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BITS & PIECES www.postmagazine.com 8 POST NOV/DEC 2020 PACE POSTS MARIAH CAREY'S SAVE THE DAY VIDEO HOLLYWOOD — Pace Pictures (www.pacepictures.com) led the post produc- tion effort for a new Mariah Carey video that kicked off ESPN's coverage of the 2020 US Open Women's Singles Championship. Carey performs Save the Day while posing in and around a classic blue Cutlass Supreme, just outside the Billie Jean King Tennis Complex, where the event took place. A giant video screen behind the singer displays clips of Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Serena Williams and other greats from the tennis world. The song is from Carey's new album "Rarities" and includes vocal melodies from The Fugee's classic "Killing Me Softly with His Song". Directed by Daniel Pearl, the video was produced under social distancing protocols, with minimal crew and Mariah Carey as the sole performer. Pace Pictures' president Heath Ryan edited the video. The facility also handled sound editorial and mixing, final color grading, visual effects integration and editorial finishing. The visual effects were produced by Pace Pictures' strategic partner ShockBox VFX. "We inserted archival tennis footage spanning more than 50 years, and made it appear as though it was projected on-site," Ryan explains. The video was finished in Pace Pictures' 4K theater, with the final grade applied by colorist Jason Knutzen in collaboration with Pearl. "The imagery Danny captured in-camera looked great, making my job easy," recalls Knutzen, who did the work using Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve. "We devoted the most time to the visual effects shots with Mariah Carey looking up at the giant video screen. Mariah was shot on green-screen and so we had to balance her, the stadium, the VFX screen element and the archival tennis clips. Our role was to make it seamless." Knutzen was also tasked with ensuring that Carey's performance scenes looked spectacular. "Danny wanted it to appear as though it was happening in the early hours of the morning, as dawn was just beginning to break," he says. Additional visual effects were provided by Skulley Effects in Los Angeles. Heath Ryan and Pace Pictures have a long history of collaboration with Mariah Carey. Past credits include work on the Hallmark Channel special Mariah Carey's Merriest Christmas and the singer's 2017 video I Don't. ENVY EXTENDS REMOTE SERVICES TO CLIENTS LONDON — Envy (envypost.co.uk) is now allowing content creators and editors who post at the studio to collaborate seamlessly wherever they are, thanks to the launch of Envy Remote. The new platform, designed by the Envy team, brings production, editing on-site and editing remotely together through web and mobile apps. Envy Remote provides secure and easy access to a host of services, all under one login. Remote provides editors with direct, dual-screen access to their edit suite. They can access the same shared project as the rest of the team, with the producer also seeing the same screens in realtime. The service uses Signiant to give the team secure access to their client store, allowing them to upload music, voiceovers and other files directly to the edits. Clients can add categories and tasks, then assign them to any team member. Team members get notified on the mobile app and progress can be tracked throughout. A notes function allows the whole team to see all edit and production notes in one place, including attachments. Discussions and live chat allows everyone on the project to start fixed discussions on any topic, or ad-hoc live chats with individuals, all from the web and mobile tools. A shared project calendar makes sure everyone on the project stays up to date with project milestones, shoots, viewings and events. And Frame.io inte- gration provides access to all Frame.io links from within the platform. Clients don't need to hunt through their emails, and editors can quickly import any comments directly into Avid. A storyboards feature replicates the wall of sticky notes that would usually be in the suite. Users can create a storyboard, add notes, change the order, text color and organization. The platform will be available to all Envy clients, allow- ing everyone on a project to get the benefits, wherever they are. "Envy Remote is a unique platform which will extend our services to our cli- ents," explains Dave Cadle, CEO of Envy. "Working remotely is here to stay and this period has given us the idea of creating something truly progressive for production teams and editors by enhancing the collaborative process regard- less if you are working at Envy or working from home. Flexibility and adapt- ability is the key, and this platform will do just that. This is an industry-leading platform.' "I believe Envy Remote takes cloud editing to a whole new level," adds Daniel Sassen, CTO of Envy. "It was a huge challenge integrating so many different systems with a mixture of public and private cloud technologies. As well as the Envy Remote front-end, we have built a whole backend-end orchestration portal to manage it. We are just getting started. There are many more additions to Envy Remote launching in the coming months.' Envy Remote is available on the web, the App Store and Google Play.