Instant Gratification A look at the on-set/near-set The New Normal gets “The Ryan Murphy dailies process. workflow,” says Magno owner Stan Cassio. By Christine Bunish With so many feature films, TV series and commercials shooting digitally, on-set and near-set dailies and color solutions are in demand by every facet of the industry to streamline workflows and “pre-load post” for greater efficiencies down the pipeline. THE NEW NORMAL LA-based Mango developed a near-set dailies solution for television and features two years ago and introduced it when the tsunami in Japan left Hollywood largely without tape stock. “We’d been working with Disney and Fox to design tapeless workflows, and when no tape stock was available after the tsunami, they asked if we were ready to roll it out for their shows,” recalls Stan Cassio, who owns Mango (www.mangola.com) and New Edit, which provides editorial equipment. In addition, Mango was a partner in creating what’s been dubbed “The Ryan Murphy Workflow” for the writer/producer/creator of Glee, American Horror Story and The New Normal. “Ryan and his crew are very innovative,” says Cassio. “They need efficient, cost- effective solutions. Ryan’s team, Alexis Martin Woodall and Brad Buecker, and I came up with a customized workflow.” The New Normal, which shoots on Arri Alexa, is a Murphy case in point. The show’s data manager exports the camera’s SxS cards to a back-up copy and a hard drive; the latter is taken to Mango’s near-set solution for dailies. Mango typically “sets up shop wherever offline editorial is,” says Cassio. “Once we get the drive, we ingest it into the system and, for redundancy purposes, copy it to the local SAN and the ISIS they’re tied to. Then we begin to sync dailies.” The dailies colorist applies the color pre-approved by DP Carlos Gonzalez and other decisionmakers on the sitcom. “We work closely with the DP to ensure that the color he sees on-set translates to near-set and final color,” he explains. “The New Normal likes to bake in color, so they go to final color with this as the starting point. When we’re transcoding, we simultaneously process DNx36 and DNx175 with baked-in color.” Mango also generates the files required for DVD protection copies and remote view- ing, and uploads files to Sample Digital or other proprietary studio servers, which deliver Internet dailies to execs. “Once editorial locks the picture, we connect to DNx175 renders, which relink to high-resolution images for Encore Video’s DI and final color. Should a show need it, we can generate VFX files in the formats required,” he adds. Mango ultimately archives completed shows to LTO tape. 22 Post • April 2013 www.postmagazine.com Post0413_022-24,26-27-On setRAV4FINALREAD.indd 22 3/27/13 2:04 PM The Alexa-shot Revolution gets its on-set/near-set solution from Bling Digital. Mango is “equipment agnostic” and configures its rack-mounted near-set solution, in consultation with a show’s DP, with Colorfront’s On-Set Dailies system or Assimilate’s Scratch. “We’re also looking at MTI Film’s Cortex Control Dailies,” Cassio says. “Our system looks like a permanent environment, not a collection of road cases. It’s like what the client is accustomed to seeing in a facility.” Cassio intends to get the word out to more DPs that Mango’s near-set dailies and color solution offers “the same comfort level of a four-wall facility with engineering support 24/7. Once people try it, they love the efficiency and logic of it.” REVOLUTION “On a show like Revolution, with multiple units and massive amounts of stunts and action, the amount of footage through the pipeline is pretty huge,” declares associate producer Geoff Garrett, who works with co-executive producer Phil Sgriccia on the NBC series. “We use both on-set and near-set dailies solutions with Bling Digital (a division of Sim Digi- tal; www.simdigital.com). On-set we get the color looks they want quickly and focus on backing up material for protection, then Bling does the heavy lifting near-set, focusing on dailies outside the crazy environment of production.” Revolution shoots on location in Wilmington, NC, using Arri Alexa as its primary camera with Canon 7D and GoPro cameras supplementing. In North Carolina, Bling maintains a colorist, sync technician, Avid technician and screening techs who prep and distribute the dailies for each day’s work. The on-set solution finds the show’s DP setting color values with the DIT using FilmLight’s Truelight color management system. Truelight is connected directly to the Alexa, enabling the DIT to see what the camera sees in realtime and apply the desired looks. The CDL values are carried across to Avid editorial and ultimately to online finishing at Level 3. With this method, the intent of the DP and director is maintained from on the set to final color and nothing gets “lost in translation,” according to Bling’s dailies producer, Jesse Korosi. Because the show is so big, it isn’t possible to deploy the Truelight system on extra units shooting on location or on vehicles and boats. In that case, “Bling works with the DP and DIT at night to apply the color looks,” Garrett points out. To prep dailies, Bling ingests Apple ProRes 444 QuickTimes in Log C color space and applies the CDL values to each take; the files are read by Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, which marries the two together to produce Avid DNx36 files for editorial. “Bling’s North Carolina office utilizes the high-speed fiber pipeline on the Wilmington Screen Gems lot and Aspera point-to-point software to give them a direct high-speed link to the writers and editorial office in Burbank,” Garrett explains. “Bling organizes the Avid files, syncing all the audio tracks, embedding CDL information in the files and producing bins for circle takes. Every night, Bling uploads files to our computer in Burbank, which is con- nected to an Avid ISIS. Even late-night shoots are ready for the editors when they come into work in the morning.” In several instances, Bling has even dispatched same-day dailies for a pick-up shot or to meet some last-minute requirement when the show needs to lock. Garrett had previously worked with Bling on the defunct Fox series, Alcatraz, which shot in Vancouver. “We did a fair amount of R&D for those dailies,” he recalls. “We’re using a lot of the same workflow we established on that show, but now our Avids are connected to an ISIS storage system, which is Ethernet-based, unlike the older Unity, which is fiber-based. So www.postmagazine.com Post • April 2013 23 Post0413_022-24,26-27-On setRAV4FINALREAD.indd 23 3/27/13 2:04 PM Instant Gratification “The Creative-Cartel customizes He sees near-set dailies moving forward the workflow for each show rapidly now that many DPs are shooting depending upon how the filmmak- digitally and producers have experienced ers prefer to work. For example, the speed, savings and efficiencies of pre- how each client wants their color loading post. and sets of dailies,” says Mumma. “Do they want only circle takes OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL uploaded to Joust? Do they specify During the Pontiac, MI, shoot for the 3D LUTs for each shot? Do they want feature Oz the Great and Powerful, FotoKem secondaries? Some DPs have a stan- went above and beyond on-set dailies and dard repertoire of looks for us to color with its NextLab on-set solution. Data apply; another wants a Rec.709 management supervisor Kyle Spicer handled transfer so he can deal with color all the initial media management and associ- later. What’s great about shooting in ated prep work, including fine-tuning the raw is that the sensor captures color with DP Peter Deming, ASC and col- Oz The Great and Powerful all our computers are linked to the ISIS via everything: It’s like shooting film — you don’t laborating with stereographer Ed Marsh on used Fotokem’s own Ethernet, making moving dailies files around have to make decisions on-set.” 3D quality control. NextLab solution. simpler and straightforward. No more shut- The Creative-Cartel can also provide “We had never used NextLab before, so tling around external hard drives.” Arthur more than a near-set dailies solution, he FotoKem worked with us to make sure the Ditner is Bling’s dailies supervisor. notes. “We specialize in engineering the system fit the workflow we envisioned,” Garrett hails the green aspects of the pro- whole show from camera to DI.” says Todd Livdahl, director of production cess. “Our connection to Bling is bi-direction- The generic workflow for a feature begins technology at The Walt Disney Studios. al, so if someone from production in Wilm- with engineering the camera to be in a cer- “NextLab became the on-set nucleus of ington wants a DVD, editorial can transfer an tain color space. “We work with the camera our data center.” ISO-DVD file to Bling, which can burn the department to make sure the settings are Working in a tent about 40 feet from the disc and get it to whomever needs it in correct and that they understand them. The set, Spicer loaded all the data from multiple North Carolina without having to ship a disc goal is that what the DP sees on-set, he sees Red Epic 3D rigs into NextLab, which fea- across the country.