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Bits & Pieces 8 Post • February 2014 www.postmagazine.com L OS ANGELES — YouTube Space LA might just be the hippest place to hang out in Los Angeles right now. Boasting enough studio space and gear to rival a small studio, the facility has already played host to some of the most popular channels on You- Tube, such as: The Young Turks, MyMusic, Amy Poehler's Smart Girls and the BBC's 50th Anniversary party for Dr. Who. And while anyone with a YouTube channel can attend the facility's workshops and seminars, if you have at least 10,000 subscribers, you get access to all the production and post resources for free! Pause and take a breath with that last statement. Yes, hundreds of thousands of dol- lars of space, gear and post access just got added to your production budget. The idea behind it, says Liam Collins, head of Space LA, is that they are supporting the creative people that drive YouTube content. The plan is not without a clever business model. "As you know, many of the channels that are on YouTube are advertising supported," says Collins, "and so, as their audiences grow their revenues grow, and we share in those revenues, that will have a positive impact on YouTube overall." First impressions walking in the door are filled with the wow and chill factor. Like many things Google, the design is smart and laid back. YouTube creators have access to a micro-kitchen with refrigerator and sink, couches, conference rooms, arcade games, snacks, and numerous places to hang and collaborate on productions. Over the main desk is a giant interactive monitor wall with thirty-six 46-inch screens. PRODUCTION SPACE The whole facility occupies roughly 41,000 square feet. It's sectioned into studios, stages, control rooms, support areas and a substan- tial post production operation. Everything is flexible and can be adjusted to the nature of the production. The design philosophy of YouTube Space LA, describes Ian Sellers, head of broadcast and production technology, is to be able to accommodate a broad range of productions. From "anyone that is used to just shooting on his or her iPhone and uploading to You- Tube, to people that have been TDs (tech directors) for Super Bowls, and then every- thing in between." Now it's time to get a little gear crazy. The production control room is equipped with a Ross 2M/E production switcher, Ross Xpres- sion studio graphics engine and Riedel inter- com. In the core room there's Ross Black- Storm playout servers, Blackmagic Design Hyperdeck recorders, Evertz Multi-Viewers, Samsung monitors, Ikegami high-res displays and an AutoQue prompter. The audio control room's main board is a Lawo MC²66. "You can put up to 8,000 mics into there if you really wanted too. I chal- lenge anyone to find a production to do that," dares Sellers. There's also a 360 Sys- tems' DigiCart and Instant Replay, Avid Pro Tools, a Denon Super Audio Player and a 7.1 surround sound system. Each stage has similar basics and a few unique features. Stage 1 (55-feet by 84-feet by 20-feet to lighting grid) has a floating con- crete floor and drop ceiling, 10-foot by 10-foot doorway, and a catwalk access with handrails for mounting lights. Stage 2 is smaller (37-feet by 59-feet by 18-feet to lighting grid) "Right now it's a loft- looking type set," points out Sellers. It has a built in kitchen and a "bar" set. That's usually swapped out every three months for what- ever else is going on at that time. Stage 3 (31-feet by 38-feet by 18-feet to lighting grid) is YouTube Space LA's home for live music performances, talk shows, inter- views, or "Hangouts on Air." They've hosted performances by Robin Thicke, Ellie Gould- ing, and Tegan and Sara. Stages 1, 2 and 3 also have 48 micro- phone inputs; black, green and blue curtains; and hook ups for four broadcast cameras and eight SDI cameras. Highlights of their in- house camera gear includes: Ikegami 97A 16-bit, 3G-SDI (1920-by-1080) at 60fps, Canon EOS C100, Canon EOS C300 Cine- ma and Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLRs, GoPro Hero3s and Red Epics. Stage 4 serves as a motion capture studio and measures 54-feet by 18-feet by 20-feet to the lighting grid. It has a camera-less, real- time Xsens MVN intertial motion capture system. Stages A, B and C are greenscreen stages. A rehearsal/dance studio can be used as additional studio space. Sellers is particularly proud of the Foley pit. There are also four voiceover recording booths, outfitted with Neumann TLM103 microphones and HD monitors. The big wooden box you see floating in the lobby is their 50 seat screening room. They have an 11,000 lumen Sony 4K pro- jector in here, 7.1 Dolby surround and JBL speakers. POST PRODUCTION An open post area with 10 desktop iMacs acts as collaborative space, says Sellers. They do post training here too, including transi- tioning from Apple's Final Cut 7 to Final Cut X, and instruction on multi-cam editing within Adobe Premiere Pro. They also have 10 private edit suites with YouTube Space LA: production & post heaven Like much of YouTube Space LA's facility, Studio 1 can be configured for various productions. The venue also has a Foley pit, rehearsal space and a screening room. Greenscreen stages are available for producers looking to incorporate VFX into their productions. Bits & Pieces Get the blazing-fast performance and superior interactivity you need in all your most challenging projects. Nothing accelerates results throughout Adobe ® Creative Cloud ™ and Creative Suite like NVIDIA ® Quadro ® GPUs. Adobe off ers full support for leading-edge professional NVIDIA graphics solutions, so creative artists and video editors always get the best possible performance, when and where it's needed. CREATE WITHOUT BOUNDARIES NVIDIA ® GPUs POWER ADOBE CREATIVE TOOLS © 2013 NVIDIA Corporation. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, Quadro are trademarks or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the United States and other countries. The PNY logo is a registered trademark of PNY Technologies, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Copyright © 2013 PNY Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. } Support for any system brand } Three-year hardware warranty } Toll-free phone and email technical support Get The Advantage. To learn more and fi nd an authorized reseller near you go to: www.pny.com/adobe