DEPOST

SERVING THE INDUSTRY FOR 27 YEARS
THE HOBBIT
VOL 27 NO. 12
departments
2 EDITORS LETTER After the storm By Randi Altman 2 POST SCRIPT Workflow: Dallas, Longmire By Marc Loftus BITS & PIECES Whats new in post ONE ON ONE Skywalkers Gary Rydstrom By Marc Loftus POST PARTY Photos from our 27th birthday bash COVER STORY Wetas Joe Letteri talks about The Hobbits VFX shots By Iain Blair EDIT THIS! The Hobbit editor Jabez Olssen By Christine Bunish PEOPLE Keeping tabs of the industrys movers & shakers REVIEW Tiffen Dfx V.3 Creative Editing Suite By Brady Betzel
A look at the industrys
14
THE MILL/OLD SPICE
4 8
STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS,

along with an
10 14
OUTLOOK for 2013

18 BUSINESS By Christine Bunish 22 DIRECTORS By Iain Blair 26 FILM OFFICES By Randi Altman 30 ON-SET DAILIES By Marc Loftus 34 VISUAL EFFECTS By Randi Altman 38 NEW MEDIA By Marc Loftus 42 AUDIO By Jennifer Walden
18
DALLAS
16
47
48
30
SOUND LOUNGE/FIAT
DAILY NEWS UPDATES BUSINESS How small studios can compete By Gavin Greenwalt GOING PRO Amanda Amalfi OPEN HOUSE Copilot Music & Sound
ON OUR COVER
42
Peter Jacksons The Hobbit, which was shot in 3D on Red Epic 5K cameras at 48fps, features 2,000 visual shots supervised by Joe Letteri from Wellington, New Zealands Weta Digital (www. wetafx.co.nz). Their software is a mix of off-the-shelf and custom-made gear, with Maya as the main 3D platform, RenderMan for rendering and Nuke for compositing. The film, which has enhanced sound via the Dolby Atmos format, was edited on Avid Media Composer V.6 by Jabez Olssen. For details on The Hobbits visual effects, turn to page 14. And to learn more about the editing process, turn to page 16.
SWOT Graphics By Drew Neujahr Branding By Josh Norton Find more on www.postmagazine.com
This Month In
CG brings characters to life in Life of Pi Digital tools help Brazil go green for World Cup VFX set the stage for Bonds big return
www.postmagazine.com
PostDecember2012
editors note
Afterthestorm
hen Superstorm Sandy finally rolled off the East Coast, it left devastation behind. For those affected by the storm, these questions became part of the vernacular: Do you have power yet? How much damage? You found gas? How long were the lines?
EDITORIAL
By RANDI ALTMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

raltman@postmagazine.com
The power is back and gas stations are enjoying their normal flow of business again, news stories about the devastation are less frequent, but the storms effects still linger. Local parks still act as donation sites and people are still displaced, looking for new homes, new cars, and that ever-important insurance adjustor. Lower Manhattan, rich with its post houses and creative studios, took quite a hit. We were closed for a week due to Sandy, reports Shellac NYC owner Max Nova. Our office is in Soho, and we had no power until the Saturday after the hurricane. As of press time (November 30!), there was no heat there. Its a little surprising and somewhat silly. We huddle in edit suites wearing scarves and hats, warming ourselves by computers and decks humming. He calls the experience surreal, like some comic book version of post-apocalyptic post. But were all safe and dry and back to work. Our hearts go out to all of the less fortunate still dealing with Sandys wrath. Goldcrest NY was also in the storms path. Although Hurricane Sandy left our Greenwich Village area without power for a week, the Goldcrest
team brought in four generators to allow clients to offload time-sensitive assets to meet their post deadlines, reports managing director Tim Spitzer. Our engineering team was in throughout the week, both to help our clients and our neighbors. It was amazing to watch the teamwork of the Goldcrest staff. But he says every cloud has its silver lining. We were able to use this break in our usual hectic schedule to continue work on our new DI and mix theaters. Technicolor - PostWorks was lucky. Domenic Rom, executive VP, says, Our facilities were back online quickly. By the Monday following the storm, it was virtually business as usual. All of our facilities were operating at 100 percent capacity and we shifted into hyper-drive with everyone working feverishly to catch up. We experienced some small failures, primarily due to the fact that we were down for a week, but compared to what might have happened, and what did happen to a lot of people and businesses, we were very fortunate. Some of our employees experienced significant personal losses to their homes and properties, but ultimately we are glad were all alive. There are many places to donate. Here are two: www.nycedc.com/backtobusiness#sandydonations, and from the New York Film Office site: online at www.nyc.gov or by mail to the Mayors Fund to Advance New Yorl City; 253 Broadway, 8th Floor; NY, NY 10007.
RANDI ALTMAN Editor-in-Chief (516) 797-0884 raltman@postmagazine.com MARC LOFTUS Senior Editor/Director of Web Content (516) 376-1087 mloftus@postmagazine.com CHRISTINE BUNISH Film& Video JENNIFER WALDEN Audio BOB PANK European Correspondent bob.pank@virgin.net DANIEL RESTUCCIO West Coast Bureau dansweb451@aol.com BARRY GOCH West Coast Blogger/Reporter IAIN BLAIR Film MICHAEL VIGGIANO Art Director mviggiano@postmagazine.com
A DV E RT I S I N G
NATASHA SWORDS VP, Marketing (818) 291-1112 nswords@copcomm.com MARI KOHN Director of Sales (818) 291-1153 cell: (818) 472-1491 mkohn@postmagazine.com GARY RHODES Eastern & Intl Sales Manager (631) 274-9530 cell (516)410-8638 grhodes@copcomm.com SUBSCRIPTIONS (818) 291-1158
P O S T
S C R I P T
Worklow:Dallas, Longmire
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F
By MARC LOFTUS SENIOR EDITOR
mloftus@postmagazine.com
or Banyan Tree Productions Bryan J. Raber, who is co-producer on both TNTs Dallas and A&Es Longmire, the dailies process has been designed to give the editing team as much time as possible, as well as to leave as much latitude in adjusting the imagery later on in the workflow. Both shows are in their second season and take different approaches to production. They do however benefit from the expertise at MTI Film, which serves as the post house for both programs. Dallas is shot in Dallas using Arris Alexa, while Longmire is shot in Santa Fe to resemble Wyoming. The show draws on Reds Epic and Scarlet cameras. Both series are edited using Apples Final Cut Pro 7. Dallas is shot in Log C, giving it a flat look out of the camera, says Raber. Rather than apply a look on-set, the DIT instead checks the footage and makes sure they have everything they need. He can alert them immediately if they need to shoot a pick-up. The near-set team will then pick up a drive with the camera
masters and create smaller ProRes proxy files that are pushed to MTI Film in LA. We then color the proxies with the dailies colorist, so everything looks pretty and perfect, he says of the overnight process. We dont have much time on-set. With the ambient lighting, its hard to get things that are going to be ready for editorial. For the Red-shot Longmire, the team also creates ProRes proxies for editorial and then ships a drive with the original raw camera files to the post house via FedEx. You can shoot it the way it would look in the video village, but if we were to shoot it that way, it would bake in some of the color, he explains. And if they make a mistake on-set, wed never be able to recover it perfectly. The overnight processing at MTI Film allows editorial to come to work in the morning and start cutting footage that will closely resemble the online. Color values from the offline are later dropped in and balanced by a final colorist.
WILLIAM R. RITTWAGE President / CEO SEE US ON
Post Magazine is published by Post, LLC, a COP communications company. Post does not verify any claims or other information appearing in any of the advertisements contained in the publication, and cannot take any responsibility for any losses or other damages incurred by readers in reliance on such content. Post cannot be held responsible for the safekeeping or return of unsolicited articles, manuscripts, photographs, illustrations or other materials. Subscriptions: Address all subscription correspondence to Post Magazine, 620 West Elk Ave, Glendale, CA 91204. Subscribers may also contact customer service at 818-291-1158, or send an email to csr@postmagazine.com For change of address please include the old and new address information, and if possible, include an address label from a recent issue. Subscriptions are available free to qualified individuals within the United States. Non-qualified 1 year rates: USA $63.00. Canada & Mexico $94.00. All Other Countries $133.00. Airmail Delivery is available for an additional $75.00 annually. Postmaster: Send address changes to Post Magazine, P.O. Box 3551, Northbrook, IL 60065-3551. Please send customer service inquiries to 620 W. Elk Ave., Glendale, CA 91204
PostDecember2012
Bits & Pieces

CreatingaWinterMoneyland
Producer/musician Tony Verderosa has relaunched his music house, Thwak!, as KVB MUSIC (www.kvbmusic.com). The new brand emphasizes the activities of Verderosas KBV Records label, which has been working in artist development since being founded in 2009. The boutique music company has already won a high-profile placement under its new moniker, supplying Royal Caribbean and agency JWT with the raw rock track Lets Get It On by the KBV Records artist Romans. Additionally, KBV Music has just finished music clearance and supervision for the new feature film Allegiance. ESPN and Full Sail University have opened the new FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY SPORTS LAB POWERED BY ESPN at its Winter Park, FL campus.The new Sports Lab is located in building 4D and will be used for student and professional projects, including ESPN productions. The Lab originally launched in 2010.
DIGITAL RAPIDS was selected by Foxtel in Sydney to provide encoding and streaming solutions to underpin Foxtels new video initiatives. Foxtel purchased StreamZ Live adaptive streaming encoders and the Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager multi-encoder management system to power the new Foxtel Go App. The encoders and management software are being used to provide IP streams for Foxtel on Xbox 360, Foxtel on Connected TV, and the Foxtel Go App.
at a glance
EW YORK Commercial production company Xenon (www.xenonmktg.com) has produced a :30 spot that promotes New Jersey State Lottery Holiday Instant Game tickets. Developed through Brushfire, the spot suggests that a lucky ticket could take a $100,000 winner on a journey through a Winter Moneyland. The commercial is a mix of live action and animation. A young couple find themselves at the gate of Winter Moneyland. Upon entering the snow-covered property, they notice reindeer and pine trees, all made out of dollar bills. Children sled through the snow on giant currency, and in the distance, a castle appears, it too made of cash. The spot aired on cable stations in New Jersey, as well as on CBS-owned and operated stations in the New York and Philadelphia markets. Xenon director/CD Michael Wiehart developed the story and created detailed images for the storyboards and style boards so that technical R&D could begin prior to the shoot. It was important to me to develop a coherent storyline that draws the viewer
into the wonderland and lets them make an emotional connection with the spots characters, he notes. As there was no Moneyland in which to shoot, we had to construct our hyper-real environment. Foreground elements were built in CG, and matte paintings helped create a larger scale. Lighting was inspired by classic Dutch landscape paintings. Live action was shot against greenscreen. CG characters include Abe and George, the owl and deer, which were created from densely layered dollar bills. All effects and post were handled by the artists at Gravity in NYC under the direction of Harry Dorrington. Autodesk Maya and 3DS Max were used for CG, while compositing was performed in Nuke. Matte paintings were created in Photoshop. The musical underscore was composed at Hyperballad Music in Brooklyn. Chris Arbisi of Studio Center in NYC provided the sound design, audio recording and final mix. In addition to Wiehart, the Xenon team included president/EP Doug Robbins and producer Jennifer Pearlman.
Academy Award-winning director ANG LEE will be the recipient of The Motion
NECdeliversnew2Kprojector
HICAGO NEC Display Solutions (www. necdisplay.com) has updated its NC900C digital cinema projection, which is suitable for smaller theatres. The NC900C is part of NECs Digital Cinema Projector Series and delivers 2K DCI-compliant cinema quality. This translates to an image brightness of 14-ft-L (using a 1.8 gain screen) on screens up to 30 feet/9 meters, while adhering to DCI color specifications. A new S2K chipset from Texas Instruments helps make the NC900C a compact and 2K DCI-certified digital cinema projector. The all-in-one Integrated Media Server (IMS) with 2TB of RAID-5 storage offers versatile connectivity, while reducing the number of peripheral devices needed. The projectors High Frame Rate (HFR) capability offers a high-quality picture. NEC is in the final stages of earning DCI CTP certification for the NC900C projector, which will be available this month for just under $30K.
Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) 2013 Filmmaker Award, which will be presented at the 60th MPSE Golden Reel Awards on February 17 in Los Angeles. Lee, whose latest film Life of Pi is currently in theaters, was selected for a body of work that has demonstrated superlative artistry and has advanced the craft of filmmaking. Boston-based BORIS FX (www.borisfx.com) has released Boris Continuum Complete 8 FxPlug (BCC 8 FxPlug). BCC 8 FxPlug delivers over 200 comprehensive VFX filters to Apple Final Cut Pro 7, Apple Final Cut Pro X and Apple Motion 5. Enhanced lens flares, particles, glows and lights, and new FxPlug 2 integration headline the Version 8 release.
PostDecember2012
The Worlds rst Thunderbolt based capture and playback for SD/HD-SDI, HDMI and analog video!
Built on revolutionary Thunderbolt technology, UltraStudio 3D has a blazingly fast 10 Gb/s connection thats up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0! Machined from a solid piece of aluminum, UltraStudio 3D is an attractive, rugged device thats packed with features previously only available with a workstation. Its perfect for those on the go as an extremely portable companion to your camera, notebook and favorite editing software. Connect to any Deck, Camera or Monitor UltraStudio 3D features a huge range of video and audio connections. Dual Link 3 Gb/s SDI, HDMI, component analog, NTSC, PAL and s-video for capture and playback in SD, HD or 2K. Also included is 2 ch XLR AES/EBU audio and 2 ch balanced XLR analog audio. Connect to HDCAM SR, HDCAM, Digital Betacam, Betacam SP, HDV cameras, big-screen TVs and more. UltraStudio 3D even supports two streams of full resolution video up to 1080p HD for new stereoscopic 3D workows! Hardware Down Conversion If youve ever wanted to monitor in both HD and SD while you work, then youll love the built in high quality down converter. Use the Dual Link SDI outputs as a simultaneous HD and SD output, or you can switch back to Dual Link 4:4:4 when working in the highest quality RGB workows. Select between letterbox, anamorphic 16:9 and even center cut 4:3 down conversion styles! More Third Party Software Compatibility UltraStudio 3D works with the software you love to use! Use QuickTime software, or the worlds most popular editing software such as Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro! You also get Photoshop plug-ins to grab and output frames, plus real time preview in After Effects and Nuke. No other editing solution supports more software on Mac OS X, so now you have the freedom to build your studio your own way! Advanced 3 Gb/s SDI Technology With exciting new 3 Gb/s SDI connections, UltraStudio 3D allows twice the SDI data rate of normal HD-SDI, while also connecting to all your HD-SDI and SD-SDI equipment. Use 3 Gb/s SDI for 2K and edit your latest feature lm using real time 2048 x 1556 2K resolution capture and playback!
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Bits & Pieces

Butchercontributesto ClimateRealityProject
What Post Readers Are Up To:
right
now
ANTA MONICA The Climate Reality Project, founded and chaired by former Vice President Al Gore, enlisted Butcher Editorial (www. butcheredit.com) to edit, design graphics and finish its newest campaign, 24 Hours of Reality: The Dirty Weather Report. The second annual multimedia event took place in mid-November and engaged the public in a global conversation about the realities of dirty weather. The movement and viral videos were created to push climate leaders toward urgent action. Directed by Clay Williams of MJZ Productions, the non-traditional spots gravely portray what scientists are calling the new normal in extreme weather. The spots were edited in Final Cut by Butchers Teddy Gersten and Chris Scheer.
The team used a combination of bleeped-out words, real-life parallels and extreme weather to underscore the necessary call to action. Adobes Creative Suite was used throughout. When it came to creating graphics for the spots, realism was key, says David Henegar, partner/editor at Butcher. It was important the viewer be immediately engaged in the reality of the broadcast so that they could fully digest the urgency of the weather crisis the Climate Reality Project is dealing with. Mock news broadcasts from around the world report uncharacteristic heat, affected crops, and rising grocery prices. The campaign has both broadcast and viral elements. Steven Williams was assistant editor for the project. Zac Dych was Autodesk Smoke artist.
MUSIC: Well, it has finally happened. I have officially crossed over to Spotify. As someone who loves collecting music in digital and physical formats, its been a leap. I still purchase albums I really love, not only to support the artist, but to have it in my collection permanently. Call me old fashioned, but I still dont equate cloud with ownership, and I think files are a better platform for curation. However, the access to music Spotify provides is astonishing. Lately Ive listened to M83, Fela Kudi, Gozales, Father John Misty, and Black Mountain. Josh Norton President/Executive CD Big Star, NYC
RenderLifelaunches3Dmarketplace RenderLifelaunches3Dmarketplace
International News
ORONTO RenderLife Inc. (www.renderlife.com) is a new 3D marketplace that allows artists to sell their creations to those looking for 3D content. Company CEO Chris Cawston says they spent the better part of a year studying the global market for 3D, interviewing both artists who create the models and businesses that purchase them. RenderLife founder Jeff Mann says he recognized a need for a marketplace when his design studio ran into issues with purchasing 3D models. Our creative team was frustrated, he says. Too many of the models they purchased from stock sites simply didnt work, forcing us to invest time and money to fix what wed already paid for. This problem often caused us to run late and over budget resulting in missed deadlines. Renderlifes assets are available in Maya, 3DS Max and Cinema 4D. When a user purchases a RenderLife asset, their download package delivers all three files with one central texture directory. Most textures are high res, with exceptions being made for small detail textures that do not necessarily need to be high resolution (i.e.: the rivets on an airframe). They can, however, supply other file types upon request. Says Mann, These three platforms have continued to grow in popularity, capturing the majority of the market. Our experience and research showed that users of secondary platforms like Mudbox, Zbrush or Softimage are also using Maya, Max or 4D, even if they are not a users primary system. We guarantee that the native file format of every model on RenderLife is production ready.
Jump (www.jumpny.tv), with offices in LA and NYC, cut The Rolling Stones new music video Doom and Gloom. Produced by Black Dog Films and directed by Jonas kerlund, the video pairs the bands performance with scenes of Swedish actress Noomi Rapace. The video was shot using Arris Alexa and several GoPro cameras. Jumps Luis Moreno edited the video in Final Cut Pro, with David Johnston assisting. ProRes 4444 files were used for the color correct and online. Poetica handled Flame work and VFX. Pana at Uncle Berlin handled color treatment. The music video features sound design by Chimney Pot. Mattias Eklund handled the mix.
PostDecember2012
Rethink editing
New Vegas Pro 12 simpli es broadcast production by providing one platform for complete video and audio development. With powerful tools supporting a wide variety of formats for multi-screen distribution, Vegas Pro 12 continues to set the standard, by offering: Project Interchange Exchange project data with other popular editing platforms Smart Proxy Editing Automatically and dynamically replace clips on the timeline with high-quality, edit-friendly HD proxies New format Support Edit Panasonic P2 AVC-Intra and DVCPRO clips natively, and master to HDCAM SR at up to 880 Mb/s Comprehensive S-Log Work ow Leverage the wide dynamic range of your S-log footage with an integrated, end-to-end ACES (Academy Color Encoding Speci cation) production work ow Color Match OFX Plug-In Quickly and easily match the color characteristics of different video clips using the ultra-wide L*a*b color space Expanded Edit Mode Fine-tune the timing of your project interactively while the timeline is playing back Project Media Tagging Fast, effective media searching using Quick Tags and Smart Bins Updated Masking Tools New masking shapes and Effects Masking tool for quickly obscuring a face or logo Stereoscopic Auto-Pairing Bulk pairing of stereoscopic subclips on the timeline for more ef cient 3D editing Fast, ef cient, and affordable. Vegas Pro 12 delivers the features youre looking for. Isnt it time to rethink the way you edit? To nd out more about the entire set of new features and enhancements, or to download the free trial visit: www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegas12
Scan to see a full list of Vegas Pro features.
Copyright 2012. Sony Creative Software Inc. All rights reserved. SONY and make.believe are trademarks of Sony.
one on one
SkywalkersGary Rydstrom
S
By MARC LOFTUS
SeniorEditor mloftus@postmagazine.com
This year he tackled Lincoln, Wreck-It Ralph and Brave.
AN RAFAEL, CA For Academy Award-winning sound designer and film mixer Gary Rydstrom (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, Titanic), 2012 was a busy year. He lent his talents to the animated hits Brave and WreckIt Ralph, as well as to Steven Spielbergs historical live-action drama Lincoln. The films actually represent several years of thought and development from a sound design perspective, with Rydstrom moving back and forth from project to project as each moved forward in production and post. Here, we go one-on-one with the veteran audio pro, who is already thinking about his next project The Lone Ranger which is due for release in the summer of 2013. POST: Do you have the luxury of focusing on one film at a time? GARY RYDSTROM: They definitely overlap. Doing sound design for a film, you are never going to get hired for the whole stretch. When I worked on Pixars Brave, I started thinking about the sound for that years ago. I would do other projects and then come back
Gary Rydstroms most recent work was for Disneys Wreck It Ralph.
to it once the editing crew starts and once we mix. They overlap, which makes the job fun. When I am mixing and am at the console, that tends to be full-time, and its hard to do anything else. Most of the year I am kind of juggling a few different shows at the same time. POST: How does the workflow for an animated project differ from that of a live-action film? RYDSTROM: A good animation picture editor will be cutting sound effects even when you are looking at storyboards. Pixar and Disney are particularly good at this. They cut a complete and wonderful temp track as early as possible because its part of the storytelling. I am glad they do. I want to give them effects as early as possible that help tell the story. They are almost place holders for a while.
Then the animation comes in and when that is finishing, thats when the sound editing crew fully starts, and you have three, four, five people cutting on the movie.Thats when you start putting things in absolute sync and hope it still works. There are two phases for animation: the really early phase, with the design and concepts; and then you have the weeks before the mix, where the editing crew is working in parallel to try to get it all ready for the mix. POST: Sound, and dialogue specifically, really drives the animation process? RYDSTROM: They are animating to dialogue, which everyone knows. With that dialogue track, even early on before the animation, we get a sense of the rhythm of a scene, even though its not animated. The couple of times that I have directed animation, I would use sound effects as a way of thinking, This is how I want the animation to hit these poses. POST: Did Skywalker Sound provide full service audio? RYDSTROM: For Lincoln, the final mix was done in LA. But Wreck-It Ralph and Brave were fully done under our roof at Skywalker. POST: Do you prefer animation over live action? RYDSTROM: I tell people who are starting out in sound to do sound for animated films its a lot of fun. You have to do a lot, but you tend to have more leeway in the choices that you make. From the moment I heard the premise of Wreck-It Ralph, I thought it would be fun. Going inside a videogame and trying to imagine what an old 1980s game might sound like, let alone what it might sound like on the inside? It reminded me of how excited I got when I worked on Toy Story years ago and thought this is fun what toys do when we are not looking. So the premise of Wreck-It Ralph got me excited from the get-go, and thats the kind of thing you can only do with an animated film. I love that and I love the freedom. With Wreck-It Ralph and Brave, the importance of the sound is so high that you feel that you are a real part of the success of the film, because the film is dead without good sound. POST: What was your role on each film? RYDSTROM: I was a sound designer and co-supervisor with Frank Eulner on Wreck-It Ralph. That one was mixed by Gary Rizzo and David Fluhr. For Brave, I was sound designer and co-supervisor. I mixed that one
with Tom Johnson. POST: Lincolns sound was completely different, going more for historical accuracy? RYDSTROM: That was sound design by Ben Burtt, who is one of my heroes and a mentor to me. He decided that he would be as accurate with the sound in that movie as possible, so he found Lincolns actual pocket watch and recorded that. He found the actual clock that was in Lincolns office and recorded that. He recorded the doors of the White House that were there in the 1860s... The beauty of the sound design in Lincoln is not that he created a whole new world, but that he was able to recreate the world as he imagined Lincoln would have heard it. It was a whole different approach than what we would usually take. Andy Nelson and I mixed the movie. (For more on Burtts sound design for Lincoln, see page 34 in our November issue.) POST: What format are you mixing for these days? RYDSTROM: All of the movies this year are 7.1, with four surround channels. That has become fairly standard for movies, and with Brave we went the extra step. It was the first film in the Dolby Atmos format, which includes ceiling speakers and fuller range surrounds that are a little more accurate. We did a special mix of Brave in Atmos. POST: How does Atmos affect your approach to panning? RYDSTROM: When surrounds came in, people generally loathed putting dialogue in the surrounds. But the key to Atmos for dialogue [is] the surrounds are fuller range than traditional surrounds. When you pull into the surrounds in an existing 5.1 or 7.1 set-up, they are a little less high fidelity than the fronts. Atmos fixes that, so if you pull dialogue off the screen, it doesnt sound different. And because the surrounds are a little more fine tuned, you can pan to a specific point in the theater. In Brave, the characters would go off screen and we would pan the dialogue just a little bit off screen just a little to the surrounds in the right or the left. Atmos allows us to start pulling dialogue off the screen in ways that we wouldnt dare before. POST: What are you working on tool-wise? RYDSTROM: Pro Tools. Thats definitely what we cut with. We mix on an AMS Neve DFC console. Thats something weve been doing for years.Thats a digital console, and we even record onto Pro Tools. For our complete interview with Gary Rydstrom, visit the Post Website.
PostDecember2012
Videohub Control Software
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ALL PHOTOS: DAVID DRAPKIN
POSTS 27TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

On November 14, Post Magazine celebrated its 27th birthday with a party at Stitch Bar & Lounge in New York City. The turnout and heartfelt good wishes were amazing. Once again we streamed live from the party, talking to our sponsors about their gear and services, as well as industry trends. We would like to thank those sponsors: Harmonic, NetApp, Altermedia, Assimilate, Adobe, Red Digital Cinema and Rohde & Schwarz. Abel Cine, who lent us the gear for our Webcast, also deserves a shout-out. At Post, we have a great time doing what we do and hope that comes through in our issues and on our Website. For a slideshow of all of our party pictures, visit www.postmagazine.com.
The Post staff: Natasha Swords, Michael Viggiano, owner William Rittwage, Randi Altman, Marc Loftus, Mari Kohn and Gary Rhodes.
BigStars Josh Norton and Katie Tricot bookend CoPilot Audio & Musics Ravi Krishnaswami.
Shellacs Juliun Williams, Zack Wolder and Max Nova.
Party sponsor Joel Stoner from Altermedia with Mark L. Pederson from Offhollywood and Kevin Reagan from Adorama.
Goldcrests Stephanie Buhle and Michelle Ambruz on either side of Animal Planets Mike Skalicky.
The Rohde & Schwarz team, who helped sponsor our party: Kenny Horn, Tony Fox, Niklas Fabian, David Phillips and Erik Balladares. .
Osvaldo Alvarez, from Post party sponsor NetApp, with Cognizants Glenn Maiorano and Tagasauris Dwight Homberg.
Blue Rocks Jesse Thornton, Cinesys Oceanas Dan Young, Blue Rocks Andrew Casper and Jason Greenwood from Cinesys Oceana.
Abel Cines Matt Livingston, Steve Cohen, Krystal Gonzalez and friend.
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cover story
ReturntoMiddle-earth
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By IAIN BLAIR
The Hobbits VFX efforts are no small task.
ELLINGTON, NZ Writer/director/producer Peter Jackson spent years creating one of the most ambitious and technically impressive epics in cinema, the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, which he then followed up with King Kong (2005) and The Lovely Bones (2009). But maybe it was only a matter of time before Jackson and his team, including senior VFX supervisor Joe Letteri, returned to Middle-earth, this time for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a prequel and the first of a planned trilogy set 60 years before the Lord of the Rings blockbusters. At press time, they were still deep in post production, and here, in an exclusive interview, Letteri, whose credits include The Adventures of Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Man of Steel, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men: The Last Stand, talks about making the eagerlyawaited 3D film, the workflow and creating the cutting-edge visual effects.
POST: What sort of film can fans expect? JOE LETTERI: A very big film and a visual
that the storys being cut and Peters seeing what gaps he needs to fill in. So the second comes out in a year, and the final one in 2014. POST: Visual effects have progressed so much since you worked on Lord of the Rings, which must have really helped with CG characters like Gollum? LETTERI: Youre so right, and a lot of what we did back then was on faith and intu-
studied and has evolved over the last decade. With Gollum, he had to look the same, but yet we wanted to capture all those changes and nuances. So the audience will see him as the same Gollum, but with all this new detail that makes him even more realistic. POST: Peter Jackson decided to shoot this at 48fps. How did that impact the VFX? LETTERI: The 48fps is designed to mini-
Wetas Joe Letteri headed up a VFX team of 800, working on 2,000 shots.
treat. The Hobbit was just one, fairly slim book, and I know theres been a lot of talk and discussion about the fact that were making three movies out of whats the smallest of the stories. But thats because Peter and the others (co-writers/co-producers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) went back to all of Tolkiens source material, all the appendices he used to flesh out the story after he finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and that story is getting woven back into The Hobbit. So its much bigger in scope than people may anticipate. POST: What were the biggest challenges of creating this? LETTERI: As usual, its all about the characters. Anytime you create characters that have to take on leading roles, its always so important to get it exactly right. Gollum returns again, although its actually his first appearance in the stories, with the whole riddles and dark sequence. We have Bilbo and Gandalf again, and the Goblin King and the dwarves who are captured by the goblins and taken down into the caverns. So we created the Goblin King, and a number of the goblins were all done digitally. Then there are the orcs they ride and the eagles. Its a lot going on! POST: Is it true you shot all three films back-to-back? LETTERI: Yes, were still in post on the first one and the other two are shot, but there will be pick-up shoots next year now
Grinnah, a CG goblin: Wetas main 3D tool is Maya. They call on Nuke for compositing.
ition. Gollums a really good example. We broke new ground with him, like sub-surface scattering and the amount of effort we put into facial animation and motion capture... just to get it all working together the body performance and facial movements and dialogue and the look of the skin and make it believable. In the 10 years since, weve really broken down and studied what each of those elements means. So motion capture has become performance capture, because we can do it with Andy Serkis on set now instead of having to go back and recreate his performance. We can now capture with the facial camera headrig his facial performance at the same time as we capture his body, and integrating the two is so crucial to believability as the real-world characters talk and act at the same time. So were no longer guessing about the way the muscles work under the skin. Weve studied all that to understand how movement relates to form, and there has been a lot more work on areas like sub-surface scattering and how light behaves in eyes and hair simulation. Every element that goes into making up a CG character has been
mize motion artifacts. Normally if youre looking at things in 2D, its not such a big deal, because were all used to motion blur in cinema and stills, but in stereo your eye expects to be able to resolve things spatially and that motion blur is hard to take. So the 48fps essentially just shortens up the motion blur so you get sharper detail. What that meant for us was really a lot of preproduction tests, which are what we need to do to understand and mimic the actual set that they shot on. In other words, the virtual cameras we have to track and the copies of the virtual sets and everything we have to do to lock in our virtual world to the physical world being able to either extend sets or put characters in them all that requires a lot more detailed work as youre doing twice as many frames. Some things allow you to get more detail, like animation. You can really nuance the animation since you have finer frame increments to work with. Other things are not really effective, like lighting. How you set a light doesnt really matter. So it was this mix and we had to look at it area by area and department by department and see what changes were needed.
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POST: Was it always planned as a 3D shoot? LETTERI: Yes. Peter has always loved 3D
ing all the VFX, camera crews and all the cast. Then we began on all the paint and roto and detail work. Now were finishing up on this one, were already starting VFX work on the next two films. POST: The film is edited on Avid Media Composer by Jabez Olssen, who cut The Lovely Bones and worked on Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Tell us about the editing process and how closely you collaborated. LETTERI: All of the post is done here at Weta Digital, so were all together, and a lot of it is him working with Peter on what material is going into the cut and the direction of certain sequences, and then us really breaking down the detail of what needs to happen both in the frame and across it as youre always trying to build elements that will work in the cut and editorially. So we talk a lot, especially about motion and dynamics and framing, as well as subtle things about the intent of a shot and how it relates to other shots. As were Director Peter Jackson chose to shoot this trilogy at 48fps, which working digitally, we can minimizes motion artifacts. keep finessing stuff during the edit. (For our interscreen stage for each dwarf that would light view with Olssen, turn to page 16.) up when it was time for their dialogue, so he POST: How many visual effects shots are always had an eye-line and face to interact there, and what systems did you use? LETTERI: Theres over 2,000 shots, about with. So there was an elaborate amount of planning just to get this shot on stage, involv- 800 crew on them, and weve been working
and wanted to do it. In fact, we briefly discussed doing King Kong in 3D. We met with Jim Cameron and loved all the 3D rigs he had developed, but we didnt have enough time to really get into it, so he was very anxious to do this in 3D because it brings that extra layer of realism to the fantasy. POST: Walk us through the workflow and the whole process. LETTERI: Normally what happens is well look at what needs to be shot and well do a breakdown ahead to see what set-ups we need on the shot. Take the earlier Baggins scenes In Lord of the Rings we used a lot of forced perspective tricks to make Gandalf look huge next to the hobbits, which worked great but that doesnt work in stereo anymore. So we had to create essentially a forced-perspective rig, and we did that by having two stages set up simultaneously. So on one wed have the dwarves performing on their fullydressed set and wed do a walk-through with Ian McKellen so everyone knew where to leave a path for him. Then hed go to our adjacent greenscreen stage set up with a motioncontrol camera that was slaved to our live set. We used motion capture technology to track the live camera, scaled it up to match the appropriate size for human versus hobbit or dwarf, and drove the motion-controlled camera on the greenscreen stage around Ians performance based on what the camera was doing on the live set. He had to still be able to act with everyone, so they all used earpieces, and we used markers on the green-
on it for two years. Our software is a mix of off-the-shelf and custom-made gear. Maya is our main 3D platform, RenderMan is our main rendering system, and Nuke is the main compositing platform. Then we augment that with a lot of custom plug-ins for various shots we need. POST: It sounds like you tend to gravitate to off-the-shelf systems that are fairly open? LETTERI: Exactly. Theyre essentially platforms that give you a fair amount of functionality, but theyre open systems that allow you to write customized extensions for, which works great for us. POST: What was that the most difficult effects shot to pull off? LETTERI: Id say the scene inside the goblin caverns. Its unique as you go down underground and youre immediately in this strange 3D world as theres almost no one fixed ground plain anymore. It all happens at multiple levels, so it was fascinating to design and figure out camera moves that would take most advantage of it, since youre constantly able to move between these different levels in the cavern, and we really wanted to use that to exploit what we could do with stereo. POST: Where does this rank in terms of scope and difficulty compared with the other massive productions youre worked on? LETTERI: Its way up there at the top, because every film is a little harder than the last one and also a little more fun. Its been an incredible experience and so much fun to go back to Middle-earth and walk on the same sets again and see a lot of the same cast and crew back.
Thanks to enhancements in performance capture, Andy Serkiss CG Gollum became even more realistic and believable.
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edit this!
The Hobbits fantastical journey
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ByDANIEL RESTUCCIO
dansweb451@aol.com
Jabez Olssen on cutting Peter Jacksons latest.
ELLINGTON, NZ Warner Bros. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of three movies based on the J. R. R.Tolkien introductory novel to The Lord of the Rings saga that could very well transform the movie-going experience. The new trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson and shot on Red Epic 5K cameras (all three films were shot simultaneously) in 3D, generated an unprecedented 1,100 hours of footage for each eye. The Hobbit will also be the first 3D movie recorded and exhibited digitally at 48 frames to reduce eyes strain, but more on that later and enhanced by the Dolby Atmos sound system. The Hobbit editor Jabez Olssen (The Lovely Bones) says, not surprisingly, that the biggest challenge was, the sheer size of the project: the amount of footage, the complexity of it, and the number of the characters that had to be balanced. There were production delays the proj-
All Trades and Cleopatra 2525. The effectsheavy Cleopatra featured 200 to 400 effects shots per episode, says Olssen. There was a lot of greenscreens and CG characters to deal with. After season 1, Olssen was promoted from assistant editor to main editor. OLSSENS JOURNEY When Cleopatra wound down, he wrote letters to New Zealand-based Michael Horton (who edited the first and second LOTR) and Jamie Selkirk (supervising editor on the first two, editor on the third and co-producer on all three LOTR). They were needing a new operator for Mike, and I was recommended. After meeting with Horton and Selkirk, he was hired to drive the Avid for Horton on the The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Because the Rings films overlapped quite a bit, he did some work on all three movies. After the second movie he moved to London for year to work on various productions. While VFX editor on Wimbledon, he got a call from Jackson to come back and work with Selkirk on King Kong. Olssen then worked on a number of smaller projects, including previs for The Adventures of Tintin, and editing Crossing The Line, the Red Digital Cinema movie directed by Jackson and Neill Blomkamp. Olssen was on deck to be the main editor on Jacksons remake of Dambusters, but that got delayed, and he was hired as lead editor on Jacksons The Lovely Bones in 09. Later that year, Olssen started previs work for Guillermo Del Toros version of The Hobbit, as well as performing the role of additional editor on The Adventures of Tintin. In May of 2010, De Toro left the project and Olssen was tapped by Jackson to come aboard as main editor. Peter didnt take over immediately, says Olssen. He said, Look if I wind up directing The Hobbit, will you cut it? I told him Id be thrilled and honored. THE HOBBIT Olssen and Jackson continued the previs process Jackson got local actors and motion captured them as live action performances. The previs team would turn that data into low-res CG characters, and then use virtual cameras to get as many angles and takes as any live-action film. That process took them right up until actual shooting
While shot in stereo at 48fps, the films 2D version will be exhibited at 24fps..
ect evolved from two to three films but the release date for the first film he says, never changed. Olssen wanted to be a filmmaker from an early age, and after university, attended the South Seas Film and TV School in New Zealand. He believed that films are written three times, as the saying goes, once in the script, again by the director on set, and the third time in the cutting. No one offered him a job in the first two areas, he says with a smile, so he chose editing to be around the creative process. In 2000, Olssen worked as an assistant editor and VFX editor for Sam Raimis Pacific Renaissance Pictures on the TV shows Jack of
began in March 2011. In contrast to editors who often work far from the shoot, for The Hobbit Olssen was on set every day. Post begins from day one of the shoot, particularly with the digital cameras. With our schedule and timetable, we had to be editing right from the beginning. Post was essentially integrated into production. We had a portable Avid (Media Composer V.6) set-up on the soundstage that was wired by fiber optics back to the editing rooms, describes Olssen. This gave him full access to all the footage shot previously thanks to Avid ISIS networked storage. Between shooting set-ups, Olssen worked with Jackson to do performance selects and select angles. Then I would be able to go off and do my editor assemble of the scene. It was good to be there when the scenes were being shot, he continues, because I could hear Peter talk to the actors and get a greater understanding of how the scene should be, and that helped me do an initial assembly. Without that contact we would have been a lot further behind when the shooting ended. When The Hobbit was on location, editorial used Avid software on a laptop system with FireWire hard drives that enabled them to edit even from remote mountaintop locations. The third component of the production post system was the EMC (Editorial Mobile Command), a truck containing a fullsize Avid Media Composer V.6 with a big plasma screen and a couch for Jackson. When we had an hour or two break, wed go into the truck. It had privacy and was like an actual cutting room environment. The EMC was used on soundstages and traveled all over the country as well. Jackson monitored the Red camera 3D output via an on-set system using 3D glasses. He even had a satellite set-up that beamed second unit footage to his main location. However, according to Olssen, the Avid editing was done entirely in 2D at 24fps. Jacksons Park Road Post would digital telecine all the original footage into graded Avid DNxHD files at 24fps. So the editing room had normal Avid footage just like any other film. As needed, Park Road Post would conform scenes in 3D at 48fps and screen them in 2K 3D at 48fps in a full-size digital theater. Printing single eye lower frame rate dailies took some of the storage stress off the Avid 128TB Unity system. After 266 days of
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main unit shooting and 195 days of second unit shooting, they still had 1,100 hours of footage for each eye the equivalent of nearly 24 million feet of film. The most dailies they had in a single day was 11 hours of footage for each eye. Olssens support team, led by first assistant editor Dan Best, was made up of eight assistant editors, including two VFX editors who wrangled 25,000 clips. But there are multiple takes in each of those clips because Peter has a method we call rolling resets. He wont cut between takes. Hell just tell the actors to go back and start again. There were 13 Avid Media Composers, but some assistants used more than one Avid. JACKSONS PROCESS Peter likes to be heavily involved with the actual editing. The first step, says Olssen, is for him to chop up the footage and line up all the takes. When Jackson comes into the editing room he looks at all the takes and makes his selects. Olssen typically does an assembly of the scene first, but he and Jackson will work on the scene from scratch, then compare it to Olssens earlier version, and perhaps merge aspects of the two. Hes not a director who limits himself to one way of cutting a scene, describes Olssen. He will shoot options and coverage. He will provide choices for the cutting room. Always with Peters films, you have to explore the scene and make big choices about which way to tell the story. Youre not going to end up with a couple of cool camera moves that cant be used because they cover the same piece of the story. Creatively, Olssen prepped for the edit by watching all the Lord of the Rings movies, rereading The Hobbit and reading the script. His approach was to treat it like any other film.
the same. Regardless, he says, if its a quieter drama piece or big spectacle you try to find the best takes, the best rhythm to the scene and how you want to tell the story. Stylistically, Olssen says the movie is consistent with the other Lord of the Rings movies because Peter Jackson is directing. By following the natural rhythms and style of each scene, it ends up with a similar stylistic connection to Lord of the Rings. Jackson, he says, wants it to be an immersive experience. Once youve made the decision to go 3D, youve moved away from the normal cinematic experience. Traditionally, cinema has been 2D. Once you go to 3D you are trying to make it more realistic. Shooting at 48fps, notes Olssen, is primarily to reduce strobbing and flicker that causes eyestrain for the 3D version of the movie the 2D version will be exhibited at 24fps. You increase the frame rate and its more comfortable to watch. Reducing eyestrain is a good thing. Most of the new technology, 3D and 48fps, was transparent creatively to the editing process. We would see the 3D when we conformed the scenes, says Olssen. Occasionally we would make allowances and alterations because of the stereoscopic depth. So for example, they might hold shots a bit longer. Generally he says, If you are cutJabez Olssen with his Avid Media Composer V.6 set-up. ting on the small size screen and then see it on a cinema big The footage for a scene comes in and you screen you often extend the wide shots a look and put it together as it feels it should go. few more frames. Whether theres greenscreen or missing CG But they didnt want to limit the 2D experimonsters from the scene, you treat all films ence either. We didnt want the technique to
rule the dramatic decisions of the storytelling. There were not as many changes as Olssen had expected. We were thinking when we set out that wed have to cut it, conform it in 3D at 48 frames and then change it, but at the end of the day there wasnt as much of that. There were very few tweaks. Whats working dramatically for the story continues to work no matter the format. So generally what would work in one medium would work for the other. THREE FILMS, NOT TWO So how did The Hobbit evolve into three movies? There always was going to be two movies, explains Olssen. By doing three movies it allows us to keep the good material people remember. The Hobbit is only a 300page book, but theres a lot of story in there. People complain with film adaptions of a book about all the good things that got chopped out. Three films will allow us to keep the characters and many iconic moments and events from the book. A lot of story is alluded to in the appendices in The Lord of the Rings. After writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien went back and fleshed out all that time when Gandalf leaves the dwarfs, so thats being told as well. In the last weeks of post, Olssen moved from the The Hobbit soundstages to Park Road Post (www.parkroadpost.co.nz), where everyone was working around the clock to finish the film. Well go into the mixes and give notes on the VFX shots and listen to the Atmos reviews. Hes also working on the last stages of the second film, but notes not a lot has been done on the third one so far!
Park Road Post would conform scenes in 3D at 48fps and screen them in 2K 3D at 48fps in a full-size digital theater.
OUTLOOK
BUSINESS
DIVERSIFICATION
The post production industry faces a
number of challenges today, including lower barriers to enter the post business, increased competition on that front and from more clients taking aspects of post in-house, and continuing cash-strapped budgets. But the industry is buoyed by lighter investments in the technical infrastructure and greater investments in talent, the globalization of the business, the maturing of the Web, the arrival of 4K, and more demand for content of all kinds.
THREATS: Outsourcing can also be a threat if clients see it as an opportunity to take their work internationally. Its not an immediate threat, but its on our radar. The efficiency of the Web business model may challenge production budgets and the way things are done in the television world, which has a very top-down infrastructure. Were caught in the crossfire in some ways as distribution models change and create a lot of flux in the industry. More and more production companies are offering their own post production pipelines now. Its a natural evolution for them; theyve made a significant investment in post infrastructure. So thats a threat to existing post houses, although there are still plenty of opportunities out there. OUTLOOK FOR 2013 4K is on the table now. The feature world is headed in that direction, and its time for post houses to move on to 4K. Were really focused on theatrical 4K.
AXEL ERICSON
Founder Digital Arts www.digital-arts.net New York City
Digital Arts offers complete end-to-end services for film and TV with a strong focus on new technologies and high-end pipelines, such as 4K finishing, DCP delivery and 7.1 surround mixing. STRENGTHS: I have observed the maturing of digital pipelines from acquisition to fully-digital workflows and delivery. Its no longer the Wild West clients know what the process is like and what to expect from vendors, and we know what to deliver. Yes, theres always something new coming up, but it still falls in the realm of what clients and vendors already know. Another strength is that technology enables us to integrate more of the post process in-house. For example, what used to be considered VFX are now part of the finishing process a client used to have to go to a VFX house for image stabilization without zooming in on a shot, which was really a matte painting [technique]. On a long-form project we can achieve such a technique routinely in post, further enhancing the final product. WEAKNESSES: The remnants of the recession, and clients who chose lower-end workflows, has meant less business from such clients, and the industr y overall suffers. Some clients are more focused on passing QC than on the quality of the production. OPPORTUNITIES: There are a number of opportunities in the industry right now. Were focusing heavily on 4K: Were already a 4K-ready house with true 4K displays and projectors and a fully-digital pipeline for end-to-end 4K delivery. There are also opportunities with the maturing of Web markets. Some now have very stringent delivery requirements and real budgets. I heard about one client who sent content to Apple, which passed broadcast QC but failed Apples QC. Also, there is more need for content due to growing distribution models, from Web to mobile. Outsourcing can work for and against us. There are opportunities for post houses by creating modular tasks and outsourcing parts of big jobs to other locations or freelancers. These tasks can then be quickly integrated back into the workflow.
BY C H R IST I N E BU N I SH
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This visual album for artist Essie Jane got its DI via Resolve in Digital Arts 4K theatre.It was mixed in 5.1 in Pro Tools.
ROBIN SHENFIELD
Co-Founder/CEO The Mill www.themill.com London, New York, Los Angeles
The Mill is a VFX studio creating moving image, design and digital for the advertising, film, TV, games and music industries. Recent projects include Guinness Cloud and the Good Books Havana Heat viral film, and the feature film Snow White and The Huntsman. STRENGTHS: Post production is not a term we use to describe what we do. Were an advertising-focused VFX business with a small division for features, special projects and television. Im not sure weve found the right terminology to describe ourselves, apart from as a creative moving image company. This is relevant to strengths because
PostDecember2012
A recent Mill project is this Chest Drums spot for Old Spice.
theres an increasing demand for creative moving images across all media. The marketplace is growing and changing for us. We are trading in a very dynamic marketplace. Its also a market in which great creative work is at a greater premium than ever because the more media there is, the more consumers act as natural selectors editing out messages that are not engaging. To get noticed and get traction [marketers] need to invest in quality and brilliant craft execution. WEAKNESSES: Theres a real weaknesses in viewing what we do as an afterthought. Businesses like ours have historically existed in the post part of the value chain, but we try to interact and influence the process of production as early as possible to make sure were able to add value. More and more, were involved earlier and in a way that is more collaborative; there are a zillion great reasons to engage us early. OPPORTUNITIES: When I started this business in London 23 years ago, it cost about half-a-million pounds to equip a single person with a color suite, edit suite or a Quantel Henry. Today, technology investments have become less: servers, storage and networking consume more money than front-end tools. Our most significant investment is in people designers, art directors, people with skills in digital and motion graphics. The make up of our creative staff has never been more diverse and reflects all the different kinds of moving image content that were now involved in creating. Assets produced for broadcast can now be used in lots of different ways, which creates efficiencies for our clients and opportunities for us. When we worked on Nikes Write the Future campaign for the Football World Cup with Wieden & Kennedy/Amsterdam, the three-minute spot debuted not on television but on Facebook and then went massively viral; the TV media spend was pretty limited. There are exciting new ways to collaborate with clients to travel their messages to different parts of the globe on different channels in ways that maintain the integrity of the advertising idea while engaging with an extremely discerning audience. THREATS: The biggest threat is probably related to the low barriers to entry that now exist due to cheaper technology and, as a consequence, a trend with some clients to view post production as a commodity. Some aspects of post are ripe for commoditization, and
there are a number of companies in London, owned by advertising networks, that are sensibly taking in-house simple post work, like the foreign-language adaptation and versioning of projects for different geographies. Our niche is different: Its creative work, and our challenge is to continually assert our creative credentials and the market value we add. We have to make sure we win the argument that we arent a technical service that anyone with technology can deliver but a creative business that only a small number of people in the world can prioritize at a high level. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I feel optimistic about the outlook in the US and the UK.The US has been the bigger part of our group for a few years now, and the US advertising industry occupies a position of great advantage. The appetite for media in the US, the inventiveness, the willingness to try new things is enormously exciting and stimulating. We feel very good about the UK, too. The scale of the ad industry in the UK is smaller than in the US, but its also a great source of innovation, invention and interesting creative endeavor. Many agencies are doing remarkably well and continue to reinvent themselves. In fact, the UK continues to be a fertile market for new agency start-ups. Elsewhere in the world, were seeing quite a bit of work coming into The Mill NY and The Mill LA from South America, particularly with the growth of Brazil, along with work from mainland China and Singapore. As a business that acts as one company in three locations, were excited about the increasingly globalized nature of the industry.
CHRIS CLAEYS
Senior Editor/Senior Partner Cutters Studios www.cutters.com Chicago
Cutters Studios is a collaboration of creative services shoot, edit, audio, VFX, design, finish, interactive. Recent projects include the Disney Parks 2013 North America campaign, Capital Ones Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Fallon campaigns, commercials for State Farm, Oscar Meyer and Esurance, and Fiats upcoming Super Bowl spot. STRENGTHS: The greatest strength is the need for more content because of the Internet. For post houses that means you have to be flexible and diverse. What we do now is different from 10 years ago when we were largely posting :30 commercials. We still do quite a bit of that, but there are so many other types of work: Webisodes and short-form projects that originate in advertising but are not traditional advertising, plus a lot of internal corporate communications. WEAKNESSES: The flipside is that not all post production companies are necessarily good at diversification. Its hard to wear all these hats and wear them well.
www.postmagazine.com PostDecember2012 19
OUTLOOK BUSINESS
our history. So, knock on wood, barring any economic or geopolitical problems, business should continue to be healthy.
LOLA LOTT
President/Owner Charlieuniformtango www.charlieuniformtango.com Dallas
Expansion! Cutters Tokyo location.
Budgets have been a challenge for a decade. With the diversification of projects theres the sense that a project that isnt a :30 commercial shouldnt cost as much it should be cheaper to produce. But it costs the same to do a one-minute Webisode as a one-minute Super Bowl commercial; you put the same amount of work and effort into the project. In the last three years weve seen a seismic shift from film to digital capture. When you shoot digitally, generally speaking, theres no additional cost in production to keep the camera rolling, so most projects acquire a lot of footage, and running time relates to labor. We recently edited a six-day shoot for a large national client and expected 10 hours of running time. We got 22 hours. When you double the footage, you the impact labor. Thats not an unusual situation today. OPPORTUNITIES: There are opportunities with the Internet as broadband gets faster and advertisers demand better quality in what they put on the Web. Five or 10 years ago you could throw anything on YouTube and be a sensation. I think were moving away from that, and quality will be important. There are opportunities in diversification by going outside your home base. In the past two years weve gone into the Detroit market by acquiring a 50 percent interest in RingSide Creative. We looked at Detroit and the car industry and felt it had hit bottom and was on the way back up, and thats been a wise decision. We also opened an office in Tokyo in October 2012 after a two-year exploration. The Pacific Rim covets Western-style creativity, and were convinced that Tokyo, and perhaps Seoul and Shanghai, is the place to be. We also see opportunities in the interactive arena. Another opportunity we see is working direct with corporations on content that doesnt originate with agencies. THREATS: The biggest threat is agencies bringing post production in-house, including finishing and versioning commercials. Even medium-size agencies have edit rooms and sometimes audio rooms. The lines can sometimes blur between vendor and client. The general volatility of the economy continues to be a threat. Little things can spike sharp downturns quickly, so that makes it hard to forecast. You have to be ready for a downturn at any time because chances are one will come. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: My partners and I agree that you cant really forecast in the commercial post production industry.There arent many long-term contracts, so you work pretty much project by project. You can see your schedule two months out, but its hard to forecast. That said, the last couple of years have been some of the best in
Charlieuniformtango is a full-service post facility specializing in creative editorial, visual effects, audio mixing and digital production. It also operates Liberal Media Films, a group of directors, and Digitango, a team of digital strategy gurus. STRENGTHS: The strengths in the industry are talent and the flexibility of the technology, which increases our speed and the ability to provide many different options to clients. Everybody says that with the advent of new technology, but knowing how to manage the technology is key you dont want to be inundated by the tools, but well-versed and apprised of current and coming technology. The barrier to entry in post production is much lower now, so you have to distinguish yourself somehow. We do it based on talent. Weve always been a talent-driven company. We feel if you bring in the right talent and give them the best tools, it will keep you at the forefront. This [philosophy] has enabled us to expand into production as well. One of the reasons for our production arms success is our talent-first approach. But weve also given them great post resources to support great ideas. [Talent and technology] are more intermingled now than ever before. WEAKNESSES: Budgets are a real weakness. Some very well educated clients think some things should cost less and be done faster. But post production is a process: You have to have the right amount of time and the right people to explore all the options. With the lower barrier to entry, some technology costs so little and is so much more accessible to the least common denominator. Clients ask, Why should I pay X for a graphics-driven spot when the
Charlieuniformtango posted this Fiat commercial out of The Richards Group.
kid down the street can do it for a thousand dollars? Dont they want the experience of someone whos been down that road before for their high-profile job? Or are they willing to risk it? You have to make them aware they only have one chance to make a statement. If you give it the time [it merits], it will pay off. OPPORTUNITIES: We still have a very strong advertising agency continued on page 46
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PostDecember2012
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OUTLOOK
DIRECTORS
BY I A IN B L AI R
22
Posts ROLE
Despite or because of the ongoing grim economic picture, 2012 was a pretty good year for Hollywood. Audiences, happy to forget the recession and their financial woes for a couple of hours, headed to the theatres in healthy numbers, especially to see anything light and escapist. Here, four top directors Barry Sonnenfeld, Len Wiseman, Andrew Stanton and William Friedkin tackle Posts SWOT questions and air their views about the year ahead.
BARRY SONNENFELD
Director Men In Black franchise, Addams Family, Get Shorty, Wild Wild West
Sonnefeld started in this industry as a cinematographer for the Coen brothers (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Millers Crossing) before turning to directing. STRENGTHS: Its my favorite part of the whole filmmaking process, and the best part is its where you get to make the movie better again. You almost become a writer again in the editing room, and find out the stuff you thought you needed you dont need. You find out that things you were worried about having to explain to the audience work fine without any explanation. Im not a big believer in establishing shots or masters. Ill shoot them but often feel theyre banal and just slow down the pace. Im pretty different from a lot of directors. Usually my first cut is too fast and I actually have to go back and slow down the movie, while most directors first cuts are way too long. Mines always 15 minutes too short. Post is where you find the rhythm and look of the film. On Men in Black 3 we had over 1,200 visual effects shots, and its hard to convey the scale and scope of some of the bigger set pieces until youre quite far along in post. And even though I know how theyll look, Im still amazed and impressed when all the shots come together! WEAKNESSES: For me there are hardly any weaknesses in post. Maybe the only drawback is in a time-travel movie like MIB3 where you start feeling you need to really guide the audience in case you lose them. So you start adding lines of dialogue to explain stuff, and then you run the movie and realize you dont need it. Another pitfall in a comedy is not letting silent moments live silently. You have to resist the urge to keep fiddling with things. OPPORTUNITIES: So much has changed in post since I began as a DP, like DI. Its overwhelmingly a good thing because you can go
in and darken skies, vignette corners, take down white shirts and all selectively within a frame, which you cant do if youre doing a chemical inter-negative. THREATS: Its easy to be lazy in shooting since you can now fix so much in post and the DI. For instance, I love the DSLRs I use for my private photography, but I find that I dont spend the time framing a shot exactly right and so on. In the same way, I think digital editorial work has in some ways hurt comedy. When I began directing, I worked with editor DeDe Allen, who cut on an upright Moviola; it was such a pain to make a cut and find the trim and so on. But every cut was thought about so much, and comedies used to play much more in two-shots. Look at old comedies like Bringing Up Baby. Youve got to have action and reaction in the same frame. Today, most comedy directors shoot with multiple cameras and ad-libbing, and because they can cut so much faster on Avid, comedies have many more cuts, and you dont have to think about it that much because its so easy. In the same way, because you know you can clean up so much in the DI, it makes you a little sloppier and lazier in how you frame and shoot.
Sonnenfeld helmed Men in Black 3, which featured 1,200 visual effects shots. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: The middles been squeezed out. Its either $100-200 million budget movies or $5 million movies with nothing in between, which is sad since the middle used to have great movies, especially comedies. What makes me most sad now is the ugly comedy meaning aesthetically ugly, the comedy shot with multiple
PostDecember2012
Director Stantons first live-action film was the VFX-heavy John Carter.
cameras so you cant light anything in an interesting way. I feel that a lot of todays comedies, though very funny, often, have lost all sense of visual style. Theyre just lit and framed so badly. Its almost part of their religious belief. Im not saying its better or worse just different.
ANDREW STANTON
Writer/Director Wall-E, Finding Nemo, John Carter
He joined Pixar in 1991 and began as their second animator (John Lasseter was the first) and a writer. After co-directing A Bugs Life and winning Oscars for directing Wall-E and Finding Nemo, Stanton made his live-action directorial debut with John Carter. STRENGTHS: The fact that you can hide every mistake youve ever made is huge. I had no idea just what post was capable of in todays houses until I began dealing with all the visual effects and the rest of the post on John Carter. It means you can totally rethink every scene and sequence if you have to. You never want to just rely on it, but man it gives you so many options. WEAKNESSES: The big one is that you can tweak something forever, and thats a side of post I was so familiar with working only in digital. You can keep trying to perfect your film until they drag it out of your hands. Its so tempting. OPPORTUNITIES: I think youre seeing a little bit of a different approach and thinking about post, depending who you talk to and
whos more comfortable with all the tools available, in that some people are now not shooting so much for exactly the look they want at the time of shooting. Now, theyre waiting until they get to post and keeping their options open, and often coming up with something they hadnt thought of during the shoot. THREATS: The big problem now is the faster you work in post and the less money you need, then everyone starts making that the standard and the rule. Weve seen it happen with scoring and orchestration. All it takes is one fast composer who does the job a little faster and cheaper, and suddenly everyone has to do it that fast, and then the whole process starts to suffer for it. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: There are still problems with the economy affecting audience attendance, and ongoing things like exhibition lagging so far behind in some places, but Ill still take those problems over getting people to leave their homes and go see movies on the big screen. Id rather people see movies under poor conditions in a theater than staying home and watching them on their phones or computers.
WILLIAM FRIEDKIN
Writer/Producer/Director The French Connection, The Exorcist, Cruising, Killer Joe
William Friedkin won the Best Directing Oscar for The French Connection. He began in TV, doing live shows and docs, and directed one of the last episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
OUTLOOK DIRECTORS
eye. You have to see the film before you make it. At least I do. So I always know exactly what Im going to shoot and how. But less than half the time do I know how its going to all be edited together until the editor and I get into the cutting room. So thats the great opportunity about post, that you can then take the original vision and hopefully improve on it in post. THREATS: Its always the same: time and money. Ive been fortunate in that Ive always made the time to use post as a creative process, but everyone wants it done faster and cheaper nowadays. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Hollywoods making a lot of money, but with fewer films. So many films today are just about superheroes, guys in capes flying around and cleaning up the streets I just dont see life that way. I know theyre very well made films and very popular, but theyre just not for me. Its rare youll find something that will examine the darker corners of life, like I like to do. So you have these huge event films, and then the smaller independent films that are important in terms of awards and acclaim, not box office, like The Hurt Locker, which won the Oscar over Avatar, and The Artist. Those films dont keep Hollywood alive. The ones that do are based on comic books and videogames, and thats where its going. Theyre all aimed at kids. Serious adults are watching cable TV now or satellite. There are so few new films I want to see today, frankly. I just dont understand why more films arent shot here in California. The legislature just doesnt seem to see how thousands of people lose work every time they move a production to a state that does give generous tax credits. So thats very shortsighted. But Hollywoods doing fine and the global markets expanding, so in terms of sheer box office, the outlooks fairly healthy.
Friedkins latest: KIller Joe with Matthew McConaughey.
before directing his first feature, 1967s Good Times with Sonny and Cher. STRENGTHS: For me, the whole shooting process is at best just acquiring all the raw material for post. Thats where you really make the film, and so much can be added by the use of sound and the addition of music. You dont even need to use a lot to be effective. Background sounds that are more like effects like the feel of a cold hand on the back of your neck add so much to the magic spell of a film. How you combine images and color with all the sound all that is the real strength of post. Obviously, if you dont have the coverage and footage the foundations youre not going to be able to build something great. But all thats only effective in the way that you join all the images and then underline them with music and sound, to emphasize certain things, the same way you do with a lens. WEAKNESSES: Because its so easy Wisemans Total Recall remake. now to try infinite versions of a film, you have to be ruthless about what works and what doesnt. For me, in post the film is talking to you in a symbolic way. Its saying, I am this, not that. You try to cut two shots or scenes together, and it just doesnt work. The film immediately tells you it doesnt work. For The French Connection, I ended up cutting out nine scenes wed shot, because they just didnt work. They were like scaffolding on a building, which you have to get rid of when constructions finished. Id thought they were absolutely necessary to tell the story, but when I got in the cutting room, the film just rejected those scenes. OPPORTUNITIES: For me, when youre shooting a film, you have to be able to envision the entire film in your minds
24 PostDecember2012 www.postmagazine.com
LEN WISEMAN
Writer/Producer/Director Total Recall, Live Free or Die Hard, Underworld franchise
Wiseman began his career as a storyboard and conceptual artist, and as an art department assistant
on such Roland Emmerich films as Independence Day and Stargate. STRENGTHS: After the editing of course, theres the huge strength of being able to look at your film from a lot of different sides. Im a believer in the theory that you make your film three times, and post is the place where you really do make it again... for the last time. Its the time where you can re-evaluate all the footage and play with pacing and mood and all the other variables that can shade and alter that footage. Then theres the whole visual effects side of post. WEAKNESSES: The weaknesses come hand in hand with all the strengths. So along with that advantage of being able to re-evaluate your film, you can sometimes get caught up in just tearing it apar t too much and over-analyzing every shot and scene to death. For me, that doesnt exist in the shooting process, where its so fast and full of adrenaline, and you just have to make a decision instantly. But in post you can have too many options if youre not careful. OPPORTUNITIES: I love the way you can now do all your 2K visual effects reviews with Skype sessions if youre working with a company in, say London, like I did for Total Recall. Thats been a great process for me, because back when I did Die Hard this sort of system wasnt even set up yet. So the new technology has really helped. THREATS: Time and budget are always the big enemy. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Its definitely more polarized than ever, in terms of these huge tent pole movies and then small-budget films at the other end. I realize Im part of the bigbudget end, but its still a frustration.To be honest, would I have gotten Total Recall if my other movies had been far smaller budgets? Probably not. And it took me a three-year process to get there. I was trying to get other movies off the ground, which fell apart for various reasons. The fact is, its harder to get a $60 million movie made now than a $150 million.
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OUTLOOK
FILM OFFICES
BY RA N D I ALT MA N
26
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Film and TV production is no longer only
happening in Hollywood. Thanks to many states stepping up and offering tax incentives for production and post production, television shows and feature films have been taking advantage of not only a cost savings, but locations they might not have considered before. A couple of TVs hottest new shows Showtimes Homeland and NBCs Revolution are currently being shot in North Carolina. New York City doubles for The Good Wifes Chicago and also hosts CBSs Person of Interest. New Mexico, where much of the The Avengers was shot, is currently hosting Breaking Bads final season as well as the western Longmire. Quentin Tarantinos Django Unchained was shot in Louisiana, along with two HBO series, True Blood and Treme. Its up to the film offices to make their state or city inviting enough for productions to come, and stay. the future of where everything is going, and I want New Mexico to have its piece of the pie. I am hiring someone full-time to deal with emerging media and to help create an environment where these companies can thrive. Its another way to incentivize companies to start up or expand here. This is where the opportunities exist in all states. THREATS: One is, how is your economy? Is your state in a deficit or surplus? Then its just the temperature of the legislature and gover-
NICK MANIATIS
Director New Mexico Film Office www.nmfilm.com Santa Fe
The New Mexico film office offers a 25 percent incentive (which includes post) with a 50-million-dollar rolling cap. Projects shot in the state include Breaking Bad, The Lone Ranger,Two Guns and Longmire. STRENGTHS: In addition to our 25 percent rebate we have other incentives, like our Film Crew Advancement program and our Pre-Employment Training program, that are helpful to the film industry. Additionally, when you have a script that you might want to shoot in New Mexico, well break it down for locations and send you packages of photos of suitable locations in the state. We have other advantages that some states dont, for instance, we are an 1.45 hour flight to Los Angeles. We have a huge number of sunny days here as well as areas where you can shoot 360-degree shots without getting telephone poles and buildings in your shot. For states that have incentives, a film office is crucial. There is a whole process that productions have to go through, and you need someone who can guide you through that process. In our state, the Department of Taxation and Revenue is the final arbiter of what amount you get, but you need to have a point of contact that can help you wade through processes involved. WEAKNESSES: The weakness is, we dont have a vote. We are administering a law that the legislature votes on and the governor approves. We do our best to make the incentives better and can make processes easier, and we do that, but ultimately its up to the legislature. If I lose something to Georgia or another state, well get it the next time. We show ourselves in the best possible light and let them make the decision based on what is best for their production. OPPORTUNITIES: For our film office, the initiative I am pushing is emerging media app creation, videogame creation. All of that falls under our purview, and can qualify for the tax credit. We havent pushed in that area because we have been focused on film and TV, but I think thats
The A&E series Longmire takes advantage of New Mexicos Western locales.
nor, and how they feel about tax incentives in general. The issue we and other states have, and this is fairly universal, is there are some that are philosophically against tax incentives for any industry. We are in a state where tax incentives are important. The issue is how high do you go, how far does this race take you? In Vancouver you can get up to 50 percent back on post production on certain talent. There is no way we could do that. So whats the number that hits the sweet spot? Where you are getting the economic benefit back to the to the state, but not giving away so much that the cost for that benefit is too high. I dont know where that number is, but I hope were close. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Im always loath to make predictions, but we feel like we are looking good for 2013. We have had a lot of scouts on the ground and people in talks with our office. But these things change quickly, we just never know. I do think that 2013 will be better than 2012 and I think that will be the case for other states as well.
AARON SYRETT
Director North Carolina Film Office www.ncfilm.com Raleigh
The North Carolina Film Office was formed to create high-quality jobs for North Carolina film professionals. They offer an established infrastructure, trained crews, incentives (which includes post production) and varied locations.
PostDecember2012
STRENGTHS: The reason North Carolina is able to do more with less our incentive is 25 percent where our competition, Georgia and Louisiana, are at 30 and 35 percent, respectively is the way our incentive is structured. Our incentive is a fully refundable 25 percent, so 25 percent equals 25 percent. When looking at incentives you have to look at the effective rate. Our effective rate is 25 percent. You dont have to sell it, so there is no reduction for what a tax credit is going for on the open market, nor are there deductions for broker fees. Add to that, the robust filmmaking infrastructure that was already here before incentives were even offered. When you couple our infrastructure with our incentive, we become a really strong force for production. I am talking crews, equipment, stages, talent. Our locations are another strength from the mountains to the large cities to rural America and the waterfront. WEAKNESSES: Studios and producers want certainty, and anytime a production relies solely on an incentive, they could be vulnerable because governments could go in and slash them at any time. I dont think they will, but you never know whats going to happen when new legislatures come into office. Also, if you only have an incentive and no infrastructure, thats a problem. We saw that happen with Michigan. They didnt have an existing infrastructure, but came in with a 42 percent incentive and quickly built up that infrastructure. But they couldnt sustain themselves and you saw it start to dissipate. Both Louisiana and Georgia have been able to build up really strong infrastructures over the years, and its worked really well for them. If we ourselves have a weakness with our competitors, Louisiana and Georgia, its our cap. We cap talent and labor at the first million dollars, whereas Georgia and Louisiana dont cap talent or above-the-
a million dollars, studio tentpoles see we have the qualified labor who can handle these pictures, certainly with our stages like Screen Gems, they know they can build whatever they need to build in those huge studios. THREATS: You are always conscious about what your tax incentive can and cant do, and you do see cer tain states trying to get rid of them. We have seen how certainty having it in law is a huge thing. Our law is set to sunset in 2015, however since 2006 we have been successful going in a few years prior and extending the sunset. This gives productions the certainty they need. Any time you have uncertainty is when you have a huge threat. Other states, like Louisiana and Georgia, are our threat as well. We are competing for the same jobs. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: We are expecting to have another solid year. 2013 is looking up, and well sustain the level of work we did in 2011 and 2012. I see the industry remaining strong. During economic hard times, the industry always seems to do well, and its been doing well in here North Carolina. We remain competitive and aggressive, and we are in Los Angeles a lot, meeting a lot of people. So we expect to continue to do well.
Just one of the locations that can be had in Louisiana. This one is in St. Francisville.
CHRISTOPHER STELLY
Executive Director Louisiana Entertainment Louisiana Economic Development www.louisianaentertainment.gov Baton Rouge
The NBC series Revolution shoots in North Carolina, which doubles for the Midwest.
line salaries at all. They will qualify the entire salary to a highly compensated individual. OPPORTUNITIES: For us, its our new television series. Right now we have Homeland, Revolution and Cinemaxs new series, Banshee. Our incentive is really geared to those types of television productions, and its a strong opportunity for us. This year we got into the superhero movies with Iron Man 3 and built up a strong relationship with Marvel in the process. Though we have a cap on highly compensated individuals who make more than
Louisiana Entertainment offers incentive programs for film, music, interactive media and live performance.The office was established within the Department of Economic Development. STRENGTHS: We approached this industry early on from a business standpoint; it was long-term vision for the state of Louisiana. We said what areas of interest can capitalize on our strengths, and at the same time diversify our economy. We created a plan for the entertainment industry, which included a plan for the film industry. One of our biggest strengths was the fact that we already had a film industry Street Car Named Desire, Cincinnati Kid, Interview with the Vampire, Deadman Walking those films were shot in Louisiana. So we had historical ties, a small crew base, and a very creative culture. We have created a very stable incentive program but at the same time we created and built a great crew base. So motion pictures that come to our state can see we have all the goods and services they need to make their production successful. We also have a tempered climate. You can do things year round in Louisiana, where its relatively sunny and mild. Our communities are also very film friendly and diverse from Shreveport to Lafayette to Alexandria to Baton Rouge
OUTLOOK FILM OFFICES

to Lake Charles to Monroe and New Orleans. We also have a forward-thinking director of economic development, Stephen Morris. His focus is on the digital media industries and film fits firmly into that. Our motion picture program has been a catalyst for other parts of the industry. WEAKNESSES: As an industry, the weakness is that everyone involved in this industry is tied to the ups and downs of the industry as a whole as well as the economy. Whenever the industry dips, the business in each area of the world dips. OPPORTUNITIES: We are starting to see major companies looking to expand into our market. That creates job opportunities for Louisiana residents. I look at it from a fathers point of view; we are setting forth a path for the future, so my kids will have opportunities that I never had. Expatriates who may have moved away to work in this industry in other states can now come back. We are reversing the brain drain and creating opportunities for those around the world who are looking for a fresh start because there are job opportunities. THREATS: There is always a threat that someone comes and looks at incentives in general and decides to do away with the office.The current administration under Governor Jindal has supported this industry fully, but the threat is that the program could go away and that everything we have built up to this point will go away as well. We have to make sure what we are doing is showing a good return to the state. That we are creating job opportunities for Louisiana residents, making sure the program is efficient and administered tightly. As an industry, the biggest threat is how do you capitalize on the current emerging trends in technology. Box office receipts are coming in less, even though the movies are coming in bigger and bigger. How do you appeal to those whose attention span has been reduced by YouTube and videogames? They dont necessarily want to go out to a three-hour movie. Another big threat to the film industry is increasing piracy. There are some countries in the underdeveloped world where their government hasnt taken piracy seriously. It affects everyone. OUTLOOK 2013: For Louisiana, weve seen increases in production, plus increases in the number of companies that want to move into our market. People have recognized the opportunities in what we are doing and are relocating families and companies. As an industry, well always have the movie industry in some way shape or form.There will always be a subset of population that will enjoy escaping reality and go to movies. That will never go away and that will work itself out.
Person of Interest shoots all over New York City.
KATHERINE OLIVER
Commissioner New York City Mayors Office of Media and Entertainment www.nyc.gov/mome New York
The Mayors Office of Media and Entertainment consists of the Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting; NYC Digital; and NYC Media. The city is seeing a boom in TV series work. Throughout this season, the office already has 25 primetime episodic series filming in the five boroughs. STRENGTHS: Some film offices focus on managing the logistics of permits while others promote their region as an optimal location to the industry. We all have customer service in common, and we all want to attract production to our area because its an important economic driver. Having productions on the ground in your city or state can bring
lasting economic benefits, not just while theyre filming, but also into the future when tourists visit because of what theyve seen on screen. We see all of the films and TV shows that film here in New York as postcards to the world. If a production has a good experience here in NYC, theyll be more likely to return for future projects. We have an experienced staff that coordinates with productions on all aspects of their shoot from location requests to special permissions, and well come up with creative solutions for filming elaborate sequences. We also liaison with community boards, business improvement districts and local elected officials. We host community appreciation screenings in the neighborhood where a film was shot and hold free panels under the umbrella of our Made in NY Industry Series so that interested New Yorkers can learn more about career opportunities in film and television. We also created the Made in NY Discount Card Program so that local businesses could connect with productions. WEAKNESSES: Until last year, our permits were signed by hand, and a production would have to come into our office to pick up the approved permit. So that could have been considered a weakness. Now the system is computerized so productions can apply for permits from any computer, and approved permits can be emailed directly to the production office. The computerized system also allows our staff to quickly and efficiently spot conflicts when more than one production requests to be at a specific location. OPPORTUNITIES: Originally tasked with issuing permits to productions, weve also grown to run the citys television stations and coordinate the citys digital communications to better engage with local residents. We also think theres opportunity for collaboration and community-building in the media and entertainment industries, and with that in mind weve announced the Made in NY Media Center. The center which will be located in DUMBO, Brooklyn, and developed and operated by IFP, the Independent Feature Project will be a centralized hub that will provide affordable workspace for emerging media entrepreneurs and companies as well as space for educational programs and networking events. The goal of the Made in NY Media Center is to connect filmmakers and producers with digital companies who can design apps and social media games that will expand the original contents reach and make it even more accessible. It will also include confercontinued on page 46
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OUTLOOK
ON-SET
BY M AR C LOFTUS
30
Digital
Whether its the securing of camera files
or the creation of media for editorial, the dailies process is considered by many where post begins. While the terms on-set and digital dailies are often mentioned during the production and post processes, what they mean will depend on whom you ask. Some pros consider on-set dailies as the securing or backing up of files from digital cameras, such as Arris Alexa or one of Reds releases. Others say its the transcoding process, which takes these files and makes them more lightweight for forwarding to editorial. This often includes implementing a look that will stay with the footage through editorial, up until the online, where it will be further tweaked. Much of the time, this process takes place near-set, in a less chaotic environment than the set itself. And yet others see dailies as a chemical process, which by its nature, takes place in a lab, with no connection to the set where the footage was acquired. Below is a glimpse at some different perspectives of the on-set business and the trends professionals are witnessing.
DAILIES
boot up? And time there is a 3x realtime process for transcoding to ProRes uncolored. Ive found that everybody wants to shoot, then give editorial their files at the end of day, and circumvent the post house a bit. They want to be self sufficient. The one pitfall is the machines still take time to make a file that we can work with for editorial. If the DIT is doing that, the DIT is working an extreme amount of hours.You get into a double DIT scenario, and thats not going to work for on-set.
BRYAN RABER
Co-Producer Banyan Tree Productions banyantreeproductions.com Los Angeles
Bryan Raber is a co-producer on TNTs Dallas and A&Es Longmire. Both shows are in their second season and undergo post at MTI Film, though their workflows differ. Dallas is shot in Texas on Arri Alexa while Longmire is shot in New Mexico on Red Scarlets and Epics. Both are edited in Final Cut Pro 7. STRENGTHS: The ultimate strength is, we can film on-location, states away from editorial. Its the speed at which I can get the footage back from set. I can have my footage ready to cut early the next morning, as if they we shooting right next to the post facility. There is no slow down at all. WEAKNESSES: Theres a few of them and weve hit every one. What happens when power goes out? Cameras can keep shooting, they have battery back-ups, but they only last for so long because they are power intensive. If you dont have power, you are dead in the water. The other pitfall is the Internet, depending on how you get it, it can sometimes slow you down. What happens when a system doesnt
PostDecember2012 www.postmagazine.com
Dallas is shot on Arris Alexa and posted at MTI. OPPORTUNITIES: At this moment, we have maxed ourselves out, but that doesnt mean in six months we wont be trying something new. For television, the most important thing is to be editing footage because the air dates are coming at you. The more time you have in editorial, the better. That means I need to get it from the stages to here faster. Weve maxed out the speed. Now, lets find a way to minimize the cost. MTI created a software called Cortex, which allows for automatic syncing of our offline files, so we can edit with them. This will save a human from finding timecode and the clap, and locking it in. It speeds up that process, and because its automated, there are no costs involved. The software automates it so well that you can do it on-set. There is no time wasted at all. That will get our footage to LA a little faster. It takes out a cost, which is what the studios are always looking to save.
Universal Television Cable contributes to shows like USA Networks long-running Psych.
RYAN SHERIDAN
VP of Digital Cinema Otto Nemenz International http://ottonemenz.com Los Angeles
Automation, and any way you can eliminate a step is a way to save money and speed the process up. My primary goal is to see [where there is] a slow down and find another way to attack it. Thats the fun part for me. How do we use new technology to make [things] better, faster and more cost effective, and stronger without sacrificing anything to save time and money? THREATS: As you get reduced and further automated, you need to have a post house or very tech savvy group of individuals that you are working with. If one day you bring it all in-house, you need to have people who understand the process and what if something goes wrong, and something does every time. There are plenty of times that our DIT or dailies assistant has to call the post house at 4am to say something is not working. These files are coming out black. What am I doing wrong? If I dont have someone knowledgable on the back-end to troubleshoot and fix that problem, I am a day behind again. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: The world is changing every day. We are going to test a new system on Dallas, and perhaps the suitcase system for Longmire. Its going to give us fully-automated syncing and the ability if we choose to provide on-set to editorial dailies without the need to go through the post house. The suitcase system will allow you to be on-set We could have colored synced dailies right off the stages without the need to go through a colorist or a post house right to editorial. Ill probably never do that because I like to have someone properly coloring our footage every night. Never the less, the capability will be there.
Otto Nemenz International specializes in the rental and maintenance of film and digital cinema cameras, lenses and accessories. They offer the Sony F65 and F35, Arri Alexa and Red Epic, as well as high-speed cameras and film cameras. They also rent Zeiss Master Primes, the Zeiss Ultra Prime lenses, and Cooke S4 prime lenses, as well as Leica and Fujinon lenses. STRENGTHS: A few different things are at play: cost versus time, talent versus equipment, and physical logistics. For shows in metro areas like New York and Los Angeles, on-set dailies is strong but trending more toward data management. There is a slow gravitation to true on-set dailies. Were seeing that slowly build. One component that has trumped all of that is security archiving and back-up. Theres been a trend for last two years to use commodity, off-the-shelf hardware, including Mac towers and RAIDS. WEAKNESSES: The only big weakness you see with on-set is generally the talent pool. There are some amazing, smart people that are freelancers, and theres the standard post house. But there are weaknesses with on-set talent. There are people that are so good at it, but there are people that make you cringe. Thats the real pitfall data mangement and talent. OPPORTUNITIES: I think the biggest opportunity is security.
OUTLOOK ON SET
Besides cameras, Otto Nemenz provides on-set archiving solutions, most recently for the upcoming feature The Last Stand .
Theres been a rapid change from tape and film right to digital workflows. Questions about security have made people think. Are dailies secure? Are the archives secure? What about backing up on-set? Is the transportation secure? Do I have to QC every clip? The more you talk about it, the more people question each option. I would say more than one piece of equipment, the person who educates correctly the DP, the data manager that is the person who will be valuable. THREATS: The biggest threat is unfounded personal greed. The person who is trying to get a rental for something as opposed to doing the job as best they can. Proprietary things become more of a detriment. Cultivation of talent is a threat. Were watching it happen. Solutions that dont require human talent.Were watching people look for pure automation. The biggest opportunity is also a liability education. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I think 4K is still a growth segment the F65 and Raw in an economical sense. Red, Arri and Canon there are 4K offerings that will push limits of what post can handle.
RICHARD WINNIE
VP of Post Production Universal Television, Universal Television Cable www.nbcuni.com Universal City, CA
Universal Television has produced content for broadcast networks, including The Mindy Project, House, 30 Rock and The Office. Universal Cable productions include work for USA and SyFy. These shows include Royal Pains, Psych, Fairly Legal, Warehouse 13, Alphas, Suits and Covert Affairs. STRENGTHS: It gives the DP a certain level of comfort that hes getting what he thinks he is getting. Overall, file-based is less expensive, which is one of the reasons we are moving toward it. It saves a lot of money to process this way as opposed to labs, telecines and transfers. WEAKNESSES: I think a weakness is trying to do too much in
the hectic environment of the set; its not necessarily always the best thing for the material itself. Its too rushed and too frenetic, and there are a lot opportunities for things to not get backed up or QCd. If we were to be on-set, once the crew shuts down, you are still going to have people there trying to wrap up the dailies for another four, five, six hours. And you are still paying for set time. Its not necessarily ideal. It has ripple effects, which is another good reason why we dont do that. When you are on-location, the environment for electronic equipment isnt necessarily the greatest. Its really not the perfect environment to try to do that type of thing. OPPORTUNITIES: I dont think [the challenge of working onset] is going to change. When you are shooting, you want to be focused on capturing the best images that you can, and not worrying so much about what happens later. I dont think that is going to change. Some of the opportunities that weve seen are with some shows that choose to bring it into the cutting room, like in the old days when we used to cut film where the assistants would sync the material. Sync is part of it. That is an opportunity. Whether the cutting room is the best place for that is debatable. On some shows it might be. On others, not so much. Are your assistants best trained for that? Maybe. So that is an opportunity to keep things more localized with less travel. THREATS: There is some threat to the facilities that didnt make the transition fast enough. The brick and mortar-type places that might have been stuck in the way they are doing things. I think some werent making the changes as quick as the transition was happening. Now they are catching up a bit. The major players are all pretty much caught up now. Its easier for a start-up company that is starting from scratch to create a workflow and is not dependent on maximizing the profit from existing infrastructure. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I think there are some interesting new cameras coming out, and every time that happens there are more possibilities for workflows. It also gives us more creative choices. I know there is a new Sony camera that came out beyond F65, theres the new Blackmagic camera, which is a game changer. They are getting smaller and more mobile, which is something that everyone likes. Theres more flexibility and no one wants to be tethered to cables and things like that. It might be more of a gradual evolution. Canons got a new C500, that will be a contender for B and C cameras, if not A cameras. Wait five minutes and the technology will change, and we have to keep rolling with that. Its exciting. We can make better product. Prices are going down. Democratization presents different opportunities and challenges.
Small Tree
MICHAEL CIONI
CEO Light Iron www.lightiron.com Hollywood THREATS: The biggest threat to the on-set business is fear. In baseball, if a conservative base runner never takes a lead for fear of being picked off, hell never make it to home plate. In business, you also have to take risks, despite fear of leaving the comfortable space of legacy techniques. Its hard to understand now, but in four years, onset will seem as common as using the Internet to read articles like this one. But 10 years ago, the Internet being the best resource for information wasnt a slam-dunk concept. People are addicted to legacy tools and techniques, and the talent behind them because familiarity breeds comfort. Admittedly, those legacy systems have and will get the work done, but the goals of better, faster and cheaper are not achievable with legacy tools. When something shrinks, it is usually less expensive, and when something is less expensive and small, it is likely to be treated as portable.This combination: size, cost and portability is the
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Light Iron is a post house that specializes in on-site dailies, digital intermediate, archival and data services for projects originated on file-based cameras. The company offers both hardware and software solutions that have been custom configured to enhance the creative process. Credits include Hitchcock, Flight, Lincoln and Halo 4. STRENGTHS: The market of on-set is not an alternative to brick-and-mortar infrastructures, rather it is the replacement to brick-and-mortar. Thanks to the advent of GPU-accelerated software tools and a number of image processing hardware and software combinations, the ability to perform typical post laboratory activities has shrunk into a smaller set of tools. WEAKNESSES: The weakness with any new business model or service is an education. And education affects both ends of the market. First, we have to educate the customer to inquire about the options that on-set services bring them.They need to learn the process, the benefits, how to budget it, where it goes and who operates it. The second part of that education is the on-set operators themselves. At this point in time, there is a fog over the DITs role on the set. Some DITs come from a video engineering background. Others are camera technicians or data managers. The problem is that because its not clear to the producers who does what and exactly what services they offer, some producers shy away from hiring DITs or kit rentals on the set. The way to deal with this is to educate the on-set operators to offer more value to the producers they work for. OPPORTUNITIES: Training people in this new post production technology is one of the most promising and profitable areas of post and production, but it does require an investment in education or the entire system can fail to deliver as efficiently as promised. Currently, our work has been mostly in feature films (2D and 3D), but recently the television market has been opening up to on-set. Television is almost all off of tape. Their adoption of file-based capture and post in 1080 and 2K-plus is similar enough to the processes of features that we can deploy successful feature workflows and tools on television shows. Because TV is on a tighter schedule and often with less financial resources, these on-set tools can have a much larger impact compared to a feature that shoots and edits a two-hour project over an eightmonth period. On-set delivers a better solution, but TV has to be open to letting go of their traditional reliance on laboratory support.
In addition to post services, Light Iron offers these on-set tools.
triple threat that makes on-set tools superior to brick and mortar. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Failure to recognize the burgeoning market of on-set post production will result in massive downsizing and even closings. Youve seen this before: Blockbuster vs. Netflix, Best Buy vs. Amazon, Walkman vs. iPod. Like many good ideas that eventually become obsolete, post dailies laboratories are an endangered species. By 2016, if companies dont make the necessary changes, the graveyard of post houses will be a sad place to visit. The outlook for the on-set business in 2013 is extremely promising. When Light Iron started our on-set program, Outpost, in 2009, we did two jobs. In 2012, we are closing in on 100. We recently opened a second facility to meet the growing demand for on-set services.
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OUTLOOK
VFX
BY RA ND I A LTMA N
34
GLOBAL
EFFECTS
Fluctuating pay scales, tighter deadlines and increased competition from a worldwide marketplace have made working in visual effects production, lets say, interesting. But the work has never been better, and the cost of entry is getting lower each year. While there are challenges, the talent is plentiful, as is artists love of the process.
CHRIS HEALER
Founder The Molecule www.themolecule.net New York
The Molecule, in NYC and LA, creates visual effects and motion graphics for television and film. Recent work includes VFX for Smash, Elementary, Royal Pains, Infamous, Golden Boy and an upcoming pilot coming out called Sirens. STRENGTHS: I like the way things are going now with color flow being able to shoot on set with CDL data in mind and following that through the workflow to the end. Its exciting because with TV we put out a lot of shots, and being able to see them properly (and in deep color space) all the way to the end is important. This workflow has been embraced over the past two years. We do on the order of 100 shots a week; in the past getting out 10-15 shots would be a good number. Now we have refined our workflow we have our process together; we have our software together. Traditionally, you think a visual effect needs to be an explosion or a slimy monster, but now its tons of cosmetics. We are changing the way people look, changing costumes, splitting takes, adding things together. WEAKNESSES: There is a lot of rumbling out there about VFX unions. The VES, which has been strong in LA for a long time, has gained a lot of momentum with their New York chapter, and they are starting to build a charter and they have board members. That in and of itself isnt the weakness, but the reason its gaining momentum is visual effects as an industry has problems in terms of how the billing structure works, and the perception of what things are worth. OPPORTUNITIES: I look at Digital Domain closing their Florida office, Asylum and Core going out of business, and what I take from that is a visual effects company wants to be a certain size. When it gets too big it doesnt function well, and the size is determined by the industrys technology at any given moment. The ideal size is smaller
than it used to be, and that leads to an exciting opportunity for people to grow. Its now not crazy to have a VFX company with five or eight people doing a lot of stuff. You dont need 500 people working in a warehouse or a half-million-dollar Flame system. If you are unhappy with the way the industry is going, you have a tremendous opportunity to start your own VFX shop and contribute to the VFX industry in a different way. Also, thanks to fast Internet speeds and regular computers you can perform work quickly. In the past that was a moat that kept the small guys out, and now that moat has dried up. THREATS: I wouldnt say outsourcing is a problem in the sense of, dont let it happen, but there is a threat. For example, with us being in New York, I cant compete with India, China and Singapore. Thats why all these other companies open offices out there it might as well be their company than someone elses. That is happening more and more, and its a severe threat. Another is that people arent being paid a fixed rate. Its not measured, like it is for a doctor or a lawyer or a banker. Its whatever town youre in, the people you know, the budget, and getting paid what you can negotiate. Another problem is there are lots of degree programs
The Molecule added an explosion and other CG goodies to CBSs Elementary Episode 107, which airs Thursday nights.
now, and they are putting out kids with tremendous school loan debts. I am afraid for them because I have people coming with virtually no experience asking for $700-800 a day for VFX work. There is a break-
Snow White and the Hunstman features many visual effects shots by Pixomondo.
ing point, and they know it, and they cant cover their loans at the rate people are getting paid.
OUTLOOK FOR 2013:
There are a lot of cool gadgets coming out, like with Nuke, that I cant wait to get my hands on. There is also something interesting going on where $10 million movies are being made, and they have a need for visual effects that people like us and others can provide, and thats exciting. In the past a $10 million movie probably wasnt a VFX movie because they couldnt afford it. The possibilities that are coming are something I am excited to be a part of.
ERIC ROTH
Executive Director Visual Effects Society www.visualeffectssociety.com Sherman Oaks, CA
The VES represents visual effects artists working in TV, film, commercials, music videos and games. While headquartered in Southern California, the VES has members in 29 countries around the world and seven Sections globally. STRENGTHS: The strength of the industry is we create the kind of visuals that people want to see, things that will put butts in seats and keep the industry growing. We are able to fulfill the promise of, If you can imagine it, we can create it. Every thought or idea that a director might have, we can bring to life and make it real.The artists who create visual effects have the ability to make stories come alive, and thats going to keep growing. WEAKNESSES: You have a lot of uncertainty in terms of the US market this is more a comment on a changing world and the global economy since the industry itself and the VES are global. Here in the US, there has been a collective race to the bottom at the facility level with everyone trying to undercut each other to get business. As a result, profit margins have gotten even more razor thin, so the ability to land work here in the US is more difficult because the work tends to follow tax incentives and lower wage rates in other places. Artists now refer to themselves as migrant filmworkers, because they know if they want to work, they have to get on a plane and say goodbye to their families for months at a time. OPPORTUNITIES: From a global economic standpoint, there are incentives and economic opportunities to take advantage of. There are opportunities to make sure you can do the work you need to do, corral it from various sources and create a business model that works. Smart people are taking a longer look, a five- or 10-year look, to see how to redefine business models how to use your own intellectual property and become content creators, to get equity positions on all the projects being looked at on the studio level and elsewhere. THREATS: The global economy and extraordinary changes in
technology have changed the rules everyone learned over the last 20-30 years so that anybody can now do anything, anywhere, at any time. Global competition will grow ever more brutal, and the technology will grow ever more sophisticated, which will allow competition to get even more intense. If you want to rest on yesterdays laurels, the threat is you are gone tomorrow. If you are staying ahead of the curve and looking at possibilities for the future and investing time and money in resources and training on the next-generation of sophisticated software, you are going to be ahead of the game. The current business model in Hollywood is to have a key presence in Southern California and have satellite offices in Vancouver, Asia, Europe or in states that are offering great tax incentives. The absolute number of working visual effects artists in California is shrinking, and in five years from now it will be even smaller. Why? Because California doesnt offer the kind of competitive incentives that other locations do. Unless that is addressed, you will see a further migration away from
The VES Awards draw big talent like Marty Scorsese, and the awards themselves are coveted.
California and likely away from the US. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I continue to be amazed at the artistry I see on screen. As many have said, the best visual effects in the world cant cover over a weak story our work is always in service to help show the story, but unless the actual story is a strong one, visual effects wont cover that up. For me, 2013 will see further advancement in what we will be able to see on screen, but only if filmmakers use all the tools in the VFX tool chest to make those stories come to life.
OUTLOOK VFX
work on visual effects and get them as good as they could be, irrespective of resources. There is never enough time, and that is a big threat. But we always rise to the challenge, and that is pretty much true of everyone in the visual effects industry, and this goes back to what I mean about the resilience of the companies. There are some really great companies out there doing really great work, but it would be great to have more time. The compressed schedules mean you have longer hours and dont necessarily get the time to refine the work. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I am optimistic. The industry is used to dealing with the issues, and while we have seen companies go under, there are still a lot of companies out there. I feel like we will continue to see great visual effects work, but there will be some sort of attrition on the way there.
JONI JACOBSON
Executive Producer Pixomondo www.pixomondo.com Santa Monica
Methods commercial work includes these hip hamsters for Kias Soul.
PATRICK DAVENPORT
VP of Creative Operations Method Studios www.methodstudios.com Santa Monica
Method Studios, a visual effects company with studios in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia, provides a full range of services to film and spot clients. STRENGTHS: Its a very resilient industry, given the economic pressures on it. The industry has been very adaptable and inventive in coming up with ways to do more with less. And its not just less money, but less time too. We are also seeing new levels of artistry, and the level of creativity is getting ever more sophisticated. There is a still a huge demand for visual effects, so thats a strength. WEAKNESSES: The margins are razor thin, so the threat is having the necessary money to keep reinvesting in people, technology and equipment. That could ultimately hamper the continued development of the industry. Also, we are always needing more artists, and its often a challenge to find the right teams for certain shows. Weve always been able to figure it out, but its an ongoing challenge. OPPORTUNITIES: Its very much a global business, and companies like Method Studios are hoping to take advantage of having offices in different locations to service our client needs. We hope to become greater than the sum of our parts. Even in the current economic climate, weve had success here in LA this year working on features; doing a lot of highly-creative work. I still feel that LA has a great part to play in the world of features, even when work is heading to areas with tax incentives. There is also continuing high demand for visual effects in features, commercials and games, and that is an opportunity. THREATS: These threats go back to not being able to make decent enough margins to keep investing in the business. I think we will see a few more companies go under; thats probably inevitable in 2013. Another threat is getting less and less time to do the work. The industry works on such fast turnaround times and being always willing to pull off the impossible, we become our own worst enemies! Tighter schedules also mean you dont get enough time to really
Pixomondo is an international visual effects company that specializes in VFX production and supervision, CG character creation, 3D animation and previsualization, and stereo 3D production for the feature film, television and commercial industries. STRENGTHS: With visual effects, the strengths are always artists and talent. Its great that a movie like Hugo (Pixomondo won the VFX Oscar for this one) was recognized for VFX because it tells me that the Academy is looking not just at technical achievement, but also the art. 2012 has shown some amazing work across the board. From John Carter of Mars to The Avengers, artists continue to prove that VFX can do anything, and thats a wonderful power to have. In addition, the Internet is starting to provide some interesting opportunities in technology. Much like artistry that can be accessed worldwide, companies are starting to embrace the concept of the cloud. Many facilities, including Pixomondo, are now running servers and rendering remotely, meaning in datacenters as opposed to in the facility. I see this type of opportunity expanding in the future, including cloud-based rendering services that are much more accessible than current models, increasing connectivity around the world. WEAKNESSES: The sad truth is visual effects artists garner little respect in the industry, regardless of the quality of the work. This has been as evident as ever in 2012, where there has been much heated argument about unionization and globalization. Artists lack a significant voice in all aspects of the industry, regardless of the fact that the most successful films rely heavily on visual effects for their success. This became grossly evident as well when Digital Domain was forced to close its doors in Florida, stranding artists who thought their jobs were safe. Events like this show us just how precarious the VFX industry is. OPPORTUNITIES: As clich as it sounds, our industry is in a place where it seems like we can do anything. 2012 has opened the doors for new approaches to the spectacle of movie making and in the experiential world. Though stereo seems to have leveled off, it continues to develop as a new business, though perhaps in more sparing use. The Hobbit will show us the value, or the downfall, of 48 frames per second, and the pending need for 4K film projection, along with 4K VFX, looms. This could be seen as a threat to many, and will certainly continued on page 46
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OUTLOOK
NEW MEDIA
BY M AR C L O F T US
38
ANYTIME, anywhere!
Start a conversation about new media
and it could quickly become a discussion about mobile devices. Smart phones and tablets, too are helping to drive content consumption and are opening up opportunities for traditional broadcasters and cable networks, as well as to independents and those who may not already have a footing in the entertainment space. While mobile devices are helping to create new opportunities, they also present challenges to those looking to ride the anytime, anywhere wave.
HANS DEUTMEYER
Vice President HBO Go & Max Go www.hbogo.com; www.maxgo.com New York
HBO Go and its companion site Max Go allow HBO and Cinemax subscribers to watch their favorite programs on their portable devices. At press time, HBO Go had 1,700 titles available for viewing, with new content being added daily. This includes classic series such as Sex and the City and The Sopranos. New shows are added to the site at the same time theyre being broadcast. Currently, subscribers can view programming on their Android or iOS devices, as well as on various game platforms. STRENGTHS: It offers the user or subscriber a lot more in terms of choice. And it ultimately provides a much better consumer experience. From a television standpoint, searching for something to watch through your set-top box or ondemand platforms, there are a lot of limitations for many reasons. But with a lot of these new media platforms, like a game console or a tablet device or even the Web itself, it provides us the ability to offer a much better consumer experience. It allows them new and improved ways to watch, but also new ways to engage and discover content. WEAKNESSES: Its not quality we are offering a 1080p experience on some of our platforms, so the video experience has improved significantly over the years. I think one possible weakness is the number of platforms. You think about the fragmentation and divergence of all these platforms. Instead of offering a linear television feed and some on-demand content, we now have to offer these experiences to a wide range of platforms that range from a 3.5-inch mobile
phone screen to a very large, big-screen TV. When you think of all of the operating systems, its a very broad ecosystem. Designing an experience across all of these platforms, maintaining it, producing content for it day in and day out, thats a challenge. OPPORTUNITIES: We are always looking at a road map. There will be more ways for consumers to experience HBO Go. That will naturally occur as we expand to more platforms. Beyond the platforms, which allow us to reach more consumers, we also with the new platforms have the opportunity to provide different experiences. So, how do we offer new and interactive content experiences? We started to touch on that with some of our bigger shows with interactive experiences on the iPad, and also through our Website. Well continue to do so more into next near and years to come. How do you enhance the viewing experience even further? Fans of these shows are looking for more and more content. How do we do that in conjunction with the video itself? Whether its second screen experiences or interactive experiences, there definitely is an opportunity to do more on the content side. We have done Web-focused shorts and
Thanks to HBO Go, fans of Girls can watch the show at their convenience and on the go.
digital shorts, so we are experimenting in that sense. And were looking at opportunities and trying to figure out whats next? THREATS: The device proliferation is definitely a challenge, but on the flip side, there is an opportunity there. I think one of the threats is its getting harder and harder to stand out. Theres a cost
to get on these platforms and there is a pressure to be everywhere. As it is, its all about the content. Thats why people are coming to HBO and Cinemax. Its all about the content. We like to think we have great applications and great Websites, and offer great consumer experiences, but at the end of the day, these fans are coming to watch their favorite HBO content. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Thats a big question, and its hard to answer. We are going to see a lot more of what weve seen in the last year. We are looking at a lot everything from what technologies will allow us to do, what the consumers are interested in, what kind of programming people are watching and whats resonating with fans. We are taking a very broad view, as we always do. I dont think this coming year will be any different than any other year, in that sense. I would say you are going to see more and more users leveraging these new platforms and devices in terms of watching premium video experiences. Its an expansion of what we are seeing today, but I am not giving any bold predictions.
ISMAEL OBREGON
Founder Oishii Creative www.oishiicreative.com Los Angeles NAC Film Theorys [L-R] Gabriel Carmona, Richard Hartley and Branden Selman on location. WEAKNESSES: When it comes to technology, and creating or using the technology, the weakness comes in understanding the technology. A lot of people try to sell the features. I think they get bogged down with that. Facebook is still creating new things and trying things out. Eventually were going to get to a point where maturity sets in. Companies need to look at technology today with that frame of mind how does it have the ability to make peoples lives better? Apple knew what they were going to be 20 years in the future: computers for the masses that make peoples lives better. Not recognizing that technology can improve lives of people is a weakness. OPPORTUNITIES: Non-entertainment entities are becoming entertainment producers. I think thats the future of commerce as a whole. Weve been trained to watch television or movies and be entertained. We are all brand specialists. Consumers have been trained to watch commercials. Companies outside the entertainment space that can adopt and use tools that consumers are already trained on will benefit. THREATS: What is a threat for some is an opportunity for others. Once you are established, the threat of someone copying your system will always be there. I see them as opportunities. We welcome the idea of having companies look at new markets and areas, and test our theories. Can they come up with a better way? Can they help the industry as a whole? Saturation is always an issue, [but] its not an issue if quality drives it. Its always disappointing to see a company come in and claim to do the same thing and then see they are not there yet. Companies in our field have to evolve to survive. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I think the area of growth that will be exciting is in companies like ourselves, who rather than consult, will take the reins and create our own products. Start owning your intellectual property. Thats something we look forward to. www.postmagazine.com PostDecember2012 39
Oishii Creative opened in 2002, with a primary focus on broadcast branding and strategy. About three years ago, the company noticed a shift in the business, and as an agency, looked at how they could apply their creative strengths for entertainment clients into solutions for clients outside of that space. They have since collaborated with financial institutions, start-ups and legal service providers to help visualize their often intangible and elusive concepts and ideas. STRENGTHS: The strengths of new technology is the ability to be able to communicate intelligently with a much wider audience. It goes beyond broadcast. Entertainment creates audiences. Technology creates users to interact with a phone or tablet, or to do Google searches. Even cars have new technology. When you combine technology with the ability to approach it from an entertainment point of view, it create participants.
Oishii Creatives mascot The Kid started as a CG character and then became a vinyl toy.
OUTLOOKMEDIA NEW
GABRIEL CARMONA
Co-Founder Nac Film Theory www.nacfilmtheory.com Nacogdoches, TX OUTLOOK FOR 2013: The quality on the phones can get better, and I think were starting to see that. I also think about the space in which to watch a movie. The bathroom? People seem to have time for two-minute or three-minute episodes.
Nac Film Theory is a collection of Texas-based artists that come together to write, direct, shoot, post and distribute short films and documentaries. Gabriel Carmona and Branden Selman are two of the collectives founders and take on much of the work, which has included production of the Caballero series of two-minute Web shorts. The collective has been operating with the goal of producing one short film a month, regardless of the challenges the concept imposes. STRENGTHS: If you have a camera or an iPhone, filmmaking is open for everybody now. A few years ago, when there was only film,
JAN MAITLAND
President
HEATHER MITCHELL
Executive Producer, Post Utopic www.utopic.net Chicago
Chicagos Utopic is comprised of a group of integrated digital experts that employ a trans-media approach, using skills in traditional production,
Examples of Utopics online work.
it was hard to get that kind of equipment. But now, there are phones out there that are able to meet high standards of quality. And [you can] produce things really fast. What new media allows us to do is make the film and post it. Sometimes people send us pointers about where they believe the story is going. It allows people to see our work, be intrigued and keep coming back. Some send me messages like, This would be a good idea to see. It helps us to whittle down the story. You have a relationship with a lot of people you dont really know. WEAKNESSES: The weaknesses would be that people think its easy. People talk my ear off about how I should shoot a scene, or how it should have gone. You know what, when you can get three or four people and have your schedules aligned and find a camera and microphone and editor, you can shoot that movie. Right now we are shooting this one. The one short film a month idea happens really fast and what people dont realize is its a lot of work. Theres that one thing that you cant buy or download, and thats desire. You have to have that passion. OPPORTUNITIES: The opportunity I see are with people. Robert Rodriguezs book, Rebel Without a Crew was a big inspiration. After I read it, and my friends read it, we said, If he can do it, so can we. I see opportunities with the cameras that we are able to use now. It opens up [filmmaking] to a broader audience. THREATS: YouTube is flooded with videos. We have a tag that mentions The Twilight Zone. People were clicking on it thinking its a vampire movie. Thats a disadvantage. Anyone can make a movie but whether or not its good is another thing.
post, audio, Web, design, mobile and interactive production. The company has worked with clients that include Allstate, Advil, Kelloggs, McDonalds, Nintendo, Samsung and HP. STRENGTHS: JAN MAITLAND: What I hear and experience the most is clients being able to quantify the impact of that particular media. There is realtime engagement with their consumer base that they just cant get with broadcast. HEATHER MITCHELL: I think reach and number of people can be similar. But the way that you can target your market is much more [efficient] in the online world, where on TV its just people who might watch a type of show. When its online, you can really reach your target much more efficiently. Theres no telling how many people are going to see it. MAITLAND: I think the device is a gateway for interaction with a brand or consumer less so than a viewing platform. I hear a lot about dual screens, where youve got your television on, but youre also engaging in social media, so you have two screens in front of you. There are tons of analytics out there on tablet usage. I think the last thing I heard was that 62 percent of tablet users are on the couch with the TV on. WEAKNESSES: MAITLAND: It seems that a couple of years ago, there was so much static and so much content being rushed out to the Web, that [saturation] might have been the case. Whats happened now is that marketing dollars that are behind that content helps to separate the weak [content]. There is a better-educated consumer base. Were at an interesting point in time for marketers or advertisers where, when someone doesnt skip their ad on YouTube, that is far
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more meaningful than getting in front of lots of people who may not engage after the fact, whether its thousands or millions of people. MITCHELL: I think the consumer is much more savvy. When a campaign goes viral, its because its amazing. That doesnt happen with shitty stuff. Campaigns go viral, not because the marketer makes them go viral, but because the consumer makes them go viral. OPPORTUNITIES: MAITLAND: We [are seeing] more and more that we are able to open eyes more easily. Clients come in for one thing and realize, Wow, we can do other things. Not because we have the power or structure to do it, but because it aids their narrative and their message. For the coming year, I see a greater drive toward new media and messaging. Its not just the Fortune 100 companies. John Q. Law Firm can do it, as well as Coca-Cola. For us, its about wherever there is a screen, we can put a story on that screen. MITCHELL: The way technology is going these days clients come in with these grandiose ideas we can figure out how to do it. There is almost no ceiling as to how or where you can get message out. Its as big as you can dream. THREATS: MAITLAND: I dont see threats. IP is always a consideration, but at the level we are engaged, so far its not been an issue. Outside of the usual thing thats been stated for years now budgets the bottom line is a concern.
MITCHELL: A lot of clients are still under the impression that its cheaper to do because its online and not broadcast. I think they are getting more educated knowing what that money is going to get you: there are designers and coders. We are from the mindset here that if you have awesome idea well do whatever it takes to get it done, within reason. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: MAITLAND: Next year, traditional work not withstanding, I think theres a lot to be done in the mobile space. Motion content for devices but not in a static way and content associated and embedded within the application. As an app developer, I would love to see less fragmentation in the Android space, but I love the competition between the Android OS and the Apples iOS. I would love to see Research In Motion come back strong. I would love Windows Phone 8 to come on strong. I would love to see the Windows ecosystem catch on because there are a billion installed seats. Its better for the marketer and for us. MITCHELL: Because of the recent election, theres going to be a lot more participation in the healthcare space when it comes to apps. I think thats exciting. I agree with Jan about the patent wars: it makes more work for us because we have to develop on different platforms, but if it makes it more universally acceptable in the end, then we will do it.
OUTLOOK
AUDIO
BY JE NNIFE R WALDE N
42
Sounds GOOD
There have been some exciting changes in
the audio post industry. In 2012, we had the introduction of 3D audio systems for feature films, such as Dolbys Atmos on Brave and Barcos Auro-3D on Red Tails. Weve seen several new devices able to run applications and mobile games. And in December, the implementation of the CALM Act for TV spec. These four audio post pros, from films, television, commercials and games, share their 2012 experiences, and take a look at the year ahead.
KRISTEN QUEBE
Sound Supervisor Microsoft Game Studios www.microsoft.com/en-us/ productionstudios Redmond, WA
OPPORTUNITIES: The industry as a whole has proven itself to be a viable entertainment media. I think for people who like challenges, especially interactive challenges, there is a lot opportunity in the games industry. The game audio industry has a lot of people who know each other. Its smaller than I like to think it is, but there is still room for new people. We hire constantly, and I believe that games are growing. And while its changing, and the market is changing, I do think it has proven itself as a viable career option. So there is opportunity for people looking to get into the game audio industry. THREATS: The threat is not being adaptable. If we arent adapt-
Microsoft Game Studios creates games and interactive content for Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, and for Windows PCs and Windows phone platforms. Recent work is Fable III, and past projects include Condemned 2, F.E.A.R. and Fable II. STRENGTHS: I think theres a lot of opportunity in game audio, particularly because its such an interactive media. We are continually developing technology in ways to build systems in games. There is still a lot of room for growth in that area. I feel like the better technology gets, the more we can do. We used to have more limitations put on us, and now I feel like were starting to be able to build bigger and think bigger. WEAKNESSES: The games industry is still one of the newer ones, if you look at the history of it. We are still building on how we build games, and we are still learning how to schedule and plan. Because games involve such a dynamic group of people building something together, there are a lot of dependencies. There is a lot of time crunch in the games industry and we end up working long and hard hours. In terms of game audio, a challenge would be the mix. In doing more linear audio production work, and other media like film, they can preemptively plan for things and have a lot more control over their mix than we do. That is a huge challenge that we are learning to overcome. In games, we dont know when things are about to happen. In film, you know when a moment is going to be big so you can build in a quiet moment before that event happens. That doesnt always happen with games. We dont always have that granular level of control.
Microsoft Game Studios worked on Fable: The Journey.
able to markets that are changing, or looking at new markets, say, casual games, for instance, that is a threat. We need to be adaptable in what were building, and who we are building for. As long as the industry as a whole is constantly looking at that, then I think well be ok. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: We go through the usual cycles, where our summer is crunched to hit holidays, because holidays are when the majority of big titles come out. I think youre going to see a lot of big titles come out. Were seeing new areas in media expansion in consoles, and a lot more applications on consoles. I wouldnt be surprised if that provides a lot of opportunity in the future. We work on a lot of console games, but we are also focusing on smaller mobile games, and tablet games. For games in general, I think youre going to see them spread out to a wider audience. I think youll see more growth for games across the various devices.
weve never heard television series and films on television sound as bad as some of them are sounding now. In some cases, regardless of whether the print master meets the specification detailed by the film studio and network, engineering departments may still be engaging a sausage box on the program as it is transferred to the master as a hedge against a QC rejection. In some cases, a downstream QC department may be making that change before the network receives it and in some cases the network may be doing it in addition to all of the above. The result is background sound in quiet scenes being increased as loud as dialogue, and dialogue louder than action sequences, and action sequences that have absolutely no dynamic impact at all. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: 2013 could be an interesting year as a result of the strategic adjustments made to some businesses during the later part of 2012.
MARSHALL GRUPP
COO/Managing Partner/Sound Designer Sound Lounge www.soundlounge.com New York City David Raines and the mix team for Hell on Wheels work out of Larson Studios in Hollywood.
DAVID RAINES
Re-recording Mixer Los Angeles
This Australian-born re-recording mixer has worked on TV series such as Bent, Burn Notice and White Collar, as well as on films, like Minority Report, Deep Impact and The Chronicles of Riddick. His most recent series, Hell on Wheels, is mixed at Larson Studios. STRENGTHS: Our strength as an industry is our creative use of sound in the storytelling process, no matter how technology or business structures may change. WEAKNESSES: Its going to take a tremendous effort from supervisors, mixers, producers and studios to correct the path that television seems to have started down with regards to the CALM Act. Remember, CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. These perceived problems with loudness in television did not start on the film or series mix stage. OPPORTUNITIES: This is also one of our biggest opportunities: the technology that we have these days to deliver sound and picture masters from the mixing stage to the audience is amazing. If implemented well, the benefit to the dynamic way in which we tell dramatic stories can be incredibly satisfying for the audience, and for distributors returns, as a result. THREATS: The most recent threat to our clients stories being delivered to the television audience in terms of sound is the way the CALM Act is being interpreted and implemented by various networks and some upstream QC departments who see it as their responsibility to deliver masters in spec. Unfortunately, were hearing a lot of substandard series and film broadcasts now due to the misinterpretation and subsequent mishandling of program Dial Norm (LKFS). Of the many re-recording mixers Ive spoken to about this, most agree that
Sound Lounge specializes in audio for commercials and offers three Dolby-certified studios for 5.1 mixing. Recent work includes spots for Cadillac ATS, Fiat and Google Play. STRENGTHS: The more 5.1 surround becomes an important piece in terms of home systems and eventually with 3D as well, the more you have to maintain audio quality. You have to treat it the same as if you were sitting in a movie theater. There is an opportunity here to make audio not be the stepchild of the process. Audio is always considered the last little bit to do, but it is as critical to the story telling as shooting it, or directing it, or writing it.
WEAKNESSES: There are a lot of little shops being created, because its easy to buy equipment, and its easy to set up a little room I think that quality is being sacrificed for pricing. Yeah, you can do it cheaper in a little tiny room, but how much experience is there? There are a lot of elements that go into good audio post. Im most concerned about the quality thats out there. OPPORTUNITIES: There are so many places now where commercials are being sent. Its not just a TV box anymore. Its YouTube, its www.postmagazine.com
Sound Lounge designed and mixed this Cadillac ATS vs. The World commercial.
PostDecember2012
43
OUTLOOK AUDIO
Websites, its everywhere. Its on your mobile phone. The most important thing is that you have to maintain the quality, and thats always going to be the challenge, whether its on a 36-inch screen or a mobile phone. The quality is still going to be important. THREATS: People putting more money toward interactive, and moving away from the :30 TV spot. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Im very optimistic as long as Obama creates jobs. If people can go back to work, then they can spend money. If they can spend money, then advertisers are going to create advertising to market their products. You can see whats happened over the last three months. The industry took a dive because no one knew what was going to happen with the election. If jobs are created, then I think everything is going to be great.
OPPORTUNITIES: The opportunity is diversification, across the board. The grand opportunity to work with new filmmakers on independent projects, all the way through to the opportunities of working with the creative individuals that you read about everyday who are creating high-profile content. A greater opportunity is looking at the marketplace from a global perspective. For Warner Bros. Post sound, we have addressed the market in a very progressive fashion by looking at how we produce and where we post. For example, we are about to open up a new satellite facility in New York, which will be a dub stage, sound editing suites and picturing editing suites on a moderate scale to respond to that marketplace. Also, we just made an acquisition in London, where we purchased De Lane Lea in Soho, a leading London post production house, which will suppor t the creative community in the UK. Thats really a response to the globalization in the marketplace, and making sure that we can have the highest level of talent available for our filmmakers, and for all filmmakers in the locations that they are completing their projects. THREATS: Its an interesting word, threat. Is it a real threat, or a perceived threat? The feature film market in Los Angeles may feel threatened by a perceived contraction, but its really just a change, a market change. A trend to more independent films is fantastic. Its an opportunity to work with new filmmakers, an opportunity to work with new content and with new workflows and to integrate the technology that has been developed over the last few years. And to work with the greatest group of talent that exists today; those who are really rising to the occasion to support these types of things that people see as threats. Its a global industry, and the reality of it is that opportunities exist, but there are geographical barriers. We responded to those geographical barriers by having our satellite locations, because Warner Bros. produces in every time zone. We have production going on in New Zealand with The Hobbit, The Great Gatsby in Australia, Hangover 3 in Los Angeles, in New York A Winters Tale, and All You Need is Kill in London. These are significant investments weve made from a global standpoint. That may be perceived in Los Angeles as a threat, because the work isnt necessarily being completed here. Its really how we perceive it. So we are responding to creatively completing our content in those marketplaces, and supporting our filmmakers. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: Im Mr. Positive, always looking forward to new opportunities. The studios are healthy. Its exciting to see other major studios in town, and their acquisitions. Its great to see the strong production relationships that Warner Bros. has, and the great writers and directors that are in front of us. Im so pleased to be in a community that raises the bar every year and supports our filmmakers. Its a great time in history. It starts and ends with our people. Anyone can buy the equipment and build grand facilities, but its a people business. Its built on those people, their creativity, and their relationships. In regards to 3D audio systems, its exciting. These new tools separate the home theater environment and the theatrical experience. Its great to enhance the theatrical experience for the filmgoers. The competing companies, and their versions of 3D audio, all offer very exciting opportunities. Those tools for the sound designers and re-recording mixers, to enhance the theatrical experience, are remarkable. Right now it in its infancy, and we at Warner Bros. are embracing the opportunity to work with 3D sound.
KIM WAUGH
Senior VP of Post Production Services Warner Bros. http://wbpostproduction.warnerbros.com Burbank
Warner Bros. Studio Facilities provides audio post from ADR to a 7.1 surround mix for films, television and games. Recent Warner Bros. films include: The Dark Knight Rises, Argo and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. STRENGTHS: Over the last year and continuing into the future weve never before seen such a grouping of high-profile talent available to the film community, from the sound editors to rerecording mixers and sound designers. Its never been at this level of strength of talent and creativity. Its extraordinary. Were very blessed with the amount of talent that exists in the industry today. Its been
Ben Afflecks Argo was mixed at Warner Bros. Post.
nurtured over the last decade, and its really at a great point. You can just hear the quality of work thats being delivered to the screen from independent films to tentpoles. WEAKNESSES: There is a weakness in that the marketplace has changed.There is an increase in independent films, and that has put pressure on the resources that arent necessarily used to working on different scopes of films. However, its not a sign of production softness; its really a window into the globalization of production and post production. Its a change. Its not a decrease; its a change in how the market is perceived. Speaking from a West Coast perspective, its a weakness, but in other markets, they may see it very differently.
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[ Cont.from 20 ] clientele that produces traditional advertising and a ton of Web content, which acts as commercials too you can play full-stream, high-end concept motion video on the Web now. We produce quite a bit of Web content, which may start as a TV concept and expand onto the Web or vice-versa. Another opportunity is the turnkey model we have. People come to us for production and see great value in post done in tandem. That has opened up other post production opportunities, including longformat feature film work. THREATS: Threats come from clients with lower budgets who want much more in return. They see that the technology costs less, so why cant they get services for less? It is tempting to say we will do a particular job for the smaller budget in the hopes they realize the budget should be larger for the next job. Unfortunately, business rarely works that way. In the end, you look for realistic solutions within a budget, and if they dont fit,
SWOT
dont do it. You have your reputation and quality of work to defend; there is a price for everything. The different digital acquisition formats also pose a threat. If people are not educated about them, they dont understand what theyre giving up when they choose one camera over another. The advent of digital cameras resulted in a huge educational gap from film to file-based workflows. Production companies were used to traditional dailies: Now they had files. Who was going to convert them? Who was going to color grade them? And who would pay for it? You dont see this nearly as much now, but it was a problem for a while. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I think well see more growth. This has been a good year for us, and I think more content will be produced next year. Maybe people will even pay more attention to quality instead of quantity: Instead of all that crazy YouTube content theyll understand that they only have one shot at making an impression, so they should put more time and money into it.
Classifieds
HELP WANTED
ADVERTISING SALES REP.
Ad Sales Rep needed for advertising sales in Post Magazine and Computer Graphics World. The purpose of the position is to generate classified advertising sales for the publications CGW & Post Magazine in the areas of Rapid Prototyping (3D printing), Camera, Displays/monitors/projectors, Workstations (mobile, desktop), GPUs/CPUs, Input devices (mice, scanners, etc), Motion-capture, Storage, Service provider, Education/training, 2D modeling, 3D modeling, 3D animation, Compositing, Rendering, Lighting, Editing, CAD/CAM/CAE/CAA, AI/VR (including headmounted displays), Game engines, Middleware, Texturing, Simulation, Plug-ins, Web content tools, Music Libraries, Stock Footage, Large File Transfer companies , Studios. Full-time position. Operates from office when not traveling. Skills/Qualifications: Customer Service, Meeting Sales Goals, Closing Skills,Prospecting Skills, Negotiation, SelfConfidence, Product Knowledge, Presentation Skills, Client Relationships, Motivation for Sales.
F I L M
C O M M I S I O N
SWOT
[ Cont.from 26 ] ence rooms, an event space, a screening room, a meeting area, and the ability to have flexible workspace to accommodate post and other film services. The center is also going to help smaller digital firms get on their feet by providing them with affordable workspace and access to a network of creative New Yorkers. Weve remain committed to our workforce development initiatives. For example, the Made in NY Production Assistant Training Program has helped hundreds of New Yorkers who were unemployed or underemployed and who are now certified Made in NY PAs.The program provides free training that prepares participants for entry-level positions on film sets and in production offices. We developed this program in partnership with Brooklyn Workforce Innovations. THREATS: New York State offers a 30 percent refundable tax credit for productions that shoot here as well as a post credit, so New York remains a competitive option for producers. We cant control what tax credits
other states and territories offer, and we cant control the fluctuations of currency. What we can control is providing the best possible customer service. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: We believe that New York City will continue to be a TV town. According to a report released by the Boston Consulting Group, New York Citys film sector is the strongest in its history, generating a direct spend of $7.1 billion in 2011, an increase of over $2 billion dollars since 2002.The sector now employs 130,000 people, an increase of 30,000 jobs since 2004, so well look for those numbers to continue to grow. Also, the way people are entertained has changed in the past few years. Yes, people are still watching TV and going to the movies, but theyre also streaming films online and watching the latest episodes on smart phones and tablets. So for content creators following traditional business models make a film, advertise a film, release a film it may not be enough.
Send cover letter and resume to: ksafaryan@copcomm.com.
CSR - CUSTOMER SERVICE REP.

Our local office in Glendale, CA is seeking a Customer Service Representative to be the first point of contact with our print customers. Our customer service representatives are passionate, customer-focused professionals with outstanding people skills and the desire to help us grow our business through hard work and innovative thinking! As a customer service professional, your responsibilities will include: Respondingtoservicerequests. Investigatingandresolvingcustomerquestions and concerns efficiently and compassionately. Preparinganddistributingreports(utilizingvarious proprietary systems) on a regular and timely basis. Assistingwithvariousadministrativeduties,such as filing, data entry, and ensuring SOP compliance. Participatingininsidesalesactivities. Successful team members also possess the following qualifications: AHighSchoolDiplomaorequivalent.Preferablya College Graduate. Atleast2yearsofexperienceinacustomerservice or call-center environment. Excellentwrittenandverbalcommunicationskills. Strongdataentry/typingskills. Theabilitytomulti-taskandprioritizemultiple assignments.
V F X
[ Cont.from 36 ] be daunting with regards to bandwidth, rendering and storage, but it should also increase opportunity and work, which is always a good thing. Opportunities have also arisen in other display formats. The Internet is growing, as is its appetite for content. With NFC (Near Field Communication) technology being built into smart phones, there is a growing business in this type of mobile computing. Secondscreen media is also rising, which all needs to be designed and implemented. Who better to create the graphics, the 3D animation or the media than us! THREATS: I rarely see true threats, but instead try to see these types of challenges as opportunities. Globalization has seriously remapped the framework of visual effects, and continues to do so. But regardless of how much we argue that the world is stealing our jobs away, it isnt simply an issue of incentives or aggressive pricing. We have to face the fact that we live in a global village,
46 PostDecember2012
SWOT
and as the moments go by, artists around the world are gaining knowledge and experience that will soon, if not already, match that of our best in the United States, Canada and England. So instead of fighting outsourcing, I feel we need to start embracing it. Companies need to be able to offer a staff local to productions, such as around the Hollywood studios or networks, but also seek out partnerships, relationships and offices in other countries. Embrace the fact that we will all need to work as one world, and find ways to keep work at home, while still embracing the world around us. OUTLOOK FOR 2013: I see more blurring of the lines between new and traditional media. More projects will be written to take advantage of the interactivity available through smart devices. More projects planned to be equally distributed through multiple platforms and in general, so a huge increase in content. Both good and not so good as the cost of creating media continues to be so low.
Send cover letter and resume to: ksafaryan@copcomm.com.

For Advertising Rates & Schedules: POST Magazine, 620 West Elk Ave., Glendale, CA 91204; Western Region 818-291-1153, Fax: 818-547-4607; Eastern Region 781-255-0625 Fax: 781-255-0431
people
JAMES ALVICH MAS (Music and strategy), specializing in creative solutions for brands and agencies, has promoted founding partner/EP James Alvich to the role of managing director. Alvich created MAS along with music vets Gabe Hilfer and Jim Black. The studio recently completed a comprehensive music partnership with Kate Spade New York featuring the Vivian Girls. It included talent procurement, Facebook development, a battle of the bands campaign/contest and film production.
ALVICH
McDonald House, and other projects for Advil, McDonalds and Ziploc. A recent graduate of Columbia College Chicago, LaHood already has experience as a television and music video editor. LaHood had internships with Red Car, Nolan Collaborative and Leviathan earlier this year, and after co-editing Leviathans short film Lilith with editor Andrew Maggio, he now joins Leviathan as a full-time editor. TOM CRONIN Foundation Content, an indie advertising and production collective, has named Tom Cronin senior VP/executive producer for the companys Chicago Office. Prior to joining Foundation Content, Cronin had been VP/executive producer at DraftFCB in Chicago. Other agency experience includes time at Chicagos Element79 Partners, with accounts such as Aquafina, Quaker Oats, Gatorade and Supercuts. Cronin holds a BS Degree in Mass Communications from Illinois State University. KATHLEEN PRYOR Integrated media company Utopic has signed editor Katherine Pryor to its post division. Pryor has edited commercials and campaigns for agencies such as Leo Burnett, McGarryBowen, Ogilvy & Mather, DDB, Y&R, Downtown Partners and Walton Isaacson. A native of the Kansas City area, Pryor received her BA in Film at Columbia College Chicago and began working in post almost 13 years ago. STEVE PURCELL KRYSTLE TESORIERO Chainsaw, a Hollywood-based post and editorial rental house, has named Steve Purcell as its GM. Purcell is a two-time Emmy winner with over 25 years of experience as a director, editor and producer. In his new role, he will oversee all Chainsaw operations. He was previously president of his own company SLP Productions. Purcell began his career at The Post Group where he was lead editor for 10 years. He won two Emmy Awards for his work, including one in 1986 for Pee-wees Playhouse. Chainsaw has also hired KrystleTesoriero as operations manager. Tesoriero comes from a similar position with editorial systems provider Runway. She began her career with Matchframe Video.
SUZETTE FERGUSON NYCs Cinedeck, makers mobile capture systems for film and broadcast, has named Suzette Ferguson senior VP of sales for North America. Based in LA, Ferguson was most recently with Assimilate, where she was director of North American sales. She brings over 30 years of experience to Cinedeck. She has worked in consultative sales at Universal Studios/NBC, Disney Studios, Deluxe, EFilm, Technicolor, Ascent and Laser Pacific/Kodak. MEGAN MELOTH Santa Monica VFX studio A52 has promoted Megan Meloth to executive producer after helping sister studio Elastic more than double in size since 2008. Meloth has worked in agency, production and post, and has been involved in Nikes Puppets, P&Gs Olympic work and spots for Hondas Crosstour vehicle. She has also worked on campaigns for Volvo, Intel, Mercedes, Target, Microsoft, Acura and Lexus. EAMONN BUTLER Cinesite, a London-based VFX studio, has named Eamonn Butler animation director. He will head up the studios growing animation division. Butler joins from Double Negative, where he was head of animation and supervised such films as Iron Man 2, John Carter, Hellboy 2 and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. He also joins the companys board. Prior to Dneg, Butler spent 10 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation in Burbank. ELLEN SCHOPLER, MIKE LAHOOD Chicago production studio Leviathan has hired Ellen Schopler as associate producer and Mike LaHood as assistant editor. Schopler joins from The Filmworkers Club, where she held the same position. While there, she helped to produce Super Bowl spots for Bud Light and Ronald
CRONIN
FERGUSON
PRYOR
BUTLER
PURCELL
POST MAGAZINE (ISSN 0891-5628) is published monthly by Post,LLC, a COP Communications company, 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, California 91204. Subscription rates: $63 for one year in the United States & Possessions; $94 for one year in Canada and Mexico; all other countries $133 for one year. For air-expedited service, include an additional $75 per order annually. Single copies (prepaid only): $16 in the United States; $32 in Canada and Mexico; $47 all other countries. Back issues, if available, are $32 for the U.S. & Possessions; $63 for Canada and Mexico; $94 for all other countries. Include $8.00 per order plus $3 per additional copy for U.S. postage and handling. If shipping outside the U.S., include an additional $14 per order plus $5 per additional copy. Periodicals postage paid at Glendale CA 91205 and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to POST, P.O. Box 3551, Northbrook, IL 60065-3551. Canadian G.S.T. number: R-124213133RT001. Publica-
tions Mail Agreement Number 40017597. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright 2012 POST, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including by photocopy, recording or information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by is granted by POST, LLC for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Dr. Danvers, MA 01923 phone: 978750-8400 fax 978-750-4470; call for copying beyond that permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law. For those not registered with the CCC, send permission request in writing to Permissions Dept. POST, LLC 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, California 91204.
PostDecember2012
47
review
Tiffen Dfx V.3 CreativeEditingSuite
O
By
BRADY BETZEL
AssistantEditor BunimMurray Productions VanNuys,CA bradybetzel@gmail.com
A great idea inspiration tool.
ne name that is a standard in photography and videography is Tiffen. With their wide array of filters, from circular polarizers to neutral density filters and even infrared filters, people like me who only dabble in photography have definitely heard the name Tiffen. Naturally, when I was scrubbing through my Twitter feed on #Postchat and all other forms of post hash tags like #postdontstop, I found the Tiffen Dfx V.3 video plug-in to be blazing trails on the scene. I was curious, I had never heard the name Tiffen within the plug-in ecosphere before and immediately thought, how are they going to be able to create a top-notch plug-in that will adequately represent their trusted brand name the way their other physical products have done before? Well, they partnered with the company Digital Film Tools, which offers plug-ins such as Film Stocks, Photocopy and Rays, to name a few. I love the way Rays works without having to go out and get a degree in discrete mathematics to customize an effect, and the results are pretty incredible. I realized Tiffen was in great hands and further found that under the Tiffen Dfx video plug-in hood were many parts that I was familiar with. New to Tiffen Dfx V.3 is Color Shadow, DeBand, DeBlock, DeNoise, Film Stocks,
favor and check out digitalfilmtools.com/ tiffenDFX and click on the image gallery. They have examples of every plug-in inside Dfx V.3. The ones I mentioned above are a couple of
middle your work area, and on the right all the customizable parameters you could wish for. The plug-in and filters are searchable, including
VITAL STATS
PRODUCT: Tiffen Dfx V.3 Creative Editing Suite PRICE: $599.99 One install for multiple applications on same machine Simulation of Tiffen glass camera filters and specialized lenses. 121 individual filters
my favorites because they allow you to add as subtle or as striking of a look as you want. Once you take a discerning look you will notice the organic quality and texture that Tiffen Dfx is giving to these images. VALUABLE SHORTCUTS As an assistant editor I am always asked if I know of any shortcuts to create unique and specific looks. Tiffen Dfx is a great place to start. Not only does the editor have over 121 filters to start from, the editors and assistants can infinitely customize each one. Layering the Tiffen filters will give stylish yet professional results as each layer works in tandem the others. Tiffens Dfx interface is a familiar visual environment that any editor will be comfortable with. Whether you are an editor that likes the Instagram-ish way to apply filters with visual examples or you want to technically go through each preset and customize until you create your Mona Lisa, Tiffen and DFT have you covered. In my case I use Tiffen Dfx inside of Avid Media Composer and Adobe After Effects. Because I have both programs installed on the same system, the plug-in works within both programs beautifully. If you recently purchased Media Composer 6.5, Tiffen has a fully compatible and downloadable version on their site, tiffensoftware.com. The results-oriented interface within Tiffen Dfx is very straightforward. With a great split view and side-by-side comparisons, you can see your original image and your effected image quickly and easily. On the left-hand side you can have the visual examples of the plug-in, in the
any favorites that you save along the way. You can tag effects with a star to quickly identify the very best filters for your toolbox. You can even sort your filters by favorites. In the Parameter column on the right-hand side there are all the standard sliders and manual inputs that we are accustomed to from hue, saturation, etc. Tiffen Dfx has a useful and interesting feature they call Variations, where you can click multiple parameters such as hue and saturation, and you can auto-generate variations of the effect based on the parameters you have chosen. This is a great idea inspirational tool, even if you dont like any of the variations Tiffen offers, you are sure to be tipped onto something that is a solution for your situation. FINAL THOUGHTS Tiffen Dfx V.3 for video/film is an invaluable plug-in that gives editors a wide variety of customizable effects for a great price. If you have an editor looking for a simple vignette and/or night vision effect, or even a more complex effect with wide-angle lenses and f-stop adjustments, Tiffen and Digital Film Tools have come together to bring you an actionfilled plug-in that is as easy as an iPhone photo filter and infinitely customizable. Tiffen Dfx V.3 gives the end user the ability to create almost any look and color treatment they can imagine, harnessing an enhanced multi-processor acceleration for fast rendering. With Dfxs built-in Tiffen glass camera filters, specialized lenses, optical lab processes, film grain, color correction, natural light and photographic effects, Tiffen Dfx V.3 hands all the tools to the user without any limitations.
Glow Darks, Key Light, Rays, Texture and Match. These may sound familiar because the plug-in is basically giving you some of the other Digital Film Tools plug-ins within Tiffen Dfx V.3 for a price that is far below other color tinting and effects products. Not to mention the beautiful Tiffen Filters included, such as HFX Star, Black Pro-Mist, Smoque or GamColor (a gel recreator). If you havent seen these yet, do yourself a
48 PostDecember2012
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B e c a u s e
i t
m a t t e r s .
Autodesk Smoke
Download the Pre-Release Trial

www.autodesk.com/smoke-trial
Autodesk and Smoke are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or aliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services oerings, and specications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. 2012 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

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SERVING THE INDUSTRY FOR 27 YEARS

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