Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/57245
STORAGE SOLUTIONS Toward the end of the workflow, the editors changed lo- cations, he points out. "To be able to get VFX shots right up to the last minute we moved to the DI facility, LightIron in Hollywood. We were 20 feet away from the color suite." Nelson notes that by using After Effects, "a tool that usu- ally works in layers" and putting it into a nonlinear environ- ment "you can offset 400 layers in a single timeline. You get the ability to manage all that in a pipeline that works with you. So I was able to make sure I got results that matched the offline. Working on the film for over a year we had a lot of care and precision invested in the outcome." He believes the success of their unique online process "bodes well" for what the editing team will be able to ac- complish with a similar workflow in the future. And "until something better comes along, G-Tech's eS Pro will continue to be part of it," concludes Nelson. BREATHE New York City-based Breathe Editing (www.breatheedit- ing.com), the editorial division of ThinkBreatheLive (www. thinkbreathelive.com), continues its relationship with for- mer Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters on his current incar- ed to bigger — two times bigger," he continues. "Since the show we created was originally designed for a 240-foot wide projection surface, we needed to shift our thinking to a much larger projection surface — 420 feet to be exact. As a result, we needed a lot more storage space to create new elements in a larger size. They weren't going to just stretch the images to fit the bigger screen. Everything needed to be recreated." So Breathe Editing invested in a second Galaxy Aurora, this one with 72TB of storage. "'The Wall' is a pretty unique project," Mayer points out. "I haven't heard of anybody else working at this resolution. The pixel ratio is 15,200x1,620 pix- els or nine times HD." The company put the robustness and capacity of its Gal- axy Auroras to the test; Gigabit Ethernet connections from the workstations ran through a switch to the Auroras' fibre for fast throughput. "We're finishing the project now and have had no storage issues," Mayer reports. "The Galaxy Au- roras have been solid performers." "The Wall" may be a one-of-a-kind job, "but it's nice to know that we have the capabilities and storage capacity to handle other projects of this size," says Pedini. "I don't like to nation of "The Wall Tour," celebrating the 30th anniversary of the multi-platinum conceptual work. Waters began touring North America and Europe in the fall of 2010 and has South American dates set for this spring. The centerpiece for the show is an enormous wall that's erected on stage, brick by brick, to become a projection sur- face for bold video and graphics. When Waters approached Breathe Editing to contribute VFX and 3D animations for "The Wall" it didn't take long for executive producer Kenny Pedini to accept the task. "But we knew we needed to retool in several areas, including worksta- tions and building a renderfarm, to prepare for this," he says. Although the company uses an Avid Unity for shared storage for its edit bays, it sought the advice of systems in- tegrator VCA Fusion on a shared storage solution for eight workstations, primarily running Adobe After Effects and Maxon Cinema 4D, and its new 20-station renderfarm. VCA Fusion guided Breathe Editing to Rorke Data's Galaxy Aurora feature-rich RAID and SAN appliance. "We got a 24TB system at first," says editor Ian Mayer. "Roger initially played indoor arenas in North America and Europe with a 240-foot wide projection wall. But when it came time for Roger to book dates in South America, the only venues that exist are soccer stadiums, which are twice the size of the US indoor arenas. "Because the venues are bigger, the size of the wall need- 8 • Storage Solutions • March 2012 Breathe called on Rorke Data's Galaxy Aurora when providing graphics and images for screens used during Roger Waters' "The Wall" tour. turn down projects due to lack of technical capabilities. We want to be equipped for any project — we want to say, 'ab- solutely, we can handle it.' And we can." WINK Wink, a full-service media company (www.winkincpro- ductions.com) with facilities in Denver and Jackson Hole, WY, has found cost-effective, Ethernet-based shared storage in a GraniteStor ST-RAID from Small Tree. The storage solu- tion enables six edit rooms in Denver and two edit rooms in Jackson Hole to share media among themselves within their own locations. Prior to acquiring the Small Tree RAID, Wink used another brand of RAID storage with a Small Tree Ethernet switch. "We found ourselves using the RAID for everything we did, so we needed more capacity," says Wink founder/owner Jason Winkler. "Small Tree's RAID offered more capacity and speed, and it integrated perfectly with the switches we already had" in each of the Wink offices. Demonstrating the diversity of its client base, the com- pany currently has in-house a wildlife project for National Geographic, a series of Webisodes about women in sports