55th and 8th

Color Me Obsessed at DuArt Part 3

2012-01-23T09:22:00.000-05:00

Herein lies the third transmission from indie documentarian Gormon Bechard. The director of “Color Me Obsessed: The Potentially True Story of the Last Best Band, The Replacements” chose DuArt to sound mix this fascinating film: a documentary on a band that never shows them or plays their music.

Check out Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. In this gripping penultimate installment of his exclusive blog to DuArt, Bechard confesses to a) taking chances with the recorded audio, and b) bribing DuArt mixer Matt Gundy with coffee -- repeatedly.

Gorman and Matt in a contemplative moment.

Part 25

COLOR ME OBSESSED was a completely different beast from my last two films. A set of talking heads -- over 120 -- appear in the film, all with their own specific set of sound issues: An air conditioning unit we couldn’t shut off, LA street sounds, NYC street sounds, MPLS street sounds (I fucking hate street sounds), refrigerators, hums, buzzing, other bands playing loudly in the arena upstairs, dog tags jingling, interns turning log pages loudly, and one part-time uncredited B-camera person who moved so clunkily, Matt asked if someone was “bouncing golf balls off the window.”

We began, as always, at the first frame and worked forward tweaking, not so much those many voices, but those many distracting sounds behind them. Matt would, as he had for both You Are Alone and Friends (With Benefits) make everything sound perfect, all the levels even, and so forth.

The sound we originally recorded was halfway decent at best. And I’m not sharing the blame here -- I take full responsibility for the sound in the film. And I even apologize in the end credits. But I didn’t want to shoot everyone in a sterile studio setting. That might work for Errol Morris, but it wouldn’t work for me. I wanted backgrounds organic (fuck, I hate that word) to the people being interviewed.

If they owned a record shop, they’d be interviewed in their shop. To hell with the trucks zooming past outside on Lyndale. Or Grant Hart from Husker Du being interviewed in the basement dressing room at the 7th Street Entry. I mean, could any setting be more perfect? Plus, we didn’t have a sound man. Our trusty mic stand stood in nicely. And many of the musicians we filmed seemed impressed by the quality of our shotgun mic. And honestly, I might be overstating this a bit. When you see the film you’ll be thinking there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the sound.

And you’re right.

It sounds great!

NOW!

Thanks to Matt Gundy.

Part 26

The mix works like this: big dark room, the film projected on what I’d imagine to be a 12-foot screen. There are a few chairs right down in front of the screen, but I never use them, unless I’m pacing, wandering, restless.

Matt sits one step up, behind the mixing console. He’s surrounded by levers and knobs, and of course a computer keyboard, and I haven’t much of a clue as to what any of them does. I watch the monitor at times. It looks a little like a Final Cut timeline, but different. Because I trust in Matt, I believe in his abilities, I know it’s nothing I need to know. He’s in control.

I sit behind a large desk of sorts one step up from and behind Matt. I have my laptop open to keep track of and check other film business while Matt does his thing. I’ll read emails, look up film festivals, things like that.

And we begin. I arrive on the 9th floor of DuArt at 9 AM on that Tuesday morning. Hot coffee in hand for me. I give Matt a present. A gift from the last film, Friends (With Benefits). It’s a Willoughby’s “Serious Coffee Drinker” t-shirt like Alex Brown and Rooney Mara wore in the film.

When he realizes what it is, he smiles and tells me that since I sent him some Willoughby’s beans after the last mix he’s been addicted to the coffee, and orders it via their mail order site. Not only is the guy a brilliant mixer…he knows his coffee!

NEWS: DUART EXPANDS VIDEO DESCRIPTION SERVICES (VDS) CAPACITY

2012-01-18T11:07:00.000-05:00

USA Networks/NBC Universal Entrusts “Law & Order” With Experienced Accessible Media Team at Full Service NYC Video and Film Post Facility

DuArt, New York City’s full service video and audio post facility, has expanded its Video Description Services (VDS) capabilities. Led by a highly experienced group of VDS providers, DuArt’s Benefit Media division has added capacity, as demand for accurate VDS services increases across broadcast and film.

Recent VDS clients at Benefit Media include USA Networks/NBC Universal for numerous episodes of the long-running series “Law & Order.” The FCC has reinstated VDS requirements for networks and cable channels in the months to come, to insure that audio narrations of key visual elements in programming are inserted into programming with increased frequency. With the complete video, audio, writing, and voiceover resources at DuArt, the facility has proven ideal for efficiently completing VDS that meets guidelines, on deadline.

Located within DuArt, Benefit Media is overseen by Executive Producer/Director Lou Gutierrez. Previously at the American Foundation for the Blind, Gutierrez was Director of Operations for Talking Books and Accessible Media Productions there, and participated in efforts that contributed to current standards for video description.

“When done correctly, VDS provides vision-impaired audiences with a similar experience to what a sighted person might receive from TV, film, or online content,” Gutierrez says. “Our deep experience producing VDS, and the full range of support services here in-house at DuArt, make this an uncommonly efficient facility for staying on schedule with DVS, and getting it right the first time. As new FCC-mandated milestones for distributors to provide VDS programming approach, DuArt and Benefit Media are ready to reliably meet their increased needs.”

Sound for Animation, Part III: Delivery

2011-12-06T09:24:00.000-05:00

Time to bring it all together. DuArt VP of Audio Production Carmen Borgia and Producer Lisa Ortiz provide insight on the creation of musical score, theme, and sound design for animation, followed by the mix process. When everything converges, the result is an efficient approval process that gets the show’s sound green-lit and ready to go for final delivery to the client. Find out how it all combines in this Q&A, the third and final part in our “Sound for Animation” series (visit Part I: Conception, and Part II: Creation).

Lisa Ortiz and Carmen Borgia

We’ve discussed sound-for-animation pre production with DuArt’s Tim Werenko, and then the casting/directing/recording process with Tom Wayland. How does everything come together after that to make a sonic production that’s ready to deliver?
Lisa: From the pre-production moving forward, I guide the show’s production all the way across. I feel as if I’m the client as it moves forward – I know how I want the whole show to come together.

The music is a huge part, it can completely change the mood of a piece – many people think you have the voices recorded and it’s done, but there’s more to it than that. The music and sound design are crucial elements as well -- I think of those elements as characters in and of themselves. The right kind of music can alter the gravity of the piece, while the sound design can be a major factor in helping to tell the story.

While the others handle the recording and mixing, I ensure continuity for the style and the mood. You want to link one scene to the other, and get a feel for what the show will be. In the case of shows we’ve done here at Duart like “Raju the Rickshaw,” and “Indian Fables,” you want to make sure that it feels right for little kids, and the music is essential for giving the right direction and feel.

Carmen: When creating original music and sound design for an animation show, we ask questions like, “What’s going on in the story right now? Is the character afraid, happy, courageous? And is the audience identifying with that character or reacting in some other way?”

The challenge is settling in the right style of music and the right style of sound design. The types of input I get from Lisa in an episode’s pre-production focus on deciding what kind of music we want to write for it. “The character here is hopeful and going off on an adventure, while another is sad that the first one is leaving” – those characters and situations call for different, specific musical themes.

And in terms of the sound design, we ask, “Does this want to sound cartoony, naturalistic, exaggerated?” The sound effects go hand-in-hand with music.

Do you take the same thematic approach to each episode of a show, or is each one different?
Lisa: It varies. For each different show, the client knows the feel that they want, so we translate that with the voices, the music and sound design. With those last two components, it’s all about finding the right mood, and supporting the story that you’re trying to tell at any given moment.

Carmen: In developing the music and sound design, we explore the show with the client. They know more about it than we do, but it doesn’t screen in their head -- it screens in reality. So we narrow down what they want in the pilot, and then once we get involved with the series, we delve farther into the creative process.

These shows have a life of their own, so we’re learning along with the client the about the development of the show, and what they need. The first episode may be a story of two kids racing up the hill, and how fun that is. Then, five episodes later it could be underwater, or a horror episode, and if we aren’t careful, those may feel like they don’t have anything to do with the first two. So it’s finding the cues to work with in that show -- we don’t know what that world is completely, because we’re all making it as we go.

Lisa: I feel the most collaborative part of the process is when we get to the effects and music. Once those cues are built into tracks, we’ve got all the colors on our palette. Then we mix them together with the voices to get the right feel for every moment. There are a lot of happy surprises, but you also find things that don’t work. It’s a real balancing act.

Carmen: Yeah, it all comes together with the mix. Sometimes a sound effect plays wrong at one level, but when we turn it down and in relationship to the music, it works perfectly. As Lisa said, it’s a balancing act.

How do you finally know you’ve got it right?
Lisa: It requires listening with my inner five-year-old. “How am I hearing this if I’m five, if I’m six? Is it scaring me? Making me happy?” I have a strong sense of what engages the audience, and what they need. When I get the right balance, it hits me: “If I were six years old, I’d watch this constantly!”

Once the mix is complete, how does the approval process unfold?
Lisa: During this stage I’m working with the client. Early in the process as we’re devolping musical ideas we’ll say, “Here is a motif for the hero or the bad guy.” They listen to that, and give us feedback. Once we get the final mix together, we all need to hear it all over again: The sound effects and music become different characters together than they were as separate elements, so mix reviews are crucial.

The show’s team will listen, either here or remotely, and by now we’re closing in on the final creation. I always try to serve the piece – if someone has fallen in love with a certain sound cue, I might say, “That’s a great sound, but it’s not serving the story.”

From there, how do you get a final OK for delivery on the sound mix?
Lisa: We try very hard to do what we think will serve the piece. If we’re dealing with a whole series it’s obviously very important to get the balances right as early as possible.

At the end of the day, it’s about what the client wants, and above that, what does the piece want? The show is like the child of the client, and we’re there working with their children. We want to make sure the kids have a nice place to play.

This blog was penned by David Weiss, an avid follower of all things production and music oriented. He is a founder and editor of sonicscoop.com.

Sound for Animation, Part II: Creation

2011-10-07T15:26:00.000-04:00

Life is good if you’re Tom Wayland, Voice Director for DuArt. Tasked with casting the actors for animation, directing them in the studio, and recording it all with maximum efficiency is the core of the work week for this VO pro. As a man who happily consumes cartoons in his down-time, Wayland fits the profile of a man committed to the art and science of sound for animation. Get inside his head and workflow with this interview, Part II in a series (visit Sound for Animation, Part I: Conception here).

Tom Wayland

Why do you like doing your thing – casting and directing -- for animation, specifically?
For one thing, animation can be more fun because it can generally bring you back to your childhood. I have kids of my own -- ages 8, 6, and 3 -- and I watch a lot of cartoons with them. I have stuff that I watch on my own, though. With the success of things like Adult Swim (on Cartoon Network), “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy,” there are so many more cartoons geared for adults.

Also, there are things you can do in animation that you can’t do in real life. I’m an actor, too, part of the talent pool, and I’m in a bunch of shows that DuArt puts on and that are produced all over the city, such as Saturday morning cartoons. In this genre, you have the chance to play characters you could never play in a live action sense. I’m 38, but I play children all the time, or big bruiser monster creatures, or I play animals, aliens, or a ninja. So that’s fun as talent, and also as a director – being able to explore the places that you couldn’t go with live action.

That sounds like a great job to come in to every day. How do you approach casting?
Casting is a creative process, and an organizational one. “Pokemon,” for example, is one of the main things we work on here. It’s a longstanding series with a large number of characters, people and places to keep track of. Whenever we get a project in, the first thing I want to do is see the script. That’s how you’re really going to understand what the characters are like. From a directing standpoint, it flows from there.

When you do a prelay, you’re laying down the audio pre-animation, so you’re really starting with that script from the ground up. You’re saying, “Who are these characters, what will they be like?” and you begin casting. We have a very deep talent pool, and I’ve worked with almost everyone in NYC who does voice for animation. But you just don’t think about who will sound good for a particular part, but who will sound good together. I’ll say, “These characters have a lot of interaction. Which two actors will be comfortable in that banter?”

Getting the actors is the most fun, creative part. A lot of the people I’m working with are friends I’ve know for years. I work with them often on other shows. Then we get into the studio, create and have fun.

Are you also overseeing the recording process?
Yes. Generally, we record one actor at a time. Especially when matching to picture, you have to be as specific about the mouth movement/lip flap synch as you can. If you’re recording a number of people at once, you’ll never get the lip flaps all in synch. It becomes an editing nightmare.

I do the dialog editing as well, which helps to insure that I’m getting the perfect take for precise placement to picture during the recording process. I don’t move on to the next cue until I know the cue I’m working on fits properly. Then I continue. With most of the actors we work with, however, it generally doesn’t require more than one or two takes. They’ve got it in the pocket.

As you’re recording, how would you describe your directorial approach?
In my directing style, I’ll set up the actors: “This is what’s going on in this scene. This is who said this. Go.” I do as much setup as possible, so when they’re doing the take they’re supported. Then right off the bat I get what I’m looking for.

When you’re working on a project in the prelay stage, there’s more room for improvisation and exploring different ideas. If you’re in Episode 20 of a series, a lot of concepts are pretty well established, but if you’re just doing Episode 1, you can get creative and try a lot of ideas. If we’re at that early stage, we might record a scene five different ways, then look at if after the fact and say to the producers, “We had some different ideas with this sequence. What do you think?”

Then, when we’re ready to compose the music, our VP of sound, Carmen Borgia, will often come to me and ask me for information about the characters, so the songs are specifically tailored to suit them.

How do you describe the result when all these aspects of the voice production go right?
It’s about the whole being more than the sum of its parts. You end up with a cohesive flow. It’s important to make sure that these actors are interacting, not just up there saying their lines. It all blends together, what I do will feed into the sound design, the mix and the music, and then its one harmonious project.

This blog was penned by David Weiss, and avid follower of all things production and music oriented. He is a founder and editor of sonicscoop.com.

Color Me Obsessed at DuArt Part 2

2011-09-12T11:51:00.000-04:00

Herein lies the next transmission from indie documentarian Gormon Bechard. The director of “Color Me Obsessed: The Potentially True Story of the Last Best Band, The Replacements” chose DuArt to sound mix this fascinating film: a documentary on a band that never shows them or plays their music.

Check out Part 1 here. In this gripping second installment of his exclusive blog to DuArt, Bechard moves forward on the mix.

Matt Gundy & Gorman Bechard

Part 23

So the film was locked on February 6th, 2011. Final running time: 123 minutes, 7 second.

I outputted the audio to OMFs, and created an uncompressed Quicktime file of the film without sound. I copied these, along with any extra sound effects or music I felt we might need, onto a portable hard drive. And the next morning, Monday, Feb. 7th, I took a train to NYC, and hand-delivered them to Matt Gundy at DuArt Film and Video. He wanted everything a day before the mix to make sure the files worked properly.

DuArt is the famous old film lab where every New York filmmaker, from Woody Allen on down, has had their films developed. I’ve gone there since my making my first 16mm short as a part time film student at the New School for Social Research in 1982.

I also mixed the sound of my old horror comedy PSYCHOS IN LOVE there in 1986. So in 2005 when looking for a studio where we could mix YOU ARE ALONE, I once again turned to DuArt. One meeting with Carmen Borgia, who runs the sound dept. and sound mixer Matt Gundy, and I knew we found a home. Carmen understood we were indie and on a budget. And Matt took the time to watch the film and actually seemed to get what we going for.

The mix took four days (four days was all we could afford), yet somehow Matt cleaned up some truly awful background noise. I loved our main location on that film, the Hotel Duncan on Chapel Street in new Haven. But I didn’t love the constant barrage of sirens and hip-hop beats that seemed to find their way onto our soundtrack every time our mics were aimed towards the front of the building. Matt made them all disappear. Magically? Perhaps. It didn’t matter, Whether he knew it or not, he had formed a partnership for life.

Part 24

In 2009, different film, FRIENDS (WITH BENEFITS), much better sound, but a new set of problems (music, music, more music, creating crowds sounds out of nothing, and leveling out the rapid fire dialog of six characters talking over each other in a bar). But still, the outcome was the same. Four days of mixing. Brilliant results.

I went home on that Monday after dropping off the drive. Took many deep breaths. Tried to relax. This was it. There were no more changes. No more interviews. No graphics, title cards. This was the final version of the film I would present to the world.

I felt sad, in a way. The people in the film become your friends, your playmates, during the editing process. And they are just like friends, they can make us laugh, cry. They can annoy the piss out of you. Or give you goosebumps when they hand you exactly what you need, oftentimes when you didn’t even know you needed it. That’s a great friend.

But that was over. On Tuesday very early morning, I’d make another trek to NYC, this time staying through to the end of the week. Four days. And now we’d get all technical. The editing was over. The mix for COLOR ME OBSESSED was about to begin.

Part 3 coming soon...

Sound for Animation, Part I: Conception

2011-08-26T11:23:00.000-04:00

No two days are alike for Tim Werenko, VP of Production at DuArt. Coordinating the schedules for non-stop shows like the popular “Pokemon” series means keeping track of scriptwriting, casting, recording voices, scoring, sound effects and more. In this first article in a series, Werenko explains the conception stage of animation, and how a production starts to come together at DuArt.

Why do you think that animation has proven to be such a powerful way to tell stories?
Animation, when it’s done really well, takes the subject matter and puts it into a more abstract form that allows the viewer to distance themselves a little, and re-imagine something they may have already known.

My favorite animated film is “The Incredibles,” for instance. I can’t imagine that being a live action film! It’s the abstraction of the characters that allows you to have the infinitely flexible mom, the super-strong Dad, the wallflower kid who literally disappears into a wall. That doesn’t feel weird in an animation – it becomes part of the story and allows you to grow a particular appreciation for what you see.

For example, if someone scratches their nose in an animation, you appreciate that gesture more because of the extra effort it took to draw that. You’d take that for granted in live action, but in an animation there’s something a little more extraordinary about it.

Tell us about the pre-production phase of an animation TV show or film – how does it get off to a good start?
The most important thing is to find a fit with a creative party, and figure out the path to making it the production that they want it to be. For example, if you’re looking to make a kid’s show that’s one thing, and if it’s a horror film, then that’s something else.

So every project is different: I used to have a colleague that said, “We don’t make shoes.” In other words, every single project is unique, and there’s no one-size-fits-all. That’s the trick: Getting into the heads of each individual client and making it all come together.

That sounds like that’s an important philosophy with any type of production – what changes about that when you’re in the realm of animation?
I don’t think it is all that different with animation. You’re trying to tell a story with pictures and words, and there are a lot of common aspects to doing that whether you’re talking about animation, live action, or a play in a theater. They’re different mediums, and you have to bring different tools to bear for the project, but the underlying principles of collaboration are the same.

For instance, we were working with a really creative and talented animation company on a pilot recently. Unfortunately the script they had really wasn't as good as the animation they are capable of. Luckily, these were a really open and creative group of people. They were open to changes and feedback. So I rewrote the script. They loved the new version and so we're now creative partners with this amazing animation house. It's been a really positive experience.

You work on several international animation projects at DuArt, like the long-running “Pokemon” series. What adjustments do you have to be able to handle to bring a Japanese series like that over to the English-speaking market?
When a show like “Pokemon” already exists in another language, that brings its own special set of challenges to translate it. The “lip flap” when they open their mouths has to match in English from the Japanese that it was originally written in and drawn for.

That’s a little tricky, because Japanese has a different structure than English – they might have a phrase that’s one or two lip flaps in Japanese, but after the literal translation into English, it would be several more. So we have a scriptwriter who translates the original Japanese show that’s delivered, and then ends up adapting a lot of the script in English, while still retaining the original meaning. Along the way, the writer watches the video and tracks every line of dialogue to make sure the dialogue will match up seamlessly.

Sometimes the workflow is reversed, however. Right now at DuArt we’re working on a show from India where they haven’t animated any of it yet. We get a script in English, and then we have actors perform and record those shows like an old-fashioned radio play. We send that recording to the client, and then they send back an animatic, which are basically storyboards strung together to make a video file.

Then we’ll add score and sound effects, so it sounds like what the final piece will be, but still visualized with black and white pencil sketches. That animatic stage is useful for the networks, so they can get a sense of what the show will be like, and they can ask for changes and revisions before the animation is done. It’s done this way because the animation is hands down the most expensive part of the project, so we want to get it all in place as much as possible.

It’s worth noting again that at DuArt we can partner creatively with our clients when it’s beneficial, beyond just providing them with our audio services, as we did with the animation company whose script needed some changes. Meeting with a show’s producers, and being able to offer them creative services beyond just executing the post, is extremely satisfying. We love it when we can help them to make the show exactly right, and get it out there into the world.

This blog was penned by David Weiss, and avid follower of all things production and music oriented. He is a founder and editor of sonicscoop.com.

The Language of Color Talking with Tim Bond, Colorist & Digital Film Supervisor

2011-07-26T09:40:00.000-04:00

Finding the perfect words to talk about color isn’t easy, but if anyone can do it, it’s DuArt’s Tim Bond. A talent for color grading was passed down in his DNA, complemented perfectly by a flair for writing and a love of language. Listen up: This is a man who can really talk visuals.

How did color correction enter the picture for you?
My father was a very successful commercial colorist. I came into the business as his assistant, and worked by his side for several years before striking out on my own. When I started working in commercials, I learned about working with creatives, of course, but I learned much more about being in a high-energy, high-stress environment. So in addition to color grading, it was also important to know how to work a room full of high-energy, creative personalities. I’d determine who the decision-makers were and focus on taking direction from them.

There are many aspects of color grading -- including color design and color continuity –that have application in commercials or long-form work. At DuArt I was introduced to the indie market and the craft of storytelling in long form moviemaking.

How do you compare what you do in short form vs. long-form format?
Even though you kind of tell a story in a commercial, long form work is different: You’re much closer to the writer and director, and I found that color grading offered an additional tool that a director could use to express the motivations in a story. A director is faced with questions like, “How do I use lighting? How do I use blocking? How do I direct the actor?” Color is just one more of these tools. And sometimes color is transparent -- it shouldn’t be used just because it's available.

A simple example of using color as a storytelling tool in a commercial is an ad for a heating company: You might be inclined to change a basic balance in a room by warming it up while retaining the cool character of the stark grey light entering from the windows – creating depth with contrasting color. In another example, envision a scene that was shot in an old building for an edgy tale set in a prison: the fundamental shot may not serve the purpose, but with color grading you can create a dank environment using a look such as skip bleach – with its' inky shadows, bloomy highlights and strong yet desaturated color.

One essential guideline to effecting color design is to employ it to the point where it doesn't distract. Walt Disney once pointed out that in practicing the craft that it is done well enough that it is not observed: If the craft is revealed, then you lose the effect.

What tips do you have for indie film makers on maximizing their color correct results?
I recommend a pre-production meeting with your colorist. Find a colorist who is proactive, one who wants to get involved with your project; that’s a great asset. Discuss what is possible in the suite.

The other piece of advice is in regard to filtering, and the importance of first exposing a known quantity such as the black & white of a slate or a chip chart at the head of each new setup without the filter in place. First expose the image without the filter, and then put the filter in place – otherwise, without clear communication later on with the colorist, the desired look may be lost.

When you’re not coloring away, what’s your favorite place to get a break?
Well, I live in the distant land of Point Pleasant, NJ (a Jersey shore slice of paradise.) It's a lengthy trip, but well worth it – the boardwalk is a great place for families and the beaches are clean. A favorite local haunt is Frankie's Bar & Grill and for a lovely dining experience on the water try Jack Bakers.

The easiest way to get there is the train. Just jump on a Jersey Coast Line train at Penn Station, and two hours later you’re in Point Pleasant. From there it's a short walk to the beach.

Sold! We’ll see you there!

This blog was penned by David Weiss, and avid follower of all things production and music oriented. He is a founder and editor of sonicscoop.com.

Color Me Obsessed at DuArt Part 1

2011-07-07T09:47:00.001-04:00

This transmission from indie documentarian Gormon Bechard is going public. The director of “Color Me Obsessed: The Potentially True Story of the Last Best Band, The Replacements” chose DuArt to sound mix this fascinating film.

Read further for a look inside the mind of Bechard, a man who chose to do a documentary on a band without ever showing them or playing their music. Part 1 of 3.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Color Me Obsessed, a film about The Replacements
Date: Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 1:56 PM
Subject: finally...the blog
To: DuArt

Hey guys,

Sorry this took so long...seems the only place I can blog is on planes...

Thanks again!,

Gorman

PART 22

I’m on a plane to Chicago, for the third festival screening of CMO, but I want to take everyone back a few months.

We had been holding bi-weekly screening of the film at my house. Usually just me, my wife Kristine, Sarah Hajtol (who has more credits on this film than I do, but in this case was certainly acting as my assistant editor), and production manager/researcher Katie Dickey in attendance. And of course my dogs, Phoebe and Springsteen. (Springsteen finally stopped asking why there was no music in the film, which I thought was a good sign.)

Jan Radder, my supervising producer would also watch, but from a DVD at his home in Minneapolis. The last of these was on Monday, January 31, 2010. It would be the last chance to have a number of eyes on the film before locking it down, and doing the sound mix.

Notes were blessedly few and far between. A missing period at the end of one title, a B-camera close-up a little out of focus, a missing name in the end titles, a photo that needed to move from right to left, instead of visa-versa, things like that. I would then spend the next week tweaking. We received a handful of last minute graphics/images, which Sarah would insert into the film, while I double checked everything, and added only two things.

Two things no one knew about.

The first: the pause. (Infamous in my small circle of participants on this film.) Bil MacLeslie was the band’s soundman for a few tours. He was the person who confiscated the tape which would go on to become When The Shit Hits The Fans. His stories are eloquent and plentiful in the film. But one of my favorite things he says is nothing at all.

I asked everyone we interviewed what their favorite Mats song was. Most people listed off many, or gave an answer, then quickly changed their mind. Bill was different. He gave his one word answer, then paused. It was as if it were the thing in his life of which he was most sure.

When doing the first cut of the film, I left that pause in, in all its six second glory. I loved it. It was a breath, a break, it was certainty and passion, it was exactly what the film needed at that point. But everyone on my crew hated it. That it stopped the flow. That it was almost uncomfortable. So I chopped away at it, until it barely existed, mainly because I was tired of hearing about it after screening every cut.

Well, when Sarah was through with the graphics, and when I knew the next person who’d me seeing the film was my mixer, Matt Gundy, at DuArt, I popped that pause back in, as I knew I would, as I had planned to, all along. And watching it with festival audiences, counting off the second in my head, I know it belongs in the film. I love that damn pause.

The second: a dedication. It comes right at the end of the end credits, as Matthew Ryan speaks. It’s heartfelt, and deserved, as I would have never made this film without her. You can read it when you see the film. I mean every word.

P.S. These past few posts, and the next few that follow were all written on that plane ride. Needed a break from new script.

Part 2 coming soon...

NEWS: DuArt Expands Video Editing and Production Support Space Offerings

2011-06-30T10:31:00.000-04:00

Full-Service NYC TV and Film Post Facility Hosts Park Slope Productions in Fully Networked Loft-Style Spaces

Five new edit rooms are now running at DuArt.

DuArt, New York City’s comprehensive video and film post facility, has significantly expanded its editorial and production support capabilities. The new offerings are the result of a complete renovation of 1,000 sq. ft. on the company’s 8th floor, creating multiple loft-style suites ideal for Avid/Final Cut video editing, production offices, and other functions.

The flexible, fully-networked suites can be reconfigured from project to project, and are designed to accommodate the needs of reality show TV, long-form TV, indie film and feature film producers. Each room features exposed brick, 13’ ceilings, and large 7’ windows with downtown views. For productions needing additional space, a large glass-enclosed bullpen office is also available on DuArt’s 8th floor.

DuArt’s comprehensive range of TV and film post services in their 12-story, midtown building on 55th Street and Broadway provide four-wall clients with any additional resources they may need to finish their production, all under one roof. DuArt’s experienced staff and complete facilities are available for HD video and digital editing, color correction, 3D post, audio editing and mixing, original music composition, high-end QC, and DVD/Blu-ray/3D authoring.

The company’s new four-wall suites have already hosted Park Slope Productions for their work on the recent Discovery Fit & Health series “Facing Trauma”.

“Our latest expansion builds on DuArt’s evolution into a TV and film production hub, for projects of all sizes and durations,” says Ron Harris, Vice President of Production and Sales for DuArt. “Since we own the entire building, we can make this new space available at extremely cost-effective rates, and also develop custom solutions for our clients as their needs evolve. For media producers already in the city, or who are out of town and need to establish an NYC home base, this opens up flexible new options.”

A Colorful Conversation with Jane Tolmachyov, Senior Colorist

2011-06-08T17:30:00.001-04:00

This movie buff has color corrected scores of projects – from feature films to reality TV – in her 25 years at DuArt. We cover everything from the magic of motion to the power of being prepared in this most enlightening convo.

You’ve had a few roles at DuArt when it comes to video imaging, right? What led you to being a colorist?
When I first came to DuArt and began working in the telecine department, there was a wonderful person there named Larry McGowan. He really showed me the ropes, not even really from a technical perspective as much as from the DP’s point of view. Larry made me realize what to look for in a picture of moving images – I began to appreciate what light does.

Eventually Larry left the company and I was in charge of the telecine for some time. Today, as a colorist, I feel like I’m still learning certain things, because images are beautiful and every new image pushes you to look for something else. Every new project is a challenge for me, because I’m forced to think about what I see, what light I’m looking at, and what mood I want to translate. And with all the new tools available for color correction today, being a colorist is even more wonderful. I have no limits now.

When you’re color correcting a show or a film, what’s your role? What do you feel you are there to do?
First and foremost, I listen to the DPs, and I listen to the directors, because I need to understand what it is they’re looking for. I listen, and I try to see in my mind’s eye the same picture they see. Sometimes it’s a matter of different interpretations, but you have to listen and listen carefully, because some people can describe images in very specific terms -- they can say how saturated or contrasted the picture should be. Other people can’t do that, and instead they speak in terms of the mood, or color temperature, or the time period.

And, of course some people don’t know what they’re looking for. They’ll come to the color timing sessions to find out what’s there. Ultimately, all clients come to DuArt to put their vision on the screen. My job is to understand it, see it, and deliver it.

What are the tools of your trade at DuArt that you really enjoy using?
For non-linear color correction, our most recent major acquisition was a Nucoda, or Film Master as it’s also known. Because it’s software based, as opposed to the older linear hardware systems, it gives you pretty much unlimited capabilities on what it can do – how you can manipulate images, how many changes you can make on one frame. It’s a wonderful tool. It gives me all these chances to do more and do it better.

What do you think are the unique aspects that you bring to the color correct phase of a project?
When I look at an image, my first instinct is to find the captured light in that image. To me, light is what picture is about: I still like images that capture the light.

It’s harder to do it now because we’ve moved to digital capture on film. We capture something organic like light, with a completely non-organic tool like 0’s and 1’s. I miss the feel we get from film, and my instinct is to find something like that in these images.

Do you have advice for indie film makers or video producers on a budget who want to make sure their film looks the best it can? What do you want them to know about how they can make the most out of color correct, from a time and budget standpoint?
Well, it’s actually really rare nowadays to find somebody who doesn’t know a great deal about the medium that they’re working in – people are very well versed in the cameras and other tools that they use.

Whether they’re shooting in HD video or on film, what makes their life easier in the post work depends on how much they stick to their plan. If you know exactly what you’re trying to achieve in the end, and you have a roadmap, then you’re fine. If you’re shooting from the hip, then things can get a little trickier, because of the amount of FX work that is part of any project today. Compositing and other processes can cause trouble in the end if you don’t think about them ahead of time.

If you could have worked on any three films or shows in history, what would they be?
One would be a film that I did work on, Nadie Eschuchaba (Nobody Listens) directed by Nestor Almendros. I would love to work on some black and white, and that would be probably Greg Tolland, or another of my favorite black and white cinematographers, Gianni Di Venanzo, he did 8 ½ for Federico Fellini.

For color, some of my favorite images are from The Sacrifice by Andrei Tarkovsky (Sven Nykvist DP). Those are some of the most breathtaking images, as far as I’m concerned. It’s pretty much all about the light, and the mood.

Shifting gears for our last question…What’s your favorite NYC hangout?
(Laughs) I don’t hang in NYC, I hang on Cape Cod! In Truro , between P-Town and Wellfleet. The best beaches on the Eastern Seaboard are in Massachusetts. If you want to bypass the traffic on I-95, take Rt.15 as far as New Haven to I-95 or you can take the long way: Rt.15 to Rt.84 to Rt.90 to 495.

Wow, thanks for the travel tip! I was afraid to drive up to Cape Cod ever again.
(Laughs) You’re welcome -- I’ll bet you weren’t expecting to learn that!

- - - -

This blog was penned by David Weiss, and avid follower of all things production and music oriented. He is a founder and editor of sonicscoop.com.

NEWS: Ron Harris Comes to DuArt

2011-05-19T17:00:00.005-04:00

DUART NAMES RON HARRIS VP OF PRODUCTION AND SALES

Experienced Executive Leads Comprehensive NYC Post Facility’s Expansion Into Broadcast Video Post

NEW YORK – May 19, 2011: DuArt, New York City’s comprehensive video and film post facility, announced that it has named Ron Harris as Vice President of Production and Sales.

Harris joins DuArt with nearly three decades of experience in local, national and international sales and development for the leading video post facilities in NYC. At DuArt, he will lead the company’s expansion into broadcast video as the facility continues to add talent and resources for HD video and digital editing, color correction, 3D post, audio editing and mixing, original music composition, high-end QC, and DVD/Blu-ray/3D authoring. Harris will also be responsible for attracting clientele to DuArt’s rapidly expanding edit room and production space rental business.

“Producers, editors and production companies today prefer the time/cost efficiencies that come with having all your video/audio post services under one roof,” Harris says. “DuArt has an almost singular capacity to offer that in the 12-story building that they own. You can walk in starting with media in hand and leave with a 100% finished product.”

Harris comes to DuArt from Broadway Video, where he was Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He has also held executive sales positions with National Video Center (having first been their Senior Video Editor for 25 years), Rhinoceros, Image Group Post and LA Digital Post.

“You cannot overlook the fact that DuArt has been here on 55th Street, operating nonstop, since 1922,” notes Harris. “Their experience in world-class video and film spans generations. DuArt’s understanding of archival and new workflow is amazing. Their reputation and credits are absolutely unparalleled.”

In addition to overseeing day-to-day sales for DuArt’s existing wide field of post services, Harris is also available to develop custom solutions for production and post clients in need of a home base in NYC.

“If people have projects that require multi-systems editing, we can offer a string of Avid/Final Cut editing rooms and production office space for the life of the project,” Ron Harris says. “That’s what made this such an enticing proposition for me: DuArt has the talent, the space, and the inclination to become an elite player in video post.”

About DuArt:
DuArt is a full service post facility in NYC, servicing the broadcast and film industries. Operating out of their 12-story building in midtown Manhattan, DuArt provides video editing, color correct, voice recording, casting, 3D editing, direction for animation, music scoring, sound design, film and audio restoration, production space, and more. Since being established in 1922, DuArt has finished thousands of the world’s most loved feature films, documentaries, festival releases and television shows.

For more information, please visit www.duart.com.

A conversation with Senior Editor, David Gauff

2011-01-23T07:12:00.002-05:00

In which our DuArt blogger-at-large discusses the power of the motion picture medium, being transported back to ’63 on a Triumph Bonneville and buttermilk.

First things first, David. How did you get into editing?
“I stared as an apprentice to an editor I had met while I was in high school and he provided an opportunity to come to New York and work directly with him. So, my career began pretty much right out of high school—apprenticing and then eventually generating my own clients and then being hired by a small production company.

Prior to DuArt, I spent about thirteen years at Magno Sound and Video which is where I decided that theatrical feature work was what interested me most. I like projects that have a longer post production duration, that way I can become more deeply involved with the project. I get to touch things in a creative way and add a little bit of something here and there.”

You have worked on “American Experience” for PBS as well as documentaries such as “Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine,” “Chuck Close” and “Black, White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe.” Do you have a favorite project?
“I felt really good about the Louise Bourgeois film. It told the story of one of the 20th Centuries most important but often overlooked artists in an interesting and effectively challenging way. Each project brings its own creative and technical challenges and that’s what makes it interesting. The project itself, in terms of content or story, is secondary to the task at hand, I am focusing on the minute details which can obscure story elements. However, I will say I personally feel strongly about projects that have a social conscience. I believe motion pictures are a powerful medium for educating and making people aware.”

Aside from working on them, do you get a chance to see many films as an audience member? “(Laughs) I usually watch them at home on a BluRay player.”

Do you find having a background in film that you will notice things from a technical standpoint?
“Almost never. If I notice the editorial or something technical about a film, what I’m noticing generally is a problem. I’ve been taken out of my state of passive viewer.”

So, you’ll never look at a particular moment in a film and say to yourself, “That was a beautiful edit!”?
“Honestly, my aesthetic interests as a member of an audience are much more about the camera work, the score and the mix. I’m much more wowed by gorgeous cinematography or a powerful music score. Score and mix are probably the most important attributes on the emotional rollercoaster that a film can take you on.”

Now a couple of random questions: If I were going to buy a motorcycle or a roadbike and I’ve never ridden one before, what would be a good entry level bike?
“I would get a modern Triumph Bonneville. Lightweight, very maneuverable, plenty of giddy-up but not too overpowering…All of their retro line [models] respect the original design elements. They all have their own special cachet. You can ride one and be transported back to 1963.”

And what’s your favorite beverage?
Buttermilk.

Buttermilk?
It’s tangy and fresh. It’s kinda like a salty lassi but you don’t need a blender. But you do need a frozen mug, just don’t use your favorite beer mug, though, because milk will kill a well seasoned beer mug.”

Thanks, David. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy some buttermilk. I might even put it in my beer mug. Because that’s how I roll.

- - - -

DuArt's Blogger-at-Large is, in reality, Ted Lewis, an actor/writer/dog-walker (mostly dog-walker). That said, he is desperately available to voice animated cartoons, write hilarious, insightful scripts or walk your adorable cockapoo. Just not at the same time.

A conversation with colorist Bill Stokes

2010-12-08T13:00:00.001-05:00

Bill Stokes tweaks picture on the DuArt Nucoda.

In which our intrepid blogger discusses being stuck in a blizzard with Ric Burns, getting weepy with Barbara Kopple and riding giraffes through Manhattan.

What brought you to DuArt?
“I was a broadcaster first from 1982 to 1984. In 1984 I became (colorist) Joe Bond’s assistant. Then [I assisted] Dino Regas, who’s now retired…We worked at VCA Teletronics together. After a while, Joe left to become an officer at Post Perfect and Dino went to Manhattan Transfer and I became Senior Colorist over there around ’85, ’86. Then I freelanced around to Post Perfect, JSL and then I landed at DuArt in 1991.”

You said you were a broadcaster first? Tell us about that.
“I was a media major at Hunter College and at the time there was no cable television so I got a start at WNYC TV - - because it was non-union. I worked in production as a cameraman and an audio guy--I used to mike talent. After that, I was a live news tech director and then I became an on-air master controller. That’s when Teletronics hired me when they launched a new cable network and I was there for two years until they left and went to Stamford, Connecticut and changed their name to Lifetime Television.”

You’ve worked on a number of high-profile projects including Ric Burns’ films “New York,”and “Ansel Adams.” His most recent, “Into the Deep: America, Whaling & The World,” is premiering on PBS in May of this year. Can you tell us about that?
“Of all of Ric’s films, that was the longest job because we stylized it for 45 hours! We were in here in February--twenty-two inches of snow--me, Burns and his editor. He had these big whaling ships that he had access to for only nine hours but we had to make it look like three different periods in Melville’s life while using the same footage…To age it, we did this desaturated skip-bleach look. We had a beautiful sunny day and all you see is the mahogany wood of the boat and the blue sky was all silvery. But you can’t just acquire a look—you have to ease your way into it. Ric didn’t quite know what he wanted to do and we were both apologizing because I couldn’t quite nail it, either--and this is after 10 or 12 years of working with this guy! But I went home and watched it. It looked real good.”

You color corrected Barbara Kopple's “The House of Steinbrenner” for ESPN’s 30 for 30. You also worked with her on “The D.C. Sniper’s Wife” as well as her 2006 Dixie Chicks documentary “Shut Up & Sing.” What’s different about Barbara’s approach?
“It’s a girl’s approach. I said, ‘Barbara, there’s too much crying in here!’ She said, ‘Bill, I can’t help it. I’m a girl!’”

Are there any projects you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?
“I have a post background but it started from being on-air. My personal pride comes from that. When it goes to air, I feel good. When I did “60 Minutes,” I used to come in on Sunday morning to do two 12-minute clips that aired that night. I had to get it right! There was a sense of urgency that I miss.”

Finally, can you tell us about the unicycle?
“No.”

C’mon! You were a champion!
“I wasn’t a champion. I owned one... As a kid, I always prided myself on learning how to ride anything with wheels. I learned when I was about 13. I could even ride the six foot tall giraffe! You have to kick yourself up. You can lean on a Walk/Don’t Walk sign. You kinda feel like Randy Johnson!”

Ah, yes. But can Randy Johnson color correct a 19th century whaling ship? We think not. Thanks, Bill!

- - - -

3D Blu-Ray at DuArt

2010-11-24T13:38:00.000-05:00

Our resident Blu-Ray guru, Randy Hudson,

blasts into the third dimension.

We are seeing rapidly expanding interest in the areas of Sports, Music Entertainment, Science, Food and other special interest programming that can benefit by 3D videography.

We have completed several 3D Blu-Ray projects recently. The area of sports entertainment seems to be a rapid adoption area for 3D broadcast technology. One project was for an excerpt of a 3D Broadcast of a Rangers Hockey game which was shot at Madison Square Garden in NYC. The Blu-Ray was used as a Emmy submission for the MSG Network. We also did a 3D Blu-Ray for the advertising firm Wieden + Kennedy. The 3D Blu-Ray was a commercial demonstrating the 3D programming of the ESPN Sports channel. This commercial was shown at a conference in NYC on the State of 3D in Broadcasting. Amazingly, we were able to turn this project around within 4 hours of getting the call.

DuArt in Variety and the New York Times

2010-08-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Two articles on DuArt this week note our ongoing transition from film to digital, one in Variety and the other in The New York Times. Our 4k color correction suite is coming!

News from one of our favorite DuArt residents, Alan Silverman of Arf! Mastering.

2010-07-18T18:18:00.000-04:00

Summer '10 has brought some fantastic new music through Arf! Mastering here at Duart...

Folk icon Judy Collins was just in, this time recasting mastering engineer Alan Silverman in his former role as her producer, recording, and mixing engineer for her new release "Paradise."    Judy returns to her roots as a story teller, social and political activist, and interpreter of traditional ballads. The set features duets with Joan Baez and Stephen Stills and closes with a new song by Jimmy Webb. Judy's passionate and evocative crystal clear voice are woven with the stellar playing of musicians Russ Walden, Larry Campbell, and the Nashville Rhythm Section. "Paradise" debuts at number 11 on Billboard's Folk chart. Judy's first appearance on the Billboard charts was in April of 1964 spanning an on-going career of over 46 years!

Vocalist Jane Monheit was in with her new recording for Emarcy Records, her first self-produced album, and her first album with her own band.   Jane and her touring musicians have a hand-in-glove synergy and this set presents a new depth and range to her artistry.

Jazz master guitarist Kenny Burrell checks in for mastering his new Live At Dizzy's Club Cocoa Cola CD. Vocalist Freddy Cole returns for his new release "Sings For Mister B," both albums produced by the venerable Todd Barkan.
Calle 54 Records is back with another of their intriguing and unexpected hybrids.   This one pairs virtuosos Pedro Martinez on percussion and Niño Josele on Flamenco guitar in an homage to maestro Camarón de la Isla featuring a new take on the Cuban Rumba.

Master reed player James Carter came by for mastering "Concerto For Saxophones" a newly composed orchestral work produced by Michael Cuscuna and recorded/mixed by engineer extraordinaire Jim Anderson.

Building a new room for audio books

2010-05-13T11:30:00.000-04:00

By Sean McKinley, Senior Producer, DuArt Audio Books.

Excitement is building as our new studio is now complete. I was recently talking with a friend regarding a new camera he just bought. Some of the photos he has taken were absolutely astonishing in their clarity and detail. The compiling of thousands and thousands of tiny bits of information in the right order created a fantastic rendering of the source. I have been thinking about how this same concept applies to an audio production.

Delivery of our new IAC VO booth.

Carmen and I put a lot of thought into the little details. It is often the little details that make something special and unique. The same goes for most things in life. This is especially true for Audio Book Production. With nothing to hide a performance behind, the narration must shine on its own. This can happen when one focuses on even the smallest of details. One very important detail is the noise floor of a recording. When there is a noise such as a hum, buzz, rattle, shuffling of feet, and a script rustle this takes away from the importance of the performance. I want our work environment to be as quiet and distraction-free as possible. This started the obsession of obtaining a recording studio with outstanding isolation.

Acoustically preparing the space
prior to installing the booth.

We used our itchy yellow friend OC 703 insulation in every possible place; each and every nook and cranny. Our first goal was to make a room within a room. This is space that will become the control room and house the IAC isolation booth. The entire space has acoustic fiberglass panels employed to absorb and eliminate sound across the entire audible spectrum. The next step is to make sure you have some mass or density. This is another foe of audible leakage. You make sure your walls have some sort of isolation for their installation so you eliminate the ability to transfer sonic energy among common connections. To put it simply, you make sure that your framing wall and your interior walls do not share studs and have an air gap between them. And, of course, you get your mass by using multiple layers of sheet rock. So, what you have is lots of sheetrock with air gaps and high density acoustic fiberglass filling the cavities. Our end result is a control room that has a very flat response and a live room that has great isolation and no audible distractions. Thus, yielding a superb environment for recording one of the most complex and dynamic instruments around: the Human voice.

Expert room guy, John Tweety, installing the booth.

So, it boils down to the little details that make a space into a superior studio environment. This result enables the focus to be put on the little details of the performance. The little details add up and the big picture looks good. Similar to a good digital photograph, it takes a lot of little bits of information to render a clear accurate picture. This is the art of producing, making sure you have all of the right bits in the right place at the right time.

Ready to record.

2010 NAB Report • by Mitch Jacobson

2010-04-27T17:02:00.000-04:00

Mitch Jacobson is the owner/operator of Category-5 Studios
here in the DuArt building. He is a director, an editor
and the author of "Mastering Multicamera Techniques"
soon to be released by Focal Press.
All photos by Mark Forman (screeningroom.com)

First Impressions
The buzz was apparent the moment I landed in Las Vegas. People just seemed excited. I was not disappointed either as this NAB turned out to be the best NAB in recent years.

Year after year, the sea of technological change waves back and forth across our industry as we editors surf it the best we can. Keeping up with technology seems to take up more and more time as integration between edit tools allow a bigger bag of tricks, convergence gets deeper into mobile and livestreaming which will inevitably climb to become the top tier of our deliverable masters and formats and post workflows become more refined.

Every year the gear gets better, faster and more affordable and we adapt to keep up. Storytelling hasn't changed much but, the way we tell those stories has. Of course 3D is big this year as many features and networks are going 3D but, to me it is super hyped-up mostly by TV manufacturers to sell more TV's. 3D in my opinion will never be as hot as HD was or what mobile is, for instance but, now is the time to get into editing it so on goes the world.

Other hot topics discussed at NAB include the blurred line between on-set editing and assistant camera/DIT jurisdiction and the FCC's new improved stance on internet- totaly wigging-out old-school
broadcasters as the future of broadcasting is finally completely clear to them. "Broad" is in a slow fade out and "Web" is crashing in. Kids are simply cutting the cable and perfectly happy with watching video on their phones. Or should I say mobile unit. I mean really, who makes phone calls anymore! That's why the Mobile Pavilion was always full of Lookie-Lous and Lou-Anns. Mobile is the future delivery platform....independent films as iPad Apps anyone? Monetize with security--do it yourself distribution company.

Editing Software
As for editing software, the three A's have all come to the party but this year, only Adobe and Avid have brought the party favors. Each has taken their platforms to a new level helping to move us all forward. Final Cut was seen in many booths but, as expected, there were no major announcements from Apple. Instead their approach is to point out the their technology partners- somewhere in the 300's- to continue to support the platform. Adobe and Avid on the other hand have rocked my world at NAB and have restored and surpassed any ground they may have lost in the recent years. I only hope Apple has been working to get rid of Carbon code and up FCP to the new Coca and 64-bit code Mercury for the past 5 years because they need to do some serious catching up and fast. It even got hot in the press when Adobe employee Lee Brimelow was quoted in his blog with "go screw yourself Apple" over the lack of Flash capabilities for the iPhone.

Avid
Meanwhile back to Avid. They came out of the gate swinging hard this year with the release of Avid Media Composer 5.0 which is it's most calculated update in recent years. It really flips their original "my big fat proprietary media tool is better than your user-driven desktop hierarchy for media management" style 180º on it ear. Now with the improved AMA (Avid Media Architecture) you can manage any drive any way you want--- but it gets better! You can work with Apple ProRes and any Quicktime format natively and MC5 can play it as a source. Hello! Native QuickTime/H.264 workflows for Canon 5D and 7D cameras but best of all, say goodbye to trans-coding, re-wrapping, or logging and transferring files before you can edit.

This is the bomb-diggity for getting down to the business of the creative cut. You literally skip the ingest phase and go right to the edit mode of your choice. Plus, it also makes workflows across platforms so much easier. For instance, now, we can cut our off-line project in Final Cut, Avid whatever and online on any other platform with the original media. Say you love to edit with Avid but your show is going to be on-lined in Final Cut for color correction in Apple Color? No problem, just work in ProRes and consolidate. Use Automatic Duck to move your project and bam, you're sending to Color. You can even round trip you Color project back to Avid with graded files linked for Avid project deliverables.

It doesn't stop there: native support to RED .r3d media, scaled to HD size without Metafuze processing -- use a internal RED Rocket card instead; Drag and Drop editing directly in the timeline. Forget about segment modes, man! Just move it. It works with audio and trimming marks. Finally--or better late then never, I should say.

For processing improvements, Avid now uses internal processing for full 4:4:4 colorspace from correction and keying to effects. In Nitris DS you get HD-RGB with dual connectors for the hi-bandwidth resolutions. You can now use third party Matrox MX02 Mini to monitor for a high quality monitoring choice. Another interesting feature that still needs to shake out a little is their "Cloud Based" solution working with proxies and screen sharing over the web.

As you can tell, I'm really psyched for Avid. They have leapfrogged over to the future and have set the bar. This will surely cause a few hot-foots in CampApple and rightfully so. Avid went from being the least native supporting platform to becoming one of the best.

Adobe
Oh, Adobe. They just get it. But, what can I say about Premiere Pro for feature films or TV shows? I could say that as one who loves Adobe but doesn't cut with Premiere Pro, I am very impressed. It has always seemed like a Swiss-Army knife in the edit room but now even more than ever with Native coca 64bit and complete round tripping to Final Cut and of course the interoperability with all the Adobe products. Dynamic link with AfterFX. Oh yeah, the largest size canvas is 10K x8K. Yep. 10K.

There is no rendering. And it is so fast. Did I say no rendering? It does render in the background with memory sharing amongst all applications. The more ram the more real time previews.

You can run everything at the same time and not run out of ram. It uses fractal playback and a mercury engine...it's CUDA.

What is CUDA? CUDA is NVIDIA’s parallel computing architecture that enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the GPU (graphics processing unit).

Anyway, it's fast and it works. It's the only one of the "A" Teams that allows full 4k RED moves in 2K. So why not switch to Premiere for editing? Good question but before I had time to think about it, Adobe stepped into the AfterFX and Photoshop Zone.

I was blown away with the new rotoscoping tools: RotoBrush. I saw a very scrappy roto job done in a few seconds. Rough and tumble. RotoBrush found the edges of the mask and made it sweet before I could eat a chocolate. Then with the click of the spacebar, the animated roto mask was made...not just made but, made well. I mean this was really easy, even an editor could do it! It was a beautiful mask made in seconds and animated very simply. I was sold there but a roughcut, it gets better. How about we take a deep breath and become Content Aware. This graphic trick is so cool. How many times did you want to use a background of a photo but there was something in the frame that you wanted to remove? With content aware in Photoshop, you outline the trouble zone and Photoshop cuts it and calculates the new background from the old one. Basically, it creates a background out of nothing.

The Lightroom has a RED workflow. There is a stereo plugin for 3D. The speech to text mode introduced last year has been improved it's more accurate with the ability to compare and analyze your speech to text file with the actual transcript file. It matches them. Unlike ScriptSync, it doesn't allow script based editing. It does allow you to find a scripted line. Plus it has a metadata search mode. The original metadata that you use in your script can follow through your shoot, post and deliverables, even track-able on the web clips on line.

Apple
Apple did not formally announce anything or have a booth presence this year, they instead reinforced their position of having over 300 partners who have been developing new or improved product for Final Cut Pro. There is something solid to be said for licensing their ProRes codec to Arri for the new Alexa digital camera, it's raw-to-ProRes workflow will work on a laptop. Porting Autodesk Smoke for $15k and DaVinci Resolve ($1K-50k) to the Mac while licensing ProRes to Clipster is a nice step towards better compositing and finishing tools on the desktop.

A handful of other announcements from various vendors and developers including: Redrock micro remote control focus with sonar tracks motion across screen; Cannon came out with with log and transfer for XF 300 and 305 cameras; Panasonic AVC-intra in real time and plug in in for compressor; Codex digital has field recorder for Matrox; Editshare acquired Geeves.

From Platforms to Plug-ins
For a turnkey post system from ingest and media management to editing and project file sharing, you got to check out the new EditShare system. It works with a proprietary system that catalogs all the media onto a SAN and has intense media management database. Everything is built on top of that for an integrated system. It is now approved by Avid and you can share files or sequences like Avid's own Unity. EditShare also owns Lightworks now. They released it as open source to allow the development community to try to take it to the next level.

Various other software manufacturers have come out with improved versions or apps. Automatic Duck announced improvements to Pro Import AE with CS5 compatibility and Media Copy with a solution that enables users to read Avid bins and project files, and easily manage them from within Media Copy.

Singular Systems upped the ante on PluralEyes, it's "Automagic" sync ap for multicamera and double system sound but, this year there were two really cool things to check out: GET and CatDV.

GET from AV3 Software is like ScriptSync on the Avid, kind of. It is not so fully a script based editor as it is a search and find tool to match to audio on your clips. The process is similar to set up. GET analyzes the audio stream using a phonetic search tool and it works like a stand alone app in FCP. It's really fast and the only thing out there like it sans the speech to text function in CS4 & 5.

CatDV from Square Box Systems is kind of like what Final Cut Server "should have been". It's one of the most useful products this year. CATDV can run on any computer, or on a network, and allows you to organize your disk drive arrays (asset management) very easily. It instantly (within seconds) creates low res proxy files of all of your media, and then allows you to catalog this information, search it, and then drag it back into your editing program, where it instantly opens up all of your associated files that you have selected, in full resolution. "Since day 1 of the AVID Media Composer, people have said "what the heck is on these disk drives?". This has become much worse in the days of common 16 and 32 Terabyte drive arrays, and shared storage. CAT DV is a life saver, to allow modern facilities to organize their mess on their drives. At $350 for a single seat of software, it is an unbeatable price", Said Bob Zelin, System Integrator and Creative Cow Leader.

Education and Training
There were the usual exhibits and pavilions plus The Post Pit where you get digest versions of hot topics demonstrated by top film/tv pros. For extensive training, nothing beats the incomparable World Post Production Conference brought to us by Future Media Concepts. It's 5-days of cutting-edge training for TV, video, film, and new media professionals; seasoned industry experts conduct over 250 innovative and hands-on production and post-production sessions.

Keynoteworthy Members
This year at World Post Production Conference, there were two MPEG member keynote addresses. One from Maryann Brandon, A.C.E. and the other from yours truly, Mitch Jacobson. Plus, MPEG member Dan Lebental, A.C.E. gave a workshop about his techniques cutting Iron Man one and two on the Avid presentation stage.

Maryann started with her history cutting on just about everything from the Steenbeck, Ediflex and Lightworks to Avid editing for director JJ Abrahms on Alias, Lost, Star Trek and Mission Impossible 3. She said she likes collaborating and traded drama scenes for action scenes on star trek with co-editor Mary Jo Markey. She talked about cutting Previs and JJ's now famous flares and camera shakes. She said it drove her mad at first then, she came to love the flares and used them to help trim cuts. She revealed her trick to adding one red white and yellow frame to trasition between speed and falling shots. Maryann also discussed her 3D masterpiece How to Train Your Dragon and editing animation vs live action. In conclusion, she advises to stay positive and remain less cynical if possible because it is up to the editor many times to keep the director and the post crew relaxed to stay focused on story and characters instead of the drama behind the camera.

My keynote focused on on-set editing and being prepared for anything...starting with designing an on-location/portable editing suite and dealing with quick turnaround multi-camera jobs. I also held
a technical demonstration on "growing media" which is essentially an empty Quicktime shell that gets filled with encoded frames during a live show. This allows you to begin editing before you finish recording the material. I showed four channels of Telestream's Pipeline HD system ingest, encode and edit on-the-fly directly into Final Cut. I grouped 3 cameras plus a line cut into a multiclip and began editing while the same files were "growing" or continuing to record the live show. Then, I used Tools On Air's LiveCut to recreate my line cut directly into the quicktime movie by importing an XML file that was an EDL from the live switcher. LiveCut created over 800 "Add edits" in less than 15 seconds.

3D
Well, sorry to say, I am not a huge fan of 3D. It was big this year - mostly from the TV set manufacturers who want you to buy their new sets. I just don't think it's going to work well in the home. Last week on my way to NAB, I stopped into a NYC pizza parlor and overheard two kids from Brooklyn talking about 3D. This pretty much sums it up for me:

Brooklyn Boy #1: I'm not buying one of those stupid 3D TVs
Brooklyn Boy #2: Me either.
Brooklyn Boy #1: People say it hurts their eyes
Brooklyn Boy #2: I'm not buying those glasses either. What a rip $160 bucks!
Brooklyn Boy #1: What are you going to do? Pass them around at a party?
Brooklyn Boy #2: The look blurry anyway
Brooklyn Boy #1: I got two new plasma screens and look great
Brooklyn Boy #2: at least they are in focus
Brooklyn Boy #1: Well, I heard it's mostly for sports anyway
Brooklyn Boy #2: Yeah but you can get sick and barf from drinking beer and watching 3D sports.
Brooklyn Boy #1: So don't drink beer with football in 3d!
Brooklyn Boy #2: NO, don't watch in 3D and keep drinking beer!

Anyway 3D is here and we as editors are dealing with it. Mostly it's still about telling stories but now we are telling stories within multiple planes. On the set, there are many more jobs and many focus pulling AC's are getting into the act and becoming Stereographers to converge lens. It turns out that this is a skill that is easier translated for craftsmen that can judge distance and focus.

Mainly for cutting, It's time to slow things down. No more fancy fast paced cutting. We need more time to adjust for the 3D depth of field trickery. Let it breathe! should be the new mantra for 3D editing.

One process involves muxing the two 3D streams together in After FX for editing in FCP or using the steroscopic plugins from Tim Dashwood: FX plug -Stereo 3d toolbox 2.0 for the hobbyist and the pro. Avid has stereoscopic tools built in. Neo 3d combines left and right data to one stream and Kona 3 for SDI and dual link for on set screening of 3D material.

One last note we will probably start seeing more 3D monitoring and projection in the edit room for client screening and dailies.

Cameras
As for cameras, I only briefed by them. Even though I love cameras and production, as an editor I am mainly interested in their the digital workflows. RED had REDucation, a day long event "off campus" to show off RED one and Epic. In other camera news, it seems like HDSLRS from Canon and Nikon are coming on stronger every day and Sony and Panasonic had strong showings with new cameras SD and HD. Arri showed its demo Alexa and Aaton had it's prototype the Penelope-Delta. I think that DPs who have struggled a little with the small HDSLRs and RED cameras with all the accessories hanging off the small camera bodies may appreciate the Arri and Aaton and hopefully these companies will bring some of their cinema heritage to their new cameras.

The Penelope is a hybrid digital-film camera using interchangeable magazines – a film and a digital back! The optical viewfinder uses the same viewing location for digi and film. The ARRI and Aaton have a lower resolution than RED, but both use RAW and direct-to-edit formats like ProRes or DNxHD. You can now use files that are ready to edit in Avid or FCP right off the production drives but it is always recommended to back up everything first. This is great for TV workflows. If you are doing features, your RAW files are the digital negatives which are converted to offline clips for editing and
accessed directly for online color correction and finishing.

Summary
Looking back at the whirlwind week in Vegas, I am rejuvenated. This year's show was reinvigorating to say the least. There was a nice feeling of optimism and a welcome synergy between filmmakers and manufacturing that is sure to signal some exciting new relationships and developments in the coming years. It is a great time to be in film and TV and I can't wait to put some of these new tools to the test in upcoming projects.

Laugh Clown Laugh

2010-04-19T20:21:00.000-04:00

Here is an item of historical interest. Irwin Young's uncle, Joe Young, wrote lyrics to the theme song for the 1928 silent film Laugh Clown Laugh. I'm not clear how the song interacted with the film, perhaps it was performed at screenings, but it became a huge popular hit. Here is a youtub'ed excerpt from the film, which does not include the song.

Cover art from the original sheet music can be viewed here at the DuArt Web site.

Some additional info on the film is to be had here. This article mentions that reel 4 is missing from all versions of the film and I reflexively wonder if it might be hiding somewhere at DuArt under someone's desk. Just kidding about that.

The song can be heard for reals here.

Sound design for "Bereavement"

2010-04-13T14:55:00.000-04:00

~ Steve in the mix room ~

I think the power of music in film is often overlooked by many filmmakers, so it’s important for me to work with sound professionals who share my passion for how music affects picture, mood and even flow of a film. One of the special things about my experiences working with Carmen over the years at DuArt is he has very strong opinions on the subject, being a musician himself, and isn’t afraid to share them. Even if they differ from mine. That kind of push and pull makes for great collaboration. That’s why I keep returning to do all of my sound mixes, and my films always benefit from that exchange of ideas.

So many post houses are concerned with how quickly they can perform your sound mix, and how loud and crazy they can make it. Not many can (or are willing), to comment on how the score is affecting the flow of your film. There have been times where Carmen has even stepped up and contributed music to my score. This was the case on my recent film, Bereavement. He makes it very difficult to go anywhere else. The team of Matt and Carmen makes for a combination of creativity and proficiency that makes me feel confident that anytime I do a sound mix there, I’m in the right place. I’ve never left unhappy.

--Stevan Mena

• • • • • • •

Some notes from Carmen:
Steve handed me a DVD screener of his new horror film, Bereavement and asked what I thought was needed. It looked amazing but felt pretty empty, sound-wise. The first Malevolence was the simplest level of brilliance that could be had. Long, held shots, driven by a score that seemed inevitable but probably took him forever to figure out. This new film is a prequel and Steve covers a lot of territory in it. He had composed his own score in Logic and filled in all of the sound design he could in Final Cut. Matt Gundy, Eli Cohn and myself all had the same response, "Cool film. That's gonna be a lot of work". Must be sure the sound serves the picture, that it drives the action. The action did not yet feel inevitable.

~ Electric piano harp ~

We spent several weeks building detailed ambiences before moving on to the fun stuff: stabbing, bludgeons to the head, drippy gooey injuries and a victim gyrating from a meat hook. I mean, fun for a sound person. Matt did the foleys, it was always interesting to pop in to the mix room to see what atrocity was being enhanced at the moment. One of the things I noticed about Steve's score was that it wanted more definition at specific visual moments. He had composed evocative music that kind of smoothed over some key moments. I suggested we add a bit of percussive dissonance to it and brought in one of my prized possessions: an electric piano harp I had liberated from a destroyed Baldwin piano lying on a New York sidewalk over twenty years ago. Steve had been working a lot with samples and synthesis and he lit right up at the organic skronkiness of the instrument. We did some sessions during the mix to punch up key horrifying moments into something much more visceral. I beat, scraped, whacked and otherwise coaxed a variety of unpredictable sounds that Matt happily slotted into the mix. It's still magical for me to see what happens to a moving image when the proper sound is applied, we knew we had it right when it was harder to look at.

Thanks to Steve for bringing his project to DuArt.

Always Roll

2010-04-02T20:03:00.000-04:00

Having dragged various audio recorders to every family and social function imaginable over a period of 30 years, having endured suspicious glances, having experienced overt hostility, having lived through approbation, skepticism and blatant disapproval, it is gratifying after so many years of wandering the desert of criticism, disparagement, objection and opprobrium to have arrived at last at the unforeseen moment where someone from my distant past will finally ask, "Do you still have that recording you made when..."

And, of course, I do.

It may be on a cassette, a DAT, a minidisc, or lately, a flash recorder. But, yes, I have it. It's right here in the drawer in my studio where I keep all of the tapes I've ever made.

I'm reading a biography of Mao at the moment, I've noticed in this exhaustively detailed account that photos are few and far between. It might be many years from one posed tableaux to the next, and this from a world leader, though admittedly a poor example of a leader.

No more is this the case. These days there are so many methods of acquisition and capture that it has become difficult not to catch the moment. Methods and technologies for recording sound and image have proliferated wildly this past 20 years or so, where once one had to be a member of the economic elite to leave a decent residue of existence, of late any of a number of cheapass consumer formats will make a passable photo, recording or video.

So for us, we who are inclined to press "record" or peer through a viewfinder when others are simply experiencing, stuff is piling up. Sound files, .mp4's, quicktimes, tapes, discs, CD's, DVD's, .mov's and everything else is accumulating, aggregating and otherwise collecting into and onto our shelves, cabinets and hard drives.

As if we're all just waiting for that moment when some person from back in the day decides to shoot an email asking, "Do you still have that recording you made?..."

Welcome to the DuArt Film & Video Blog

2010-03-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

We do sound, picture, hi def, film, audio, translations, voice dubbing, script adaptations, audio books, telecine transfers in standard and high definition, video and film restoration, file-based media, sound design, sound mixing, color correction, color timing, titling, subtitling, closed captioning, room rentals, video and audio dubbing, transfers of any media to any other media, 35mm, 16mm, super 16mm, 8mm, super 8mm, HDCam, Digibeta, DVCam, quality control evaluations, and, um...

We also provide coffee, superb elevator service, wireless Internet access and primal scream therapy at no charge with any of the above services.