Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/3788
L OS ANGELES – Atlas Digital has been really busy. So busy in fac t they've opened a new facility located on the Cahuenga Pass, right in the middle of everything – everything to do with television post production, that is. Founded in 2003, Atlas has been providing post production suppor t to the growing reality TV c ommunity. B acking their syst em r entals with expert technical suppor t and knowledge- able staff, Atlas found itself growing right along with the tr end. A tlas (w w w.atlasdigital.tv) began as a rental vendor, and system rentals still comprise a lion's share of the c ompany 's business. The company now has an impressive inventory of well over 150 edit systems on both Avid and Final Cut platforms. The new 15,000-square-foot flagship facility in Universal City offers four configurable, produc- tion centers or "pods." Each pod is completely pri- vate and features nine offices/edit bays with a bullpen area in the center. Multiple pods can be joined t ogether to serve larger productions. Each pod also has its own isolated machine room. These climate-controlled machine rooms serve edit suites with their choice of edit system along with storage and digital asset management tools. This minimizes the amount of noisy, heat- generating equipment in the bays and simplifies conversions. "One day your office can be an offline Nitris bay," Atlas vice presi- dent Dan Warner says, "the next it can be a Symphony and the day after a producer's office and you'll never see edit equipment moving in and out." E X P E R I E N C E C O U N T S Warner and his partner, founder/president Shawn Sanbar, are both network reality-TV veterans themselves, having worked on shows such as Survivor, Big Brother and World Poker Tour. "Shawn and I have supervised post for thousands of hours of t ele- vision," Warner says. Living proof of the company's dedication to experience is the recent hire of Dan Sameha, who will serve as the new facility's in-house post production supervisor. "My goal is to cater to the production companies in our facilit y, utilizing my experience, and the collective post experience of our company, to design and implement the most efficient post production workflows pos- sible," says Sameha, a 14-year industry veteran whose impressive list of credits include Big Brother, Amazing Race, Deal or No Deal, Fear Factor and American Inventor. "What sets Atlas Digital apart is that everybody on our team has worked on actual television productions," Warner stresses. "We don't think of ourselves as a vendor to a production, but more like an employee whose job it is t o provide post solutions. Our sales and technical staff are able to draw on their knowledge of technology as well as their production experience to do so. Our customers keep coming back to us because we're always striving to find the most cost-effective way to post TV shows." E N D T O E N D S O L U T I O N Through its partnership with Pilotware (www.pilotware.com), Atlas Digital now offers clients a wide selection of asset management and production tools. This strategic alliance not only streamlines the post production process, it is also leading to the development of completely new post production workflows. More then just logging, searching for and sharing digital assets and metada ta, Pilotware is an overall production efficiency and organization tool. With a variety of useful modules, Pilotware provides solutions for a variety of production tasks, from tape vault and clearance modules to storing and searching video by any relevant metadata. "With Pilotware,"Warner says, "pro- ducers are able to view the same clips that are on the Avid from their home or office computer, search through that media based on logs, transcripts and metadata, build their scripts and cr eate rough cuts that they can impor t into their edit system. This translates into a huge time savings in the edit bay." He adds that among other improvements in Version 10.1, Pilotware has eliminated the need for a second pass, making Pilotware a true one-pass solution. "The trend in reality TV is to take more and more of the post pr ocess in-house, from logging all the w ay through online and mix," Warner says. Based on that trend, the Cahuenga facility offers a full range of in-house post services, including con- sulting, staffing, digitizing, onlining and dubbing, along with all the other amenities t o make the hec tic life of the r eality- show producer easier. "When a production moves in with us they won't need to worry about anything other than their show. From setting up phone ser vice or Internet to finding a receptionist or furniture," Warner says, "we'll take care of everything, always keeping in mind the bottom line. We know this type of set-up only works if it fits within the show's budget." Atlas stands ready to provide a complete post production "start-to-finish" service: "We will make sure that all of your front- end needs are in place and running before you even step in the door to work. We want to take away as many headaches as we can for line producers and post supervisors." Like their slogan says: "Your world on our shoulders." Atlas Does the Heavy Lifting Atlas Digital expands its post services for reality TV and beyond • • • ADVERTORIAL • • •