Post Magazine

www.sonnettech.com Creative Possibilities Award-winning Fusion ™ D800RAID desktop and R800RAID rackmount storage solutions are designed for performance (up to 577MB/sec) and fail-safe file protection with support for RAID 4, RAID 5, and DVRAID configurations. Fusion 800RAID systems even support hot spares—you can designate a drive to automatically replace a failed one in the event of an emergency. The perfect storage solutions for your creative possibilities. 30 Post • October 2008 www.postmagazine.com cally, Magalski points to painting out un- wanted objects, wire removal, removing crew, as well as higher-end effects such as monitor burn-ins that require extensive tracking, color correction and rotoscoping. "It is a true compositing application." Levy and Magalski agree that the increas- ing number of formats, frame-rates and codecs is probably the dominant issue facing the post production industr y right now. It can seriously affect simple cutaways to stock footage. Still, as Magalski phrases it, "We want it to be seamless. We are given the re- sponsibility in that we are the last stop." M A D M E N "We had a fantastic time. It's a pretty heady experience," says Mad Men producer in charge of post production, Blake Mc- Cormick. He and his "obsessive-compulsive" co-workers had a huge night after the 60th Emmy Awards named Mad Men, after only one season on AMC, "best dramatic series." A big par t of the effor t that goes into Mad Men, a "period" show set in a retro, pre-Beatles New York in 1962, is a relentless focus on getting the details right rather than allowing a single glaring anachronism to get in the frame. Things that may need to be removed or re- placed might include an errant ketchup bottle; too-modern ceil- ing sprinkler-system heads; or a background tree that should be foliage-free in a New York win- ter. All aspects of the show, Mc- Cormick says, from production design meetings all the way to compositing and final color cor- rection at Laser Pacific, "are very, very coordinated." Mad Men, true to its milieu, is shot on film — three-perf Super 35. Chris Manley is the second season's DP and former Sopra- nos DP, Phil Abraham, just re- ceived an Emmy for his work on the Mad Men pilot. McCormick cites film as key to the look of Mad Men. "For certain projects, I would never want to forego what you get on film." Each 48-minute episode is pro- duced on a seven-day schedule — and then there's the post. Dailies pass through Laser's Thomson Grass Valley Spirit 2K and get a one-light on a da Vinci 2K by Mace Johnson. DP Manley pro- vides still photos from his shots — enhanced in Adobe Photoshop — to provide a visual of the look he has in mind. Dailies metadata is tracked within MTI Film's Control Dailies sys- tem, which makes the colorist's job more effi- cient and generates Flex files for use in Avid editorial. While TV episodics once generated about 45 minutes of dailies, McCormick re- calls, today's shows create two hours or more per day. Dailies are mastered to HDCAM SR and backed up to DVCAM. For editing, the same dailies pass generates Avid MST media files on Fire Wire hard drives. Since AMC has offices in both Hollywood and New York, Mad Men dailies will go cross-countr y via Sample Digital's secure content deliver y network and also, a day later, as overnighted DVDs. The series employs three editors — Mal- colm Jamieson, Christopher Nelson and Cindy Mollo — working in episodic rotation with three assistants. The team works on new Mac-based Avid Adrenalines using ver- sion 2.8.3, and the episodes are stored on and shared from an Avid Unity Server with 1.6TB of storage. The editors' cut is given three produc- tion days and the director then gets four. Creator/writer/executive producer Matthew Weiner's time with a cut could span a 10-day period while he keeps other episodes running. Background replacements and major matte paintings — adding a Manhattan sky- line for instance — count as big, traditional effects on Mad Men. However, McCormick says, "All shows are visual effects shows now. Whether it's removing a non-period detail; painting something out [like] a smoke detec- tor ; stabilizing a camera bump; to me, that constitutes a visual effect. Sometimes ele- ments of the frame are replaced to ensure that people are watching what we want people to watch." Large-scale matte painting is done at Stargate Digital. Laser Pacific tackles the many smaller "production enhancement" shots, such as vintage-1962 analog TV pic- ture burn-ins, using its connection to Kodak's VFX ser vices at Cinesite. Flame, Smoke or Shake may be used and McCormick some- times calls such stitched-back-together shots "Frankenediting." Such VFX may be created during the online where the production hands off an HDCAM SR and receives back magically altered shots which are then inte- grated back into the master — all at Laser Pacific. "The advantage of having your visual effects team directly associated with your post facility makes integrating materials much smoother," McCormick says. Carlo Hume and Mike Pr yor are VFX producers on Mad Men. The Post Group's Randy Magalski: CSI mixes traditional 35mm acquisition with a hybrid form of online. H I G H D E F

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