Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/259450
STORAGE 44 ■ CGW Ja n u a r y / Fe b ru a r y 2 014 own management system, called Joust, which acts as a reposi- tory for all digital media and metadata during principal photog- raphy, including data wrangling, script, and camera notes, as well as pertinent color information for each shot. After the data is collected, Joust becomes a dailies and vendor-review system, with the ability to create bid packages, watermark images, and automate vendor submissions. Plus, it allows editorial to man- age plate pulls and transcoding so that VFX plates are delivered the same day. Prior to using Joust, The Creative-Cartel had been, for the past three years, using JMR tools for its infrastructure needs. While Joust has become a prime part of The Creative-Cartel's pipeline, the facility still relies heavily on JMR, particularly the company's Bluestor and its servers. "We will call on JMR for pretty much all our hardware needs at this point," says CEO Jenny Fulle. The relationship began when the studio was looking for technology to do stereo playback at 4 k for reviews. CTO Craig Mumma approached a couple of companies to see if they could help, but "they all said they didn't have the architecture and hardware to do it." Then he tried JMR. A week after the request, The Creative-Cartel had a box for testing over at The Amazing Spider-Man. "They pushed the limit on the playback speed of dual 4 k 3D, which was amazing from a single box." In addition to the technology, Mumma appreciates the cus- tomer service: "You get directly to the heads of the company at any time. That's important in our industry because the speed of the production is ridiculous and you need answers right away." One of The Creative-Cartel's most recent jobs was the Sony F65-shot After Earth, which brought its own set of workflow concerns. "When we started, we were pioneering the work- flow for F65. The last thing we wanted to worry about was our storage solutions because we had to worry about cameras more than anything," explains Mumma. "We went to JMR and said we need to have enough storage for all the camera files, and we are going to be travel- ing and need robust equipment that will last for all the different areas." The production brought them to Costa Rica, Pennsylvania, (Eureka) California, and (Maob) Utah. After Earth was the first film in which The Creative-Cartel used Joust almost as a com- plete package. "That meant keeping all those original Raw files live and online, which was a big deal," says Fulle. The group had 150 tb live, rolling with them from town to town. The Creative-Cartel provided production management for After Earth and acted as the hub for eight or nine visual effects compa- nies, which produced about 700 shots. "We started at camera and did the mobile lab," explains Fulle. "So we processed all the dailies and kept all the files online, and once we started engaging with the vendors, Joust did all the transcoding from Raw files to Open EXR, which was the format we worked in. We then managed all the digital images – moving them between the vendors and bringing them back in, showing them to the director, getting them to the DI house. After we finished the dailies, it was all about managing the visual effects workflow. We were able to do light grading on the [FilmLight] Baselight Transfer Station for visual effects stuff, too. It was a robust pipeline we worked out between Joust and the equipment we had on hand." Mumma points out how important power and cooling are to a drive's efficiency, especially considering how much traveling the crew had to do on After Earth. "That is important to con- sider when you are moving around with these drives. The JMR [drives] have a low power requirement, so you don't have to build a power plant to get these things up and going. We don't have to have big, special rooms. Now we can set them up in a hotel room with basic cooling and power." Fulle gives an example of when production took them to a remote location in Costa Rica. "They set us up in a hotel, and by hotel, I mean in the middle of the jungle with bugs and lights flickering. We had all our equipment set up, and we had run out of outlets for all the gear. Craig was able to take a sconce off a wall, pull the wires out, and wire up a plug. Five years ago, you couldn't have done something like that because you would have set the place on fire." And indeed, there has never been a better time to take advantage of storage. "It's not as cost-prohibitive anymore," concludes Fulle. "One hundred terabytes is not going to break the bank, so you can keep it live and online, and save all the days that were wasted before and put them back into the hands of the artists." Savage Visual Effect Six-year-old Savage Visual Effects (www.savagevisualeffects. com) focuses on film, television, and spot work, with studios ■ SAVAGE VISUAL EFFECTS stays on the cutting edge of technology when working on series such as House of Cards, and that includes its storage solution.