Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/87274
POSTING EPISODIC TV [ Cont.from 28 ] Goldman and his colleagues cut on Avid Media Composer 5.5.3 systems running on Mac computers at DNx36. He typically gets a few days to put together his cut and add basic sound effects and music before the director arrives for his allotted four days of work. Next come the executive producer and writers for about five days. Their cut is shown to the Fox 21 executives; those notes are discussed and implemented, then Showtime gets its pass. Once the network's notes are implemented with the executive producer, Goldman locks the picture with executive producer Alex Gansa. Hedges and Donnelly temp some VFX shots in the cut. "They're very talented at using Avid's VFX tools to do things like comp surveillance footage into monitors, build quick greenscreen comps and replace back- grounds," Goldman reports. "They even comped a complex bomb explosion, which was later finished by Michael Leone of Lion VFX, which featured wire removals from the stunt double and compositing layers of the explosion, victims, smoke and debris. I can also do some cheats marrying pieces of different takes that will get cleaned up later. We can temp VFX convincingly enough in the Avid that everyone knows what they're going to see later." Goldman usually temps music in his cuts with tracks from the first season of Homeland. "Since it's the same composer (Sean Callery) the temp music still sounds like our show," says Goldman. "Sean can hear the cue and understand the emotional connections." Homeland returns to Keep Me Posted for finishing. "From where I sit, everything runs very smoothly and relatively invisibly, both before and after I get to work," says Goldman. "A lot of people have worked hard to put a system in place that works very well." ALPHAS Fortunately, post production for the Syfy series Alphas, about a group of people with superhuman abilities who investigate crimes involving other sus- pected Alphas, doesn't require a superhuman effort on the part of Bling Digital (www.simdigital.com) in Toronto and Universal Studios Digital Services (www. filmmakersdestination.com) in Universal City, CA. It just requires smarts — and close coordination. The show's file-based workflow reflects an industry trend, which was accelerated when the earthquake/ tsunami/nuclear accident in Japan cut access to video- tape stock. "We built our facility around a file-based workflow eight years ago and were in the process of moving from tape to file-based when the tsunami [ Cont.from 16 ] that as a base and reel that back. Usually I use it as a good communication tool rather than a literal place to start." POST: Can you talk about some of your favorite feature film projects? BOGDANOWICZ: "I've worked on a lot of Clint Eastwood movies, and love working with that group. Cinematographer Tom Stern and I have a really great shorthand. We work fast and efficiently and have cre- 46 Post • October 2012 pushed everything to happen at once," says Universal VP of client services Ron Silveira. "We've been able to move all our shows to file-based, many with the Arri Alexa and ProRes workflow" that Alphas has. Universal handles digital dailies for most of its shows shot in LA; it also delivers digital dailies for Grimm, on location in Portland, OR. But Bling Digital, the workflow post division of SIM Digital, processes digital dailies for Alphas, which is shot in Toronto. Now in its second season, Alphas uses Alexa as its A camera. Half-a-dozen other cameras, from film cam- eras and Phantom to GoPro and Apple iPhones, sup- plement the action. "With so many different camera formats, the challenge is making everything match and flow," notes Joe Ralston, episodic TV technical coordi- nator at Universal. Bling Digital designed the digital dailies workflow for the Alphas pilot, which was shot on Red MX, then tweaked the process when the show was picked up and moved to Alexa. "The nuts and bolts of the workflow remained the same," notes CTO Chris Parker, who works in LA. "But we build the process to order for every show." Dailies producer Jesse Korosi and dailies supervisor Sean Connolly designed the workflow for Alphas with Parker, and are instru- mental in running it. Bling Digital's camera division, SIM Digital, also provides the Alexa camera package and furnishes many of the additional cameras required to capture the action. Bling Digital supplies the DaVinci cart used by the on-set DIT to manage data and handle the digital nega- tive; Season 2 DIT Chris Dover also works with DP David Perrault to set the dailies look. "The heavy lifting for the dailies delivery process is done at the data lab in our Toronto facility instead of on set," Parker explains. "We find that's a better solu- tion for episodics, which have tight deadlines and do a lot of 2nd unit at short notice. The data lab acts as a centralized point of QC." Bling Digital's data lab collects LUT reference files, CDLs and DaVinci projects and processes the dailies overnight to all editorial specifications, including online dailies, Apple iPad files and DVD files. A digital pipeline links the data lab to the editors at work in LA, "so it looks like we're virtually down the hall," says Parker. "We pipe the dailies there so the editors walk in every morning at 9am to synced and prepped Avid bins with the dailies' look applied and CDL values contained so they can translate when they lock picture and export out." The dailies' look travels as a metadata layer and is burned into the Avid DNx36 offline process. WOMEN IN POST ated some really great looks together. I have also worked with James McTeague and Danny Ruhlmann on the film The Raven. We really got along well, and made a really good look on that film — it was shot beautifully, but we added a few subtle creative things to keep it dark and creepy without losing the detail they needed for telling the story." POST: Do you have any tips to offer young females who are just starting out? www.postmagazine.com BOGDANOWICZ: "My sister Corinne, who is five years younger than me, has been in the industry for a few years now — she is a colorist at Light Iron. When she was just starting out as a colorist, I sat her down with a glass of wine and told her some of the stuff that I had to go through. Things like, stay confident and make sure you have as much knowledge as possible. Don't ever stop reading up on different technology. And if there are any egos in the room, don't let them throw you." Syfy's Alphas gets its post via Bling Digital and Universal's Digital Services. The show is offlined on Media Composer and conformed in Symphony at Universal. Bling Digital delivers a drive containing ProRes files of all the cameras to Universal, which loads it onto its SAN. Editors cutting on Media Composers send Avid sequences with VFX shots temped in. Online editor Chu Wu conforms the shows on Avid Symphony, leav- ing in the visual effects reference movies until final effects are supplied by Vancouver's Lux Visual Effects and other vendors. At Universal, colorist George Cvjetnicanin mans Lustre for color correction. Visual effects shots may be delivered as late as the middle of color grading and often require tweaking to match before-and-after scenes, so post can be intensive right up the creation of deliverables. Bling Digital created a pipeline between its Toronto facility and Universal to facilitate quick online drop ins of last-minute pick-ups. "We're still up against deadlines, but file-based workflows, which are becoming standardized, make things easier," Silveira observes. Bling Digital then closes the loop on the Alphas workflow by creating two LTO-5 archival masters as well as a database, which may be referenced during the season.