of the industry and continuing to grow its audience globally.

Tom and Sawyer in the City

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 Z

"Tom and Sawyer in the City"
Opening Summer 2021
https://machitom.jp/

Left: Yusuke Yagi, Producer, Robot Communications, Inc.
Right: Mitsuo Nishio, Editor, Imagica Entertainment Media Services, Inc.

In the modern world of film production, cutting-edge technologies merge with over hundreds of years of tradition in a unique marriage of the past and present. Even when using the latest filmmaking technologies, terms and techniques which have been used since the dawn of the medium are still commonplace. This holds true for editing, where film was once literally cut and then spliced with tape. As editing system manufacturers strive to implement the latest technology for creating breathtaking films, their processes and methods are still grounded in this simple approach and are ultimately in the hands of the editor.

As one of Japan's major post-production houses, Imagica Entertainment Media Services has been a pioneer in film post-production workflow innovation who has continuously changed with the times. Mitsuo Nishio, an editor at Imagica, pursues such new approaches on a daily basis as he works on various projects.

One area he has recently developed an interest in is working with cloud solutions. It was no surprise, then, that this interest led him to the Avid | Edit On Demand SaaS cloud editing package, which brings together Media Composer and Avid NEXIS and is built on the Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure.

"I was hearing about Avid | Edit On Demand at seminars and events, and I found it intriguing," explains Nishio.

A remote interview held on February 4, 2021.

See how Avid | Edit On Demand can benefit your business.

Request a free trial

Simultaneous Production of Multiple Projects

A film adaptation of the popular children's book series "Tom and Sawyer in the City" was scheduled for release in July of 2020 and had begun shooting in March of that year. However, production was temporarily suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, but the crew were able to resume shooting in October, later that year.

"While it may sound strange, these circumstances were the perfect chance to put Avid | Edit On Demand to the test. I had already been thinking about how Avid | Edit On Demand could benefit our work. I knew it provided a seamless workspace that could reduce offsite editing suite costs, and that it allowed multiple teams to work on the same project simultaneously, no matter where they actually were, which can save time and labor," Nishio recalls.

"For this project, since we were likely to be working on other content along with the feature film, we established two editing system lines, run by two main editors and one assistant. However, given the situation at that time, we couldn't have three people working together in the same place for long periods of time. So, we went looking for a way to enable our three people to effectively work on the data while being completely remote, and far away from each other. It was then that I realized I could try using Avid | Edit On Demand to address this very issue."

Nishio proposed his idea to the film's producer, Yusuke Yagi at Robot Communications, Inc.

"We were talking about how we would be able to gather and check edits together with the coronavirus pandemic still underway. While it was our first time working with the technology and we were unsure how it would go, we needed to produce multiple projects at once, so we tried it out with hopes of increasing our work efficiency," explains Yagi.

Nishio consulted with partner company, Photron, on how to deploy Avid | Edit On Demand, and in October 2020, they determined their ideal specifications. By November, the license was added to their Avid Master Account, and they began implementing it into their workflow soon after.

(In the editing room) Left: Freelance editing assistant Sayuri Izumi; Right: Mitsuo Nishio

Sharing and Communicating Through Zoom

For shooting, they used an AVC-I Vlog 4K, and converted all shooting elements to Avid | DNxHD 36 offline resolution. Then, Imagica's ingest team delivered it to the editing team using their CONEPIA in-house media distribution system, and after that, the editing assistant organized the data and transferred it to Avid NEXIS for use with Avid | Edit On Demand.

"We wanted to establish two full editing lines for our work with both on-premises and cloud storage fully available for our needs. In the Avid | Edit On Demand system we used for the project, we had one instance of Media Composer running with 1 TB of Avid NEXIS storage, but since we basically had only one camera's worth of footage, the total size of the offline media in DNxHD 36 came to just 900 GB," Nishio explains.

They were able to divide their assets between the on-premises and cloud systems according to the production content and required workflow.

"As there were several directors working on different pieces of content, some came to the editing room for checks, while others performed checks remotely. For the remote work, we would use Zoom to show previews to producers or check with directors," Nishio explains.

To show previews using Avid | Edit On Demand, a full-screen playback in Media Composer would be shared to the monitor of the client over a Zoom connection as they discussed the content.

"Avid | Edit On Demand can access the local machine's microphone input, so the same Zoom call could be used to share images and communicate simultaneously. I remember one director telling us it was a really good setup for them."

Yagi was also able to try the remote preview setup.

"I had expected the playback would be jumpy or frames would tear, but there were no visual quality problems whatsoever—even when connected over my home's Wi-Fi," says Yagi.

(Working remotely) Freelance editor Fumiko Kikuchi

It feels like an age of new possibilities

Nishio says working with Avid | Edit On Demand for the first time was a stress-free experience. He also felt that the immediacy of being able to work remotely reduced work and scheduled hours overall.

"When I had tried other cloud editing systems, there were problems such as delayed response and desynced audio, making them difficult to use for actual work. But Avid | Edit On Demand was a different story. When working from home, there was no audio desync, and the response during frame stepping and other editing work was really good. Actually, during a remote preview, I switched from our on-premises data to the Avid | Edit On Demand system, and the director didn't even notice anything had changed," Nishio recalls with a laugh.

"Until now, when we couldn't meet in person for a preview, we would send QuickTime data for the other party to check, and then have a meeting about it at a later date. But with Avid | Edit On Demand, you don't have to be in the edit suite to view the work in real-time. I think it's a great way to get direct feedback, given the challenges we are facing. Even after the coronavirus becomes less of a problem and we can gather in person again, this will remain a great solution for when people are busy and cannot come to us. I think it will actually make it easier for everyone to do their respective jobs," Yagi says.

"When editing offline, storage becomes an issue—it is difficult to add more and more Avid NEXIS units. But it's great that now, we can use cloud storage to temporarily increase our Avid NEXIS capacity. This means we can work faster and reduce overhead, while still outputting the same high quality. And being able to work remotely means we can access the data anytime, so when something hits me, I can try it out right away from home. This system will also be great when working far from the office—from rural areas to even overseas. It feels like an age of new possibilities," says Nishio.

Mitsuo Nishio, Editor

Nishio originally hails from Kyoto.

He has worked on films such as "The Sun Does Not Move" (directed by Eiichiro Hasumi), released on March 5, 2021, as well as the following:

"Fish on Land" (2012, dir. Yusuke Iseya), "Flower of Shanidar" (2013, dir. Gakuryu Ishii), "Oshin" (2013, dir. Shin Togashi), "Mozu the Movie" (2015, dir. Eiichiro Hasumi), "Room Laundering" (2018, dir. Kenji Katagiri), "Little Love Song" (2019, dir. Kojiro Hashimoto), "Tokyo Adios" (2019, dir. Kyoji Otsuka), "Fictitious Girl's Diary" (2020, dir. Takashi Sumida). In TV: "Takane no Hana" (2018, Japan Television), "Video Girl Ai" (2018, TV Tokyo), "Top Knife" (2020, Japan Television)

Monte Casino: Our Journey to Dolby Atmos

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 Z

Our hard-rocking "band of brothers" had released four recordings in stereo up until 2020 (two full-length LP's, and two EP's), but with the new crop of songs we were writing for our latest release, we were now ready to push the boundaries of what's possible for independent artists. The question became how to achieve these ambitions—and the answer soon became clear during the stereo mixing process for our fifth release, The Money's Not Enough.

Being a mix engineer and producer by trade, I became aware of the Dolby Atmos® medium a few years back, and honestly, it was a bit intimidating at first. I watched from afar as Dolby and Avid began working together to bring the vision of immersive audio to fruition. Fast-forward to 2020, and I was able to test the waters with demos of the Atmos software within Pro Tools—with no other hardware necessary! I had a blast experimenting with this fascinating technology. And as a Pro Tools engineer, it didn't take me long to learn the basics of the Dolby Atmos integration.

Through a mutual friend, I was able to meet up with the guys at Studio 1 LA with the intention to learn some tips for mixing in Dolby Atmos. It didn't take long for me (as an artist now) to realize what was possible in this format. Early adopters in the medium, Karma and Erich, were now creating music experiences unlike anything I'd ever heard before. The only way I can describe what I was hearing is that the sound was actually pleasing my brain in a way that was independent of my ears. Trippy, huh? To make a long story short, we hired them to mix The Money's Not Enough in Atmos, and I would thus continue my Padawan training at the hands of these Jedi masters during the process.

Prepping the sessions for a Dolby Atmos mix was a breeze. There were so many options, but in the end, I just sent Studio 1 LA the stereo Pro Tools mix sessions with any FX that I'd deemed essential printed in the track. Every other plugin was removed. I provided the stereo mixes as reference, and that was it.

Photo by: Peter Heck (@whatthepeterheck)

A few weeks later, I met Karma and Erich to hear the first mixes of a few of the tunes. Whoa! We still sounded like a rock band, but the emotional impact of the songs was greater than ever. Elements were enhanced, but never distracting. A creative tweak here and there, and we were in business. It was pure joy to work with these guys in this burgeoning format.

Our first single, Merry-Go-Round, starts off with (surprise!) an old-timey carousel sample. In the embedded video, (starting at 7:32), you hear how it feels like you're in the middle of a carousel as it goes 'round and 'round—even while listening in binaural on headphones. How about that slide solo? It's playing from the center of your soul! And the backup vocals? They are coming from the heavens, not a speaker.

Releasing the album in both Dolby Atmos and stereo formats was also super easy to do. Using Avid Link, which every Pro Tools user is already familiar with, I was able to get a subscription to AvidPlay as the distributor. The submission interface was clear and clean, and within a week we had our music on all the Dolby Atmos support outlets (Apple Music, Amazon Music, and TIDAL) for our fans. To have the option to hear our music in stereo or Dolby Atmos has been like a dream for us. The game is changed forever.

Visit the band's website at montecasinomusic.com

*Dolby Atmos is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories

Author: Joey Kay
Joey Kay is an artist, producer, songwriter, and audio engineer working out of Los Angeles, CA. Joey has also worked as a Pro Tools instructor at Avid, as well as a music production educator at schools including SAE and the Atlanta Institute of Music.

Mixer Andrew Scheps Explains Why the Hybrid Engine for HDX Is a Game-Changer for Music

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 Z

Andrew Scheps is a highly respected music mixer, producer, and engineer who has worked with some of the biggest artists in the world, including Metallica, Adele, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beyoncé, Green Day, Jay-Z, U2, and Michael Jackson. But despite his years in the business and numerous achievements—he's won three Grammy Awards, including "Album of the Year" for Adele's 21—he is surprisingly humble, always looking to expand his craft and get better.

"I still suck—I have no idea what I'm doing," he insists. "There are so many people I think are way better at it than me, so you're always pushing, trying to suck less."

This coming from a man who was at the forefront of digital recording. After getting a degree in audio recording from the University of Miami, he landed a job with New England Digital, manufacturer of the Synclavier digital synthesizer, right out of school—"which was super geeky," he fondly recalls—before dabbling with Sound Tools (the precursor to Pro Tools), then ultimately Pro Tools, which he's used throughout his career since.

"I was always a geek and loved technology," Scheps admits. "When I found out that this existed as a thing—making records and being in studios—that was it. My head exploded and that's all I wanted to do."

Over the years, he's honed and evolved his craft through a who's who of artists and many evolutions of Pro Tools—from Pro Tools III NuBus in the mid-'90s to Pro Tools | HDX and Pro Tools | HD Native today. But as his mixes grew bigger and more complex, taking up all the DSP in his HDX system, he switched to using HD Native to mix projects, with HDX ready to handle tracking tasks. This dual rig setup served him well for years, but things changed when he began beta testing the new Hybrid Engine for HDX in Pro Tools | Ultimate.

Scheps's former studio—Punkerpad West—was filled wall-to-wall with vintage analog gear.

The Hybrid Engine—bringing more power to HDX

Instead of having the audio mixer rely on his HDX system's DSP, the Hybrid Engine enables Scheps to mix projects fully in Native mode, with the ability to switch any track at any time to DSP mode for recording at the touch of a button. He immediately saw the benefits.

"The Hybrid Engine is the most game-changing thing to happen in Pro Tools in a long time," he says. "For years, I couldn't use my HDX cards for mixing. I had to use them for tracking for the low latency, but it absolutely did not work for me for mixing. And now I couldn't possibly mix on any other platform than the HDX cards with the Hybrid Engine. It's the most efficient Pro Tools system that exists. Period."

That's because 80–90% of the plugins Scheps uses for mixing music are AAX Native plugins, which, without the Hybrid Engine, can quickly use up a lot of voices when mixing large sessions with HDX.

"I had my HDX rig for recording and then I switched to an HD Native card for mixing, because once sessions get big, the mixer takes up the entire HDX card, at which point you've got no DSP left and your roundtripping gets problematic," he explains about a technical issue where inserting a native plugin after a DSP plugin causes roundtripping between HDX and the host computer, eating into available voices. "The Hybrid Engine fixed that completely from the first day that I could test it."

I couldn't possibly mix on any other platform than the HDX cards with the Hybrid Engine. It's the most efficient Pro Tools system that exists. Period.

It's also put a lot less stress on his workflow whenever he needs to record, now that he no longer has to move between two systems.

"If I want to do an overdub, I just hit the DSP [Mode] button and I do an overdub," he says. "I don't have to think twice before recording—as opposed to not really wanting to do it because it's going to be a pain in the ass, and I've got to change things, and I'm not going to hear exactly what I'm recording. Now, I absolutely am hearing exactly what I'm recording and it's great… The fact that you can pop a track into DSP mode and get low-latency monitoring while you're working—to me, that's like the icing on the cake."

Scheps is also seeing a huge performance boost from his system overall. "Just mixing stereo—the load on the system [with the Hybrid Engine] is actually less than when using the HD Native card," he acknowledges. "I'm able to mix just in stereo much faster, with fewer playback errors and DSP errors. It feels like I got a new computer—it really does. Up until the Hybrid Engine, I was seriously considering a Mac Pro, and now my iMac Pro is absolutely fine for everything I'm doing. I'm running a gigantic session right now and I don't see it going over 20% CPU usage."

If you're lucky enough to attend, Scheps periodically conducts seminars where he shares his mixing approach and methods.

Exploring the possibilities of Dolby Atmos

Now that the Hybrid Engine has enabled him to switch back to mixing full time on HDX, Scheps is realizing the creative opportunities it brings, including the ability to mix music in Dolby Atmos^®—something he wasn't able to do with his HD Native system.

"[I'm] getting all my I/O back while I'm mixing, which is really important moving into Atmos music," he says. "It's kind of crazy how much of an upgrade this is to things I already own… I just hung those speakers today in the back for Atmos [he says, gesturing behind him], and I need 128 I/O. I can't do that with an HD Native card—it's impossible. [Being able] to get 128 I/O to the [Dolby Atmos] renderer and at the same time be able to run a native mixer is what allows me to even think about mixing in Atmos. It would be absolutely impossible without the Hybrid Engine."

The Hybrid Engine is the most game-changing thing to happen in Pro Tools in a long time.

A few weeks later, we checked in to see how Scheps's venture into mixing Dolby Atmos music was going (his studio is now officially Dolby-certified) and find out what's been the biggest change to how he normally approaches his mixes.

Scheps outfitted his current studio for Dolby Atmos mixing, complete with Pro Tools | HDX, dual Avid S1s, Avid Dock, and a 9.1.4 array of PMC monitors.

"It's a really different way of mixing from every angle," he says. "The most practical thing is that there is no mix buss. In stereo music mixing, the mix buss is a given and is a big part of how you work. In Atmos you have to think differently. I've managed to come up with some creative ways to do my mix buss-style processing, as well as the parallel processing I rely on, but it's a very different beast.

"The other thing is that Atmos for theatrical is very much a speaker-based playback medium for consumers, whereas Atmos music is almost more about the binaural playback than speakers, so you have to be very aware of how it translates to headphones."

And he reiterates how important the Hybrid Engine has been in making his foray into the immersive format possible. "I absolutely couldn't mix on the classic HDX engine," he says. "The Hybrid Engine gives me all the I/O I need—and voices—while still using a native mixer, which lets me mix."

Now, he says, he can give his clients more creative options than just delivering stereo mixes. With Apple Music, Amazon Music HD, and TIDAL HiFi all now supporting Dolby Atmos music streaming, he's ready for the demand.

*Dolby Atmos is a registered trademark of Dolby Laboratories.

Behind the Scenes of the 2021 Goya Awards Ceremony

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 Z

The Goya Awards are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards. The 35th Goya Awards ceremony, directed and hosted by actor Antonio Banderas and journalist María Casado, honored the best in Spanish films of 2020 and took place at the Teatro del Soho CaixaBank in Málaga on March 6, 2021.

Roc Mateu Trias

Hosts Antonio Banderas and María Casado

Veteran engineer Roc Mateu Trias was responsible for the ceremony’s sound design under the direction of Antonio Banderas. With over 20 years of experience as a sound designer and mixing engineer for theater, musicals, circus, live concerts, and television, Roc has worked with an impressive list of directors that includes Lluís Pascual, Mario Gas, Sergi Belbel, and Àngel Llàcer as well as theater companies including Comediants, La Fura dels Baus, and Dagoll Dagom. He was Technical Director of Circ Cric, and has worked for Spanish television networks TVE, Antena 3, Telecinco, and TV3. Roc also mixes for artists like Albert Pla, Manu Guix, Nacho Cano, and the Vienna Philharmonic.

The 35th Goya Awards were one of Roc’s most demanding gigs to date, and we talked with him about the challenges he faced for this year’s awards ceremony.

Now that the ceremony is behind you, how did it go?

It has been an amazing experience to direct the sound of the Goyas 2021 ceremony. I have been lucky in this project to work side by side on a team with experienced professionals who have made this madness possible. Thanks to Jordi Ballbé (Room Operator), Guiu Lluçà (Control of Videos and links), Ferràn Martín (Monitor Engineer), as well as all the Soho Theatre staff and the Project-Arte reinforcement team.

What was the pre-production like for the Goyas?

Due to the pandemic situation, the requirements for the ceremony were changing constantly. That made the design and preparation process more complex than for a conventional show. Between the beginning of the preparation and the actual event, we had four months of meetings, and the format changed many times right up until the show day. This was undoubtedly the most complicated production of my life!

The initial idea was to have a conventional ceremony, but we ended up with a hybrid format for the show. The performers who gave the awards were onstage, but the nominees were at home connected via Zoom—this massively increased the technical challenges. Another change was that although the orchestra began as 12 musicians located in the pit, it ended up as a 46-piece orchestra in a symphonic formation spaced around the theater.

You had to coordinate several different mixes—how did you go about it?

To handle all these mixes, the first decision was to have three independent mix positions. One mixing desk for the people in the theater, another on stage for the monitors, and a third console to mix the broadcast audio for television. The FOH console in the theater was an Avid VENUE | S6L-24D, the stage monitor desk was a VENUE | S6L-32D, and the broadcast was mixed from an acoustically treated room within the theater on a VENUE | S6L-32D.

With the complexity and number of channels needed for the production, we decided to use the three VENUE | S6L consoles sharing I/O in a star redundant network connected via Luminex switches. All three positions were also connected in a MILAN matrix via MLN-192 option cards. In this configuration, all the desks had complete independent control of all the channels, plus they could send comms channels, stems, and mixes between the desks on the MILAN network. The three I/O boxes included one on-stage Stage 64 for wireless and stage mics, another in the theatre for the orchestra, and a third Stage 64 in the control room for patching input and output connections to the mobile units for Zoom, etc.

How did you mix the live Symphony Orchestra?

When it was finally decided there would be no audience, we opted to place all the musicians in the stalls of the theater on top of a temporary structure that covered the seats. The position of the musicians and the acoustics of the theater made us decide to close mic each instrument individually since there was little separation between instruments, and the way the musicians were distributed made it impossible for us to capture the sound by orchestral sections.

What was the most complicated aspect of the project?

For me, the most difficult thing was working with the frenetic rhythm of this ceremony. By not having an audience—and therefore not having applause—the transitions were extremely fast. This required us to have perfect coordination between the live theater and the production where all the inputs and outputs of the videos with the nominees were connected. The collaboration of all the artists and participants was critical.

The challenge was in the preparation: everything needed to be prepared perfectly. The whole ceremony passes without a pause and there is no margin for error. The work can be described as a non-stop, two hour, live-to-air event. This meant that even a small error could be magnified into a showstopper, because there is no time to react. A badly fitted headset or a noisy violin mic can really hurt you. Having a plan "B" for all the possible scenarios gave us security.

In the end, after the success of the ceremony, I am proud of the work of the entire team. I’m thankful to all the various people involved and am looking forward to more award shows in the future!

Thanks to audio/video provider SeeSound for supporting the Goya Awards and conducting the interview.

Re-Recording Mixer Jonathan Wales Dives Deep into Why the New Hybrid Engine for HDX Is “Mind-Blowing”

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 00:00:00 Z

Award-winning re-recording mixer Jonathan Wales has given sonic life to numerous movies, TV shows, and documentaries for decades, including Get Out, Memento, Gaga: Five Foot Two, and The Haunting of Hill House. And throughout his sound mixing career, he's been using Pro Tools DSP-based systems—from the Pro Tools III NuBus in the mid '90s to Pro Tools | HDX today.

But as the number of tracks and voices in his sessions began to skyrocket over the past few years—especially with the rise of Dolby Atmos^®—he found that the way in which HDX systems rely on DSP for mixing was becoming an issue. Suddenly, he found himself having to be more strategic in his mixing approach to ensure he didn't run out of DSP.

He wasn't alone. Many of his music and audio post peers in the Avid Customer Association (ACA) were experiencing the same issues. So, during one of the quarterly ACA meetings, he and the audio committee spoke up about it.

Wales—who normally mixes at Warner Bros. Studios—working in his home studio during the pandemic.

A Simple Ask Leads to a Game-Changing Innovation

"A couple of years ago, we said to Avid, 'We need to get the audio mixer off the DSP in HDX,'" he explains. "The main reason for this was because with the traditional way of working with DSP in HDX, all your mixer paths—all your busses, all your sends, and everything to do with the structure of your session—had to go in DSP. If you look at one of my sessions from before, the mixer filled up so much of the DSP that there was hardly any room left for plugin processing. The only thing it was doing was creating busses to go from point A to point B. With Atmos, your busses are often 10 channels wide. These types of formats made the mixer models much more difficult to fit on the DSP."

At the time, Avid was working on a new Pro Tools innovation that would allow users to toggle tracks between native and DSP modes on demand in the software. This would ultimately allow the audio mixer in HDX to run natively instead of requiring DSP. Wales and committee were thrilled.

That's how the newly patented Hybrid Engine for Pro Tools | HDX came to be. The technology enables the best of both worlds—native power to handle the largest mixes, and DSP for ultra-low-latency recording—all at the touch of a button. And Wales has been testing it from its early alpha beginnings. "We knew right away that this was it," he proclaims. "It's literally like Pro Tools got supercharged! It's faster and it's much more scalable and responsive."

The Beauty of the Hybrid Engine

To help other HDX users understand the added benefits, Wales explains it this way: "With regular HDX, if you use a native plugin on a track or an aux in conjunction with the DSP mixer, every time you come in and out of the DSP environment, it uses extra voices. So, if you take a 5.1 aux and you put a 5.1 native plugin across that, all of a sudden, you will have used up six voices just for putting that plugin in. Start multiplying that by a lot of paths in a session and that's a huge voice penalty!

"If I have a session that uses 700 voices in HDX 3 and I open it using the Hybrid Engine, all of a sudden, it's only using 380 voices, so it's like, 'Cool, this session can get a lot bigger!'" And he did make that session "bigger and bigger, and everything still worked!"

Performance is on a different planet. You get the power and flexibility of native processing with all the benefits of HDX when you need it.

The HDX Engine also eliminates plugin roundtripping, significantly reducing system delay. "Each time you'd roundtrip, it would also increase the system delay because it would add the buffer size every time," he explains. "So, not only did my session with 700 voices come down to 380 voices, its system delay halved from 8,600 samples to like 4,000 as well. System delay is a big deal because if you move a fader and turn something up, how long it takes before you hear it is dependent on the system delay. 4,000 samples is like two frames, which is pretty close to indetectable. This makes the whole thing feel much more connected."

Wales also finds that doing simple tasks like opening a session or changing routing—especially with full sessions—no longer lags due to the system having to optimize DSP allocation. "Performance is on a different planet," he asserts. "You get the power and flexibility of native processing with all the benefits of HDX when you need it—massive I/O, frame edge sync, and high-performance DSP on demand."

Having started his career as a music producer, Wales was invited to work on a movie project in the mid-'90s and thought, "Wait—this is cool," and hasn't looked back.

What Every HDX Owner Should Know

Overall, Wales is ecstatic to see how Avid was able to bring an innovation that he and the audio community helped shape to reality. "For a long time, it felt too good to be true," he says about his months of testing. "We can't live without this. That's how big of a deal it is. Once I had a taste of it, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming to go backwards, literally."

HDX has been completely reinvigorated, which is massive. The fact that this has been achieved using existing hardware is mind-blowing.

But to him, the biggest win is that not only is he benefitting from the huge performance increase, he's doing so using the same hardware he invested in years ago.

"HDX has been completely reinvigorated, which is massive," he says. "The fact that that has been achieved using existing hardware is mind-blowing. The fact that the Hybrid Engine is free in Pro Tools | Ultimate with only a software update is quite simply the biggest performance improvement in Pro Tools history. Right now, DSP becomes a choice. We can use it when we need to, but we don't have to use it when it doesn't make sense. It basically means there are no limits now to what we can achieve."

Wales's home studio has much of the same gear he mixes with at Warner Bros., including a Dolby Atmos mixing setup.

Rent vs. Own: How Rental House QSR Systems Pivoted and Profited

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 Z

QSR SYSTEMS Building for the future

Success Through Subscriptions. See how QSR Systems doubled its capacity to support content creators in media and entertainment through subscription licensing.

Since 1991, Los Angeles-based rental house QSR Systems has been providing post-production equipment rentals and services to the entertainment and broadcast industry. The company is the leading west coast provider of video editing and storage systems, certified work-from-home editorial solutions, on-set media management tools, and lab-based transcoding/archive/upload services. And its team can recommend and supply rental and service solutions that deliver on-time, on-budget results—whether the client needs one edit system or an enterprise-level collaborative workgroup solution.

To succeed in today's rapidly changing post-production industry, QSR needs to have flexibility to support its customers' changing needs. So, when the team began to see a trend in the industry toward work-from-home solutions, they decided to adopt changes to their model to better suit their customers.

That's why the company recently adopted a subscription-based licensing model for its service, enabling instant off-premises delivery of all the Media Composer licenses its clients need. At a moment's notice. All while avoiding the big upfront investment of purchasing perpetual licenses.

QSR Systems entered a 10-year software subscription agreement with Avid, enabling the company to dramatically expand its ability to rapidly supply creative tools to its film and broadcast clients. It also became the first rental house of its kind to move towards a subscription-based licensing model.

With this change, QSR has doubled its available pool of Media Composer licenses—available either on-premises or in the cloud. And it effectively transformed its capabilities to better support the creative community's rapidly evolving content creation workflow needs.

Composer Steven Feifke Talks Small Wins, Big Band, and Growing Up

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 00:00:00 Z

Award-winning pianist, bandleader, and composer Steven Feifke is one of the most in-demand artists of his generation. A two-time semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition, he's performed on stages around the world alongside such premiere artists as vocalist/producer Steve Tyrell, trumpeter Randy Brecker, saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, and singer Veronica Swift—and at legendary venues, including the Blue Note, Dizzy's Club, Birdland, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center.

We caught up with the busy artist—whose work can be heard on such hit TV shows as Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Impractical Jokers, and Animaniacs—to find out what inspired him to take up the piano, how he got to where he is today, and why he uses Sibelius to compose, arrange, and orchestrate all projects.

Steven Feifke at Birdland

What is your background and how did you get into music?

I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't play the piano. My parents moved from South Africa to Boston three years before I was born. They brought this piano with them that used to belong to my grandfather for whom I'm named, and from the time I could crawl, I was always going over to the piano and "playing" it. My mom recognized I had this sort of connection with the instrument and started teaching me when I was four years old. That was my introduction to music. I started off with classical piano and had a couple of really great teachers growing up.

When I was around eight years old, I had a teacher named Susan Capestro, who immediately started coaching me in composition. I didn't realize that's what it was at the time, but during our very first lesson she asked, "Play me a waterfall." Like any little kid, I ran my thumb down the piano. She's like, "Okay, what happens when the water hits the ground?" and I crashed my hands to the keys!

Susan recognized before I did that I had an affinity for composition, in addition to improvisation. They are oftentimes really one in the same, just different editing processes—or no editing process, in the case of improvisation in the moment. She really nurtured that element of my musicality.

Young Steven

I was very lucky to have been born and raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, which has an amazing jazz program in the public school system. There were several jazz septets and big bands at the school, and as the adventurous type, I tried my hand at writing for those ensembles—more successfully for the septet than the big band at that point, but still! It was my first time experimenting in writing for large ensembles, really notating precisely what I wanted other instruments to play.

I also attended the New England Conservatory Preparatory school in Boston and was inspired to book shows for myself around town to feature my compositions with trios, quartets, and septets. That experimental and adventurous writing process is something that has never really left me. I always make sure that I have time in my schedule to just sit at the piano and write and play. Playing and writing are very connected for me.

Performing at NYU with Stefon Harris

You moved to New York for college—what was that like?

I moved to NYC in 2009 to pursue an undergraduate degree at NYU. It's often said, but it's really true, that New York is the mecca for jazz, and I just found myself surrounded by and hanging out with people who I'd grown up listening to on recordings. Many of those people were also professors at NYU—people who I'm lucky to have had as teachers, including Don Friedman, the late great pianist who played with Joe Henderson, and countless others: Rich Perry, Brian Lynch, Dave Pietro, and the list goes on and on.

Basically, they would be like, "Hey Steven, I'm playing at so and so club tonight," or I would say, "Hey, are you playing somewhere this weekend?" Rich Perry plays in the Vanguard Band, so I would call him on Monday afternoon every week at pretty much the same time: "Hello Steven, would you like to come to the Vanguard tonight?" "Yes, thank you so much, Professor!" I was particularly lucky to study with one of the true maestros of this music, Gil Goldstein, with whom I have developed a strong bond. He shared a lot of craft and life skills related to the world of writing, arranging, and composing, and we still regularly keep in touch.

All throughout my undergrad years I had classes Monday through Thursday, and then I had Friday off—that was an intentional choice. As soon as my classes were done on Thursday night, I would go to Smalls Jazz Club and hang out at the session trying to learn whatever song somebody was playing that I might not have known, and just naturally meet people who were on the scene. Then between sophomore and junior year, I got accepted into the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. I was 19 years old. I've never been one to really embrace competitions and had zero expectations when I sent off my audition tape. I thought it would just be great to get some feedback on my playing! I remember getting the phone call saying I had been selected as a semifinalist and feeling so surprised and happy. It was strange, but it felt like that moment marked my transition in some way from student to professional. All of a sudden, the relationships that I had with colleagues and peers shifted gears and leaning towards professional connections.

Why did you decide to continue your studies at Manhattan School of Music?

I took four years off in between my undergraduate and master's degrees—I wanted to see if I could make the transition from music as an avocation to music as a vocation before taking any "next steps." When I realized that it was financially viable to have a career in music, I said to myself, Okay, it's time to go back to school. I applied to MSM because I really wanted to study with Jim McNeely. I first played Jim's big band music when I was a junior in high school in the All State band led by Dave Pietro—we played a song of his called "Extra Credit," which is off of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra record called Lickety Split. Studying with Jim was truly illuminating and life-changing.

I also felt there were some holes in my knowledge of orchestration that I really wanted to fill. Studying in the conservatory setting helped me make the connection that the music I loved playing had to have come from somewhere. And if I could understand, for example, how Wagner used half-diminished and diminished passing chords, then maybe I could better understand how Duke Ellington used double diminished chords. So, while I was at MSM, I also studied a lot of 16th- through 18th-century music. I love Mozart just as much as I love Thad Jones. I love Ravel and Debussy just as much as I love Duke Ellington. There's just a lot to learn from all of them.

Steven and proud parents at MSM graduation

How did your big band album, KINETIC, come about?

After NYU, I really wanted to make a go of music, so I got a job teaching for a company called the Piano School of New York as a part-time position. I won't mention the hourly rate, but I will say that it was a lot of work just to make ends meet enough to keep me in New York and able to pursue artistic ventures. Around that time, someone commissioned me to write an arrangement of "I've Got The World On A String." I wrote the thing, showed it to them, and they said, "Wow I don't like this. No thanks, I don't think I'm going to use it, and I don't think I'm going to pay you." That was a tough day, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons in that moment! But I said to myself, I like this arrangement. What can I do with it? That ended up leading to the first recording of my big band. I put the video of the session up on YouTube. I liked doing it and there was a positive response, so I kept it going and began booking performances around the city wherever I could.

And so fast-forwarding almost 10 years, the KINETIC band is my band, the Steven Feifke Big Band, and I love all the members of the ensemble very, very much. In such a large ensemble, it's only natural that the personnel has changed and shifted over time. People have left and come back, and I would consider everyone who has taken part in the group over the years to be lifelong friends and collaborators of mine. People would move to different cities or states to take on a college teaching job. Sometimes I would want a different musical voice, which again, wouldn't be a comment at all about that person—it's just a comment on my own voice and what I was hearing for that project. So, over the course of almost 10 years, my band has been very lucky to play at some pretty great places, including Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center amongst others. But the thing that truly made me ready to record KINETIC was the feeling that the band was… a band!

One of my favorite clubs to play has been The Django, which is downtown in Tribeca in the basement of the Roxy Hotel. It's this cool, tavern-type space—almost like a cave for music. Ken Fowser, a great tenor saxophonist in New York City, is responsible for booking at The Django, and he basically brought my band in for a monthly residency, which ran for almost two years before I decided to record this record. During that time, I was able to write for my band. I play piano on the record, but for this specific gig, there's no line of sight from the piano to the rest of the ensemble, so if I ever wanted to cue a section, I couldn't do it. To avoid the issue, I stopped playing piano and would hire some of my favorite pianists as side people—Liya Grigoryan, Alex Brown, Takeshi Ohbayashi, and more. It was an absolute gift to be able to hear some of my piano colleagues on my music, and it gave me another perspective on the music itself. More importantly, standing in front of the band let me watch the band play my music, which allowed me to see, Oh, the trombones have not taken a breath in four pages and are currently turning blue in the face! Okay, the trombones need to breathe. And I would re-orchestrate based on the observations.

Conducting at the Django

It basically gave me a platform to experiment again, but this time the focus wasn't so much on composition but more on orchestration—what works well and what doesn't work—because hearing things from the front of the ensemble is different from hearing them from the piano chair. Having a monthly gig with a big band is pretty rare in New York City, so it also allowed me the opportunity to experiment over time with different people and different voices in the ensemble.

I understand that you recently started another big band project.

I started a big band with a collaborator of mine named Bijon Watson, who is a great lead trumpet player with the Clayton Hamilton Orchestra and MONK'estra, and was also in the movie La La Land. We started a big band together called the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, which is something that we've been wanting to do for ages. We presented at the JEN (Jazz Education Network) Conference and we're recording an album starting virtually in April, which is going to be both fun and challenging.

How is your approach different with the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra?

The personnel of that band is entirely different, as is the general approach. It's not just my friends, it's also Bijon's friends. With the Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra, Bijon and I are trying to reinvigorate some sense of the Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers band vibe. Not to be so on the nose about it, but the Generation Gap thing is more to connect music with cross-generational human beings.

Age truly is but a number—when it comes to music anyway—and our goal for the band is to use music as a vehicle to connect with people of all ages. So, when I write for that band, I do feel like I'm putting in 100% of myself, similarly to with the KINETIC band. That said, the GGJO is a collaborative ensemble and vision, and we have very frank and open discussions to decide on the repertoire together. But at the end of it, Bijon might jokingly say, "Yeah man, write whatever you want to write. I'll just tell you if it's too high."

Anyway, I don't feel like I'm writing differently for that band, but I inherently do. Here's an example: John Fedchock is in the ensemble—a trombonist and big band leader in his own right who I grew up listening to in high school. I'm working on a feature for him right now, and I don't have a close personal relationship with him like I do with the members of my own ensemble. So, writing for him on the one hand is less personal, because we don't have that close friendship, even though we send emails back and forth, etc. But I also have like a certain closeness to him—a kind of common musical grammar—because I've been listening to him for so long, and I feel like I do, in some ways, know his musical voice. I think I know what he would like to play, I know what chords he would like to play, and I think I know what sound he would have in different registers of the instrument. This all feeds the process.

Steven at the Regattabar

How did you come to use Sibelius?

I've always used Sibelius—I had Sibelius 2 in high school and then my parents got me Sibelius Student when I was a sophomore. I remember saying within the first month, "Can we upgrade, because I can only use eight staves at a time here." They were not too pleased about that!

I have a certain level of comfort in the program; I really know my way around it. It's the only program that I've ever used. I work as a music director for some people, and sometimes there are co-arrangers, co-orchestrators on a project, and they might use Finale. I would look on as they would perform a task, and they would look on as I performed a task, and I just have always liked the interface of Sibelius better. It's easier for me to use and feels more intuitive. I can make the scores look how I want them to look and make the parts look like I want them to look without really thinking about it.

The thought of switching to another program has literally never crossed my mind. When you're composing, arranging, and orchestrating, the fewer barriers between the creative process that's happening in your mind and how you input it, the better. As long as I can remember, I have never once had a single issue putting a note, chord symbol, any formatting thing into Sibelius—it's just been super easy, clean, and efficient.

Handwritten score

How does Sibelius fit into your workflow?

It depends on the deadline. Sometimes a piece just needs to go into Sibelius sooner rather than later. As far as my writing process is concerned, I always create a sketch. I always create a word plan. If I can have some semblance of an idea in my mind's eye visually of what is the order of events in an arrangement, I have an easier time tackling it—even if it's a composition of my own. That's a really important step, you know, and I guess it comes back to my early teacher Susan, like, "Okay, what happens when the water hits the ground?" It's not just a single element; there needs to be like some dynamic element that shapes the thing. With that in mind, I always write a word sketch and then I jump into either score paper or Sibelius and create a sketch on either—somewhere between two and five staves like a piano staff and either two or three extra lines above and below. That signifies certain ideas and elements and at that point, no orchestration will have happened. If I have an idea for orchestration, I will write in words like flutes or trumpets or anything else.

There have been times when I have created a specific sketch or an entire song only using four staves and then orchestrated it out for the full ensemble. There's actually a song like that on my record called "Midnight Beat." When I wrote it, I was thinking to myself, What if Neal Hefti wrote a funk chart for the Basie Band? In my sketch, I put the trombones in the treble clef of the grand staff, and I put the bass and trombones in the bass clef staff of the grand staff, and I put melody on the top line, and I put a counter melody like an answer below it. And that took me through to the development section, and I stopped there and put everything into Sibelius.

Then I exploded everything that I had sketched in Sibelius for the 18-piece ensemble and then took that through the development. By that time, I had certain ideas that had revealed themselves in the orchestration process, so the orchestration became part of the composition melody, harmony, rhythm, and that part of it. That's just one example, but every composition is either slightly or completely different. It also depends on what kind of mood I'm in. Sometimes I'll write an entire song and keep it in my head until I'm ready to write it out, and then I can just go into Sibelius and use the keypad to literally type in the notes.

The KINETIC band

Finally, what have you been doing with your time during the COVID shutdown?

One thing that I've been able to do since COVID hit was to embrace the world of education in a new way. Before COVID, I was teaching private lessons in person and through The New School. I was also doing some guest artist appearances at colleges in masterclasses across the US, but obviously those things have pretty much stopped. I think I've had maybe four socially distant gigs since last March. There are a number of bands that I tour with, and as much as I miss not touring with them, the extra time gave me the opportunity to start my own online Zoom private lesson studio.

It also gave me the opportunity to put some of my thoughts on education into the format of books. A lot of my students were asking me very similar questions, and I basically created documents for them like, Okay, you can use this chord voicing here, you can use this exercise on guide tones to take you through the song, and you can use this exercise on guide tones to figure out some possible reharmonizations for this song. I put all that into a book called The Ultimate Guide to Jazz Piano Voicings, and Part 2 is on the way, the advanced guide.

Working with a student

Something else that I've been working on for a while now is a new book called From Lead Sheet to Large Ensemble. There are so many amazing arranging and orchestration books out there—many of which I have on my bookshelf that are, in many ways, like my companions. I still use these books. When I teach, what I have found is that the process is less one of teaching a concept than it is one of demystifying a concept.

A lot of the time, musicians look at a blank score—or even a full score of sheet music for an orchestra or a big band—and say, "How do I start? What is the first note that I write?" But those musicians would have no problem writing a lead sheet or putting a chord symbol like a C9 chord symbol with a G in the melody. So, the question becomes, not how do you teach this, but how do you demystify it? From Lead Sheet to Large Ensemble is basically taking someone from the process of writing that lead sheet to expanding it for a big band. There are infinite possibilities in how to score something, and this is a chance to present some of those examples.

Finally, I had the time to work on and put the finishing touches on my record, KINETIC. We recorded the KINETIC album in January 2019—just over two years ago. I was happy with the recordings and I was just taking my time on mixing, mastering, and post production. The music on the album was recorded while we were still doing The Django residency, and that sound and energy is captured on the recording. It's not just a studio ensemble with hired guns for a studio session—it really feels like a band. It feels like we bonded since that residency and, going forward, I imagine the band will continue to be a vehicle for my compositions just as much as it will be a family vibe—just hanging out and playing music together as friends and colleagues.

To learn more about Steven Feifke, visit stevenfeifkemusic.com.

Saya: A Unique Setting for Artisans in Post Production

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 00:00:00 Z

It has already been almost twenty years since Saya was founded. There were three of them in 2002, wanting to tell stories using their professions: producer/reporter, musician/composer, and sound engineer. They were about 25 years old when they first hung sound insulation on Rue des Jeûneurs. The tone was set.

Samy Chandiramani, who joined Saya eleven years later in business development, believes that that energy has stayed: "For me, it was a group of young people who knew how to laugh but who had the courage to launch themselves on this adventure, to take that risk. Today that attitude is still there. Julien is hiring and producing works in a time of crisis. We don't do things like everybody else."

For Pascal Blondela, head of post-production planning and monitoring, this risk-taking is proof of "an entrepreneur's vision" and "grit": "It's like a note that can be held and changed naturally, thanks to all the work that has been put in place and a great intelligence behind it."

When Saya established its headquarters, there was a strong desire to create a place where people could feel good. Simply put, because people feel good here, whatever comes out of it will only be better. Their opportunity was located between the walls of 32 Rue des Jeûneurs, a former textile studio that kept its industrial allure and whose charm still captivates each new visitor.

A Story in Sound and Picture

Audio post quickly became the heart of Saya's work, but that wasn't enough. At the time, TV stations were in the process of reducing costs and infrastructure. They were looking to do all post production in the same place—for consistency, too. To respond to these new needs, SAYA generalized across all of post production.

With the help of a fourth associate, François Charles Le Goff, and numerous investments, the team grew and developed a picture department. It was here that Saya made its first steps in the world of TV shows: Section de Recherches, produced by Dominique Lancelot, and L'Hôpital, produced by Antoine Perset, then others like Les Invincibles by Making Prod (with Stephane Drouet and Matthieu Viala) or Pigale, La Nuit by Lincoln TV.

But so many investments in so little time was a liability when the 2008 crisis hit their sector a few years later... Fortunately, things set off again rather quickly and the team decided to concentrate its efforts on fiction and documentaries. There was in the meantime the opportunity to work on some feature films—notably Mirrors, directed by Alexandre Aja and edited by Baxter. But to serve their desire to be part of a maximum number of steps in post production, the team decided to make the small screen their playing field.

It's in this vein that Saya developed its whole gamut of services, including Saya Sound and Saya Lab, dedicated to audio post and video post.

"The goal of these new services being notably to offer clients different advantages, but also within the very specific constraints that digital brings," specifies Julien. "Saya Heritage and Saya Protect respond for example respectively to the constraints of security and protection from pirating, whereas Saya Play facilitates access to footage and allows teams to work collaboratively. We likewise offer Saya Anywhere to clients who work in other studios for technical reasons, but who want to enjoy our services even at a distance."

But as Samy explains, "Saya refuses to do everything. When we don't have the expertise internally, we work with quality partners. That's the case for Saya Full Access for example, which is for subtitling and audio description."

Artisans at Heart

Beyond the desire to be known as a real service provider capable of all the phases of post production, wanting to be perceived as upmarket was behind the decision to concentrate on French scripted TV. For Julien, "Working on Les Invincibles means participating in a project that a channel like Arte broadcasts as a series for the general public. It also means helping the general public have access to quality content. As 'ultra technicians,' we like that. We want the quality of the finished project to be optimal—regardless of the client."

"Or the project," adds Clément Chaumeil, technical sound director. "Whether it's streaming, prestige TV, or feature film, for me, the goal is the same: ensure the craftsmen who work here are in the best conditions. Free them from preoccupation with usage or technique so that they can focus on their real jobs."

His counterpart in picture, Florentine Genot, won't disagree. "The people we meet on a daily basis are passionate about their jobs. Being passionate ourselves, we can't do anything other than everything possible to give them the best working conditions."

The team does not, therefore, skimp on resources. "In places I've worked before, the idea was to spend as little as possible to achieve a certain result. Here, the paradigm is different. Here we invest where we need to, as much as necessary, to guarantee the best results in the next three to five years. Our monitoring work in this direction is essential. If we choose to invest in the latest Atmos audio, it's because we know that in a few years it will be the norm," Clément explains.

"The fact that we went and sought out that quality reflects where we want to take SAYA," Pascal adds. "The idea of SAYA is to respect and promote the profession, all the trades of post production. All the investments that were made from the beginning work towards this. Working in an Avid environment isn't a coincidence. Because the quality is there, of course, but beyond that, Avid has a superfine understanding of the post-production workflow. When you see the freedom that an environment like Media Composer offers an editor, you understand that the tool was really designed for them."

"They are creative tools, and we don't want to offer less than that to the creators working here," adds Clément. "They're also tools that have shown us that they can be trusted. And that's in large part thanks to VIDELIO-Cap'Ciné. Their knowledge of the Avid environment is perfect, and we've had such a trusted relationship with them for all these years, we know that if we have the slightest technical problem, it will be resolved within half a day. Avid, VIDELIO-Cap'Ciné, and Saya, we're a trio that works and that allows us, we who are at the service of creators, to concentrate on the core of our business, which is the human support," specifies Florentin.

The Team of All Possibilities

Providing the best support to the people working at Saya is ultimately responding to this initial idea: making people feel good here. It's a simple and universal idea that no one has a recipe for, but that the Saya team seems to honor.

"Between us, what we often say is that we are not far from the luxury hotel industry," explains Pascal. "The objective is to have the highest quality service, the most pleasant welcome."

"And to be the most available," Florentine adds. "Everyone, in their respective positions, will go as far as possible to meet a customer's demand."

"Today, the fact that TV series' budgets are tending to decrease, especially among traditional broadcasters, is an additional challenge for us that pushes us to think differently, for example to develop our expertise upstream of post production and seek to optimize the budget. Whatever the market trend tomorrow, we will always look for the smartest solution to offer the same quality of service," explains Julien.

For Samy, there is no doubt that "the real added value of Saya is this team. This is what makes everything possible, both for us and for our customers. They are experts, like you have in big teams of course, except they have such a passion for their jobs and such a desire to satisfy the customer that they show the greatest curiosity to anticipate future requests and the greatest dedication to find in the moment, not the most obvious solution, but the best possible solution. That's the idea customers leave here with, and that's why they come back. What we want is to restore the nobility of the profession of service provider, and I think that is palpable."

There's an energy driven and inspired by management that the team would sum up as "always demanding, always kind." "The only thing that matters here is trusting each other. It doesn't matter your age or experience, the proof of that confidence is in your work. And we have the freedom and the autonomy to do that," Clément explains, thrilled to have found an environment where it's possible to become a technical director, even at 25.

And Tomorrow? Quality, Always

"Today, my only ambition is to continue to advance the quality of our support, our expertise, and our services. Not the quantity. Saya isn't meant to grow in numbers. I keep to the size we are today because that's what allows us to have such a special relationship with the people who work here," explains Julien. "And if this desire to maintain this level of quality makes us seem like a more expensive service provider, I accept that. I trust that time will show that we can convince those who are willing to step out of their price lists to come see us."

"Customers who are not looking for service at a discount, those who are looking for a real service with the goal of doing quality work themselves, they leave convinced," adds Fatiha Sabri, administrative and accounting manager.

For Julien, "It's this sincere attachment to quality that explains, I think, our luck in having such loyal clients in a rather volatile environment—an opportunity we want to continue to honor."

Saya's Infrastructure

On the picture side:

12 edit bays with Avid Media Composer 2020.12
1 4K/HDR calibration room with DaVinci Resolve Studio 17
centralized storage system with Avid NEXIS e2 (20TB) and Pro (80TB)
finishing spaces

On the sound side:

9 sound editing booths of which 2 are LCR, 3 are 5.1, and 3 are Atmos 7.1.4
1 5.1 TV mixing room with vocal booth
2 Atmos 7.1.4 TV mixing rooms
2 Atmos 9.1.4 film/TV mixing rooms, adapted for post-sync recording

All mixing rooms are equipped with Avid S6 or D-control consoles and DK Audio cinema sound systems and connected to centralized Avid NEXIS storage.

Shelter Cove Church Maintains Community During the Pandemic

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 Z

Shelter Cove Community Church is a house of worship located in Modesto, California, whose tightly knit and passionate community has been put to the test throughout 2020 but never silenced. In fact, to the contrary, with worship services that feature live pop-rock performances and real musicians, Shelter Cove has been anything but silent.

Prior to the pandemic, the church regularly saw packed weekly services and a full house with around 1,600 in attendance per weekend. But when restrictions were implemented on indoor gatherings, the church transitioned to delivering their weekend services through a combination of limited in-person attendance and online versions of the services. Unfortunately, the church's production team was put to the test when their front-of-house mixing console died.

With only a limited portion of worshippers able to attend in person and a majority viewing services online from home, the production team found themselves in a situation where their console became much more than just an element of the church's infrastructure; it became the keystone for the entire community, and the vehicle that brought the service to a majority the worshippers. For Geoffrey Fusco, Production Manager at Shelter Cove, the fix was to purchase a new console and they chose an Avid VENUE | S6L system purchased through local AV provider, Floodjay Productions.

Geoffrey Fusco mixing a service

The Quick Turnaround with Avid VENUE | S6L

The team pulled off a remarkably quick turnaround because of a few key factors. First, Fusco was able to begin preparing for installation before the church's S6L even arrived. "I spent a couple of weeks working with the VENUE Standalone [software] offline editor to get it set up to what I needed it to do," he explains. "That way, when I got the console, I could just stick in a thumb-drive with the VENUE show file [on it] and be good to go."

What's more—when the console did arrive, the installation was completed in one night. Matt Robertson, owner of Floodjay Productions, assisted Shelter Cove with the installation and recalls how quickly it went. "I think the last pieces came in on a Thursday and once it got there, we were like 'Okay, do we want to start it before the weekend?' and Geoff said 'Yeah, let's go!'… He really wanted to go for it, and we got it set up in a night."

Racked E6L Engine, Stage 64 I/O, and Waves SoundGrid server

Second, Fusco was able to save time with Virtual Soundcheck, enabling him to begin preparing for the service without needing the musicians to be present. "I spent a lot of time on Virtual Soundcheck when I first had the console," he says. "We actually did a recording session not long after the console was put in and I used it to dial-in the system." He also uses this feature to let others practice their skills. "Whenever my coworker wants to mix, I throw up a Pro Tools session and let her have at it." Fusco also uses S6L's integrated Pro Tools functionality to record services, which are subsequently mixed, edited with the video recording, and posted online for the congregation to view on-demand—something that has been more important than ever during the pandemic.

The third factor was the intuitiveness of S6L. Having been accustomed to the VENUE | Mix Rack System prior to S6L, Fusco and his team were able to jump right in. "I didn't find anything to be confusing," Fusco says. "Everything was relatively in the same spot and easy to use—it was great... Anyone who knows a little bit about mixing could jump on and figure things out and quickly get something going—especially if someone else has an event and I'm not there."

A Heightened Worship Experience

Ever since the installation, Shelter Cove Community Church has been back up and running thanks to the quick turnaround, delegation of tasks, and post-production capabilities that have become achievable with their new console and the hard work of the production team.

And better yet, the congregation's feedback has been nothing but positive for their new live sound system, with seemingly everyone enjoying the benefits. Musicians enjoy having control over the mix of their monitors using the Avid VENUE | On-Stage app—as does Fusco, who doesn't have to worry about monitor mixes anymore. At-home worshippers have enjoyed the triumphant return of the church's virtual services. And everyone, from the staff to the congregation, has enjoyed the overall improvement to the sound quality and clarity of the services.

For Shelter Cove Community Church, there's a lot to be thankful for, now that their sound system is back in full throttle. And with the expected return to full capacity services in the near future, all faders are turned up for 2021—except at the first service on Sunday mornings—because then, Fusco says, he tends to pull back the volume, so he's not "running things too hot" for the older crowd.

Lazaro Casanova: Searching for Inspiration, Finding Pro Tools, and Producing Electronic Music

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 Z

The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havoc on the live music industry. But for DJ, electronic music producer, and record label founder Lazaro Casanova, the pandemic also provided a silver lining in his search for inspiration.

Based in Miami, FL, Casanova identifies as a producer first and a DJ second, but this wasn't always the case. When he started in the local EDM scene in the early 2000s, Casanova remembers "it was a time where you could be a DJ without having to produce, but I only caught the tail end of that. Two to three years in, people started asking 'what songs do you have?' So, although I always used to consider myself a DJ first, I'm a producer first now."

He got his first major boost in the summer of 2006 when he was invited on tour with Canadian electronic duo MSTRKRFT and American electronic musician Juan Maclean—a pairing he would join again on subsequent tours. But like any artist looking to push themselves further, Casanova began searching for ways to flex his creativity as a music producer.

The Drop into Pro Tools for Electronic Music Production

“I toyed around a little bit with Reason when it first came out,” he reveals. “I’m glad the Internet wasn’t archiving things as much as they do now because there are definitely songs I’ve made during those times that are lost on a hard drive somewhere, and I’m glad that they’re not out there!”

He also messed around with Ableton Live, but it was one of his musician friends who convinced him to switch to Pro Tools. “It was the silliest argument,” he fondly remembers. “He said, ‘It has the word pro in it—the pros use it—why wouldn’t you use Pro Tools?’”

That fluke decision proved to be important for Casanova, as he’s stuck with Pro Tools throughout his career. But he wants it to be clear—he doesn’t just stick with Pro Tools because it’s comfortable to him. He chooses Pro Tools because he feels that it allows him to create his best music. He appreciates the more organized workflow Pro Tools provides and can’t imagine using anything else.

“It is a logistical nightmare to work in a platform that I’m not comfortable mixing in and creating in at the same time,” he says. “Pro Tools is the only workflow that doesn’t make me feel crazy… It has never made me need to change my workflow—it has only improved on old habits I already have.”

Hitting a Groove

Casanova’s creative process often follows a pattern, starting with the drums. Since EDM is a genre whose purpose is to make people want to dance, the central drum groove is the most important part of electronic music production—or the “meat and potatoes,” as Casanova calls it.

“My favorite moment is when I get to a point where—no matter how simple the beat is—I realize that I could listen to it alone for 25 minutes straight and not get tired of it,” he reveals. “Sometimes that just never happens. Sometimes you make a beat and it just goes back into the hard drive… When I find that groove, it then becomes all about what I can do to make this groove sound cooler, because you’ll eventually always come back to this.”

To produce his sounds, he taps into his growing collection of gear, which includes Native Instruments Maschine, a Digitakt drum machine by Elektron, and a Nintendo Switch, which he’s retrofitted into a synthesizer with the Korg Gadget app. But, he admits, that’s only the beginning—he’s “just begun to go down the rabbit hole of buying gear.”

Finding Inspiration in a Pandemic

Being inspired to create is something Casanova often wrestles with. But he’s found that it’s often the most difficult times in his life when inspiration strikes.

“I find myself being the most productive when things in my life are not going great,” he admits. “The music helps me get away from the real-world problems. I’m still trying to figure out how to be happy and make music I’m happy with.”

While the pandemic has limited opportunities for many, for Casanova, it brought an opportunity to create. And in November 2020, it culminated in the release of his debut album, 1986.

Casanova brought nostalgic, often personal feelings to his album by incorporating sounds from his childhood. “I took the opportunity to sample some of my favorite cartoons and video games from when I was growing up,” he says. “When you take something that’s unique to you, with sounds that trigger memories, and slap it on a song, the song automatically sounds different than something someone else did because it’s got something that means something to you.”

Having a home studio has also been vital to his creativity—as long as there’s balance.

“I was living in a studio space, with my bed right next to my desk, and it was a struggle for me to find a healthy balance, being a studio rat,” he recalls. “Everything I did revolved around my work. At times, I wouldn’t even eat because my work was just front and center… Now I have a two-bedroom setup, where it feels a little more like I’m clocking into work. To have a space where there’s nothing I do besides music.”

While producing and performing music are at his core, Casanova is also heavily involved in the business side of music. He owns a record label, petFood, and uses it to not only promote his own music, but to find and help up-and-coming artists grow their fanbase—often to international levels, like in the cases of Waze & Odyssey, Urulu, No Artificial Colours, and Poupon. He’s also the manager of Murk Records, the legendary Miami label founded in 1992, and a manager at the Miami afro-house label, Made in Miami.

Hope for the Future

Despite the triumph of his debut album release, the pandemic has not been kind to DJs and other live performers like Casanova. But hope seems to be on the rise, with unique opportunities steadily popping-up for DJs.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to DJ in outdoor areas for people who are sitting down at dinner tables, but it’s nothing like the feeling of having a dance floor of people in front of you,” he admits. “Especially in the case of house music and the EDM dance world. But I’m not complaining because I have friends in New York who can’t even DJ outside for people sitting down.”

Despite what the past year has brought—or taken—from his career and passions, Casanova looks to the future with admirable optimism. He’s hopeful for a return to normal DJing this year and to continue exploring possibilities in future productions, as he hints at an interest in working with new genres in the future.

So, if good things really come to those who wait, Casanova and his fellow DJs have a lot of good things coming.

The Art of Music Mastering: Mastering Engineer Jett Galindo Shares Her Story and Creative Approach

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 Z

"A lot of kids don't usually say they want to be a mastering engineer when they grow up." But Jett Galindo wasn't a lot of kids. Now a prominent mastering engineer and vinyl cutter at The Bakery in California, Galindo has mastered projects for such diverse artists as Barbra Streisand, Weezer, Selena Gomez, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Randy Travis, Colbie Caillat, and Rancid, as well as the soundtracks for La La Land, Cars 3, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Pokémon Red/Blue Piano Collections, and No Straight Roads.

As a kid growing up in the Philippines, her love for music and technology drove her to sing, play multiple instruments, and tinker with computers. She just didn't realize how the two would perfectly collide in her life a few years later. Or the role Pro Tools would play. Or even what music mastering was.

So, what is music mastering?

In a nutshell, mastering is the final process in music production where a stereo mix is optimized for playback on different listening formats, such as digital distribution, CDs, high-res audio, and vinyl. The process includes removing unwanted noise, optimizing volumes, and bringing better tonal balance to the overall mix. Simply put, mastering can make a good mix sound better.

The Music + Technology = Mastering Discovery

When cutting vinyl masters, Galindo relies on Pro Tools to automate many manual processes and produce The Bakery's "secret sauce sound."

Although Galindo was surrounded by music in the Philippines (her parents managed and taught pop rock cover bands), she was undecided about a career. They didn't want her to choose music, so she entered college as a psychology major ("because it's versatile").

But music soon crossed her path and she joined a prominent choral ensemble, touring Europe, Asia, and the US. That's where a friend who attended Berklee College of Music introduced her to the world of music production and engineering.

"It was an instant lightbulb moment where I knew exactly what I wanted to do," she remembers. "There's no other career path that made sense to me."

Back in the Philippines after the tour, she found a recording studio looking for interns—an internship that almost didn't happen. "At the very last moment, the senior engineer found out that Jett Galindo was a girl," she sighs. "Thankfully, it was too late—I was already signed off to be an intern."

It was there, "on November 1, 2005," she recalls exactly, when she first started using Pro Tools. "It was just natural—it just felt right," she remembers. "Pro Tools has been part of my career, literally, from the start."

Galindo worked her way up to become the studio's house recording engineer before leaving to pursue formal training at Berklee, where she developed a keen interest in mastering and dedicated her studies to the craft.

After graduating, while working as an engineer at Avatar Studios in New York (now known as Power Station), her mastering professor called about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work alongside Grammy-winning mastering engineer Doug Sax as his assistant at The Mastering Lab in California.

"He's considered the grandfather of mastering—the very first mastering engineer to open an independent mastering facility," she fondly remembers. "He's known for mastering The Doors, Pink Floyd, Ray Charles, Diana Krall, all these amazing names. When I got that lead, I'm like, F*** yeah, and threw my resumé in there!"

Galindo landed the job, moved west, and hasn't looked back, climbing the ranks to become a highly sought-after mastering engineer in her own right.

Making Good Mixes Sound Magical

For Galindo, her DAW of choice is clear: "Pro Tools has been very integral to my career as a mastering engineer and a vinyl cutter."

"There's no one right way and there's no one direction towards getting the final sound," Galindo says about her mastering approach. Using Pro Tools to play and lay out mixes, she starts by listening critically to the music, from beginning to end, to formulate a game plan, including the mastering chain—the linear order of all processing the signal will be put through.

She then focuses on sculpting sounds using microscopic EQ adjustments to bring better tonal balance to the mix. If the energy needs to be tightened, she might reach for a compressor but often feels it's unnecessary.

For those eyeing compressors to achieve the loud, hard-hitting sounds of today's pop music, she warns: "Compression can actually do the opposite. If you want your music to be a wall of sound that just hits you, where you feel all the details envelop you, compression can potentially take that away because you're constricting all the transients, as opposed to making them louder."

She credits Pro Tools for helping manage her heavy workload. "Pro Tools has become second nature to me—it's a direct extension of my ears, brain, and hands. This has allowed me to stay on top of multiple sessions while staying efficient and keeping myself attuned to thoughtful mastering decisions… [It's] allowed me this freedom as a mastering engineer to be more intuitive and musical with my workflow and thought process."

Her go-to plugins? "FabFilter is amazing," she raves. "L 2 is a pretty solid, uncomplicated workhorse for limiting. iZotope RX 8 is also a favorite. It's mostly known for noise reduction, but I found it to be a uniquely versatile tool that's helpful when mastering hard-hitting genres, like EDM, rock, and hip hop… For vinyl cutting, NUGEN Audio Monofilter… For challenging phase-y bass effects, it's one of the few tools that's able to control that low end while keeping the clarity intact."

A big favorite in her toolbox, Galindo uses FabFilter Pro-L 2 in just about every mastering session.

She's also a big fan of Pro Tools plugin automation: "You have a huge amount of control over every little parameter, along with the ability to do adjustments down to a tenth of a dB. It's saved my butt countless times throughout my career!"

Tips for Better Mastering

If you want your music to sound the best it can be, you don't need fancy plugins or expensive gear. Galindo is adamant that you'll get better results by developing your critical listening skills using the plugins you already have, such as the EQs, compressors, and limiters included with Pro Tools.

"Musicians and creators already have a lot of mastering tools in their arsenal, so the thing that's crucial is listening," she stresses. She recommends offering to master other people's music. "Collaborating with people and having them push you towards making mastering decisions, it forces you to get out of your comfort zone and get better… The more you collaborate, the more you're able to expand your limitations and be more openminded to what's out there."

Thanks to the vinyl revival, Galindo proudly displays her handiwork.

Ultimately, she feels that mastering is not about how many tools you have but the person wielding them.

"Rather than collect 10 EQs, work with one EQ and learn what it can do for every adjustment and every EQ shape," Galindo advises. "Learn how each plugin in your arsenal behaves… Be obsessive with audio adjustments that are less than 1 dB… A/B test every step of the way… The more you get attuned to the function of each little tool you have in your toolbox, you become more powerful. Because at the end of the day, the thing that really evolves is not the tool but the engineer. It's the human that makes all the difference."

France TV Keeps Production Rolling in Spite of Lockdowns with Edit on Demand

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 Z

When COVID-19 shut down access to France TV's facilities, the national broadcaster stood up a comprehensive remote editing solution in days. Avid spoke with Managing Director Sébastian Grandsire and Technical Coordinator Philippe Vaidie at La Fabrique, France TV's internal productions, about their experience.

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Avid: Tell us about your role at La Fabrique in France TV.

Sébastian Grandsire: My name is Sébastian Grandsire, I'm the managing director of post production for La Fabrique, France TV's internal productions. We manage ten production sites throughout France, whose activities are completely varied in terms of duration and schedule. The team manages ongoing as well as individual projects. These range from short, two-minute modules to ninety-minute fictions, including magazine programs and documentaries. Each site is autonomous in terms of planning, but technical management is centralized in order to have a unity and consistency for media, renewal, and maintenance.

Philippe Vaidie is the team's technical coordinator. He is in charge of managing renewals, productions, and technical maintenance on our different sites.

Avid: What was the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on your productions and how did you react?

SG: The shutdown was brutal, and the time we had to anticipate it was very, very short. We were able to bring home a few stand-alone Avid machines, so we could finish with a hard drive on location. But all other productions had to reinvent the process.

That process was reinvented in a hurry, but at the same time it had sort of been in the works for more than a year. The idea had already been in our heads, since we had replaced our ISIS servers with NEXIS, that we could benefit from that functionality.

We couldn't put in place outside access to FTV, hence this solution that we have put in place with you to meet our emergency needs, without really changing the habits of our technicians and editors, so they could access their applications at home. And also without needing each editor to have a workstation that includes a computer, I would say, with certain capabilities. We just needed to have, basically, a network and a relatively new computer, we'll say, to be able to work.

I don't recall the time frame exactly, but in, I would say, a week or a week and a half, we were able to start working together on a proof of concept that allowed us to test whether it fit our needs. So it allowed us to validate first if it technically worked, second if it was able to meet our finishing and production needs to feed our antennas, and third without totally changing the applications for our editors. We were running behind and we didn't have time to train the editors. They needed to be operational very quickly to be able to edit.

Avid: How did they get to adapt to Avid | Edit On Demand?

Philippe Vaidie: To let our editors get used to it, what we did when they first connected to Edit On Demand was give them a workspace with media and projects that were already done and allow them to play with it for a few days, in general letting them play with the media to make edits and see how they managed. We also gave them some time before editing to recreate their settings on each of the machines they were going to use.

We even had—and this is important—quite a few editors who were skeptical at the beginning, and after their first experience they called us to say, "Listen, if you have another edit for me, no problem, I'm ready."

Avid: How did you convince editors who were hesitant to shift to a new technology?

PV: We had to convince a certain number of users who were convinced the computer they had at home would not allow them to edit. I remember one user, an editor, told me, "I have a machine that is essentially a desktop tool, I've already tried to install editing software to do simple things and it doesn't work." And in fact, because his computer simply becomes a remote control for a more powerful computer, there was no problem. He was finally able to edit from home.

Avid: Is this technological shift the first step towards a hybrid model?

SG: That's exactly what it is. I think today we are exactly as you said, thinking about this solution as a step towards a hybrid model—to do projects onsite, because we need to be able to have people onsite, as well as with the directors and producers, and that's something we can't give up. But we also have requests to be able to edit without being in person. So a hybrid solution is certainly, in any case, the result of these five, six weeks experiencing a new solution that will certainly allow us to be able to meet the future needs of FTV.

Avid: What would you give as advice to people who need a remote solution like this one?

SG: I would say the advice we can give is to do what we are doing right now with Philippe: we spend a lot of time doing demonstrations. Because today remote editing is still a scary concept. By giving demonstrations to users, producers, agencies, or production unions, you allow them to see that in the end it doesn't change anything. The display is the same, the fluidity of the image is the same, and this, I think, breaks the remote editing taboo.

What is also important in the system is the possibility for a producer or director to ingest their own media. I think this is also a plus, because today the director or producer sends us their hard drive or their media, and we ingest. I think the only person who knows and masters these media perfectly is the director.

Avid: Are you considering extending data storage temporarily for specific events in the future?

SG: Certainly. This can be one of the solutions to respond to one-time sports or cultural events. Instead of renting and installing, as we are doing today, a whole system of servers and editing stations, we can now simplify by installing fiber and placing some workstations. From there we have access to post production where and when we want, practically. We can certainly address these production needs for one-time events, not like now with long-term fixed resources. But for events like the Olympics, the Tour de France, the French Open, maybe we can respond to those needs later, I think.

Avid: Will you adapt the production tools to meet those needs?

SG: We are going to think about what we need to provide, I would say, like portable elements. Right now, we didn't have time because basically we had to stay at home and couldn't go out. But going forward, I would say, we could simply plan to have a small flycase, and tell the editors, "You leave with the small flycase, and in the small flycase there is a PC workstation, 17- or 21-inch screen, two small speakers..." And that way you can work anywhere comfortably.

Avid: To sum up, do you think we have workflow simplification with Edit On Demand?

SG: Absolutely. The workflow simplification comes from sharing the image and timeline live. That's a real productivity improvement, absolutely.

PV: I would like to add that there is another thing that was ultimately quite important for us. This is the variable dimension of Avid | Edit On Demand. Being able to start with a certain number of PCs and then, depending on our needs, increase this number for users; this allowed us to work much more calmly.

SG: In any case, I think that you have been there with a solution that worked and allowed us to save costs and leap into something that we had planned would take maybe a year and a half or two years—and we did it in five weeks.

How Kansai TV Brought Its Visually Immersive 8K HDR Short Film Three Trees to Life

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 00:00:00 Z

© KANSAI TV

8K/HDR Three Trees

[Cast] Sei Shiraishi
[Music] Akira Kosemura
[Director/Producer/Words/Editing/Grading] Kazuma Yano (Kansai Television)

Go to: Three Trees

Japan’s Kansai Television has actively been at the forefront of embracing next-generation, high-fidelity video technology. The company’s UHD-works team first made its foray into producing ultra-high-res content with the 8K HDR short film to make, which won a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals TV & Film Awards in 2018.

And now its second 8K HDR effort—the short film Three Trees—is following in its footsteps, making a memorable impact on viewers with its abstract, poetic world filled with rich, immersive imagery.

Premiering to great acclaim, Three Trees was named the Grand Final Winner, the top prize in the short form category at the Asian Academy Creative Awards held in Singapore in December 2020. It’s also the first work by an independent production company ever to be selected for broadcast on NHK’s BS8K channel in January 2021.

To create such a challenging piece, Kansai Television’s Kazuma Yano, who directed, edited, and color graded Three Trees, turned to Media Composer to handle the entire production workflow, from end to end.

Kansai Television's 8K HDR Initiative

Kansai Television wanted to take the 8K HDR medium even further. Not just because the technology presents beautiful imagery; it can also convey a sense of human emotions to others. 8K provides a feeling of both scale and detail in far and closeup shots, while HDR captures the wide dynamic range and color space of scenes—even in backlit environments—through color grading.

Such benefits of these technologies have already been proven. Whether through film, HD video, or 8K HDR, the will of the creator doesn’t change. What does is that the technology gives creators a broader palette of expression. However, the demanding media production and storage requirements for working with 8K HDR media can be a challenge.

The workflow involves shooting with a large camera sensor in a RAW format, super high-resolution digital image processing and editing, and color grading. Each process requires a great deal of expertise and dedication from the editor, but the end result can demonstrate his or her creative intent with surprising depth.

It could be said that such resolutions and color depth allow video to come closer to the artistic richness of paintings and photography—something Yano set out to achieve with Three Trees. Often, such an endeavor requires a complex setup. With an Avid end-to-end workflow, he was able to realize his creative vision all right in Media Composer.

Streamlining the Equipment and Workflow

Three Trees was shot using the RED RANGER MONSTRO 8K camera—a first for a Japanese production. For post production, Yano used Media Composer for all editing and finishing, Avid Artist | DNxIQ for video capture and monitoring, and Avid NEXIS | E2 SSD storage to provide the high performance and media throughput needed for the demanding color grading workflow.

Connected to Avid NEXIS by a Dell 40G switch, Yano used a Dell Precision 7920 workstation with an Intel Xeon 18 Core Dual CPU, enabling four streams of 4K video, as well as 8K real-time playback. For monitoring, 8K previews were down-converted to 4K with Artist DNxIQ for display on a Sony BVM-HX310 reference monitor. To maintain all of the beautiful details of the high-res media without the bandwidth bottlenecks, he used Avid DNxHR HQX and DNxHR Uncompressed codecs for editing.

The original RED RAW assets were processed and transcoded into Avid DNxHR 4K and 8K data for use in editing. These assets were collectively managed on Avid NEXIS into “4K,” “8K,” and “Original” formats along with their respective workspaces. And since Media Composer allows assets from projects with different resolutions to be placed onto the same timeline, it accelerated the workflow.

By merely re-linking assets that have been applied to a project, Yano was able to switch over instantly between 4K and 8K, enabling an easy workflow between 4K offline and 8K online editing. And because Media Composer enabled him to perform all steps—from RAW image processing to editing in a single application—tasks could be easily repeated. Any changes made to the source material could quickly be reverted or adjusted, enabling him to focus more on the creative aspects of his work.

Avid NEXIS | E2 SSD & Avid NEXIS Workspaces

Processing the Imagery

To process the RAW data shot with the RED camera, Yano used the Media Composer RED AMA plugin. The color space uses the RED WideGamutRGB spectrum and the Log3G10 gamma curve to achieve predictable and consistent color across the entire workflow. And settings can be changed all at once using any selected clip.

Working in Media Composer, he batch-transcoded files to be used for editing right from their bin into 8K Avid DNxHQ HQX data and then created 4K DNxHQ HQX data for offline work. He also assigned different colors to clips using the color clip tool, enabling assets to be easily identified on the timeline. The bin’s upper window contained a list of DNxHQ assets, while the lower window listed RAW assets, making it easy to keep track of the media. Metadata from the raw footage was also preserved for reference during editing to help inform decisions

Making the Cut with the Industry-Standard Editing System

Media Composer has long been the editing tool of choice in the film and television industries. In addition to its simple yet refined suite of editing tools, Media Composer offers many advanced features, including tools that enabled Yano to instantly adjust source settings such as the frame rate and angle of view.

He was able to set mask margins by project, source, baseband, or for file export. Best of all, the greatest appeal was the ability to complete an entire 8K HDR project all within a single application.

Media Composer Timeline

Moving from offline editing to online was easy, as he simply relinked online assets from the offline editing timeline, enabling him to output at source material resolutions. Composite layers and settings parameters, such as DVEs and color grading, were also applied, eliminating the need to check wipes after AAF conforming or performing other previously required follow-up work. In many cases with AAF data in other software, mixed frame rates and slow-motion effects are not applied appropriately, and the resulting conforming work is a source of frustration for many editors. With Media Composer, the workflow is completely integrated, increasing editing speed while reducing editor stress.

Relink from 4K (left) to 8K (right) timeline

Correcting and Playing with Color

Yano performed all color grading in Media Composer through its suite of color tools. Previously, he used to output media in AAF format for processing on a dedicated color grading machine. But with the Media Composer | Symphony Option color correction add-on, he was able to perform all grading work within Media Composer, eliminating those extra steps.

Final Finishing and Delivery

Yano also used Media Composer for finishing, delivering the master file for NHK’s BS8K broadcast right from the software. The master file was output to 8K/HDR PQ using Avid DNxHR. The broadcast media was batch-converted using the Media Composer source settings to HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma), so it could be easily exported to the 8K HDR format that NHK BS8K uses.

The Changing Concept of Picture Lock

Since both offline and online editing and post-production work, such as color grading, are all performed on the same Media Composer system and timeline, the concept of picture lock dramatically changes. Barriers that existed between different aspects of production such as editing, DVE, captioning, and color grading no longer exist.

For Yano, this meant that original assets could now be introduced during the color grading process, for example. Cut selection and length could be easily adjusted following color grading, dramatically improving the overall quality of the final edit. And the security in knowing any change could be reverted at any time became a major factor in the editorial process, giving Yano and the rest of the UHD-works team greater and more impactful creative freedom.

UHD-works Staff, Kansai Television, & Sei Shiraishi, Actress

Special thank you to Avid & Photron

The short film Three Trees was shot using the RED RANGER MONSTRO 8K, a first for a Japanese production. Post production including editing and color grading was carried out using Media Composer and Avid NEXIS with extensive cooperation from Avid and Photron.

Kazuma Yano

Production Technology Center, Production Technology Department, Technical Innovation HQ, Kansai Television

Yano joined Kansai Television in 1996. He primarily worked on offline editing for the network’s Tuesday evening serial dramas. He received a video technology award from the Motion Picture and Television Engineering Society of Japan for his work on the drama series, God’s Beret. His first production, the 8K HDR short film to make (2017) won numerous awards, including a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals and the Jury Selection for Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Japan Media Arts Festival. This was followed by the 4K HDR short film Konatsu and Hiyori (2019), which won a Silver World Medal at the New York Festivals, and the 8K HDR short film Three Trees (2019), which was named the Grand Final Winner at the Asian Academy Creative Awards. The productions of UHD-works have been well-received both in Japan and around the world.

How The Voice's Editors and AEs Manage Assets in an Unscripted Post Workflow

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 00:00:00 Z

Reality TV has come to dominate primetime broadcast schedules the world over, but creating a winning formula for post production presents a unique set of hurdles for the editing team. Broadly, the issues are:

Volume: Large editing teams are working with towering heaps of footage to compose reality shows. This makes impeccable asset management a necessity for an efficient workflow.
Unscripted: The nature of the genre means that editors find the story and effectively write the show through their selects of on-the-fly footage.
Deadlines: The requirement to meet fast turnaround times means the pressure is always on.

Through trial and experimentation, The Voice's post team has established a sophisticated workflow for managing their assets amid these challenges.

The Talent Behind The Voice

NBC's Emmy® award-winning show has been entertaining audiences since 2011, with 18 seasons and counting. With a solid organizational framework, editors can apply their talent to finding the story, maintaining story arcs, and hitting emotional beats. That may be true across all genres, but the meticulous approach required of unscripted TV editors is extraordinary.

The Voice's editing team will draw from 50 to 60 terabytes of original camera media to compile the first few episodes of each season. This raw material comes from 20 to 30 cameras, many of which film simultaneously from different angles. Then, the production's team of assistant editors (AEs) ingest, transcode, and view the material.

The AEs' organizational process cannot be overlooked, says Supervising Editor Robert M. Malachowski, Jr., ACE, who has been with the production since the first season. "[AEs] are the centralized hub for everything that happens in post. . . . Without them, the editors would not be able to do their jobs at all."

By taking a look at their workflow, we've pulled out six tips that can help other unscripted TV editors design their own plan for managing assets in the post process.

From left to right: Supervising Editor Robert M. Malachowski, Jr., ACE; Lead Assistant Editor Alan Macchiarolo; Lead Assistant Editor Joe Kaczorowski; Lead Assistant Editor Vinnie DeRamus

1. Disciplined Organization of Raw Files

On The Voice, the goal is to produce one two-hour show and a separate one-hour show weekly during the series run. It's the AEs' job to first review the media and prep it for the editors. The raw material includes stage performances, interviews, high-speed camera footage, behind-the-scenes footage, coach cams, and "follow-home" video, where select contestants are filmed with family and friends in their hometown.

The AEs will eventually receive a camera log detailing the shots filmed and what happened throughout the day, as well as a transcript, but they try to work ahead of this to start the editors on assembly as quickly as possible. Usually, AEs need to turn that footage around within 24 hours.

"We pretty much go into it completely blind," shares Lead Assistant Editor Alan Macchiarolo. While the AEs can view a live feed of performances shot on the stage, they have to wait for a first look at all other material until the files are ingested. "We essentially have to go through every piece of footage that is shot for the show," Macchiarolo says.

Video files are organized by camera (e.g., for stage, reality, artist interview, or B-roll) and camera type. These groups break down into even more specific categories—for example, into all camera angles for a contestant's performances or all of an artist's interviews—and are then delivered to the editors. The majority of the footage stays organized in smaller chunks so the editors don't have to sort through all the material from scratch, explains Lead Assistant Editor Joe Kaczorowski.

Since the transcriptions typically arrive 24 to 48 hours after the editors have received the footage—which is 24 hours after the AEs have already handed it off—the AEs then go back into the organized footage to align dialogue and transcripts, giving the editors an additional tool to search through the material.

2. Logging Leaves No Room for Interpretation

Logging is arguably the most critical part of media management for unscripted TV shows. Poor taxonomy or inconsistent application can cause all manner of problems down the line.

"Our mind-set . . . is we service the back end and then move it forward," Malachowski explains. They consider how they can stay compliant to smooth production at every stage: from offline to online, VFX to audio mixing, and collaboration with outside post houses, he says.

Logging starts with a tape name (e.g., the specific camera, the day the clip was shot) followed by a general descriptor, such as whether it's B-roll or a performance, explains Lead Assistant Editor Vinnie DeRamus. A consistent convention lets everyone know what to search for. For example, the online editor can identify whether the camera is an ARRI or a Sony simply from the tape name, says Malachowski.

With archival footage and creative calls in the field for high-speed footage, The Voice post team deals with a lot of mixed format footage including PAL. The AEs have to identify this footage and pass along that info to the editors and online editors. Then, an editor can look at a piece of media and know its true frame rate, the running frame rate, and whether or not the footage is original media or has been processed or transcoded for any reason.

"At any point we have five to eight AEs in here working on [material], and they all have to use the exact same terminology," says Kaczorowski. "It's not left up for interpretation that way. And all the editors are used to seeing that terminology. It's laid out exactly the same, so it shows up in a bin the same way. Everybody sees the same thing over and over again. They know what they're looking for season after season."

3. Be Prepared to Adapt

Every workflow is different, so there's no cookie-cutter approach. But arriving at a tailor-made solution may involve trial and error—plus the flexibility to evaluate and adapt.

"We definitely did not nail this from the get-go, and every season pops up with new challenges," Malachowski says. For the first season, they followed the template set for other Mark Burnett productions and quickly learned that didn't work for The Voice because its story wasn't told in a linear fashion.

During The Voice, they can take an act or scene from one episode and move them around to a different act or drop it into another episode entirely, he explains. The producers can request that contestants who auditioned on the first day be placed into the second or third episode if that improves the storytelling. Initially, the team had all the media grouped for individual episodes; when they started shifting things between different episodes, that process broke down.

They also tried various other workflows before alighting on the asset management system that The Voice uses today. A single project or library acts as a repository for all the media, while editors creatively work within their own individual projects. This allows for faster turnover by the AEs, according to Malachowski, because all they have to do is update one bin. The editors return their finished cuts back to that one shared project.

The library project is locked so that only the AEs can update the media. "This means the editors don't have to worry about accidentally deleting or changing anything," Malachowski says. "It becomes a very safe environment for them to just grab what they need, pull it into other projects, and play with it."

4. Keep Communication Channels Open

The Voice has between 20 and 22 editors working at its peak, each responsible for different tasks as the season unfolds. Once the team starts developing what will be in an episode, the editors divide into smaller teams working to form a single episode.

Episodes will go through a series of internal and network reviews before a supervising editor makes an absolute fine cut and the result is locked, approved, and sent to final finish and online. There are no hard-and-fast procedures that govern all of this back-and-forth, but Malachowski recommends keeping the editorial team in constant communication.

"There's no stupid question," Malachowski says. If anyone needs to check whether a clip has been used, they should feel completely free to ask. He likens the show to a game of Boggle, where a last-minute network request can force editors to rework material that was already in place.

"That's why we've got so many layers. The editors are tasked with creating and coming up with the best stories that they can. The finishing editors are making sure that story is complete over an episode. The supervising editors are in charge of making sure the story of each episode is continuous over the entire season. . . . Everybody is looking for finer and finer detail as we get up to the very end and actually release it for broadcast."

The Voice even has a 50-page show "Bible" available for reference that outlines all of the critical processes and procedures.

5. Think You've Got Everything? Think Again

Reality TV hinges on moments, and the right one is worth a thousand words. It's often the little glances and other nonverbal cues—the ones that, inconveniently, won't appear in an automated transcript—that can help sell a certain part of the story or bring out a character. How do you ensure that those vital pieces of story aren't missed?

Some editors will rewatch things, Malachowski explains. After making a near-final cut of a performance, he'll review the original material, watching each of the coach cameras during the performance to cherry-pick moments. He also might ask some of the AEs to go back in and look for certain teases or cold opens. They would supply the editors with a bin of six to a dozen additional shots. Malachowski said a request can even be as specific as "I need Blake looking left to right with a blue background."

The advice here is to stay alert and "keep an absolute watchful eye," in Malachowski's words. If your show is as nonlinear as The Voice, double down on this. "You have to really keep on your toes," he warns.

6. Create a Supportive Team Environment

In such a pressurized environment with hard deadlines rotating, even personalities who thrive on adrenaline need to take a few moments away from the grind. Building a supportive work culture is essential to keeping the editorial machine running smoothly.

"What helps is knowing what role we all play in the process, and knowing what each of our strengths are," DeRamus says. "We each attack any issue based on our strengths, and we know that we can depend on [the rest of the team] for support."

"There's a lot of humor in the bays; there's [also] a lot of tension," acknowledges Malachowski. "But at the end of the day, everybody keeps in the back of their minds that, at the end of the season, we all still want to be friends. It can definitely be a challenge . . . but having the respect for your fellow editors and AEs helps a lot."

The State of Video Production 2020 Report

What technology's game-changing, and what's all hype? Is the current talent pipeline sufficient? Industry professionals share their expert views on these questions and more.

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Emmy is a trademark of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS)/The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS).

Newzroom Afrika: A Case Study in Building the Broadcast Newsroom of the Future

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 00:00:00 Z

It was a daunting challenge: build a 24-hour TV news channel and digital newsroom of the future, hire 300 employees, and go live—all within a matter of months. Newzroom Afrika did that and more.

South Africa's newest kid on the broadcasting block launched May 2, 2019, in the deep end of the country's national election campaign. Just a year later, Newzroom Afrika is nipping at the heels of two legacy broadcasters, SABC and eNCA, at times even surpassing their ratings.

How did the Newzroom Afrika team build an agile, modern newsroom from the ground up and go from start-up to competitive news source in such a short time frame? By stacking the newsroom with four forward-looking capabilities.

A Digital-First Strategy

A digital-first strategy was at the core of Newzroom Afrika's winning bid for MultiChoice's DStv Channel 405. The team proposed an innovative and interactive multimedia news service that goes far beyond the traditional, linear pay-TV experience.

"We all know that news . . . no longer breaks on television," noted cofounder Thabile Ngwato in a launch video. "News breaks on your phone, on your tablet, all over mobile devices."

Newzroom Afrika embraced the concept of meeting its audience on every platform where they consume content, including TV, OTT streaming services, and social media such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

To deliver an omni-channel experience, the team needed a modern newsroom system that would play well with social and digital outlets. They opted for Avid's end-to-end media production workflow.

Citizen Journalism

Newzroom Afrika's vision for broadcasting is also grounded in citizen journalism, giving its audience an active role in collecting and reporting information.

The station's slogan is "Our News, Our Views." The "our" refers to all South Africans, with Newzroom Afrika acting as the voice of the people. The team focuses on building a community where people feel heard, not "talked at."

On the broadcast side, Newzroom Afrika runs a nightly show that invites viewers to interact through social media or call in by phone or Skype to express their views on the day's issues.

On the digital side, Newzroom Afrika's journalists monitor social feeds to see what's trending and keep tabs on the issues people care about. There, they engage citizens with questions and informative content, while encouraging them to share their own videos and photos—creating a pool of user-generated content that the station can then fold into its news coverage.

Live Storytelling

Newzroom Afrika sees live coverage as key to audience engagement—so it set out to do more than any of its competitors.

"Live storytelling, rolling live coverage, and the serialization of news is a very important strategy for us at Newzroom Afrika because it gives our audience an opportunity to go on a journey with the reporter—and almost become a reporter with them—because the story is unfolding hour-by-hour through their eyes," explained News Director Katy Katopodis during a one-year anniversary special.

Newzroom Afrika invested not just in satellite news-gathering (SNG) trucks but also in mobile backpack units that allow reporters to broadcast live from the scene using a cellular network.

Journalists in the field needed a cloud-based, collaborative platform that offered immediate access to the newsroom system. This is crucial for the speed of delivery—journalists can upload raw video directly, allowing the rest of the news team to access and edit it in real time.

Another enabler of remote journalism, says Adriaan Shipalana, COO of Harambe Technologies, is the ability to add more licenses to the main news platform quickly and easily. According to Shipalana, Newzroom Afrika has already tripled the platform's initial capacity and plans to add even more licenses to boost remote journalism even further.

Advanced Graphics

At the outset, Newzroom Afrika wanted to stand out visually, not just with the latest HD cameras and superior-quality live streaming, but with advanced graphics too.

The channel targets a younger demographic who are accustomed to fast-paced, cutting-edge visuals and absorbing several streams of information at once. These viewers are engaged by on-screen crawls, sophisticated 3-D animation, and multiple information panels that resemble the content-rich pages they see online.

Newzroom Afrika captures viewers' attention with slick, edgy motion graphics, and are working to add elements of augmented reality and virtual sets to its newscasts.

Practical Future-Proofing

In building its newsroom of the future, one of Newzroom Afrika's priorities was finding a versatile system that could adapt to whatever the future has in store for the industry.

With a tight three-month timeline, the team had to make quick decisions. Technical Operations Manager Vusi Sibiya said they had to pick a platform that enabled them to compete with the linear incumbents of today, while keeping the door open to tech or digital workflows that they haven't spun up yet.

Newzroom Afrika chose its platform for its modular approach and third-party integration, which will let them add features and capacity as the channel grows—in effect "future-proofing" its newsroom.

Broadcasters everywhere could take a page from Newzroom Afrika's playbook, as the victors may very well be those whose media platforms can pivot quickly to meet viewers' demands.

What's in Your Future-Proof Newsroom?

Produce and deliver breaking news faster across multiple platforms with resources for the entire news workflow

Learn more

Soundon Adds Europe’s First S6L-48D to Handle Its Ever-expanding Productions

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00:00 Z

Soundon focuses on sound production for music and entertainment productions. Their biggest project at the moment is The Voice of Finland, Finland’s most popular singing contest with almost a million viewers. The new Avid VENUE | S6L-48D live system purchased through msonic has been put to the test, not only on The Voice of Finland, but also in the live broadcast of the Finnish national sports gala Urheilugaala. Next projects in line include the sound production of the music show All Together Now, the mixing of the last live show of singer Juha Tapio at Hartwall Arena, and the sound work on the live concert of the popular TV show SuomiLOVE. Soundon’s Timo Virtanen and Jonas Törnblom recently gave a tour of their new broadcast truck, complete with the freshly-installed S6L-48D, and shared their impressions of the new system.

Soundon’s Timo Virtanen and Jonas Törnblom

S6L-48D was a “must have”

“As soon as we heard that Avid was releasing the S6L-48D system, it was clear that we wanted it. We called Ossi [at msonic] and got the S6L-48D for the start of the new season of The Voice of Finland, just as we planned. The advantages have been remarkable. Everything is so easy with the S6L-48D,” Timo Virtanen explains.

The biggest advantage has been that every essential element can be seen instantly on the S6L-48D’s expanded surface—the mixing experience is more tactile and visual than ever before.

“With the S6L-48D I have more things visible at the same time,” Timo continues. “For example, on The Voice of Finland, I have the band on the left side and the coaches on the right. In the battle section of TvoF, all 48 faders are in use. Everything has to be in view, as the coaches on the show talk to each other and might, for example, ask the band to play something on the spot. The mixing engineer needs to stay awake.”

Although the S6L-48D offers exceptional visual feedback, the system’s sound quality is Timo’s favorite feature. He shares, “I noticed the excellence of the VENUE | S6L preamp while working on the TV show Elämäni Biisi. It has a great sound and the clarity is top notch. I had recorded and mixed ten episodes of the first season with the S6L through the Avid preamp. After that, we did an episode with the same setup, same band and same mics, but I had to route the signal through another manufacturer’s preamp via Dante. The difference between the sounds was like night and day.”

Reliable recording and Virtual Soundcheck critical for live production

Live productions are Soundon’s main focus, and there can be no system crashes or silent periods when you have an audience of millions. For The Voice of Finland, the signal is split three ways and sent to the Soundon truck, to monitors, and to front of house. Inside the truck are dual Pro Tools rigs running on MacBook Pros. One system is fed via S6L’s AVB network and the second through an Avid Pro Tools | MTRX interface.

"Although the redundant recording feature introduced in the VENUE 6.1. software makes it possible to run two Pro Tools systems over AVB, we wanted to make things extra secure. With the MTRX the two systems are totally separated,” Timo explains.

In addition to the S6L and Pro Tools, Soundon also uses Avid S1 and S3 control surfaces for audio post production. “The S1 is so small! It is so convenient, you can take it to the hotel room with you,” Timo states. “It instantly became a part of my arsenal. A laptop and the S1 is all you need to do post work in the hotel or at home.”

All The Voice of Finland rehearsals are recorded, and Lenni-Kalle Taipale, the show’s music producer, listens to the recordings before the dress rehearsals. “It is important that we can do changes to the mix before the dress rehearsals if the music producer so wishes. Everything can be perfected before the artist arrives on the stage. It’s essential for the production,” Timo says.

Jonas explains what is special about Avid’s Virtual Soundcheck functionality, “Avid’s S6L live mixer and the Pro Tools software are constantly communicating. With other mixers you have to matrix the channels back to the console in a different way. With the S6L-48D, this is not a concern.”

Timo adds, “And with Pro Tools and VENUE | S6L, all I need to do is press one button. I can control everything straight from the console.”

Working together on one surface

Jonas and Timo work closely together and divide the production responsibilities between them, With Jonas focusing on speech and the roles of chief engineer and sound assistant, while Timo deals with the music. Between S6L-48D’s extensive surface controls and the dual operator workflows introduced with the VENUE 6.2 software release, Jonas and Timo are now able to work independently on a single surface.

"Dual Operator is useful for us in projects where one recordist does the speech and the other deals with the music,” Timo explains. “We can split the mixing console for both speech and music and work together on the console at the same time. The main idea is that the music recordist can focus on music and the speech recordist on speech.”

Before S6L’s dual operator functionality, shows like SuomiLOVE were mixed with Timo in the sound truck handling the music while Jonas was in another vehicle working on the speech. Now everything can be done in one truck, and exchanging ideas is easier sitting side by side at the console.

“We don’t have to shout through the intercom anymore!” Timo laughs.

Systems Solutions Provider: msonic

Tokyo’s Artware hub Brings Immersive to Life with S6L and Spat

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 Z

Shinjuku has a long history as one of Tokyo’s most vibrant areas, and Waseda is arguably the district’s cultural and creative nexus. The area is home to the renowned Waseda University, as well as numerous museums, theaters, night clubs, and performance spaces.

Waseda’s newest venue, the Artware hub, opened its doors in late 2019. Commissioned by the Kakehashi Foundation (Arts and Cultural Foundation), the space is the realization of a lifelong dream of Roland Corporation founder and visionary Ikutaro Kakehashi.

What appears at first glance to be a fairly typical live performance venue is, in fact, much more. Designed as an experimental acoustic space, the facility incorporates an unparalleled 36.8 multi-channel immersive audio system based around an Avid VENUE | S6L live sound system and FLUX::Immersive’s Spat Revolution software engine.

The concept for the space was brought to life by Ikuo Kakehashi, the Kakehashi Foundation’s Director, and son of the famed inventor, working with producer/engineer Keiichi Itoh. As Ikuo explains, his father was always cognizant of the relationship between music and technology, and the impact of an environment on creative collaboration. “My father used to say that no matter how good the instrument maker made the instrument, it would be meaningless without a proper place to experience it,” Ikuo observes.

The venue takes its name from the term “Artware,” coined by Ikutaro Kakehashi. The term refers to not just hardware and software, but also to the human experience of an artistic performance. “We wanted to create a space that was more than merely a concert hall, that was a place where content of all kinds could be realized, and an environment where multiple people could gather and share in that performance,” Ikuo explains.

Ikuo Kakehashi and Keiichi Itoh

The immersive listening experience was an important part of the performance environment for Ikutaro Kakehashi. As early as 1991, he had developed a 3D audio processor dubbed RSS – Roland Sound Space – one of a number of early attempts to create an immersive experience using regular stereo speaker configuration. “In designing the space, one of the most important areas of content creation for us was immersive audio,” Ikuo confirms.

Engineer and producer Keiichi Itoh was deeply involved in the project starting from the initial concept development through to the final system design. He settled on an Avid VENUE | S6L-24D system at the core of the Artware hub system, with an E6L-192 engine and a Stage 64 stage box. The S6L not only serves as the Artware hub PA console, but also as the audio interface for the facility’s Pro Tools | HDX system. “We chose the VENUE | S6L to enable mixing and recording without any stress," Itoh explains.

“The system can send and receive 128 channels to and from Pro Tools via AVB, so you can not only mix the sounds on the spot, but also easily record and playback. On the other hand, you can mix live and recorded channels [via Virtual Soundcheck] by switching selected S6L inputs from microphone to Pro Tools with this system if not all performers are available,” he continues. “Also knowing that we will be featuring artists from all over the world, we wanted to install a console that would be familiar to the greatest number of engineers—I felt the VENUE | S6L would be the best system.”

An Avid Pro Tools | MTRX interface is connected to the S6L via MADI and provides the routing matrix and system monitoring and control for the facility. Outputs are converted from MADI to Dante for system distribution.

At the heart of the immersive audio system is FLUX:: Immersive’s Spat Revolution, providing acoustic simulation that allows the user to freely arrange input sources in a virtual space where loudspeakers may be freely placed to create virtually any configuration of sonic landscape. The system is configured using a single purpose-built computer. Audio sources from the stage, as well as Pro Tools outputs, are routed from the S6L to Spat via MADI.

The multi-channel speaker arrangement is comprised of 24 in-wall speakers at two elevations, 2.5 meters and 5 meters, each with 12 speakers arranged in 360 degrees at 30 degrees apart. Nine more speakers – eight in a circle and one at zenith – are attached to a central grid mounted to the ceiling. Three more speakers occupy temporary locations on the front floor for special effects. Eight subwoofers in four cardioid pairs complete the loudspeaker configuration.

Keiichi Itoh

Since its opening in the fall of 2019, the Artware hub has hosted a wide range of performances and garnered high praise from visitors and performers alike. Thanks to the efforts of Ikuo Kakehashi and Keiichi Itoh, and innovative technologies like Spat Revolution, Ikutaro Kakehashi’s vision can finally be realized.

Systems Solutions Provider: ROCK ON PRO

Mixing for Impact: How Khalid’s FOH Engineer Meets His Band’s Creative Needs for Every Show

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 Z

Like many live sound engineers, CJ Blair began his mixing career in a small studio. But it was when he started touring that he discovered his true calling. “I fell in love with live sound because of the fast pace and the quick results,” he recalls. “I love that whether the mix sounds good or bad, you walk away from it every night, and you start fresh again the next day. It’s not like mixing in the studio, where it has to live on forever.”

Blair gained valuable experience doing small tours, where, he notes, “There's usually less crew involved, and you have to be a jack of all trades and know a little bit about everything.” This breadth of experience has paid dividends over the past three years, as he has served as both production manager and front-of-house engineer for Grammy-nominated artist Khalid.

Khalid and the need for rapid creative evolution

Khalid’s live arrangements intentionally don’t replicate his recordings, and the arrangements can change over the course of a tour. “Khalid has a great band, and he likes to showcase that in his arrangements,” Blair relates. “He wants the live arrangement to have a different kind of impact than the record. He comes up with an arrangement by rewriting in real time during rehearsal, and I take a lot of those stems and sounds and mix them into our tracks. It's ever changing; three months from now, it'll be a completely different version. That keeps it fun and creative and interesting. Everybody has to stay focused and ready for things to change.”

It was a night and day difference between the S6L and the console we were touring with. The S6L just sounds better.

CJ Blair, Production Manager and FOH Engineer for Khalid

The search for a flexible, time-saving console

To pull this off night after night, Blair sought a very flexible console that sounded great without requiring a lot of adjustments. He found the solution in 2018 when he mixed on the Avid VENUE | S6L at the Clockenflap festival in Hong Kong. “It was a night and day difference between the S6L and the console we were touring with,” he muses. “The S6L just sounds better. The preamps have so much more usable midrange than any of the competition. I found myself EQ’ing way less. You turn up the head amp, and a kick drum sounds like a kick drum, and a bass guitar sounds like a bass guitar. You’re almost just filtering at that point. Engineers using other consoles have to carve out so much to make something sound usable. But since the S6L sounds the way it’s supposed to out of the gate, like an analog console, I can just tweak minor things instead of trying to completely shape a sound. In a high-pressure situation, it will save you a lot of time. That’s what really attracted me to it.”

The VENUE | S6L’s workflow is another time-saver. “I think the S6L is the easiest console to work on, whether routing things quickly, or activating and deactivating plug-ins and inserts,” he observes. “Everything's right in front of you. It works like an analog console, it's laid out like an analog console, and it sounds like one, which is what everybody wants. And I love the way plug-ins integrate with the S6L; it’s super easy to load, especially if I’m jumping on a rental for the day. You don't have a lot of time to set up and soundcheck at a festival, so anywhere you can shave seconds off matters.”

Since the S6L sounds the way it’s supposed to out of the gate, like an analog console, I can just tweak minor things instead of trying to completely shape a sound. In a high-pressure situation, it will save you a lot of time. That’s what really attracted me to it.

CJ Blair, Production Manager and FOH Engineer for KhaliD

Mixing for clarity and impact

When mixing, Blair strives for clarity and impact. “Every show should be hard hitting,” he insists. “The kick drum should hit you in the chest, and the vocal should be blowing over your head. Impact is more important than volume.” Achieving that in every venue requires a willingness to adjust. “I rely heavily on snapshots,” Blair notes, “and I recently started using timecode so things trigger off a bar of playback the same way lighting does. That way I can start the song on a consistent basis. But I’ll always move and tweak things throughout the song. I’m not afraid to abandon the snapshots, which I’ve done at festivals when the PA’s just not working with the mix; I’ll just hang on one snapshot and fly through the rest of the show that way.”

At Khalid’s shows, Blair gets many compliments, but he takes them with humility. “Our drummer’s an animal and smashes the hell out of the drums, and the biggest thing I get asked is whether the drums are triggered,” he reports. “But if someone tells me the toms sounded awesome, the only thing I can think of is that the gate wasn't opening the way that I wanted it to. I think about how can I continue to get better. You need to be humble and be quick in this business because things change quickly, and someone's coming to take your place.”

The Avid VENUE | S6L has layout functions that are more programmable than a lot of other consoles, so I don’t have to think as much and can feel it out. That makes mixing more fun. If I’m excited about mixing a show, hopefully that translates to the audience.

CJ Blair, Production Manager and FOH Engineer for Khalid

Although touring as both production manager and FOH engineer is a lot of work, Blair loves what he does, and he appreciates tools that make the job easier and more enjoyable.

“The AVID VENUE | S6L has layout functions that are more programmable than a lot of other consoles, so I don't have to think as much and can feel it out,” Blair offers. “That makes mixing more fun. If I'm excited about mixing a show, hopefully that translates to the audience. And the S6L just sounds better. I've heard everything out there. Why wouldn't you use a console that sounds the best?”

Fun Facts
• Favorite Khalid song to mix live: Better
• Band on the mixer’s dream list: Fleetwood Mac, any line-up
• Biggest starstruck moment: In a catering queue with Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins
• Advice to the next generation: Be humble, and learn quickly

Germaine Franco on Dora, Collaboration, and Her Favorite Avid Features

Wed, 20 May 2020 00:00:00 Z

Tag, Dope, Vida, Coco, and Little. What do these famous titles have in common? They all feature scores and/or songs by award-winning composer, songwriter, orchestrator, arranger, and music producer Germaine Franco.

Franco’s storied career includes working alongside an impressive list of top film and TV composers over the years, earning her a rightful place among them. In 2018, Franco produced, arranged, and orchestrated the Oscar-winning song for the Disney/Pixar animated film Coco. In addition to composing and producing songs for the film, she provided additional music to the score and conducted multiple ensembles featured on the soundtrack. A few—of her many—accolades include winning the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature film (Coco), receiving a Sundance Music and Sound Design Fellowship, a Women in Film Music Fellowship, and the 2018 ASCAP Shirley Walker Award. Univision even named her one of "15 Latinas who are changing the world as we know it" alongside Rita Moreno and Emma Gonzalez. And the numbers speak for themselves: Franco’s theatrical box office work has grossed over $1 billion.

Her creative journey

We spent time catching up with Franco, whose recent work on Paramount’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold allowed us a peek into her creative journey. “I co-composed the score for Dora and the Lost City of Gold with John Debney,” she shared. They watched the film together and talked about director James Bobin’s creative vision. “We discussed the storyline and the narrative intention for every cue.” The two composers and filmmaker spent several sessions going back and forth, collaboratively brainstorming. “James requested an adventure score that reflected the epic journey that Dora takes through the jungle with her friends. [He] wanted to portray Dora’s teenage spirit and tenacity throughout the fabric of the score; that request resulted in a lot of lively Latin music cues.”

Germaine Franco with the scoring orchestra at Sony Scoring Stage

Orchestral collaboration

Franco and Debney collaborated with lead orchestrator John Ashton Thomas to transform audio and MIDI tracks into orchestral scores. The composers sent audio files of their stereo mixes and split stems to the orchestrator. After orchestration was complete, PDF files of the score were delivered to the music prep team to create parts. Franco continues, “John Ashton Thomas is one of the fastest musical orchestrators of all time. His musical expertise is simply outstanding.”

“I started using Sibelius and Pro Tools in 2003,” she reminisces. “I have never needed another notation program; Sibelius gives me everything I need and more. I have worked with Sibelius and Pro Tools on every one of my projects.”

Getting in sync

Besides sending files to the orchestrator, Franco’s music team prepares “sync masters” in Pro Tools | Ultimate for the recording sessions. “During this process we export the score audio and prep an all new set of Pro Tools sessions—specifically designed for recording the live players. These files are different than the files we send to the score mixer. We prepare basic stems (i.e. Strings, Brass, Winds, Synths, Perc, etc.), so that the recording engineer has options. Often,” she continues, “the engineers have their own Pro Tools templates, and they’ll import my stems into their templates. Everything has to be in sync with the video and match the scores.”

When it comes to notation software, “Sibelius is a vital tool to help get our ideas out of the studio, onto the page, and onto the stage. We have constant deadlines. There’s always a cue that has to get approved at the last minute. Synchronization is absolutely essential,” Franco emphasizes. “You have to make sure all of your Sibelius files sync up with your Pro Tools sessions because if you open a score on the stage, and your Pro Tools session has a different tempo map, time is wasted. The music has to be recorded as quickly as possible.”

Sibelius is a vital tool to help get our ideas out of the studio, onto the page, and onto the stage.

Germaine Franco, award-winning film composer

Finding the tone

“On a typical film project,” Franco explains, “I help the director and producer find the right ‘tone’ for the film. This involves experimentation, demos, and many creative discussions. Generally, I am involved in the entire process—from the first spotting session to the final music mix.” Her memories of the orchestra are vivid. On Dora and the Lost City of Gold, “We were at AIR Studios, and we had some incredible musicians. We had a full symphonic orchestra, a choir, a Latin rhythm section, pop brass, and saxophones, and South American woodwind soloists. In short, John and I did a huge amount of recording. We had multiple people recording live at once. The recording sessions took place over four days. Nick Wollage recorded in Pro Tools on the live sessions. Then, Simon Rhodes mixed all of the elements together in his mix room. The entire project at AIR took place in the Pro Tools ecosystem.”

Germaine Franco with Nick Wollage at Abbey Road for the Universal Studios Hollywood Kung Fu Panda attraction with 360 surround sound audio

Versatility is key

For Universal Pictures’ theatrical feature Little (directed by Tina Gordon Chism) Franco relied heavily on Sibelius. “In addition to the orchestra, I used a whole marching drumline, big brass and sax sessions, and a gospel choir,” she recounts. “Having Sibelius on that particular film was really important because there were so many different ensembles. That one was very complicated within Sibelius because we had some pre-records, and they were written out. Some sessions were recorded previously in Atlanta with a marching band on camera. Then, I had to match the sound with a drum line here in LA. Sibelius is really a great tool for music preparation and orchestration; it provides all the different symbols that a composer needs for any type of ensemble. One of the reasons I love Sibelius is that it’s so versatile.” Franco explains, “This versatility is key when I am producing new scores every few months in entirely contrasting musical styles.”

Germaine Franco with the Children of Production Drumline for Universal Pictures’ Little

The perfect team

“On many projects, including Coco, Little, and Tag, I worked closely with Booker White and his music preparation team. Booker and his crew create parts from the conductor scores that are created by orchestrators. On Coco, Booker kept track of multiple song versions throughout the entire project. He has been an essential member of my musical team for many years.”

Franco’s LA-based mix team is made up of Grammy award-winning David Boucher and Alvin Wee. “They both worked with me on Little and Tag. David was the recordist of the various ensembles and Alvin was the score mixer. Both are excellent at recording any type of ensemble and large orchestra. They are able to transform the live recording with my programmed tracking into the perfect mix for the big screen.”

Engineer David Boucher with Germaine Franco at Warner Brothers scoring stage for Universal Pictures’ Little

Ease of delivery

Franco always delivers the final score assets to both the scoring stage and dub mixers as Pro Tools sessions. “Our score audio is sometimes 100 tracks or more deep,” she notes. “We assemble all of our recording templates and final mix sessions directly in Pro Tools,” Franco highlights. “Pro Tools makes it incredibly easy to import my often dense MIDI arrangements and audio assets from my writing sessions into the final recording sessions and score mix sessions. After this final session assembly, we then send Pro Tools sessions back and forth between our studio, our collaborators’ studios, the recording stage, and the final dub stage.”

Pro Tools makes it incredibly easy to import my often dense MIDI arrangements and audio assets from my writing sessions into the final recording sessions and score mix sessions.

Germaine Franco, award-winning film composer

System compatibility

“There are never any compatibility issues between the various systems,” she clarifies. “This ability to collaborate with other creatives outside of our studio space allows us all to focus on telling the best story possible through a seamless marriage of sound, score and images. On top of that, the bundled plug-ins (Avid Complete Plugin Bundle and HEAT) and their intuitive presets make it easy for the team to put together quick mixes for review under tight deadlines.” Plus, “The overall stability of the Avid Audio Suite ecosystem is outstanding!” she exclaims.

Germaine Franco with Tina Gordon Chism, director of Little

Bringing imagination to life

It’s clear Franco loves each unique journey; from getting a new project to finding the correct tone of a film through sonic experimentation with the director. She enjoys the entire process of writing, collaborating, recording, and mixing with a proven team. “I think the most enjoyable part of the process is working with the live musicians, because that’s where everything really starts to come to life,” she muses. “Ideas that were demos in the box develop as they are played and performed by real people. The musicians and singers that we work with in LA and London are extremely talented and add a brilliant humanity to the score.”

Recommendations from Germaine Franco

Sibelius time-saving tip:

Franco uses Sibelius’ Review Mode extensively, and she uses the Transport and Playback features to listen to the entire cue. “I also use the Magnetic Layout options extensively, which saves many hours of work,” she relates.

Favorite Sibelius feature:

“My favorite feature is the Timeline; I use it to check bar numbers and tempo changes quickly. I also use the filter extensively when working in multiple voices, adding lyrics and chord symbols. I filter text, voices, chord symbols—I filter everything. I find that is a quick way to work. I like to use the options to Hide Staves and Focus On Stave they are really handy; when I’m working on only strings, I don’t want to see everything, and it saves me time, that would be spent scrolling up and down across the page in other programs.”

The Race for Content: How Pixelogic Is Embracing the Growing Demand for Immersive Audio

Thu, 14 May 2020 00:00:00 Z

Just as cable broke the dominance of broadcast TV, streaming is now realigning the entertainment landscape for both end users and content creators. Major media and big tech companies alike are jumping in to streaming services with both feet, creating an explosive demand for content. Add in the growth of immersive audio and the increasing adoption of Dolby Atmos, and watch a rapidly changing, new world unfold for creating and consuming content. Post-production teams now must set new technical requirements and the sheer quantity of media assets being handled is dramatically reshaping mastering and distribution—the final link in the production chain. Vast amounts of content must be redubbed and remixed in multiple languages, using Dolby Atmos, and converted into multiple delivery formats. And Pixelogic is making it happen.

Burbank, California-based Pixelogic is one of few companies tackling this “last mile” chain end-to-end for both picture and sound. Founded in 2016, Pixelogic has grown from a smaller startup in Burbank and Culver City to 570 full-time employees in facilities worldwide. “We commonly start our services immediately following the creative phases of picture and sound for television and film,” reports Doug Higgins, Pixelogic VP of Worldwide Dubbing and Audio Services. “From an audio perspective, our services might include taking original 5.1 and 7.1 mixes and reversioning them to immersive Atmos versions or creating localized dubbed audio mixes. We offer theatrical and home entertainment localization services, which includes dubbing in over 45 languages and subtitling services in 65-plus languages, as well as mastering and distribution services.” Pixelogic’s breadth of services leads them to performing work on the vast majority of new release feature titles from the major U.S. studios, while also servicing the major broadcasters and digital platforms.

Pixelogic's Doug Higgins (L) and Paul Karpinski (R)

In addition to servicing existing customers, the company invested significant resources into the launch of several major streaming platforms in 2019. This evolved into thousands of Atmos mixes and QCs within a relatively short period of time. It was a challenging undertaking that required immaculate asset management, highly detailed project management, and highly customized workflows. By standardizing their workflows around identical Pro Tools hardware and software configurations, Pixelogic tackles projects with total workflow consistency across multiple locations worldwide. To meet these challenges in the audio sphere, Pixelogic uses Avid Pro Tools | HDX Systems to deliver their production pipeline, supported by integrated hardware, including the Pro Tools | MTRX audio interface and Avid S6 and S3 control surfaces.

Pixelogic has 14 Atmos-equipped mix stage theaters and edit bays worldwide, built around Pro Tools | Ultimate software and Pro Tools | HDX systems and with standardized workflows. Central to those installations is Avid’s Pro Tools | MTRX audio interfaces, which offers customizable analog or digital I/O options, plus extensive routing capabilities. Pixelogic’s facilities house six Avid S6 modular control surfaces and a number of the smaller Avid S3 control surfaces. The S6 is tightly integrated with Pro Tools | Ultimate and supports various Atmos workflows, including manipulation of object-based sounds. MTRX interfaces connect control surfaces, outboard equipment, and other devices and allow audio to be routed with great flexibility.

In our Burbank facility, it was our goal when we built our Atmos facilities to have a centralized control room where we could effortlessly cross connect anything to anything, and quickly adopt any configuration required at the touch of a button.

Doug Higgins, VP of Worldwide Dubbing and Audio Services

“In our Burbank facility, it was our goal when we built our Atmos facilities to have a centralized control room where we could effortlessly cross connect anything to anything, and quickly adopt any configuration required at the touch of a button,” details Higgins. “Pure digital routing was very important, ideally without having a large traditional AES digital router. The MTRX was a welcome addition because it reduced our footprint, enabled us to consolidate our machine rooms, and gave us greater flexibility.”

The release of the 64-channel DigiLink option card for the MTRX, which supplements the two onboard DigiLink connectors, meant that Pixelogic could run 128 Pro Tools channels through a single MTRX by adding a single option card. “Going from two 64-channel interfaces to one 128-channel box reduces complexity, reduces the footprint, and allows us to be very nimble and flexible in routing,” Paul Karpinski pointed out, Pixelogic’s Director of Audio Services.

Pro Tools’ native integration of the Dolby Atmos panner, instead of relying on a plug-in, has been key to accelerating Pixelogic’s workflow, particularly in the context of inevitable last-minute changes. “Any time there’s a change in the original source content, we have a ripple effect that goes down the line,” Karpinski explains. “Those creative changes need to be implemented across hundreds, sometimes thousands of assets, and new masters and deliverables need to be generated in incredibly short turnaround times. That tight workflow time is our biggest challenge.”

One common workflow is that Pixelogic starts the localization audio process by creating a template session, which includes immersive audio metadata. That gets distributed to dubbing studios around the world and comes back to Pixelogic once localized language dialogue is recorded into it. With so many assets in play, and so little time to handle them, a problem in the source content of any single session can disrupt the entire production flow and impact the timeline. This places tremendous importance on quality control.

With support for the Dolby Audio Bridge in Pro Tools 2019, Pixelogic is able to leverage all of its Pro Tools seats and stations—including native systems rendering in-the-box with the Dolby Atmos Production Suite—for specific steps in managing immersive content. “In addition to our theaters and bays, we have 20 fully enabled Pro Tools stations connected to a SAN to improve our workflows,” Higgins reports. “These are headphone stations that can open up immersive sessions and prequalify them. That is a valuable part of our supply chain and workflow that would not have been possible even three years ago.”

“Our prequalification team confirms that we receive all of the required deliverables, then open sessions and validate that they are correct,” Karpinski adds. “Pro Tools’ integrated Atmos rendering enables us to perform advanced work in a native format, which increases our quality and throughput.”

Our prequalification team confirms that we receive all of the required deliverables, then open sessions and validate that they are correct. Pro Tools’ integrated Atmos rendering enables us to perform advanced work in a native format, which increases our quality and throughput.

Paul Karpinski, Director of Audio Services

Standardizing on Pro Tools systems and establishing identical workflows in all of their facilities provides Pixelogic consistency the world over. “It was very much part of our business strategy to be compatible with as many partners, vendors, and customers around the world as we could, even facilities that can’t afford to always upgrade to the latest and greatest Pro Tools version,” Higgins observes. “I would not have wanted to go through the quantity of mixes and assets and QC that we’ve delivered over the last six months without [Pro Tools systems].”

Want to learn more?

Dig a little deeper into our immersive audio solution here.

Opus Post’s Advice for Getting Remote Editing Right

Tue, 12 May 2020 00:00:00 Z

Opus Post Production is the largest post-production house in Israel, with 100 Avid suites for offline, online, color grading, and sound design, 900TB of NEXIS storage, 20 full-time staff and about 100 creative professionals coming through their doors at any given time. They specialize in complex TV shows that require many edit suites, tons of storage, and ample flexibility.

That focus on flexible solutions was a true blessing when coronavirus quarantines forced Opus to limit access to their facility. Because they’d already invested in remote editing capabilities prior to the onset of the coronavirus crisis, they were ready to spin up fully remote operations to keep their productions going strong.

Avid caught up with Dori Bashan, Opus’ VP of Technical Development, to get the details of their remote workflow and capture their advice for other post-production houses adjusting to a new way of working.

You began investigating remote editing capabilities long before the coronavirus pandemic. What prompted that investigation, and why was investing in these capabilities important for your team?

We started to look into remote editing six or seven years ago, when people were under the impression that it would take 15 years before the technology would be ready. I even remember meeting with Gil Mitrany, Opus’ founder and CEO, to talk about how soon we could be ready for remote editing—this was in 2014 if I recall correctly.

“Cloud” was one of the most-searched words on Google back then. Everybody wanted to work in the cloud—from home users using consumer cloud storage to enterprises moving databases to the cloud—but video editing in the cloud was impossible.

This changed when Avid started to qualify Media Composer to work in a virtual machine and partnered with Teradici for use of the PCoIP protocol, which we’ve been working with and testing for the last three years.

We wanted to know and understand what’s possible so we could instruct our team and the remote editors on what to expect when working from home, and—most importantly—keep the connection secure. We started to learn: What exact bandwidth is needed for each screen? Will full-screen playback work over the internet? What’s better, to use a PC or a Mac to connect remotely or to use Teradici zero clients? What’s the best way to secure a remote connection? How do we implement two-factor authentication for extra security?

Opus Post has been able to replicate the in-facility experience for editors working from home.

Can you describe your setup?

Currently we have 25 editors working from home, while the others are working inside the facility. We use a symmetric 1Gb/s fabric internet connection and a VPN with two-factor authentication to connect to the facility, and then either a PC or a Mac with Teradici Cloud Access software or a zero client to connect to the edit suite. We discovered that we get the best performance using a zero client with the Teradici TERA2 processor.

We wanted to maintain the workflow as much as possible for the remote editors, so we deployed Media Composer Cloud VM and Teradici Graphics Agent on the same workstation that they are working on when they work inside the facility. This way the editors feel like nothing has changed, and they feel comfortable working from home or inside Opus with the exact same experience.

There are a few different options for enabling remote work, from simple remote access to a virtualized environment to a fully cloud-based workflow. Why was a virtualized environment the right choice for you?

Simple remote access tools, like Team Viewer or Anydesk, were invented for IT teams to help end users. These tools aren’t ideal for video streaming, video-audio sync, or anything requiring fast performance.

On the other hand, fully public cloud is an option, but it didn’t address our security requirements.

We chose to go with physical HP workstations configured with Media Composer Cloud VM because it’s a very reliable option—we upgraded our infrastructure and configured our data center to act as a private cloud, and it’s working great. Also, we felt that using physical machines configured as VMs was the most reasonable way to get operating as quickly as possible. Thanks to a quick response from Draco LTD, our reseller, we were up and running with 25 Media Composer Cloud VM licenses in no time.

Scene from The Grave, a drama edited at Opus Post. Image courtesy of Drama Team. Photo by Nitai Netzer.

What advice can you give to post-production teams that are challenged by the transition to remote collaboration? What worked well for you that they can emulate?

The combination of Media Composer Cloud VM with Teradici PCoIP is bulletproof.

The necessary infrastructure isn’t too complicated these days, at least for post-production teams that need fewer than five remote editing suites. For enterprises that need a lot of remote users, I would suggest relying on a technical expert who understands both the Avid world and the VM world, and to read their documentation for VM best practices again and again, as most of the needed info is already there.

Now that remote work is a necessity rather than a nice-to-have, has your perspective on remote collaboration changed? Do you think anything that you’re learning now is going to impact the way you work when this crisis is over?

Of course, I believe this crisis has taught everyone worldwide that working from home can be a great option, not only in post-production but in general. Just to think what effect having so many people work from home has had on things like air pollution, traffic accidents, etc., is truly amazing.

For the post-production world, I am sure that remote editing is here to stay. In the future there will be a mix of editors working inside the facility with editors who are working remotely. I’m currently designing Opus’ new server room with remote editing in mind—it will be based entirely on Avid edit suites running on virtual machines.

Brown Bear Leads the Way on Remote Audio Post Production

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 Z

Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted daily life, isolating people from one another and mobilizing companies to shift focus to remote work to keep business running. In the entertainment industry, post-production companies are scrambling to set up teams to work from home, so they can keep projects on schedule—and help the world find comfort in the content they create while staying safe.

For Brown Bear Audio, it’s more or less business as usual. That’s because its team of audio post professionals has been working remotely since the company’s inception in 2012. And now with an extended team, they want to let production companies know they’re available to help keep projects moving.

The uncharted road to remote

Based in the UK, Brown Bear is made up of a network of freelance sound specialists who work remotely from their own studios, providing mixing, sound design, ADR, and other audio services. While no one could have predicted the current situation, Thomas Dalton, Brown Bear’s founder, had a vision years ago for how he could offer his services on a remote basis to a worldwide clientele.

“I started freelancing as a sound editor and mixer and most of my work was being done in my studio at home, remotely,” he explains. “There weren’t that many people offering remote services at the time, so I came up with a concept to establish a completely remote workflow with tools for clients to review work and sign off on a remote basis.”

And, thus, Brown Bear Audio was born. As new technology emerged and Dalton brought in more talent, his company progressed into a full-fledged remote audio post powerhouse. The network structure makes it easy to bring in specific talent for certain projects and increase the workload by adding more freelancers. And it eliminates the high overhead of having everyone work in-house, enabling them to be more competitive.

“We work on a wide range of projects—from short-form commercials and online content, to long-form television and film,” Dalton says. “Having such a diverse and talented team of remote sound specialists enables us to work across the spectrum of disciplines to give clients an end-to-end audio post service.”

The right tools for the job

With Pro Tools hardware, software, and Avid control surfaces at the heart of every freelancer’s remote studio, Brown Bear does all of their creative work using the same tools major post houses use, enabling them to deliver to the same high standards. What sets them apart is that they’re all tied together remotely through Digital Pigeon, a cloud-based media sharing platform.

“I tested a number of FTP systems and some of them are really, really slow and some don’t work particularly well with big files,” Dalton recalls. “[With Digital Pigeon], not only does it offer really quick uploads and downloads, it enables timecode-accurate stamping of files when reviewing, so you can add notes.”

The platform also enables sound supervisors, directors, and producers to review media in real time in a web browser for approval—without having to download files.

For voiceover and ADR work, Brown Bear uses Source Connect to sync Pro Tools systems remotely, enabling them to record sessions with talent in the studio while clients participate elsewhere. “Our latest session was for a remake of The Fugitive where we connected to South Lake Audio in LA to record ADR with Kiefer Sutherland, who was in our studio.”

The team also uses Avid Cloud Collaboration in Pro Tools, enabling an engineer to share stems of sound elements with another, who can then access the project in the cloud and add their creative contributions. “For remote collaboration with other engineers, I think it works pretty well and it’s a lot more efficient than sending sessions to each other,” Dalton confirms.

Mixing big with smaller rooms and budgets

Unlike large post facilities that have the massive space and budget to showcase large-format control surfaces in their dubbing stages, Brown Bear’s freelancers are able to deliver the same level of quality despite their smaller rooms and budgets. That’s because Avid offers high-end capabilities in more accessible audio solutions to meet the needs of any size space and creator.

For Dalton, he’s thrilled with his recent adoption of two Avid S1 control surfaces and an Avid Dock. “I had the Artist Mix, Control, and Transport before, but it was time to move on. I watched a demo of the Avid S1 and I loved the feel of it and the look of it, and it’s just a natural progression from the Artist series… Other [Avid control surfaces] were out of my price range and the studio’s not big enough for that, but [the Avid S1] is a great modular approach.”

This modularity enables him to add Avid S1s to expand his control surface with more faders in the future. It’s already helped boost his efficiency:

“It’s just so much easier—all the macro keys make my workflow so much quicker… And the [Avid Control] app can be used with any tablet—it’s bloody great. I love it! Scrolling through sessions, you can quickly get around a big session and your [Pro Tools] screen follows.”

While Brown Bear was certainly ahead of the remote workflow initiative when the coronavirus hit, Dalton wants his clients and other companies to know that his team is there for them.

“As our business continues to grow and remote working comes to the forefront, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we see ourselves being the leading provider of remote audio post-production services. The viability of remote working in the post-production industry has now been proven, and I think there is only one way the industry is heading—and that is into the cloud.”

With the current state of things, Thomas Dalton and the Brown Bear team are poised and ready to show the industry the way.

Photos by John MacDonald

Recording France’s Heritage: How Opéra de Paris Manages Archival Video

Tue, 11 Feb 2020 00:00:00 Z

When you’re the steward of 350 years of history, archival video takes on a whole new dimension.

The Opéra National de Paris, founded in 1669 by Louis XIV, is one of France’s best known and most beloved cultural institutions. The company presents roughly 380 opera and ballet performances annually between the historic Palais Garnier theatre and the more modern Opéra Bastille theatre for a total audience of over 800,000 people.

Behind the scenes, a team of unsung heroes does what the founders of the Opéra could only dream of: capturing footage of live performances and preserving it for the future. But their role goes beyond recording performances for posterity. The audiovisual archives also support artists and technicians in real time as they work on productions, and they enable the marketing and PR teams to share the magic of the opera with an even wider audience.

Modern video infrastructure in a historic setting

Video has been an important tool for the Opéra since the opening of the Bastille in 1989. By the time the infrastructure modernization project kicked off in 2015, expectations for video recording had grown markedly, challenging the team to deliver on those expectations while maximizing efficiencies and minimizing costs.

Sylvain Levacher, a senior member of the video team, explains: “Our main concern is the increasing quality of video technology. Opera is not a TV production, and it is difficult to keep up with all technical developments for obvious cost reasons. Nevertheless, the demands for new technologies from creators are real.”

Video plays any number of roles at the Opéra. Dancers use rehearsal footage to fine-tune their performances. Promotional footage is the backbone of marketing efforts, appearing everywhere from media outlets to social media channels to the digital billboards in front of the Bastille. Directors and soloists the world over use archival footage for research, and filmmakers use the archives for documentaries. This proliferation of stakeholders means that any video solution must be maximally efficient, with a large storage capacity and the simplest possible workflow.

Two locations, one system

Historically, the two facilities’ video services operated autonomously, with different hardware, different software, and different processes. While the Opéra Bastille had a more modern video board, the Palais Garnier was still using a mostly analog system, forcing them to digitize cassette tapes before editing. With the renewal project came an opportunity to become fully digital and create economies of scale.

Sylvain explains, “For us it was very important to have a global solution. We no longer wanted to waste time in data transfers between different equipment.”

Today the two locations share the same storage server, housed at the Bastille, and use the same hardware across both sites—which, according to Sylvain, is an advantage when they need mobility between the two theatres.

For us it was very important to have a global solution. We no longer wanted to waste time in data transfers between different equipment.

Sylvain Levacher, video team lead, Opéra de Paris

For workflow management, simplicity reigns

With the expert advice of Paris-based AV supplier Videlio-Cap’Ciné, Opéra de Paris dramatically simplified their post-production workflow. “Workflow management is a problem,” says Sylvain. “The amount of data to be stored even temporarily can become a roadblock.” They sought to minimize conversions and transfers so the team could spend their time editing, not moving data around.

The post-production workflow starts with FastServe | Ingest servers, one at each site, which the team uses to capture an average of four camera streams of a given performance or rehearsal. Sylvain points to the number of channels and the alterable modularity as the deciding factors in choosing FastServe for acquisition.

From the FastServe, the footage transfers automatically to the Avid NEXIS shared storage. Editors at both locations can access the projects housed on the shared Avid NEXIS server from any of the five assembly stations (three at the Bastille and two at the Garnier), where they cut and finish on Media Composer.

No single product is the hero of their workflow; instead the real game-changer is the seamless data transfer throughout the process. “Our old acquisition server was a very good machine, but not part of a connected architecture. Conversions and transfers were required before we could start editing,” Sylvain shares. “Now the editors are satisfied that they no longer have downtime due to long and tedious transfers.”

Archival video, today and in the future

Between the in-house video team and the new, modern infrastructure, it is clear that the Opéra considers video capabilities to be a cornerstone of their work, supporting the Opéra now and preserving their legacy for the future.

When asked to speculate on how Opéra de Paris will continue to expand their video capabilities, Sylvain demurs: “I’m not a soothsayer.” Still, given the success they’ve seen from their modernized workflow, he’s confident that future developments will rely on an Avid environment.

All images © OPERA NATIONAL DE PARIS / DT

Blue Sky Dreams: Breaking News at New Zealand Broadcasting School

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:00 Z

The spectacular Aoraki/Mount Cook in Canterbury, New Zealand, stands at 3,754 meters and is the country’s highest mountain. Aoraki is Māori for Cloud Piercer and it would seem this extraordinary name resonates beautifully with the “sky’s the limit” thinking surrounding students of the New Zealand Broadcasting School, Ara Institute of Canterbury. The New Zealand Broadcasting School (NZBS), an Avid Learning Partner, is the premier national provider of applied education in screen, journalism, radio and digital media. With an enviable reputation built on its 95% graduate employment rate, NZBS is routinely oversubscribed with domestic applications for its Bachelor of Broadcasting Communications degree courses, accepting only a few very fortunate international students.

The two and a half year accelerated degree runs three separate specializations; in Broadcast Journalism, Radio Broadcasting and Screen & Television Production with a maximum of twenty-five students per track. The school has as many as 140 students on campus at any given time across first and second years, and more than 200 students enrolled across all the courses. NZBS is exceptional for its unique, 6-month paid internship, which is fully integrated into the program and held off-campus with approved media industry employers.

One of the primary reasons we are almost completely Avid now is because that is exactly what our industry has been telling us we should be doing.

Tony Simons, Manager, New Zealand Broadcasting School

“Our philosophy with our degree program has always been industry integration and collaboration,” says Tony Simons, Manager of the NZBS for over 15 years. “It’s very much an industry-led program and our future and success depends on our ability to place all of our students in 6-month, paid internships. Every year we place up to 65 students into internships across the three disciplines. In fact, we deliberately restrict student numbers due to the integral nature of the internship program.”

Renowned for its strong synergy with the New Zealand film and television industry, the school works very closely with three industry advisory committees who provide solid guidance in terms of what it should be doing. “One of the primary reasons we are almost completely Avid now is because that is exactly what our industry has been telling us we should be doing,” explains Simons. “We aim to be as well-equipped as possible so we can prepare our students as best as we can, so when the students go into their internships, they’re industry-ready.”

The students have access to 30 workstations running Media Composer | Ultimate and an editing lab with 16 computers for initial cutting. For fine cut they can book out one of six edit suites and, once the cut is locked off, color grading is done on DaVinci Resolve, working with a 4K monitor, connected to Avid NEXIS shared storage. The school also works with Pro Tools connected to NEXIS storage, allowing simultaneous audio post-production and color grading.

Students of the Journalism track create their own website content for their site https://metronews.co.nz/ and must run a five-night-a-week news service for two weeks, which is where their knowledge of Media Composer is applied in a practical application.

Technical Supervisor, Paul Newell, brings 30 years of industry experience to the NZBS along with the awareness that real-world environments are exclusively using Media Composer and Pro Tools. “I was quite adamant that for the students to become as skilled and as marketable as we could possibly have them, Avid was the essential component in their core skills that would help them market themselves beyond the school,” asserts Newell.

“The two major news services in New Zealand, MediaWorks Newshub and TV1 News, are Avid platform news services. They also run NEXIS storage systems, so the students can basically walk in, sit down and hook into the NEXIS. They know where to put their footage and can get straight into an edit so that proves very successful.”

The internationally recognized New Zealand film industry has attracted the likes of Academy Award-winning Director, James Cameron to the region who keeps company with local industry juggernaut, Academy Award-winning Director, Peter Jackson. This expands upon the outstanding talent that populates “Wellywood” as the film industry in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, is affectionately known. Home to WingNut Films, Park Road Post and Weta Digital the talent and achievements are extraordinary when measured on a global scale.

Every year we place up to 65 students into internships.

Tony Simons, Manager, New Zealand Broadcasting School

“Avid is like mastering kung fu,” notes Richard Hansen, Screen Production Course Leader at NZBS. “You need to break through a barrier before you feel confident but once you do, the gates of opportunity open up. There’ve been a number of students who’ve moved into careers in post-production not only with Media Composer but in audio post with Pro Tools as well. We have one student who hasn’t even graduated yet, she’s just finishing her internship. But she will continue to work, on contract, on Avatar as an assistant editor in the edit suite next to James Cameron.”

Although internships are primarily based in New Zealand, a significant number of graduates head overseas upon completion of their degree to work in Australia, Asia, Europe and the U.K.

Senior students are already working with Media Composer 2019. When NZBS’ new school year begins in February 2020, first-year students will be introduced to the new Media Composer user interface ensuring they stay well aligned with the industry standard. The school also recognizes the value of remote access and is in the early stages of piloting and integrating Avid MediaCentral to allow students to benefit from cloud collaboration and to take them into the next generation of broadcasting.

www.nzbs.com

Epic Historic Drama, Epic Post-Production Challenges: Inside Genomedia’s End-to-End Workflow for Kingdoms of Fire

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 00:00:00 Z

In the Tunisian desert, an epic conflict is raging. Sixteenth-century Mamluk and Ottoman warriors face off in a bloody battle for control over the Middle East. At stake in this struggle for supremacy is the course of history itself.

And then, when the cameras stop rolling at the end of the day, the real battle begins. Kingdoms of Fire, the much-heralded new historical drama, boasts a larger-than-life story—and a larger-than-life data footprint. It’s up to the team helmed by Khaled Ben Younes, Genomedia’s head of post production, to take enormous quantities of raw 4K footage and transform them on a tight deadline into the polished, high production-value show that debuted on MBC in November 2019 to major buzz across the Arabic-speaking world.

Dubai-based Genomedia, founded in 2016, is small but ambitious. With only 20 employees, the production company punches above their weight: Kingdoms of Fire is their first drama series, but it’s one of the largest Arabic-language TV productions of 2019, with a total budget of $40 million USD.

Kingdoms of Fire Trailer

Working against the clock

When shooting wraps each day around 7 p.m., the countdown begins. “On set, during the shoot, we shot around six to eight terabytes a day,” Khaled explains. This raw footage needed to be ready for the producer, who was 4,000 kilometers away in Dubai, to watch the very next day.

The moment the portable drives with the day’s footage arrive at the post house near the set in Tunisia, Khaled’s team sets to work copying and syncing the raw material, quickly grading everything, and exporting a timeline on a daily basis. By the time 8 a.m. rolls around in Tunisia—11 a.m. in Dubai—the producer has been sent an assembly of the previous day’s footage and the editor is ready to get to work.

In this environment of tight deadlines and high production standards, Genomedia needed a post-production infrastructure that could handle massive amounts of data while supporting an ultra-efficient workflow.

If we didn’t have an Avid solution, the show would never be on air on the 17th of November.

Big format, big storage needs

Kingdoms of Fire’s ambitious concept is matched by an ambitious post-production workflow. The challenge begins with shooting in 4K—a single hour of raw footage from an ALEXA LF camera nets out around 2.4 terabytes of data. Managing this much data on an accelerated timeline meant Khaled and team needed a high-performance, high-reliability media storage solution that would run smoothly while up to six editors were accessing the same media at the same time.

Khaled chose a three-tiered Avid NEXIS storage system, partitioned according to how quickly they needed the data. “In our Avid NEXIS we have an E2 SSD, which is a fast playback storage. We have the E2, which is more than enough for the editorial. And we have the E5 NL, the nearline,” Khaled explains.

“We populate the whole E5 NL, which is 960 terabytes, which was more than enough to handle all the footage. We link all our episodes straight to the E5 NL with our grading solution, which is a Baselight connected into the 40-gig connection, straight to the NEXIS. We can read easily and fluently the footage directly from the E5 NL, and do all our consolidations and all our grading again, even the export straight from the E5 to the E2 SSD, which was almost impossible to do through any other storage because of the bandwidth and because of the easy access to the footage.”

After all of the edits and the cuts and the recuts…I don’t think that any other system could be efficient enough to handle all this change.

Khaled considered other storage solutions, but ultimately chose Avid NEXIS because of the reliability that comes with working in a single environment across the entire workflow. “Other storage solutions give you an emulation of the Avid file system, which is fine, but for a big project like this one and having collaborative teamwork on the edit, those systems had a lot of crashes and errors. The best choice, in my opinion, is to go for Avid’s solution because it’s their own file system,” says Khaled. “I can tell you that after all of the edits and the cuts and the recuts that we did for these 14 episodes, I don’t think that any other system could be efficient enough to handle all this change and the exchange of IMF back and forth between editors, and grading, and VFX, and sound.”

In search of workflow efficiencies

The large data footprint was only the beginning of the post-production challenges Khaled’s team needed to manage. Tight deadlines coupled with high production standards—necessitating additional rounds of back-and-forth between departments—meant that the post-production workflow needed to be hyper-efficient.

Khaled answered this challenge with an end-to-end solution that layered MediaCentral | Editorial Management on top of Media Composer and Avid NEXIS storage. Taken together, these integrated technologies let the entire post-production team work simultaneously, access media instantly, and seamlessly transfer information across departments, all while managing who has access to what in order to meet security standards.

The three assistant editors made the most use of Editorial Management to make short work of organizing mountains of footage on a daily basis. “The show was shot by two units, one main unit and one second unit, and for the battle shooting we used multiple cameras, multiple formats—really a lot of footage,” Khaled explains. With Editorial Management, the assistant editors could quickly and efficiently identify the best takes and send them straight to timeline so that the editors could begin working as soon as possible. It also made short work of selecting footage for marketing promos as the show neared its premiere.

The collaborative workflow of Avid Media Composer reduces the time to have the episode ready by a factor of five, because instead of having five projects in five machines…you have five people working on the same project.

The secret weapon in Khaled’s battle for time was real-time collaboration in Media Composer, which he estimates reduces the time to complete an episode by a factor of five. He explains, “Instead of having five projects in five machines working, and then collecting the five projects onto one timeline at the end to export the final episodes, you have five people working on the same project.”

To get the best outcome in a short time, Khaled sings the praises of what he calls a “pyramid workflow”—one team member doing sync, one doing assembly, one grouping the scenes, and one finalizing—a process he can only do with a combination of Media Composer’s collaborative workflow and a high-performance storage solution. “I can tell you, if we didn’t have an Avid solution, the show would never be on air on the 17^th of November,” Khaled quips.

Epic stakes for an epic production

In keeping with Kingdom of Fire’s larger-than-life feel, there’s more at stake for Khaled and Genomedia than the success of this one program—even one on this scale. Khaled’s aware that an investment in post-production infrastructure like this is not common in the Middle East, and he sees this production as an opportunity to prove what the region can do.

“Investing in such big-scale post-production equipment means that you are intending to do big-scale productions as well,” Khaled says. “It gives us the opportunity to show people in this region, in this part of the world, that we can produce a high-quality product by investing in the right equipment for the right solution.”

With Kingdoms of Fire sweeping across Arabic-language TV since its November debut, Genomedia’s poised to prove just that.

Mixing Jazz at Lincoln Center Broadcasts for SiriusXM

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 00:00:00 Z

Jazz at Lincoln Center is part of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. It is comprised of three performance venues: the 1,233 seat Rose Theater, the 427 seat Appel Room, and the intimate 140 seat Dizzy’s Club. Since 2005 Sirius XM Radio has operated the broadcast and recording studios @Jazz. Grammy and Emmy Award-winner Rob Macomber is the Chief Engineer of the Music Studios and has recorded and mixed thousands of live-to-internet broadcasts enjoyed by millions of jazz fans all over the world. Built around a pair of studios initially outfitted with Pro Tools TDM systems and ICON control surfaces, Macomber has developed a unique mixing and recording workflow when he came on board to support the demanding requirements of this world-class facility. Avid recently caught up with Macomber after he upgraded the studios with Pro Tools HDX systems, Pro Tools | MTRX I/O’s, and Avid S6 control surfaces—all tied in seamlessly with the facility’s networked audio and video infrastructure—to see how his workflows have changed from his first conception.

Jazz at Lincoln Center

Can you give me an overview of your responsibilities at Jazz and what the workflow looks like?

I am employed by SiriusXM as chief engineer of the music studios owned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, yet SiriusXM operates them. I record, mix, and produce live content out of the three venues for live broadcasts. Those broadcasts could be television, radio or streaming on internet—most of it is webcasts on Jazz’s Livestream channel and Facebook page. The schedule is determined by Jazz at Lincoln Center, and all of the recordings and productions are the property of Jazz at Lincoln Center. SiriusXM gets broadcast rights to this very unique content for our jazz channels.

We have two broadcast studios at Jazz. Sometimes we are doing simultaneous broadcasts in two of the three halls here at Jazz at Lincoln Center. For a performance in The Appel Room and/or Rose Theater, there's a front of house engineer, there's a monitor engineer, and then I'm the broadcast engineer doing a live broadcast mix completely from within Pro Tools HDX using the S6 as my control surface along with an Avid MTRX for monitoring.

Rob Macomber - photo: Kal Dolgin/Eyesounds

What is your setup in the performance venues?

We run 3-way, 56-channel Radial splits. Our workflow is completely digital from the stage forward. I take the main leg off of the Radial split so I'm providing phantom power, another leg goes to front of house and the third leg to monitors. This way we all have control over our own set of mic preamps and anything any one of us does doesn't affect the other.

I have a choice of 96 channels of Millennia Media preamps and 96 channels of Grace Designs preamps all controllable from Pro Tools—some of the best mic preamps on the market. And we have just added 40 channels of Avid MTRX pre’s in Dizzy’s Coca Cola Club.

A-to-D conversion on the front end, is mostly still Apogee AD-16x’s. The Apogee’s digital output is then converted to MADI via an RME converter and the whole system is clocked off of an Antelope 10M master clock feeding a Trinity. We're doing everything at 96 kHz, 24- or 32-bit. Jazz was wired with fiber to all three venues. We choose the preamps for the event and roll in one or two 48 channel preamp and converter racks. Then over that fiber connection, the MADI signal from each hall hits an RME router and they're then routed to our Pro Tools recorders and also split to the S6 Pro Tools HDX3 mixer systems.

Rose Theater

How does Pro Tools | MTRX fit into your current workflow?

We have just installed in Dizzy’s a 40-channel Avid MTRX box, which we're using for conversion with the MTRX preamps. My experience so far with the converters and the preamps on the MTRX is stunning on the front end. On the back end, converting back to analog for monitoring is much wider and deeper with the MTRX. When I put together the first demo, I immediately heard the difference as I was A/B-ing between my Graces with the Apogees versus the MTRX preamps and converters. And even with the change in clock for that matter. We have done a number of tests, and it's just pristine and sounds fantastic. We also function with a large live room here and do standard recording sessions. I would still want to have access to my Millennias and Graces, but for the ease of use and build out and the level of the facility, we could very easily rackmount two MTRX’s in each of the two big rooms that have 96 I/O with A-to-D conversion and mic pres. That would be wonderful, so I imagine we'll be getting there. We really go for a non-colored, pristine, clean sound here. It’s so nice to have choices!

Are you using Avid S6’s EUCON capabilities to remotely control the MTRX?

The MTRX along with 40-channel mic inputs has an 8-channel output card. I can pass back up to four stereo returns to provide mixes to camera or a press feed. Using DADman, MTRX’s control software to route all signals and mixes is a pretty powerful feature. On a recent film project here, we had four different Pro Tools systems networked to one S6. Utilizing four machines on one layer of the desk is pretty darn cool.

Studio A with 9-knob Avid S6—photo: Kal Dolgin/Eyesounds

Take me through the two studios—what is your setup?

We have two Avid S6 consoles: a 48-channel in Studio B that’s 5-knobs deep and in Studio A we have a 64 channel, 9-knob deep. In both rooms we're monitoring through the MTRX and using its Dante card option as well—we’ve just begun to implement that feature for headphone mixes now.

We have two studios, each with duplicate Pro Tools rigs—a master and a safety for each room. I'm looking at it as if I have four recorders, and of the four, two of them are the mix machines and two of them are the simple multitrack machines. So, on the mix machine, we're always recording. We're automating. We're multitracking and mixing all in the box with the S6, which replaced the D-Control as the control surface.

In each room we also have just a straight, as you would call it, tape machine. Pro Tools backup session running up to 128 in, 128 out—one-for-one—backing up the stereo mix and running in the background at all times, so that in case something happens to one of the machines, we've always got the recording covered.

The entire facility is locked up with house tri-level sync and all of the machines are always receiving time of day timecode because we broadcast. Unless we have an outside client, we're always running 29.97 df timecode. Templates are all set up that way. I put them online, they go into record, they're in sync. If I have a dropout for some reason on one machine, I just import and spot the information back to the other machine. That's why I say the safety machines are simple recorders—those sessions are set up with absolutely no plugins, no delay compensation, all faders in unity, input 1 through 128 going to output 1 through 128. I just have to switch the MADI router, boom, my tape machine is now feeding my mixer. I can confidence monitor through the safety or off of the feed directly to the master.

Studio B with 4-knob Avid S6—photo: Kal Dolgin/Eyesounds

You mentioned working off of templates that you’ve created—tell me more about those?

When you're in input, delay compensation doesn't play along, so I use the same EQs and dynamics on every channel to keep everything time aligned. When I do remixes, I completely change things up, but for live shows, I use the Sonnox EQ with a GML curve, the Softube Summit TLA-100, and also the Oxford Dynamics.

On my master channel, I've developed a thing over the years where I like a little bit of the Crane Song Phoenix. And on the end for protection I use the McDSP ML4000 mastering limiter. I use ReVibe heavily, I love ReVibe! I use the Sonnox Oxford reverb and Altiverb as well. That's for live shows. Now, typically, on remixes I use a lot of UAD stuff. I've also begun to really enjoy the Avid Pro Limiter, and a lot of the new plugins that I've gotten with the Ultimate Package that I’ve just never used before now. When I’m looking for down and dirty, I still have a nice crunchy reverb that I like with D-Verb! But, that's basically my setup. I usually just automate mutes, volumes, and send mutes when I do a live show. Often artists may come back and want to release the live recordings and that way we can have a day of updating the mix that was automated and a good place to start. Or we’ll just start from scratch.

Appel Room

When you talk about remixing, is the typical scenario that an artist comes back and wants to release their performance beyond the live broadcast?

Yes, typically. Jazz at Lincoln Center has been around for 30 plus years and recording for many, many years prior to this facility being built 15 years ago. They formed a record label two years ago, Blue Engine Records, and are currently on a campaign of releasing 100 records over the next five years. The recordings I've been working on recently, have been from the past eight years or so.

Do you deliver surround mixes as well, or are you pretty much exclusively working in stereo?

Everything we broadcast here from JALC is in stereo. This facility hasn’t been a remix room for a lot of 5.1 broadcasts and DVD releases recently because our programming is so ramped up that we don't necessarily have the time to do a lot of outside work. I monitor and do a lot of analyzing for 5.1, and we have done broadcast testing for our purposes in 5.1, but it's been a number of years since we were regularly doing surround. With the S6 consoles being installed, we're getting a lot of noise about doing 5.1 and expanding into Dolby Atmos.

Photo: Kal Dolgin/Eyesounds

Do you ever use the facility for studio recordings?

Yes. We're in New York. Many of the studios that were able to track an orchestra have closed over the years. Real estate developers coming in and giving them more money than they could ever refuse, so those studios were being run out of business. We're going all the time here, and people realize this, and they come, and they see our live room. It's not huge, but it is 40 by 60 with 25-foot ceilings. And their response is, "Oh, is this a public place we can rent?" We're like, "Yeah.” But, it's difficult to align schedules because of everything we do here as a facility at JALC. We are indeed trying to accommodate for the changes, as we have an incredible facility and equipment that is the most cutting edge. Challenging indeed.

It's not your typical studio from a technical standpoint. When you walk into the live room, the panel on the wall with eight XLR for comm/etc, and a couple of ethernet, a couple of BNC and then fiber… it’s deceiving. So, we roll in our rack, plug in fiber, and now we have 64 plus channels, bi-directional, to and from the studio all clean and independent of any noise. The signal design is based off of the model that was built from Effanel remote trucks where we'd, for example, pull up a truck to Central Park and run 3,000 feet of fiber out to the center of the park and place the mic pre racks, and then run comms, mic pre control, and signal all up and down fiber to and from the trucks.

What is the transition like moving from the ICONs to the new S6’s?

The biggest change doing live shows, is the more information I can see in front of me, the better. And the S6 offers 20 times more information on its displays and on the console than I could ever see on ICON without interfacing with a computer screen and seeing the software GUI. Right off the bat, the displays show an incredible amount of information. The metering details, the routing, EQs, compressors, and the waveform displays. The ability to create custom layouts, lock channels in place, setting metering to different types on certain channels and have them remain like that as I move around the surface… very helpful!

I was concerned because the metering seemed a little sluggish and at times pulling up layouts was a little bit slower than the way it worked on ICON, but ever since last year, with the software updates, all of that has gotten much tighter, much faster and even more functional. It was functional before, but I work off of templates with EQs, compressors on every channel with at least four effects returns set up, fed from every channel ready to go—because I’m in a live environment. And my templates are built so that all of it is timed out correctly with delay compensation with my plugins and also all of my sends to my multiple machines, to my video recorders, to stage, to press, everywhere around the facility.

To guarantee the audio is in sync with the video and various other destinations, I have all kinds of different delays on master fader outputs. To have to build a session from scratch and change that setting every time is a lot of work, so, I simply have templates for each room where I spent the time doing that math. I can just move that template forward to this console, and now I can see even more information and be confident that all is well. The S6 is able to do everything the ICON can do and more. For me it was just a matter of learning how to operate the S6 in the way that I was used to working on the ICON. It's only enhanced my workflow. I was just commenting to my client this morning that I'm really digging this console!

Behind the Scenes with Marriage Story Editor Jennifer Lame, ACE

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 00:00:00 Z

Netflix’s Marriage Story, an intimate look at the end of a marriage, has garnered critical adoration and award-season buzz even before its release in December 2019. Avid caught up with editor Jennifer Lame at an early screening in November, where she shared her experience collaborating with writer-director Noah Baumbach, her favorite features in Media Composer, and her advice for up-and-coming editors.

Marriage Story Interview

Image courtesy of Netflix

Avid VENUE | S6L Hits the Road With Christine and the Queens

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 00:00:00 Z

Héloïse Letissier, known to her fans as Christine and the Queens—or the newly introduced Chris—is no stranger to breaking the rules. Since arriving on the music scene with her debut album Chaleur Humaine in 2014, the French singer has pushed pop music boundaries by experimenting with new sounds, climbing hundreds of chart places after a breakthrough performance at Glastonbury, and reinventing her musical persona to mark a new era, both professionally and personally. Her artistry is head-turning, dynamic and innovative. In fact, it turned the heads of front of house (FOH) engineer Julien Decarne and monitor engineer Christophe Rousseau, who both joined Chris on the world tour of her second album, aptly named Chris, in October 2018.

The dream team

Julien Decarne has worked with Chris since she toured Chaleur Humaine in 2014. The tour was a breakthrough for Chris, as was the music she performed, which explored synth-pop melodies, electropop beats, and experiential orchestral arrangements. With this diverse musical palette, Julien had a complex task at hand. But his relationship with Chris’ musical director, Bastien Doremus, enabled them to deliver a successful tour that showcased Chris’ unique sound to thousands worldwide—helping put her on the platform she’s on today.

Speaking of that first tour, Julien says, “It was inspiring to see Chaleur Humaine come to life each night as Christine and the Queens took to the stage. Her vision came to life beautifully as, without fail, the atmosphere was electric. We carried that with us as we planned her second tour. We knew we wanted to replicate that same buzz, but also take it to another level.”

As with Chris’ musical progression, Julien evolved his team by bringing in Christophe to mix monitors for the second tour. The pair originally met 10 years ago through Samuel Birais at French audio rental company Melpomen, who supplied them with dual Avid VENUE | S6L systems. Julien, Christophe, and Samuel worked together to develop a technical workflow that could seamlessly and efficiently deliver Chris’ vocals and her band’s sound. Not only did the system need to deliver exceptional sound quality, but it also needed to be intuitive and easy to set up—regardless of each venue’s requirements and challenges.

“One of the main hurdles we had to overcome were the rooms themselves: the size, the ambiance, and the acoustics,” says Christophe. “No venue is the same, so we needed a system that would be easy to configure and adapt to whatever’s thrown at us. We can’t always prepare for this, which meant we also needed to record and pre-mix where necessary and begin soundcheck from the word go.”

Perfecting the sound

Having used Avid VENUE | S6L live sound consoles while touring with French rapper Nekfeu as monitor engineer and with hip-hop group S-Crew as FOH engineer, Julien trusted the console to help them overcome these challenges on Christine and the Queens’ world tour. It’s a console he knows well and uses with confidence. And by preparing the system in rehearsals before Christophe’s arrival in May, Julien ensured that when they came together, they could get started quickly and develop Christine and the Queens’ set with ease.

The Avid VENUE | S6L was a big asset to the overall production of this tour. The audio chain from preamp to EQ—through to recording and processing—gave a faithful and dynamic audio performance, which we owe to the console’s ergonomic design and workflow capabilities.

Christophe Rousseau, Monitor Engineer

After travelling to Swansea, Wales for Christine and the Queens’ performance at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival in May 2018, Julien and Christophe were able to further refine their workflow and perfect the set in time for the tour in October.

Looking back at their time in the studio after the festival, Christophe says, “from June until September, we built the show with Bastien Doremus, using recordings from previous studio and live performances. So when we arrived on tour, there were few last-minute changes and hidden surprises. The bulk of the FOH mix was completed early on. Bastien edited the live tracks in Pro Tools for monitors—both in the studio and on the road—separately from FOH. This is where the console’s support and reliability didn’t let us down when we finally came together on tour. It complements remote collaboration, so it was a perfect fit for us.”

“During our recording sessions at the beginning, I managed the in-ears and FOH mixes from the same VENUE | S6L console,” adds Julien. “As well as helping us understand how Chris hears the music, it also helped from a technical standpoint to have consistency across our technology. Once we added another VENUE | S6L console for Christophe dedicated to monitor mixing, we were able to achieve a certain coherence between what the artist hears and what the audience receives. This is one of the key ingredients in creating a successful live music tour.”

A balancing act

Once all the preparation was complete, the next stage for Julien and Christophe was to take it on the road and put it into action. For both engineers, it was important to have a simple yet flexible live sound configuration that they could adjust according to each venue’s unique requirements. Moving from concert hall to arena, it was Christophe’s responsibility to ensure the ambient sound was perfectly balanced with Chris’ vocals and band—a tricky task considering the frequent changes between different venues’ acoustics and audience participation.

“I often had to retransmit the in-ear mix to complement the venue and audience,” says Christophe. “Thanks to the Pro Multiband Dynamics plugin, I was able to shape and hone the sound Chris heard by selectively compressing or expanding the audio. Much of this required acting quickly during the live set as, even in soundcheck, it’s difficult to predict how the venue’s acoustics will change when hundreds of people come through the doors. We knew, however, that Chris favored a live dimension to the in-ear mix and S6L enabled us to execute that quickly, regardless of the venue’s challenges.”

As the tour progressed, Julien and Christophe turned to Vladimir Coulibre, sound designer at L-Acoustics, and added an L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive sound system to their Avid workflow for the last five shows. Together, the Avid VENUE | S6L and L-ISA systems elevated Christine and the Queens’ sound by adding multidimensional audio qualities to the entire concert experience.

Preparation is key

A key benefit of Avid VENUE | S6L for Julien and Christophe was its Virtual Soundcheck functionality. Using pre-recorded Pro Tools tracks from the previous night’s performance in place of the live mics gave them a head start as they set up in each venue—saving valuable preparation hours. “We recorded all the shows in multitrack in Pro Tools,” says Julien. “It meant the sound was pristine during Virtual Soundcheck—further complemented by the wide array of compressors, EQs, delays, and other sound processors, which all helped us deliver the best possible sound.”

“In my opinion, Avid VENUE | S6L was a big asset to the overall production of this tour,” says Christophe. “The audio chain from preamp to EQ, through to recording and processing, gave a faithful and dynamic audio performance, which we owe to the console’s ergonomic design and workflow capabilities. It’s powerful and effective—and I hope to work with it again on future productions.”

Debbie Berman Shares an Editor’s Journey

Fri, 06 Sep 2019 00:00:00 Z

Debbie Berman has been an editor on some of the biggest blockbuster movies of the last decade, including Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel. Berman is passionate about the editor's role in enhancing the storytelling process. "The editor is basically the guardian of the film; essentially everything comes through editorial, the sound, the score, the visual effects. So, you're the guardian of all of it, and you have to deliver the best film possible," explains Berman. "My focus is really all about servicing the story and the characters."

Berman relies on Avid's Media Composer video editing system to provide the tools she needs to be a creative storyteller. Her experience with Media Composer began about 16 years ago, when Berman was hired to work on Big Brother South Africa, and the show was edited on Media Composer. "I didn't actually know how to use Media Composer before I got the job" explains Berman. "They said 'This job is on Avid; do you know how to use it?' And I said, 'Of course I do!'" Berman jumped in to an incredibly fast paced show with hours of media to edit each day. Big Brother South Africa live streamed two cameras following everything that happened in the house. "Every day, we produced a 30-minute show of what had happened the day before," explains Berman. "Normally you would have four-to-six-weeks to put a show together; we had 24-hours. And, this was my first job!"

With a little help from her friends, she managed to master the film editing software. "I had a lot of frantic phone calls asking, 'How do you do this; how do you do that?' I remember I thought all the command button options were only what was defaulted to my on-screen settings; and then about an hour into the job, I looked down and saw they were markings on the keyboard, and it was one of the greatest moments of my life realizing I suddenly had about 100 more options."

While Berman has used other editing workstations over the years, she keeps coming back to Media Composer. "I love working on Avid especially for the really big productions where you'll have 20 crew members sharing the same project, and you have something like 500 hours of media," explains Berman. "There's no other system that can handle that sort of media management with that number of users. It would definitely be a struggle to work on a film as big as Captain Marvel if it wasn't for Avid."

Pursuing new challenges and breaking new ground

Spider-Man: Homecoming was Berman's first Marvel film. "That was the toughest film to get on because I didn't have any big credits at that stage." One of Berman's mentors, Dan Lebental, was working on Spider-Man, and while he put Berman's name forward, it still was hard to break through. "Everyone kept saying 'No'. But I didn't hear the negative, I just kept thinking to myself 'This is so great; we're talking about me working on Spider-Man!' The fact that everyone was saying no was a minor and annoying detail. I think that ultimately they felt my passion and decided to give me a break."

"What was important to me about Spider-Man is there's basically a stigma in the industry that women cannot cut big action sequences or films. I felt it was important to try to break that perception as much as I could. So, on Spidey most of my focus was on editing the action sequences." Berman brought her passion and creativity to the role. "There are a lot of moving parts in the huge action sequences, and sometimes the most challenging thing can be to make someone care. Sometimes a couple of frames can be the difference between something being hilarious or exciting, and being a little like, 'Eh'," explains Berman.

I love working on Avid especially for the really big productions where you'll have 20 crew members sharing the same project and you have something like 500 hours of media. There's no other system that can handle that sort of media management with that number of users.

Debbie Berman, Editor, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, Captain Marvel

"I use a lot of editing tools in service of enhancing the story, the character, or the timing, to be more comedic or more emotional or to pick up the pace. I'll retime the moments or the pauses between the lines or speed things up, so that it plays better comedically. I'm a big fan of the progressive timewarp."

Berman's next film was Black Panther working alongside Michael Shawver and Ryan Coogler. Berman joined Black Panther a couple of months into the making of it and brought a fresh perspective to the film. "Everyone else had been living with the script for a few months or years. They'd seen all the footage. They had information from older cuts. I saw the film with no prior knowledge. So, my main role was streamlining things, making sure there was clarity, making sure things moved. There are a lot of characters in Black Panther; how do you spend enough time with each of those multitudes of characters so that they have depth and you get to know them, but not too much time that you veer off on tangents and lose the momentum of the entire film," explains Berman.

Berman notes that on a film like Black Panther where they had 500 hours of footage, the Media Composer ScriptSync feature was crucial to her editing process. "I could just pull up ScriptSync and instantly access the take or clip I needed. It enabled me as an editor to put all my focus on being a creative storyteller as opposed to spending hours looking for things," states Berman.

The campaign for Captain Marvel

While Berman was working on Spider-Man and 'living her dream', Marvel announced the Captain Marvel movie and Berman began a campaign to get hired. "Captain Marvel was Marvel's first female-led film; and, I knew I had to find a way to get on it." Determined to show her passion for the job, Berman bought a Captain Marvel t-shirt and wore it to work every time she knew that the Marvel executives were coming in for editorial sessions. "I wore my Captain Marvel t-shirt to the point where it became a running joke with the crew. If I was wearing the shirt, they knew that meant that the execs were coming in," adds Berman.

The editor is basically the guardian of the film; essentially everything comes through editorial, the sound, the score, the visual effects. So, you're the guardian of all of it, and you have to deliver the best film possible. My focus is really all about servicing the story and the characters.

Debbie Berman, Editor, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther, Captain Marvel

'Queen of the Split Screen'

Berman used a host of tools and techniques to achieve the emotion she was looking for in Captain Marvel. "Sometimes, during visual effects reviews, a shot would come up and the director asked what's the visual effect in that shot, and people would point out there's a re-time, there's a split screen, or some other effect. After several rounds of that they finally realized how much I was manipulating the footage."

"So, they started calling me the Queen of the Split Screen because I love things to be perfectly timed and I'm very involved," continues Berman. "I also love working on quick temp comps in Avid. It's super easy, exercises another part of your brain, and is a great way to get a rough idea of your intentions across, which can then be taken to a higher level by the visual effects team."

Celebrate the small victories

Berman is living her dream, but she'll be the first to tell new and aspiring editors that it is a competitive industry. Her advice is to find people who will mentor you and keep your spirits up and remember to celebrate every small victory. "I think sometimes people accomplish something, but all they can see is what they're not accomplishing," explains Berman. "Just realize it's a bigger journey and if you feel that this is what you're meant to do, then don't take rejection personally and just keep fighting for it."

Digital Graffiti Relies on Avid to Produce Thousands of Hours of Content

Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:00:00 Z

Digital Graffiti knows what it takes to respond quickly to changing content requirements. The independent, full-service post-production company specializes in long-form video and television editing for a variety of clients, delivering multiple masters a week. Last year alone, Digital Graffiti produced 220 masters and worked on numerous television series for a wide roster of clients, including several top-rated reality shows. To date, the company has delivered over 1,000 hours of episodic television plus countless hours of promotional material and web content.

Avid provides the infrastructure where we can have teams working very closely together, or we can have people work on an individual basis with the ability to pass content onto the next creative very seamlessly.

Kim Pratt, Vice President of Technology

"Our team is very intent on keeping up-to-date, and when the demands of the industry shift, we make creative maneuvers very quickly," explains Kim Pratt, Vice President of Technology. Pratt credits Digital Graffiti's deep talent pool and its Avid infrastructure for providing the flexibility to turn-on-a-dime in response to new opportunities and requirements.

Over the past year Digital Graffiti has ventured into producing long-form documentaries. Pratt notes that while these different genres of shows require different workflows, they all share similar requirements for media. They all need to access their media very quickly. They all need to share their media. And, they all need to work on a tool that is familiar to the entire team. "Our infrastructure is built to be content agnostic," explains Pratt. "Avid provides the infrastructure where we can have teams working very closely together, or we can have people work on an individual basis with the ability to pass content onto the next creative very seamlessly."

Pratt is responsible for ensuring that Digital Graffiti has the right technology to handle the workflows. The company's current editing environment comprises 77 Media Composer | Ultimate editing workstations with the Symphony Color Correction toolset, two Pro Tools | Ultimate digital audio workstations, and they recently upgraded from 96 terabytes of Avid ISIS storage to 240 terabytes of Avid NEXIS | E4 shared storage. Avid NEXIS provides Digital Graffiti with the bandwidth, reliability, and security to support every show and project.

Shared storage fosters collaboration

Some of the reality-based projects Digital Graffiti works on use as many as 33 cameras per shoot with shoot ratios as high as 300:1. Avid solutions enable Digital Graffiti to track each data point as the footage moves from the field, through post to the final program. As they log thousands or even hundreds of thousands of files, Digital Graffiti pulls them into group clips so they can get the multi-cams together.

Digital Graffiti uses a heavily compressed offline workflow. They ingest everything using Media Composer to pull in footage down to the Interplay codec and provide the offline editors and producers with access to all media. "There's no footage that they aren't getting. There's no moment they're missing because we ran out of space," explains Pratt.

"Avid NEXIS gives us a number of critical media management tools to ensure the editors and producers are using their storage most efficiently," continues Pratt. "It enhances our workflow by making it faster and easier to share media, which is particularly important with the amount of footage coming in from the reality shows. Since everything is managed by Avid, we don't have to worry about different team members having different organizational files, and not being able to access the media. We can send bin files from place to place and know that since it's all ingested through Avid the naming conventions are the same, it streamlines sharing between offices. The post teams are constantly in each other's bins and that collaborative nature allows them to fine tune each reality moment."

Avid NEXIS will allow for expansion into the cloud, and that's the direction that we need to go as an industry.

Kim Pratt, Vice President of Technology

Seamless integration of unlimited freelance resources

Prior to its upgrade to Avid NEXIS shared storage, Digital Graffiti often had to provide duplicate media. They were limited to the number of people mounted to each workstation which meant editors often didn't have all the footage they needed. "We had to move footage around at the back end and identify staff responsible for tracking the footage," explains Pratt. "We couldn't switch an editor around very quickly if we wanted their opinion on a cut, or if we wanted them to patch up a part of an episode they weren't originally assigned to work on. Now, with Avid NEXIS, we just add another person to a directory, switch on their permissions, and then they've got access to everything that they need."

Digital Graffiti's full-time, 30-person staff is amplified by several hundred freelance editors and assistant editors, who may work on one specific show or move among several reality shows. Pratt reports that Avid eliminates the time previously spent getting them up to speed on where everything was located. Now, they can get right into the project. "The technology shouldn't be something that takes time or attention away from getting the shows done and Avid NEXIS allows us to do that," states Pratt. "It makes it easier to get into the actual editing and creative work."

Cloud-based storage ensures the integrity of unreleased footage

Pratt also is excited about the potential of Avid NEXIS as the path to cloud-based storage. "Avid NEXIS will allow for expansion into the cloud, and that that's the direction that we need to go as an industry," declares Pratt. "With Avid NEXIS | Cloudspaces and MediaCentral | Editorial Management we will be able to work with talent wherever it is located."

Avid NEXIS also will help protect the integrity of content. "We need to ensure that our media, our information wealth is protected. It’s no longer acceptable to ship media out of house on hard drives or have unencrypted loose information around. Having Avid with its finger on the industry and keeping track of the things we will need has been very helpful," concludes Pratt. "Avid is key to pretty much everything we do."

Industrial Media Expands Collaborative Workflows with Avid Shared Storage

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 00:00:00 Z

Industrial Media and its Emmy®-winning television production company, The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC), are adding a new production hub in New York City. It is the first step in the company's goal of collaborating remotely with directors, producers, and editors throughout the country. "Up until this point, our editors worked 98 percent of the time on-site in Los Angeles and Atlanta," states Eric Towler, IPC's Vice President of Post Production. "The ability to treat somebody who works 3,000 miles away as though they're just down the hall is very appealing. We're getting into that with Avid. It will be a huge advantage to be able to work wherever we find talented editors, filmmakers, and story producers."

In the three years since it opened its doors, IPC has produced a range of content for networks, cable companies, SVOD, and digital platforms, including Netflix, Amazon, A&E, Showtime, and Oxygen. Under the management of co-founders, Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman, the company produced the critically acclaimed shows, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath and Active Shooter.

The concept of being able to utilize shared storage virtually anywhere we find a talented editor who needs to work from wherever they are located is very exciting. We know we’re going in a great direction and Avid is a huge, huge part of the confidence we have in these decisions.

Eric Towler, Vice President of Post Production, IPC

"We like to think of ourselves as documentarians of real human stories and we work with whatever networks or platforms want to tell those stories with us," explains Towler. Towler along with Spencer Wolf, IPC's Director of Post Production, currently oversee post production of 42 shows for Industrial Media, including series presentations, pilots, and pitches. They build and maintain the post-production infrastructure which allows the team to focus on the quality of the content, supporting Industrial Media's mission to tell stories with integrity.

Building a foundation for remote collaboration

About half of Industrial Media's new 14,000 square foot facility in New York City is dedicated to post production. It has 16 edit bays, a server room, rooms for eight assistant editor stations, and a number of story stations. The other half is creative space designed to bring in new business with directors and producers. "We're finding that a lot of the talented filmmakers, producers, and editors, who are making the kinds of programs Industrial Media is interested in making are New York-based," explains Towler.

With a tight six-week schedule to open its new production facility, Industrial Media turned to Avid partner, T2 Computing, to build a technology infrastructure that would enable the company to meet the needs of its creative teams and keep pace with changing technology. They built an Avid post-production environment with 20 Media Composer | Ultimate editing workstations and an Avid NEXIS | E4 software-defined storage system. Avid NEXIS offers real-time editorial collaboration and high scalability and performance enabling Industrial Media to share and access media assets with anyone, anywhere.

"Avid NEXIS is the preferred storage solution for collaborative workflows," explains Dominick Tarabocchia of T2 Computing. "Industrial Media needs storage that supports both Avid and Adobe. Avid NEXIS enables them to keep all media in the same ecosystem, provides fast access, and expands to meet future requirements."

"We need shared storage and there is really no option other than Avid in terms of reliability and scalability," said Wolf. Wolf adds that in many cases, his team works on co-productions that start in an Adobe Premiere ecosystem. "In our world of shared projects, the way editorial can communicate together on projects with Avid compared to other editing tools, is night and day. There's no comparison."

"As we built out Atlanta and then New York City, we did not look at other solutions in terms of shared storage or editorial platforms because of our experience with Avid as well as the talent pool of experienced Avid editors. Avid gives us access to some of the best editors. One hundred percent. The talent pool that is Avid-based is deep, and rich, and seasoned."

Industrial Media is already busy developing content in New York City including documentary features for YouTube and HBO and a series for CNBC. "Our partnership with T2 and Avid actually has a lot to do with my excitement about New York," explains Towler. "I feel we've already got the base layer of everything we're going to need. If there are problems that come up, because there always are in this business, there will be solutions right behind. That gives me a lot of confidence."

The ability to treat somebody who works 3,000 miles away as though they’re just down the hall is very appealing. We’re getting into that with Avid.

Eric Towler, Vice President of Post Production, IPC

Meeting the challenges of changing technology

As Towler explains, his major challenge is dealing with ever-increasing demands on post production and finding ways to say 'yes' to whatever comes along, including larger format files, UHD, 4k, and 8k. "We want to be leading the charge forward. We've been finding more and more that when we look to Avid to find ways to accommodate new technology, Avid's tools are already there or arriving shortly. Avid is as ahead of the curve as it needs to be and it's helping us adapt to new and challenging adjustments to our industry."

Towler and Wolf don't know the exact path Industrial Media's expansion will follow, but they are laying the groundwork in New York City. "The concept of being able to utilize shared storage virtually anywhere we find a talented editor who needs to work from wherever they are located is very exciting," concludes Towler. " We know we're going in a great direction and Avid is a huge, huge part of the confidence we have in these decisions. Avid is the absolute foundation of our post processes."

Globe tv Positions Itself for the Future With Maestro Graphics

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 00:00:00 Z

Globe tv has relied on Avid for more than 20 years

Productions of Globe tv Film and Television Production Company m.b.H. have been widely viewed. For example, trailers for the popular television crime series and most expensive German television production to date, Babylon Berlin, were shown everywhere a few years ago. Moreover, in Germany at least, the lottery draws are also familiar to everyone. On behalf of Deutscher Lotto and Totoblock, since 2013 Globe tv has been broadcasting the draw twice a week from its own studio, live on www.lotto.de on the Internet.

Founded in 1992, Globe tv is part of the Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR, Saarland Broadcasting) group. The location of the company headquarters at the Funkhaus Halberg media center in the city of Saarbrücken facilitates networking with all media services of the SR and ARD (working group of public broadcasters of the federal republic of Germany). Whether in the case of industry films, marketing commercials or advertisements, Globe tv directors, editors, motion designers, camera operators, vision mixers, audio engineers, translators, and announcers produce for film, television and Internet–from conception to shooting, editing, post-production, and audio final processing. For this work the company employs 14 permanent staff and numerous freelancers. They prepare more than 2,500 broadcasts annually. Approximately 3,000 trailers and teasers, advertising some 900 films and TV broadcasts, are made each year for the channels Das Erste and One. In addition, trailers are made for special campaigns, and the trailers produced are also processed for social media applications. Advertising and image campaigns and the recording of documentary reports are also part of the Globe tv portfolio. A special department takes care of subtitling, speech processing, and voiceovers. To meet these diverse requirements, the production company has relied on solutions from Avid since 1997.

Avid sets worldwide standards for the media value chain

The globally active company Avid, headquartered in the state of Massachusetts, USA, sets standards for the entire media value chain. With powerful open platforms, workflow solutions and tools, Avid enables companies like Globe tv to create, manage, store, distribute and monetize film and television content. Avid modernizes work processes, standardizes infrastructure, optimizes business and maximizes the value of content. In this way Avid helps production teams and media companies to tell powerful stories and to be successful in the digital age, as the continuous technological advancement of equipment and the use of increasingly large bandwidths, for example, are changing the viewing habits and expectations of viewers. Existing content, originally created for television, must be prepared for the Internet and for social media channels. Thus, already produced films pass through the production chain several times, for different types of application.

“To some extent this requires an even more collaborative production method than before. Colleagues from the areas of editing, cutting, graphics and sound design access the material simultaneously and process it. Previously separate departments increasingly work together on the same platform,” explains Michael Degott. As head of Production and Technology at Globe tv, he is responsible, among other things, for all of the technological infrastructure.

Trailer production becomes faster and easier with Maestro Graphics

Today new forms of expression, faster editing methods and more sophisticated graphics are in demand.

“We needed a powerful server for our Avid infrastructure, and a new graphics system to replace the old Avid DS. It was important for operation to be intuitive and for editors to be able to call up and make use of ready-made templates. In twenty years with Avid, there were no significant malfunctions with associated expensive downtime. Therefore, we again decided on a solution from Avid. The technology that was newly installed in July 2018 replaced a nine-year-old Avid installation that was running smoothly, still with the original hard drives, until the last day. In our company we now work with a cohesive workflow and a uniform processing platform,” says Michael Degott.

Avid Maestro Graphics for data connection in Avid Media Composer

The Avid graphics systems Maestro | Designer and Maestro | PageEditor enhance the new infrastructure. Maestro Graphics facilitates the realization of everything from simple graphics to complex virtual studios (Maestro | Virtual Set), augmented reality content (Maestro | AR), and high-resolution video walls ( Maestro | Powerwall). It also functions smoothly with applications from third-party suppliers. Maestro | Designer and Maestro | PageEditor form an optimal combination for integrating and flexibly designing text and graphics in Media Composer. Data connection with a wide range of sources (e.g. Microsoft Excel, XML, etc.) can be quickly and easily established, operated and managed. The Maestro | NLE plugin facilitates the handling of intelligent templates in Media Composer, with no additional rendering hardware (Maestro | Engine) required. Maestro | Designer and Maestro | PageEditor with Maestro | NLE plugins serve as a cost-effective, flexible model for entering the Maestro Graphics world. “It was very important for us to be able to integrate the new graphics system harmoniously into our workflow. Maestro Graphics was the obvious solution for us, since the software can be used in a straightforward way with Avid Media Composer. The graphical final processing of trailers has also become much faster. For us Maestro Graphics especially simplifies the processing of diverse formats,” explains Michael Degott.

Technological improvement and acceleration of work processes

Particular emphasis has been placed on the creation and processing of flexible templates with data connection, and on the workflow in conjunction with the existing Avid environment. Template data connection can take place via text files, XML, or Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. This results in faster new workflows with greater reliability and flexibility for handling graphics and text in Media Composer.

“For us the system which has now been put into operation means the continuation, technological improvement and acceleration of our work processes. Maestro Graphics optimally meets the requirements for trailer production and the associated workflow. Like the technical personnel, our editors handled the programs well from the beginning,” summarizes Michael Degott.

For trailer production there are currently seven Avid editing stations in operation at Globe tv, which are connected with Avid NEXIS. Maestro | NLE plugins, which as native AVX2 plugins function seamlessly with the Avid software, run at the editing stations. Globe tv has increased the storage capacity more than tenfold, to 480 TB. The old Z400 machines have been replaced by fast, powerful HP Z8 workstations. The enhanced storage space and performance simplify the daily work of the Globe tv team, particularly in the realization of large projects.

For existing Maestro Graphics users and editors who have previously used only Media Composer or Adobe Premiere, the workflow described here offers interesting new cost-efficient application possibilities and enhancements in the area of real-time graphics.

Movie Magic: Danish Film School Spreads its Wings with Avid

Wed, 29 May 2019 00:00:00 Z

Photo credit: Carsten Legaard, ProAVmagasine

Established in 1966, the National Film School of Denmark is a Copenhagen-based independent institution under the Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs. It runs several different programs—including fiction directing, documentary directing, cinematography, film producing, and script writing—which have produced many notable filmmaking alumni over the years.

Although theoretical learning plays a significant role, the school places an emphasis on practical training through a large number of exercises and productions. For example, the students' final project is to produce a professional-grade film that is then presented to the public on national television. All students must also pass an entrance test including both practical exercises and interviews.

This focus on practical learning puts a lot of pressure on the school's infrastructure. With up to 96 students all editing projects—and simultaneous finishing and grading in 4K—ensuring that the infrastructure has the capacity and performance to cope with the workload is essential. This was the main challenge the school was looking to tackle.

A storage upgrade

Before deploying the Avid NEXIS | E4 solution, the school ran key processes such as colour grading on two standalone storage solutions. However, while working on its graduation films, it realised that a lack of space and speed were holding its students back from completing their work.

"It quickly became apparent that an upgrade was needed, specifically to a shared storage solution for our post-production department that would work with our two existing Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve machines," said Peter Posgaard at the school. "However, because we are a publicly funded school, money was a big issue. As well as delivering the stability and performance required to support students, the storage solution also had to be affordable."

This is when the school turned to Avid. Although it already had a NEXIS solution in place for its editing systems, it had never used NEXIS for such a specific high-performance setup, so carried out a test to make sure that it could deliver the bandwidth needed for a 4K 16-bit DPX workflow. This test highlighted the true power of the solution, with the ability to deliver the access speed, increased throughput, and reliability needed to accelerate its 4K mastering workflows.

Workflow transformation

Working on shared storage has completely changed the school's finishing and grading workflow. Whereas students used to be very limited by local storage, they are now able to access the storage from more workstations with 10 GbE connections or faster. This has made it possible to offload material to the storage, make DCP's, online/conform and insert graphic/titles from all workstations across the campus, enabling teams to work together and create content faster than ever before.

Along with speed, the stability and flexibility provided have been two of the key benefits. The high availability of Avid NEXIS protects media-intensive workflows against potential hardware failures, as illustrated by the fact that the Danish film school has enjoyed 99.9% uptime on its solutions, only experiencing downtime during a system update.

Thanks to the new Avid-enabled workflow, the film school and its students can easily finish 4K-quality films without having to worry about performance or availability issues.

Peter Posgaard, Technical Manager at the National Film School of Denmark

Avid NEXIS also enables users to quickly adapt to unpredictable changes. It can be reconfigured without impacting production, with intuitive software tools enabling users to reallocate bandwidth, add or remove storage capacity, dynamically resize workspaces, and increase or decrease media protection quickly—all without any downtime or impact to teams. This has given the school and its students an unprecedented level of flexibility and the ability to optimize resources for any project or workflow.

"We have just finished recording our graduation films. Many students are in the middle of the editing process and the flexibility of our NEXIS storage is great," Peter Posgaard explained. "The students can edit in their own suite, press save, go to one of the small screening rooms, open their project and carry out a screening from any place on the school, without having to worry about accessibility or performance issues."

From its ability to integrate with third-party products, to its affordability and 4K capabilities, Avid NEXIS has taken the National Film School of Denmark's post-production capabilities to a new level. Students now have all the technical support they need, helping them collaborate with peers and create high-quality 4K content faster than ever before.

David Fisher: Finding the Creative Edge

Tue, 14 May 2019 00:00:00 Z

Storytellers love double-entendres. Philip Pullman, in the trilogy His Dark Materials, fashions young Lyra’s alethiometer on a navigator’s compass, while the creator of the story’s multiple universes drafts them using the tool of the same name.

The time-shifting series Doctor Who began its eleventh series with The Woman Who Fell to Earth, introducing the thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whitaker) and the first woman to play the role. While the title alludes to her introduction, it may also apply to another important character.

Creators of science fiction and fantasy use language in creative ways to gain an edge while pushing the boundaries of the possible. Generations of scientists and historians describe being inspired by stories that sought the edges of understanding–that asked, “What if?”

David Fisher is on that edge, expanding his considerable talent as an editor while also seeking the boundaries of editing in the science-fiction and fantasy genres. He edited the episode of Doctor Who, directed by Jamie Childs, that began the 37th overall season of the show, and is also editing episodes of the series His Dark Materials for BBC One and HBO, to be premiered later in 2019.

We at Avid are lucky to have the chance to talk with David about his work on these shows, his career, and of course, editing video with Media Composer.

How did you get into editing?

I studied a BA (Hons) in Media Production at Northumbria University (in the north-east of England, where I’m from). I got to know every single different aspect of filmmaking and TV and the kind of thing I gravitated towards was editing. Some people will get their lucky break and become an editor straight away. But a lot of people start off as an assistant editor.

After graduating in 2006, I managed to get my first job as an assistant editor on Wire in The Blood (Coastal Productions) and over the years built up contacts and gained more editing experience while assisting (editing recaps/teasers/series promos, assembly editing). In my own time I would edit music videos, write or direct short films with the goal of editing them.

I think for me, going to university learning different roles was a great training ground and then being lucky enough to get a job in post production (where I knew I wanted to be) helped give me the right knowledge and training to pursue a career in editing.

Some people as part of their education get to do apprenticeships. We had quite a few different apprenticeships on Doctor Who. It was great because we had three cutting rooms running at the same time and a VFX department, so a trainee could learn different sides of post production (assisting, editing and VFX) one of the trainees Alistair, has actually gained employment from this and is now part of the VFX department (doing temp VFX).

I’ve worked on a crime drama for ITV, Vera, which is shot in the northeast of England, which is always nice to see locations from home (its 10th season is shooting this year). Other shows I’ve edited are The Bay, Shetland, Grantchester, No Offence and Mr. Selfridge (which was the show I got my first editing credit on). I'm currently editing the last two episodes of the first season of His Dark Materials for HBO and BBC One.

What do you like most about editing?

I would say editing drama covers a lot of different aspects which I love, editing picture and sound, temping with sound effects and temp score. Also the different stages–first reading the script, getting rushes daily and assembling, working with a director in a fine a cut and presenting to producers and network executives. Each step keeps the job fresh and rethinking what the story is about and how to make it better. That’s the key element, making sure the story is working and engaging.

Does experience as an assistant build a practice for you, that becomes what you teach new team members?

Yeah, definitely. It was great being an assistant editor, because on long-running drama and things like Wire in The Blood, there were four blocks, which means four different editors, usually. Being one assistant, you've got block one fine-cutting with a director, while block two is shooting. So you're looking after a fine cut, but you're also getting material in from the second block. That way, you’re seeing two different sides of the editing process.

I found that being hard working, keen to learn, the editors wouldn’t mind me sitting in on the editing process. For me, it was great because I got to see different people's techniques. I could see that communication with the director is very key. And it was great to see the different dynamics between different editors and different directors.

As a result, I learned different skills, how different people operate. I love the technical side, organizing the Avid project in a certain way so everything is accessible. It's about how you work as well, and how you want to do things. So for an assistant it is quite a learning experience. You learn the admin side, the personal side, the technical side, and it's just about finding what's best for you to then progress and hopefully become an editor and take those skills on to then work with directors yourself.

Is it important to have a strong relationship aspect on the editing team?

Yeah, I’d say so, because the editor is assembling and the director is on location or in the studio shooting, you’re the first line of getting the material and working your way through what they've shot. And obviously, you have your blueprint from the script, and maybe you've had conversations with the director, but then it's the editor’s interpretation of the material and knowing the story, and how to put it together.

So really, you're kind of alone for however many weeks, say it’s a six week shoot, and then you fine cut with a director which is where the strong relationship aspect comes in, as you then open up the cut that you have assembled to new ideas and trying things to get the duration down for tv but also keeping it entertaining and coherent. From there the next relationship is presenting to the producers and feeding their ideas in. Where it’s about, is it working? If it’s part of a long-running show, does it all suit the overall tone of the series.

From there, then it goes off to the network. And that's another relationship, that's another conversation. It is, again, communicating with the producer, but more the director and then field those questions from the producer to see that we're actually getting what they want. The key relationship is with the director at the end of the day.

What is your work relationship like with assistant editors?

When shooting, there’s a lot more workflow and communication with the assistants, because they take the material and transfer it into the rushes, and label it the way I like for my project and how I work, and then transfer the bins.

Communication from both sides (editor/assistant) is key. They kind of keep the ship running really, and make me look good.

We’ve got three great assistants on His Dark Materials, Hayley Williams, Craig Haywood, and Ben Mudge, who are running between three cutting rooms at the moment because we're all in fine cut. We're quite close to the end of locking everything now for HBO and BBC, so they’re doing a lot of turnovers and a lot of exports. But they keep everything afloat and everything going so they're really vital to the running of everything.

Do you find that teams that gel together often stick together on different projects?

Yeah, I would say so. I’ve worked a lot of great directors, the way things work with scheduling of shoots, I’m lucky enough to work with one director and as they are either on the lookout for their next project or are in prep, I’m lucky enough to be able to work with another director who is shooting and can bounce between the two.

What is it that's interesting about science fiction and fantasy?

I grew up watching television and film in the '80s, the first film I remember seeing at the cinema was The Princess Bride, I loved the fantasy and mix of comedy. I’d go to the cinema all the time growing up and throughout school/university, since school I knew I wanted to get into the media industry.

I've been a massive fan of Doctor Who since I was a kid, so I've always gravitated towards sci-fi and it was a bit of a dream come true to be editing it. Jamie Childs (director) brought kind of Spielberg-esque style to it and it was a joy to edit

I think again with His Dark Materials it's another fantasy world and I'm quite drawn to those kind of stories. It's the escapism and it’s entertaining.

Every job I work on is different, I’ve worked on crime dramas, period dramas, sci-fi. I find all the stories interesting but I also love what each different type of genre brings, strong performances from actors, different locations, different lighting and look from the director of photography and a different style and directing varying on each job.

Have you seen progress with the ability to create special effects in television?

Yeah, absolutely. I do think it's progressed a lot. DNEG on Doctor Who does a fantastic job. I think a lot of our episodes were more practical, since that's the direction that the director wanted to take and in the first episode it was about making it real world again, bringing new people and a new audience to Doctor Who and then the doctor crashes into our world.

I think TV has grown and budgets are allowing for more visual effects, with advances in technology it’s making vfx look real and making the small screen look big.

Doctor Who and His Dark Materials have such richly-known backgrounds, did you find that intimidating?

No, I don't think I did. Every new job’s a different challenge. I spent many years learning my craft and working towards becoming an editor. It was a dream of mine to edit Doctor Who, it was great timing to get the call from Jamie Childs, “Do you want to come and do Doctor Who?’” and I was just like, “I’ve probably never told you this, but I'm a massive fan and been a massive fan for years. And you just have no idea how much I want to edit this”.

But no, I definitely didn't find it intimidating. I just found it quite exciting because the cutting rooms are where they film some interior scenes including the Tardis.

I got to go through the old props department, the costumes and just seeing things from other seasons. I could work alongside the production office and see the sets being constructed. It was just really exciting more than anything.

If you had a wish list for Media Composer features, things you would love to see in the product, what would you look for?

To be honest, I think you've done a few of the things that I wanted, such as background bin-save, which is now a feature—for years I was praying for that.

And the other thing that I just realized with this new update, was the live timeline. Being able to solo audio tracks while still playing and also to be able to delete things in the bin while it's still playing is absolutely fantastic. Keeping that seamless playback with the director while I can still do a few things on the side as well.

We're using version of 2018 point 12.1 at the moment and I think it's great. It's really cool.

You describe the script as like a roadmap. Do you find that it changes a good deal before the show is delivered?

Really, when I get on to a project, it's usually pretty much the shooting script. Being an editor. I'm not really there for the process of developing the script and getting different versions.

At the moment I’m near the production office on the job I’m on, and the sets, and I am seeing the process a bit more now because they're gearing up for season two at the moment. But I haven't been given anything to read because I'm just concentrating on the last two episodes of the first season.

I think as an editor, it's probably different for other people. But for me, I'm handed the script sometimes a week before we shoot on different productions. You can tweak things in the edit as well, which does happen, and can change story strands, and put some more clarity into things with ADR and things like that. But usually I'm just handed a script and then we kind of go for it from there.

When you visualize the script, does it usually match what you see in the cutting room?

Reading the script, you kind of have your take on things, but then the material kind of dictates how it goes together, how the director has envisioned it. Sometimes on Vera, for example, it’s a ‘who done it’ crime drama, you get these big final scenes where the main character Vera has cracked the case and she’s figured out who killed the person you saw in the opening tease.

These scenes can end up being over eight-pages of dialogue, usually with two people, Vera breaking down why the killer did it and that person telling her why/how.

These can be quite a challenge because, over eight pages of dialogue, the director will cover it in certain ways to sustain that kind of scene for that long. So, different wides and mids, different angles and different shots on the line.

In the assembly process, it may end up being about eight to ten minutes. The challenge of the editor is to tell the story, keep it fresh with coverage/editing and keep it intriguing.

Those are the kinds of things that you need to take a step back and ask, "Are you over-playing that wide for too long? When is the right time to play the close ups?"

You’re going through a lot of material and a lot of daily rushes, which can be shot 2 camera or more. It's just quite a process. Those kinds of scenes may take you a couple days to assemble because it's just keeping it all in your head—remembering the story that came before—because they don't always shoot the episode in order. The challenge in that is not to spiral too much into the scenes. I think that's probably where getting up and walking around and getting a break for a few moments come into it, for putting those kind of big scenes together.

What advice would you offer new editors & assistant editors?

For assistant editors wanting to make the step up to editing, I would say edit as much as possible, short films, music videos, trailers/recaps. This not only gives you a showreel but you can also learn so much. I would say edit as much as you can, each job you learn something new.

An assistant who is hardworking wants to learn and wants to be there. I’ve worked with many great assistants, Hayley Williams and David Davies on Doctor Who keep the cutting rooms running smoothly as they look after up to 3 editors at a time as well as turnovers to sound/picture post. While also editing next times and sizzle reels. It was very impressive to see and be part of such a well-oiled machine.

Building an Epic Career: Christian Siebenherz

Fri, 19 Apr 2019 00:00:00 Z

Christian Siebenherz is a film editor from Norway whose experience includes films such as The Wave and The Quake, as well as the series Thieves, and additional editing on the 2018 film Tomb Raider. He talked with Manager of The Cut Center, Christian Jhonson, about his career, how he approaches action and special effects, and his work with Avid Media Composer.

Here, in his own words, is the story of his career telling epic tales of disaster, drama, and survival.

On the pursuit of film editing

I started out in the Norwegian film industry not knowing what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted to work with movies. When I was just 20 years old, I was lucky and got an internship at a production company in Oslo. It was really exciting to work on big sets for high-budget commercials in the beginning, but I soon realized that the editing room is a much more suitable place for discussing the creative process and learning about storytelling. For the next few years I worked as an assistant for some of the best editors in Scandinavia, including Olivier Bugge Coutté (Louder than Bombs, Beginners) and Darek Hodor (the academy award-nominated Evil). I started to edit commercials and trailers as well. At the same time, I studied at the University of Oslo, taking a BA in theatre, literature, and film. I found that academic theory in storytelling and dramaturgy was really relevant for filmmaking.

It’s always hard to land the first job as a lead editor on a feature film, and it seems every editor has a different route getting there. I was lucky when a company I had worked for was going to produce a low budget action movie called Escape directed by Roar Uthaug, and he liked the trailers I had done. Since they wanted the edit to be fast-paced and intense, they thought that a trailer editor would be a good fit. It turned out to be hard work, but also a lot of fun, because I got to further develop my skills with sound design, music and picture. Editing Escape is what led me to have the opportunity to edit their next film, The Wave.

This was the first time a special-effects heavy, disaster movie had been made in Scandinavia. Nobody was sure it could actually be done, especially on a budget of 8-million dollars. The lack of resources made it necessary to focus on the drama and do special effects practically in camera with real elements. I guess the audience really enjoyed the naturalistic approach, because it’s estimated that about 1.5 million Norwegians (Norway’s total population is 5 million) have seen the film. Also, it was sold to more than 150 countries..

The success of The Wave led to Roar Uthaug directing the new Tomb Raider movie and he was kind of enough to bring me aboard as an additional editor. It was really exciting to spend 4 months in London, working on a 100-million dollar movie. I learned a lot about how post-production is done in Hollywood. It’s not that different from Norway, except the team is a lot bigger and there are more resources at your disposal. What two or three people do in Norway, would be done by 10-15 people on Tomb Raider. However, at the end of the day, the basics of editing are the same.

The sequel to The Wave is a more serious and dark drama than the first one, but also has plenty of action set pieces. The Quake had a few other new challenges as well, mostly in terms of visual effects since there was a lot of CGI this time. The story structure was also harder to get right on The Quake, probably because the character arcs are more important this time and the disaster starts at a later point in the movie. I think sequels almost always are inferior to the original, so I’m really happy to hear that a lot of people think The Quake is better than the first one. I know it’s a cliché, but I think the goal should always be to top yourself.

Using Avid on The Wave and The Quake

Both movies were cut on Avid Media Composer. We had three Avids set up at the production office. Since the budget was so tight, we didn’t use NEXIS or Unity, just external hard drives and Dropbox, which we used to share bins. This worked great. On both films, I had an additional editor and one assistant editor.

We edited in DNxHD36. Both films had production in Norway, and a studio shoot abroad (Romania for The Wave and Czech Republic for The Quake). To make it easy for the DIT to send us rushes as fast as possible, we decided to go for the smallest file size. Whenever we got shots with green screen we would ask the DIT to make these shots in ProRes4444 as well. This higher quality made it easier to do temp effects, like keying in backgrounds. Most temp effects were done right in Avid Media Composer, and After Effects was used for some more advanced stuff.

We chose Avid for both films because I know the software can handle large projects and multiple users really well. Also, I tend to work with many timelines and edit from one timeline into another. In both movies, the goal was to build tension as much as possible before the disaster happens, and this requires a lot of trial and error to find the structure, the right amount of intercutting, and suspense in the music. What is the right time to leave a scene and cut to a different character? The audience knows what’s about to happen going in, and you want the feeling of a clock ticking, but there is a limit to how far you can stretch this. Avid allowed me to quickly move scenes around and splice together different structures.

On Norwegian budgets, there are no temp mixers or music editors working before picture lock, so I did most of the temp sound effects and mixing myself. I try to keep the timelines organized with designated channels. All tracks are mono, except for music tracks. Sound effects have blue colour, music is pink. At the bottom, I was experimenting with using an LFE-track marked orange. These sound effects were just for bass using the subwoofer. For screenings I would use these tracks to make a really simple surround mix. An earthquake movie is a lot more fun when you use the subwoofer in a cinema.

Avid really helped us out in one of the most challenging set pieces of The Quake, when the hotel skyscraper starts to tilt.

The scene can be viewed here.

The scene takes place in the sky bar at the top of the building, which is partially destroyed after the quake. This studio set was built on a platform that could be tilted with hydraulics. When it was tilted at the maximum 30-degree angle, there would be a height difference of 18 meters. As the tilting started, both the props and actors would start to slide. The actors were of course secured with wires, which were later removed in post.

Whenever the production did a reset and started shooting, objects would fall in a different order, so continuity was a challenge. And when the actors started to slide, they would do so at a different speed than the last take/slate. We ended up using timewarp and FluidMotion a lot for this sequence, in order to match up different speeds. A lot of the shots had the actual actors, not stunt doubles, so we also wanted to speed up the action as much as possible to make it look more dangerous.

I think we used all the tricks in the book to tighten the pace of this sequence, and almost all the shots have some kind of filter. Some of the shots we locked off, and then we used split screens to make objects slide at the same time. After the split screen was made, we would put some camera shake on top of that to make it less static. Dynamic zooms were also used a lot to make it look like the camera was moving faster than it actually was.

Our biggest discovery was when we realized that we could rotate some of the shots because the background would be added later. When the foreground was rotating and the background was still, it would look like the building was tilting faster. The director wanted the horizon to always be levelled, his expression was that “the camera should behave like it’s in water”, meaning no Dutch angles. We used the 3D Warp filter to animate rotation on the foreground levels, keyed out the blue screen and put in a static background as a temp effect. The VFX artists would later replicate these rotations and make the finished backgrounds.

Some of the VFX-work can be viewed here.

It also took us a long time to make this sequence work because the amount of footage was overwhelming. Everything was shot with at least two ARRI Alexas-cameras, and some of the setups had two additional cameras running as well. Organizing and watching these dailies was a real test of patience, but definitely necessary in order to find those small moments that added up to a successful sequence.

On these sequences, and almost always when I edit action, I will struggle to make everything happen faster. We had the opposite challenge when we were doing The Wave. A lot of shots had real water being dropped from tip tanks in order to make the illusion of a wave and huge amounts of water coming at the characters. It looked really spectacular and scary… for about three seconds. Even though hundreds of thousands of liters were dropped at the same time, the effect of a wave would only last for a brief moment. It took a lot of stitching together to make the illusion of a continuous wave. These sequences were shot in slow motion, 48 fps, but it was supposed to feel like normal speed. I ended up using FluidMotion to speed shots up, but still tried to keep a little bit of slow motion in order to make the shots longer. The scene where characters run down a hotel corridor with water coming after them ended up being a mix of several different frame rates, everything between 130% and 200%, to make it look like there was a wall of water behind them.

The scene in Avid Media Composer:

This scene can be viewed here.

The same kind of tip tanks were used for the wave hitting the car. This was a mix of studio work and location.

Another part of the movie that proved to be a giant puzzle, were the scenes where two geologists climb down into the crevasse. They have video cameras on their helmets, with live feeds to the monitoring station. These video cameras were running all through the shooting day. Putting together these scenes, with cross-cutting between the crevasse and the monitoring station, meant that the video screens at the station needed to match whatever was going on with the geologists. We ended up using the tracking functions in Avid a lot, to put in temporary effects of what would be on the monitors at different times. We used the video from the helmet cameras composited and tracked onto plates from the monitoring station. The crevasse was a mix of studio sets and location, and we were cross-cutting with scenes of the protagonist at his house, and his co-workers at the monitoring station. Good temp effects made it a lot easier to watch this whole sequence as it was work-in-progress, and we didn’t want the audience to get confused by the parallel actions.

The simple monitor replacements were done in Avid:

Here is the complete timeline for The Wave after picture lock:

The VFX-work for The Wave can be viewed here.

We appreciate you giving us this time to talk about your career and your awesome work as a film editor. Thank you, Christian!

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@christianjhonson

HBO Builds Unlimited Post-Production Capacity to Power Its Worldwide Marketing Engine

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 00:00:00 Z

HBO is known for its unique promotions that build anticipation for upcoming programming, driving audiences to discover and consume HBO content. Fans have consumed the trailer for HBO’s final season of Game of Thrones, watching and re-watching the promo and sharing it across social media. They’ve logged tens of thousands of visits to HBO’s Game of Thrones microsite, obsessing over clues, and sharing theories in anticipation of the show’s final six episodes.

The promos are the work of HBO’s New York-based post-production teams. They edit the derivatives and promos to support HBO shows across all media distribution channels: linear, OTT, HBO NOW, and HBO GO. They also edit the Real Sports show and multiple HBO documentaries.

Behind the production team is Production Engineering which ensures editors have the tools and technology to keep pace with volumes of content, coming from multiple sources, and constrained by tight deadlines. Production Engineering supports all post-production workflows, from hardware to software to workflow deployment, for hundreds of HBO editors in New York City.

If we need to hire 20 more people tomorrow and they each need a Media Composer | Ultimate system, we just spin up those 20 systems in about 4 minutes. In the past, that would have been a three to four-week process based on lead time from vendors.

NHugues Dalton, Director of Production Engineering

“Promotions are critical to the success of HBO programming. Our production teams create an enormous number of media assets, within very tight schedules, to promote each series. Our Production Engineering team needs to be able to rapidly spin up the number of Avid Media Composer | Ultimate video editing systems required to support the workload,” states Hugues Dalton, Director of Production Engineering.

Working with Avid, HBO developed a unique virtualization solution that meets HBO’s corporate goals for higher productivity, economic scalability, and lower costs. As part of its Avid Enterprise Agreement, HBO added unlimited Avid Media Composer | Ultimate licenses and virtualized its editing systems, fundamentally changing the way HBO manages its finishing workflows. Now, HBO can rapidly spin-up fully functional Media Composer | Ultimate editing systems to be used anywhere in the world. Plus, when the rush is over, HBO can spin down without paying for unused Media Composer | Ultimate licenses.

More editors, more content, and a growing range of sources

Today, the post-production group turns over a thousand promos a week—a number expected to grow exponentially as HBO begins editing material for all of WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer, broadcast, and social media platforms. The production teams receive large quantities of content from various shows. “We need to support just about every camera manufacturer today, shooting at 4K, 6K, and 8K,” explains Dalton. “That is the biggest workflow challenge we have. How do we address the amount of content we get, and how do we get it into the system faster so people can start editing? Because everybody wants everything instantaneously.”

Adding to the technical complexity, HBO recently consolidated its post-production teams from three separate New York facilities into its new state-of-the-art headquarters in Hudson Yards. Previously, editors had their own office with a computer connected back to the core, and the output of their Media Composer | Ultimate went to a big screen TV. With the consolidation, the editors’ physical workspace is more limited. “We have more people trying to do more work in a physically confined space,” explains Dalton.

Re-defining finishing workflows

“We had to rethink the way we were going to be working, to deliver the same editing functionality with a smaller footprint,” continues Dalton. “We needed to be able to meet the challenges technology and media distribution are bringing to the table, and make it fit in a smaller, cheaper, and more effective package.”

Dalton saw an opportunity to innovate and redefine HBO’s finishing workflows to ensure HBO had the capacity it would need well into the future. He worked with Avid to define a virtualization strategy that allows HBO to have 500 virtual desktops in its New York office.

Delivering the full functionality of Avid Media Composer | Ultimate in minutes

When HBO first began planning its move to Hudson Yards, the thought process was to duplicate the existing production environment—one workstation per user, per space. “We started looking at other options that would be easier and more cost effective to deploy than our current model,” states Dalton.

“Early on, we realized virtualization was going to work for us, not just on-prem, but also off-prem, giving remote users the exact same Avid experience as if they were working at Hudson Yards. With security being critical in our environment, two factor authentication was deployed to our VDIs (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), adding an enhanced layer of protection without compromising the editors’ ability to creatively work.”

The first phase in HBO’s implementation was Avid MediaCentral | Asset Management. “That was very successful. So, we took it to the next level, which was virtualizing our Media Composer | Ultimate systems,” explains Dalton. “We worked with Avid on-site for a couple of weeks and shared what we were seeing. It was an excellent collaboration.”

Most of HBO’s production engineers are former editors: they understand the type of performance virtualized systems should have in terms of feel and responsiveness. HBO spent five months testing, improving and tweaking the environment. Once they matched the performance of the VDIs to the workstations, they turned the project over to HBO’s operations group for testing. “We gave a system to one of our lead editors, and his immediate response was, I forgot I was on the VDI,” states Dalton. “At that point, we knew we had succeeded.”

Early on, we realized virtualization was going to work for us, not just on-prem, but also off-prem, giving remote users the exact same Avid experience as if they were working at Hudson Yards.

Hugues Dalton, Director of Production Engineering

Production capacity aligns with demand

“On day one at Hudson Yards, we’ll be supporting all 500 VDIs,” declares Dalton. “In a matter of minutes, we can spin up hundreds of editors to work on promotional pieces for all media distribution outlets. And, when the push is over, we can spool down our excess systems,” explains Dalton.

Dalton notes, with virtualization there is no cap on the number of promos they can produce. “With our ability to virtualize editing systems, we can accommodate a larger number of editors, as we expect the number of finished pieces will increase dramatically. Virtualization also is enabling HBO to expand editing capacity off-site, and, for the first time, an external New York-based post-production house is editing some promos for HBO, using virtualized Media Composer | Ultimate systems.

“If we need to hire 20 more people tomorrow and they each need a Media Composer | Ultimate system, we just spin up those 20 systems in about 4 minutes. In the past, that would have been a three to four-week process based on lead time from vendors.”

The direct result of virtualization is a smaller technical footprint. “We’re saving room in our server rooms. It’s cheaper on power. It’s cheaper on cooling. And, we have higher density. So, today we’re able to put ten workstations into one 4RU server versus 100 RU’s worth of gear under the old model. With virtualization and unlimited Media Composer | Ultimate licenses, we are more efficient and can better serve and support our clients,” concludes Dalton.

Stage Presence: Benny Rietveld on Perfecting Live Performance

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 00:00:00 Z

The greatest bands do a lot more than perform music. They create magic, drawing energy from the pure ether. When the music is perfect, and instrumental mastery is matched by emotional manipulation, it looks easy, like the band is channeling a power beyond themselves.

Of course, we know it's not magic. It's work. It's practice, organization, attention, and discipline. Somebody has to create the magic.

As bassist and music director for Santana, Benny Rietveld has helped build the foundation for the band to weave their magic for nearly thirty years. We had the good fortune to talk with Benny about his work on stage and off with legendary players like Shiela E, John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, and Carlos Santana.

"A roadmap is a colloquialism for chart, a way to say this is section A, this is section B, and it might be a groove, like this is the groove for section B, or these are the four or eight chords that happen here," Benny says, describing the charts he uses for rehearsal and performance. "Another kind of roadmap is if there's already consensus on what section A or B is, and everyone knows, then the roadmap would be: repeat section A four times, or section B twice. That kind of thing."

Some nights, we may be asked to do a myriad of new songs, all with one (or sometimes zero) soundcheck. So I'll make a little cheat sheet for myself, just to remind me of the basic grooves for each song or jam.