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Bits & Pieces Technicolor's new sound complex ramps up H OLLYWOOD — Technicolor's new sound post production complex within the Paramount Pictures lot in Pictured on Stage 2 is Anna Behlmer and Terry Porter. Hollywood is a three-story, one-stop facility that is currently up and running but won't be fully completed until the spring of 2012. When complete, the facility will house eight re-recording stages — two large the- aters plus two medium-size and four smaller rooms — with three ADR stages, eight sound design suites, 16 editorial rooms and two 7.1-channel HD video layback/QC rooms. Technicolor Sound is housed within the original footprint of Paramount's Crosby Building and Stage 10, and occupies close to 65,000 square feet. The building also includes Paramount's feature post production offices, as well as 30 high-end picture editorial suites. George Newburn and Jackie McNaney from Studio 440 Architecture and Acoustics handled the architectural design, with David Schwind and Cristina Miyar from Charles M. Salter Associates acting as acoustic consultants. All of Technicolor's re-recording stages are outfitted with Avid Euphonix Series 5 digital consoles; the ADR stages and editorial suites also feature Avid ICON, C24 and Artist Series control surfaces. The fully completed Phase 1 includes the first two large theatrical stages — Stage 1, the new home base for re-recording mixers Scott Millan and Greg Russell, and Stage 2, now home for Terry Porter and Anna Behlmer. Together with Stages 5 through 8, the facility handles re-recording projects for TV shows such as Criminal Minds, Castle, Vampire Diaries, Glee and American Horror Story. Two medium-sized stages, a third ADR/animation stage and the sound editorial rooms will be completed by the spring. Stages 1 and 2 feature identical 80-fader System 5 consoles with 746 available inputs, connecting to a total of seven 64-channel and one 128-channel Avid Pro Tools|HD systems for playback, plus a 64-channel rig for recording stems and print-master mixes. The medium-sized Stages 3 and 4 will house identical 80-fader/746-input System 5 con- soles, each connecting to seven 64-channel Pro Tools|HD playback rigs and a master Pro the re-recording stages will be able to mount Pro Tools volumes directly from the central- ized data store that uses Quantum StorNext file systems accessed via a high-speed stor- age-area network. Technicolor's file-based digital workflow is based on dual 10 Gbit/sec fiber-optic connections that provide high- speed access to centralized data servers from the various re-recording stages, ADR Tools recorder. The smaller Stages 5, 6, 7 and 8 will feature 48-fader/368-input System 5 consoles linked to four 64-channel and one 128-channel Pro Tools systems for playback, plus a 64-channel recorder. Monitoring includes either JBL Model 5732 four-way or Model 5742 four-way ScreenArrays and cus- tom subwoofers powered by Crown ampli- fiers, plus Genelec Model 8250s as near- fields. NEC 2K DLP projectors replay digital images from the Avid Nitris DX system. As the Technicolor facility becomes fully updated to Pro Tools 10 by early-2012, all of rooms and editorial suites, as well as other facilities around the world using Technicolor Production Network (TPN). The eight planned sound design rooms and 16 editorial suites will be equipped with a user choice of Avid Control24, ICON D-Com- mand or Artist Series controllers linked to multichannel Pro Tools workstations. Says Curt Behlmer, who has overseen design and outfitting of the three-story com- plex, "This multi-room, ground-up complex represents Technicolor's first foray into offer- ing theatrical re-recording stages." Therapy & VisualCreatures open new Ghost Rider L OS ANGELES — Therapy's (www.youneedtherapy. tv) Doobie White served as an editor on several key sequences for the stereo feature Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which opens this month. The LA-based editor worked with VisualCreatures' Ryan McNeely and John Cranston to craft the two-minute animated sequence that opens the film and sets up the fran- chise's backstory for unfamiliar viewers. Working from a voiceover penned by the film's writers, White cut together preliminary storyboards by McNeely and Cranston to screen for test audienc- 8 Post • February 2012 www.postmagazine.com es. Columbia then engaged Therapy and Visual Crea- tures to create the fully-realized sequence, which blends impressionistic live action from the film's origi- nally-intended open, along with animation and graphics that evoke the story's comic book origins. VisualCreatures used a combination of Maya and Maxon Cinema 4D to animate the characters and build the environments. The studio also employed third-party plug-ins, such as Turbulence FD and Par- ticular, to create fire and weather elements that look less realistic but more painterly.