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November/December 2020

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www.postmagazine.com 19 POST NOV/DEC 2020 REMOTE WORKFLOWS OUTLOOK O REMOTE WORKFLOWS I n March, as COVID-19 arrived in New York, we had to act quickly to enable our staff to work remotely. Since then, we've continued to make adjustments to help clients and staff return to the facility safely, and to make the experience of those continuing to work from home better. Currently, we are busy delivering shows. In fact, we are booming — but we are doing things differently. Clients are again supervising mixing and grading sessions, but, in many cases, clients and artists are working in separate rooms. Communication is a bit different, as it in- volves calls between rooms, but everyone is safe and work is proceeding normally. Most offline editorial clients continue to work remotely. We are supporting them by providing tools, such as Amulet HotKey workstations, that allow them to tap into our shared storage system reliably and securely. Editors can work from home just as if they were here. The system has been working very well for several months. Our clients love it. One positive outcome of the past year is that trends that were already under- way have accelerated and been pushed to the limit. Technologies that might have taken years to be adopted were put in place in a matter of weeks. They went from concept to production in no time. Even if a vaccine arrives soon, we expect our clients will continue to conduct a good portion of their offline remotely. Remote grading and finishing will also become increasingly common. So, our plan is to continue enhancing and improving the new model we've built this year. We're on the right track. THE ACCELERATION OF TRENDS BY AHMED BARBARY TECHNICAL DIRECTOR GOLDCREST POST NEW YORK CITY WWW.GOLDCRESTPOSTNY.COM I n recent months, the film and TV industry has been enthralled with virtual production, recognizing the many benefits of techniques such as virtual location scouting, realtime character animation, and in-camera visual effects. Along with the growing adoption of realtime technology such as Unreal Engine, and the proliferation of LED production stages, one of the most exciting — and timely — trends in the industry right now is the rise of remote multi-user workflows. With COVID impacting productions around the globe, the technology advancements that make remote multi-user collaboration possible at a high level of quality could not have come at a better time. The virtual production features in Unreal Engine were originally designed for on-set use to facilitate greater simul- taneous collaboration between depart- ments, as we've seen with projects such as Disney's The Mandalorian and HBO's Westworld. However, the COVID pro- duction shutdown and travel restrictions prompted us to extend our capabilities, providing similar benefits even with each department head or crew member working from home. Studios such as Netflix and Bron Digital are leveraging Unreal Engine features like multi-user editing and virtual scouting so that their teams can collaboratively develop scenes in realtime, from the safety of home. These new realtime, remote, interactive, multi-user workflows mark a new step forward for the industry that was not previously attainable with traditional digital content creation tools. Whether teams are working on an animated or live action project, they can now visually establish and prep as much as possible ahead of time, making key decisions on sets, art direction, lighting, camera angles and more without having to enter a studio or a sound stage. For example, in a recent project with Netflix, a team of eight (including two motion-capture performers at home in Xsens suits) used multi-user editing to enable all participants to work on the same scene simultaneously and to make any changes as a group; and virtual scouting for art direction, scene layout, blocking, directing and lighting. They used live link to stream motion-capture data live into the multi-user session, and take recorder to record the live motion capture performance. Sequencer was also used for editing and playing back the recorded performance capture, and to keyframe some of the camera anima- tion. Virtual cameras were also created inside Unreal Engine using an iPad and Epic's Live Link Face app. All of this marks a revolutionary new era for filmmakers, where they can create and iterate content from home, or anywhere they choose. It's also helping to democratize the industry, as opportu- nities are no longer siloed by geographic location — artists and other crew mem- bers can collaborate from wherever they are. At Epic, we are not only constantly innovating on Unreal Engine in order to provide new features and benefits, but we're also working hard to develop new virtual production training and educa- tional resources for the community, such as our Unreal Fellowship intensive for industry professionals. We believe in the power of realtime to unlock new meth- ods of creativity and collaboration, and we're inspired by the many ways in which creators around the world are using Unreal Engine. As production uncertainties linger into 2021, remote multi-user workflows will continue to benefit the industry while keeping crews safe. With Unreal Engine 5 on the horizon in 2021, powerful new virtual production features are just around the corner. REMOTE MULTI-USER WORKFLOWS WILL THRIVE BY CONNIE KENNEDY HEAD OF LA LAB EPIC GAMES LOS ANGELES WWW.EPICGAMES.COM

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