Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/28735
On-SetPost In the past, when one spoke of on-set post production services,much of the time it had to do with oversee- ing and troubleshooting visual effects and greenscreen shoots. While that is still an important aspect of production, there are new challenges that come from today’s tapeless acquisition and file-based workflows. This month, Post spoke with a group of pros that have extended their businesses — and even create new ones — through on-set services that specifically deal with datacentric acquisition.Their du- ties go beyond just capturing files to handling multi-camera shoots, storage, providing on-set looks, and preparing and delivering files for editorial workflows. Each has chosen different hardware and software for their on-set rig. OCEAN TIDES Lawrence Carota is a 30-year production veteran who set up Ocean Tides Productions (www.oceantides.ca) in Vancouver 13 years ago.The company specializes in providing on-set workflow and storage solutions that can be tailored to fit a wide variety of production and post production scenarios. Carota says his idea to create on-set and post workflow solu- tions came from his experience as a Canadian producer and a de- sire to document the “tar sand” environmental issues. “It all came from an environmental disaster — the tar sand,” he explains.“There wasn’t the money to do the quality of work needed to show this environmental eye sore and largest destruction project on the planet. I invented [a workflow] to do a high-quality feature film with a low budget.” The company regularly provides videography, AV consulting and commercial production services, and has also produced sev- eral documentaries, including Keepers of the Light,A Nurse’s Opin- ion, and Crude Sacrifice.They have experience streamlining work- flows for productions shooting on Sony’s F35 and 950, Arri’s Alexa, and the Red One. At press time, Ocean Tides was working on the new Y TV teen comedy series Mr.Young.The show centers around a teen genius who heads back to high school to teach science. In addition to bal- ancing his personal and professional life, he’s faced with teaching his 32 Post • April 2011 best friend and crush.Vancouver’s Thunderbird Films (www.thun- derbirdfilms.net) produces the show.The series’ pilot recently pre- miered and is shooting with four Sony 900 cameras, each recoding in the DNx codec to an individual Cinedeck. A fifth Cinedeck is also being used for the line cut. Carota says footage is captured in the Cinedecks to Compact Flash cards and is then loaded into Ocean Tides’ portable Tsunami storage solution, a server-based SAN that resides in a rugged case on set. “[They] shoot Wednesday or Thursday, then show parts of the show to a live audience and do some retakes on Friday.They have a rough edit in multicamera form, and multi- scene, all within one week.” Production was initially hesitant to use the solid-state media and instead shot on tape.“They shoot 10 hours of material at 1080p all day, and the tape and ingest time was long,” notes Carota. The switch to solid-state media sped up the ingest process dra- matically. Carota says what might have taken two days to get the rushes ingested is accomplished now in just a few minutes. The show is cut using four Avid Media Composers connected to the Tsunami. A Slingbox allows the editors to work with the producer in Los Angeles in realtime. Ocean Tides also provides back-up on set via LTO-5 and Tolis Producer software. NICE SHOES In New York City, design, animation,VFX and color grading facil- ity Nice Shoes (www.niceshoes.com) has recently grown its busi- ness by getting more involved in production.They are now offering on-set services as a way to provide clients with post expertise at an earlier stage in the process. According to colorist Ron Sudul, who now provides on-set color services, the studio has spent the last few months fine tuning its on-set workflow. Nice Shoes has assembled a Mac-based Film- light Baselight rig that includes a Mac tower and SAN, as well as the same Cine-tal grading monitors the studio uses in-house. “It’s the same as we use in the rooms here at Nice Shoes, so everything will be identical,” Sudul explains.They are also using JL Cooper’ MCS-Spectrum color panels, which provide a tactile con- trol surface for colorists. www.postmagazine.com