copy written for Sohonet
Ever the forward-thinking facility, Vancouver’s Picture Shop began investigating remote solutions several years ago, even partnering with Sohonet on development tests.
“The challenge at that point was convincing clients why they really needed to remote and why they should pay for it,” says Don Thompson, Executive Vice President / GM. “The pandemic changed all that. All of a sudden there was a real world business case and pressing need for remote solutions.”
At the beginning of the upheaval, Picture Post had the major Netflix comedy series Julie and the Phantoms to finish with online, conform and color. Stay at home orders forced creators Dan Cross and David Hoge and studio execs to remain in LA and while DP Jon Joffin was in Vancouver, Covid-safety restrictions were paramount.
“We tested a number of different remote solutions to learn how they would interact with different shows with different budgets, schedules and post craft needs,” Thompson says. “We tested in-house along with our operators who were hybrid at home and in the office to find which solution would achieve the low latency, high quality and the ease of use that both Picture Shop and our clients were looking for.”
He continues, “We were disappointed with the results we got from most of the technologies. They would either exhibit extreme lag, difficulty logging on or would continually drop either picture or sound or both.
“ClearView Flex, however, delivered on everything we needed including on the number of users who could participate in the same session.”
With Picture Shop operators in the facility streaming sessions over ClearView Flex to the client, Julie and the Phantoms was completed on time. The success of that approach immediately led Picture Post to swap its other shows over to ClearView as well.
“Clients universally loved the change,” Thompson says. “They were no longer looking at small pixelated windows or experiencing drops in service but had a solid secure, efficient process day in and day out that could be repeated.”
Among shows that went this route using ClearView Flex was The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, an animation produced by Atomic Kid Studios for Disney+.
“The producers were amazed at the shift to Flex and particularly how the color matched up to their expectations. The show’s sound facility, The Mix Room in Vancouver, was coincidentally also swapping to ClearView Flex at the time so all round Flex just made post sessions a repeatable process for them.”
Lucasfilm, a producer on LEGO Star Wars project, told Thompson, “I love [ClearView Flex]. On every other [remote streaming] platform we used we spend a lot of time telling the operator to go back further when I asked to stop 5 seconds ago but the latency [with Flex] is second to none.”
That kind of testimony is supported by Picture Shop senior colorist Lorne Wright who used ClearView Flex for remote grading sessions of the Nickelodeon series The Barbarian and the Troll.
“Once a producer had returned to LA [Flex] saved them a return trip and quarantine to Vancouver reviewing the last few episodes,” Wright says.
Senior finishing editor, Allan Pinvidic says, “ClearView Flex hits the sweet spot of security yet ease of use. It allowed us to include clients from all over North America in color critical streaming sessions.”
Pinvidic especially appreciated “the flawless integration of the notifications sent out to clients from the Flex interface” while Bogdan Grigorescu, the facility’s Director of Engineering commends the solution’s ability to preserve accurate signal levels, color and grey scale reproduction throughout the chain to client displays including Apple TV, LG and Sony OLEDs.
The Canadian government’s support during the Covid crisis “of a controlled business redaction as opposed to complete close down” was instrumental in the survival of many local businesses according to Thompson.
“Physical production took a couple months off in March to May but that pretty much aligned with the normal spring hiatus. Production did slowly get back to work last July and was full scale by September which meant that by the fall it was critical for us to be able to continue work. Thanks to Sohonet we were able to maintain a level of service that kept us busy while other facilities were not.
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