Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/33055
Special Section: Storage he expects the facility to grow to 100tb soon. “One of our biggest compliments was a backhanded one: A fellow producer said we were doing a disservice to the industry by showing what could be done for less [cost]. We just believe that it’s important to think outside the box.” Lopez Tonight The TBS late-night show Lopez Tonight relies on Avid Unity ISIS on Gigabit Ethernet to meet the fast turnaround demands of the daily talk and entertainment show shot in front of a live audience at Warner Bros. Studios. The live-to-tape production is captured by Avid AirSpeeds for ingest and then transferred to the Avid Unity ISIS via the Avid Interplay media asset management environment. In ad- dition, the show is recorded to Sony XDCAM HD at 50m bit/sec to furnish a hard-copy backup. Avid Interplay enables editors Stephen Lutkus and Kurt Heydle, working in a post trailer outside the stage, to drag clips into the bins of their two Avid Media Composers. “Avid Unity ISIS gives us the shared storage we need and works well with Interplay, which allows us to have stations where producers can watch clips and sequences, and put notes on them without standing over our shoulders,” says assistant editor Brady Betzel. “With Avid AirSpeed, there’s no separate digitizing step, so we can move quickly: There’s only a 30-second delay from the stage so we can begin editing immediately and turn the show around in about an hour.” In cutting Lopez Tonight, the editors stay as close to the director’s vision as possible, keep- ing the excitement of a live show, notes Betzel. Editors quickly polish the show in the hour given to get the program on air. “They remain faithful to the show’s format while keeping true to George Lopez’s sign-off at the end of each Lopez Tonight production: ‘You’ve just seen the baddest show in late-night. Good night!’ ” says Betzel. 18 May 2011 Sinking Ship works on a number of children’s television shows, including The workflow and storage system were established when the show debuted in No- vember 2009. “Telepictures set us up with the newest, greatest equipment,” says Betzel. “Avid Unity ISIS has worked flawlessly for us; it has definitely helped us never be late.” An Apple Xserve acts as a bridge between the editors and production, dishing out clips and graphics. Editors use the Media Compos- er’s transfer engine to send cut sequences to the tape operator’s Grass Valley K2 Summit so they can roll them into the show. “That’s handy and quick,” Betzel says. “We can send a whole clip to the stage within a minute or two.” , a live-action/ animated production. Because the shows include often unpredictable kids, the cameras are always rolling, which results in large storage needs. Betzel plays out each act of the show from his Media Composer for satellite up- link to TBS in Atlanta. “Sometimes the editors are still cutting while I’m feeding the show,” he notes. The consistent demands of Lopez Tonight are likely to keep storage solutions in place for a while. “We have shows from the current week and the week before online, so I’m delet- ing everything over two weeks old and keeping the demands level in the Unity,” Betzel says. (Top) The show requires fast turnaround. (Bottom) The show’s Brady Betzel works behind the scenes. Universal Studios Universal Studios’ new Universal Virtual Stage 1 (UVS1) in Universal City (www.filmmakersdestination.com) is a dedicated pre-rigged, pre-cali- brated virtual production environ- ment with motion capture, camera tracking, and related technologies for commercials, television, and features. The stage has a 40x80-foot greenscreen cyc and an attached production suite featuring 60tb of high-speed Isilon storage. “We designed an integrated pro- duction facility—one place to man- age the entire front-end production process,” says technical director Ron Fischer. From set previsualization, to shooting on stage, to directly feeding editors after selects are cho- sen, the demands of UVS1 on a storage system “are a bit unique,” he concedes. “A facility like this requires very fast ingest onstage for recording of live action with greenscreen, for the 4k digital master, and for editors who want quick access to selects,” Fischer says. A fiber-optic Dino Dan Lopez T onight