Post Magazine

Posting TV series in HD has essentially become the norm in Hollywood. Often, the offline editing process is still con- ducted in standard def, but the rule has become a high def finish and, very often, an HDCAM SR deliverable. Still, there's more than one way to skin a cat. As one of LA's most venerable post houses, with its big emphasis on finishing television programs, The Post Group (www.postgroup. com) also employs a savvy mixture of "legacy" technology and tech- niques with the latest high-def gear. Their effor ts include employing bridge technology to link such workflows as Axial linear online with HDCAM SR 24p deliverables. The Post Group delivers network episodics like Fear Itself, House, Numb3rs, The Game, Eleventh Hour and the original CSI in HD, along with such cable fare as Modern Marvels on the History Channel (in 1080i) and Head Case, the im- provisational dark comedy, on Starz. "There's definitely been a change," Post Group EVP, business de- velopment, Michael Levy says. "The major broadcast networks have been airing in HD for quite a while but what has changed is the cable networks — we've seen a significant movement in the last one to two years. Pretty much any new projects that we're star ting up we're [onlining] in HD." Not all the shows posting at the Post Group currently air in HD, "but the point is they want HD delivery masters today." HDCAM SR is the most common deliver y format — clients value its 12 audio channels. The Post Group's senior editor, Randy Magalski, says, "You can make anything from a 1080/24p master and HDCAM SR also has lighter compression." The big network shows are delivered in 1080/24p, he says, although they are shown in 1080i or 720p. "One big event," Levy says, "was the advent of dramatically less expensive HD cameras.There are [viable] $10,000 HD camera sys- tems today and that certainly wasn't the case a few years ago." Levy notes that Red's digital cinema camera is not widely used in television at this point, but adds, "That will change." And Magalski says "There is no great realtime [Red] workflow. I'm sure that it can be done but nobody's doing it yet because it is virgin territory. People don't want to be the first on the block when faced with the unrelent- ing schedule of a TV episodic." CSI is a good example of a classic TV series that mixes traditional 35mm acquisition with a hybrid form of online.To finish CSI,The Post Group goes linear, exploiting its good old tape-based Axial edit con- troller/Snell & Wilcox switcher room full of VTRs. First, The Post Group telecines the show's footage — they use Thomson's Spirit and Cintel's DSX — to HDCAM SR in 4:2:2 color space while simultaneously transferring to DVCAM and to Avid's standard def MST (Media Station Telecine). The SD MST serves as pre-digitized offline media which is delivered on FireWire drives to editorial. Magalski says that SD offline will fade away in the next year or two: "There will be a paradigm shift away from offlining in stan- dard def to offlining in high def at a more compressed resolution. Today, the vast majority are SD offlines. "A linear bay will almost always be faster for a straight narrative show," like CSI, Magalski says. "Fade up, do your cuts and dissolves, and fade out." A linear online is faster because "you can have multi- ple decks and the amount of shuttle time is radically decreased so you can get the show done a lot faster. But you cannot do a lot of things you can do in a nonlinear bay," he says, "like you can't dirt-fix as fast; I can't track a patch over a boom mic in a linear bay, I can't recreate their Sapphire effect." Sometimes The Post Group will take primarily the effects-related por tions of a CSI episode into the nonlinear bay — either Sym- phony Nitris or DS Nitris of Final Cut HD — while the rest of the show stays linear. Magalski says CSI's veteran production team has its edit — and its effects — so buttoned down at this point that a tra- ditional linear conform is feasible. Less experienced show producers may give The Post Group a roughed-out effect and ask them to per- fect it in Symphony or DS Nitris. For Numb3rs, Magalski says, the production team follows the 35mm/telecine workflow and "then we online in Symphony Nitris, specifically for Numb3rs, and we do everything editorially out of the Symphony, outputting a master that then goes to da Vinci for tape-to- tape color correction. Color correction for television is still generally linear, although that's an area that will be changing." He adds that, al- though the newer PC-based color systems have their enticements, da Vinci is his current choice for TV episodics because,"boy, is it reliable." NBC's fright-anthology, Fear Itself, is a good example of a show that's been done in linear assembly and a DS Nitris assembly. Magal- ski says "DS Nitris gives you the advantage of an RGB 4:4:4 work- flow; Symphony does not. Shows are broadcast in 4:2:2 color space, but 4:4:4 can be a major benefit when working with a VFX house." Fear Itself, is shot on film and transferred to HDCAM SR. While Avid guarantees that its Symphony software will do a 100 percent conform, when working on the DS, Magalski says, "there are a few effects that don't translate across, so you have to recreate some effects manually." "But," Levy adds, "the DS offers a much more expanded toolset compared to the Symphony Nitris. One of the main reasons peo- ple do an online on the DS platform is to avail themselves of pow- erful effects tools." "On Fear Itself that was a huge advantage," Magalski says. "In the traditional linear online workflow, once the edited master is created, to do all the effects associated with it — and they have lots of ef- fects — the DS is very comparable to a Flame or Inferno." Specifi- www.postmagazine.com October 2008 • Post 29 Mad Men: while shot on 35mm film, masters are delivered on HDCAM SR.

• Cover