Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/714540
29 Pronology's easy-to-use mRes configuration panel. From left: Pronology Partner Seth Write, Pronology Developer Miles Eisenman and myself at Grease Live! me to efficiently monitor these processes for quality assurance, while devoting more attention to the organizational tasks of asset management. Because this software is created by users, for users, Jon and Seth's Pronology team understands perfectly the challenges that can arise during recording and asset manage- ment. This dedication to the user experience is evident in the fact that they have consulted me for user-development notes for all of Pronology's modules over the years. As Pronology's first operator, my role is to connect production and the developers by providing notes and feedback. I call myself their number one "breaker"—I love to break any system. I push the interface and hardware hard and fast in order to find the breaking point. I never go onto a show without knowing what software and hardware limitations exist. This way I can diag- nose problems during the course of operation. Although I keep detailed notes on each operation for future productions, nothing is more valuable than having an experienced operator handy who not only knows what the limitations are, but also can rely on muscle memory to correct errors. Within an hour of show wrap, Post walked away with drives in hand and we shut down our mRes controller for its journey to the next production. I'm pleased to say that I can sing all the words to "You're the One That I Want" (and dance to "Born to Hand Jive") while recording media, thanks to Pronology. Grease Live! was a truly great experience. I'm proud to have worked on something with such a huge audience reception, while tackling the monumental technical feats required by a live project of this scale. APRIL: THE MTV MOVIE AWARDS. WHAT'S IN A NAME? My goals for Grease Live! were to learn the new interface, find the breaking points in the system during test records and record the show with file integrity. The MTV Movie Awards had a dif- ferent set of deliverables and requirements because of its tight editorial, eighteen-hour turnaround. The two questions I'm most frequently asked are: "What do we call you?" and "Can you explain what you do?" This presents a very basic but important question: What do you call a position that is entrenched in the ongoing progression of recording and distributing video and audio signals? This is no different than what our local has seen in the past, black-and-white to color television or film to digital cinema. The position and its title may progress, but the importance in the storytelling process remains the same. The title "Tape Operator" implies the use of tape, physical proof that a recording occurred. Tape operators configured tape decks and ensured that video and audio sources were cor- rectly routed for recording and duplication. They handed the tapes to post, and walked away from a show empty-handed. Atlas has two tape decks in its digital acquisition rack of equipment. The MTV Movie Awards would be one of Viacom's first productions that chose not to use tape as a backup. While there were those that looked at this with fear, I looked at this with excitement. While I know how to use tape decks, when I first entered the truck, I decided that I would use my youth as a pushback to tape altogether. I stated outright that my goal was to replace those decks with more digital boxes. Today's recording job is an organization of ones and zeros, onto local and shared storage. The only physical objects involved are the drives shuttled back-and-forth to post. One of The MTV Movie Awards requirements was the delivery of the low-resolution files over the internet from the Warner Bros. lot to Chainsaw post facility in Hollywood. My position is a collection of duties: show and screener recording, confirming file integrity, organizing files, IT configuring, managing assets and transferring files. More so than in the past, all of these duties require an operator to be involved in the earliest stages of pre-production, since opera- tors are the bridge between production and post production. Open communication is necessary before an operator steps aboard the truck so that all parties understand all the involved information, including edit system platform and operating system, shared or standalone storage, the need for either offline or direct to online edit, codec type, bitrate, frame rate, file wrapper, audio configuration, file naming and metadata requirements. These important details can easily cost a pro- duction time and money if not worked out before ESU. Within the jurisdiction of Local 695, this position falls under a Y4-Video Engineer, but most people outside of this position