ABERDEEN MAXIMUM THROUGHPUT S K R O W T E N T C E R I D A T A D G-TECHNOLOGY A supplement to the March 2009 issue of PROAVIO P VISIT OMNEON IN BOOTH SU7217 Storage Solutions The importance of storage We all need a place to put our stuff. By KEN McGORRY Honestly, who doesn’t need more stor- age these days? “That’s the whole meaning of life, isn’t it?” George Carlin has said, “Trying to find a place for your stuff!” Fact is, especially with the explosion in low-cost digital acquisition, the innumerable layers and elements that compositing and VFX afford (or require) and the almost endless varia- tions and versions that today’s NLEs allow, everybody’s got more stuff, and everybody needs to find the best place to put their stuff. What’s more, you need to be able to find your stuff, immediately, when the occasion arises that you need more stuff to go with the stuff you already have. It’s amazing how much more stuff there is to store today — even for stop- motion animators. In this report, Post spoke with animators, indie producers, VFX specialists, music video producers, Webisode directors, commercial col- orists, even feature film audio post pros. And they all have innovative ways to store their stuff. AARDMAN’S LOAF AND DEATH Ian Fleming, head of production technology at Bristol, England’s Aardman Animations, the multi-Oscar- Aardman has been using Max-T’s winning stop-frame animation studio, Sledgehammer HD!O while was instrumental last summer in the producing work like the special purchase of a new storage system from A Matter of Loaf and Death. Maximum-Throughput. Since January STORAGE SOLUTIONS • S-1 Storage Solutions Aardman pioneered the new work- over the Internet without the need for flow on last year’s half-hour TV special, dedicated workstations.) Wallace & Gromit in “A Matter of Loaf Finally, Aardman gave Big Bang, a and Death” (our heroes in a bakery), post house based here, DPX files of directed by Nick Park. There is howev- Loaf and Death for Baselight color er, something old school at work here grading and an HDCAM SR deliverable that resembles the classic offline/ for broadcast. online workflow. “We’ve gone for the A Matter of Loaf and Death attracted offline model, where we use 14.3 million viewers in the UK alone Sledgehammer’s external software to during its broadcast on Christmas Day produce standard def proxies to go and was the highest rated show on any back to Final Cut as just an offline edit,” channel in 2008. Even in standard def, Fleming says. Fleming says, the show looked “beauti- Aardman subsequently conforms the ful,” adding that it was Nick Park’s “first sequences through Sledgehammer’s digital project, and he loves it.”The next Maxmedia by using the Final Cut EDLs. Aardman feature film will also forsake Ian Fleming: Aardman’s next film “Eventually, the movie builds up on the film for an all-digital pipeline. will have an all-digital pipeline. Sledgehammer,”he says. On Loaf and Death, the full half-hour, WE’RE GONNA NEED 2008, this would be Aardman’s third including lots of extraneous shots, did MORE STORAGE installation of a Sledgehammer HD!O fit onto the 2TB system, although LA-based writer/director/producer file server and realtime, multi-format- toward the end, the animation team Patrick Read Johnson’s 1970’s coming- video system. While Aardman (www. began to archive off some material. of-age movie tells of a film-obsessed aardman.com) creates feature films and Thanks to Sledgehammer’s video teenager suspiciously similar to TV programs, this 2TB unit was headed card, “you can play all these image Johnson himself 30 years ago. His for the company’s facility devoted to commercial production. It fulfilled an array of roles: as a DDR play-out system; a fast NAS file server for edit bays; and as a format-conversion, media-processing and assembly solution. The idea was to exploit Sledgehammer’s versatility to stream- line workflow. Even, or especially, in an art form as intricate as stop-motion animation, time is money. Aardman animators shoot their multitudi- nous frames with Canon SLRs. From there, Fleming says, “The whole pipeline is IT — Linux scripts. The image sequences are 77’s production made use of CalDigit’s HDPro and HDOne. scripted into the Sledge storage. This means you’ve got sequences in realtime.” Fleming movie, 77, premiered at the Hamptons instant playback and review of what is adds, “It’s basically a big NAS — net- Festival last year and took the coming off the studio floor at full qual- work-attached storage — with high Heineken Red Star Award. But before ity, because the Sledgehammer does- def play-out. We can access any of that could happen, Johnson n’t need to render.”In past productions, [sequences] over the network and pull needed storage. Lots of storage. Fleming says, turning sequences stuff off.” As it turned out, as Johnson labored which could be 200 to 300 frames into (Max-T also champions its own to get his project fully funded, unseen “huge QuickTimes was about as slow multi-user collaborative editing solu- hands at CalDigit were working to as you could get.” tion, Maxedit, which users can access improve workflow. But does a speedier S-2 • STORAGE SOLUTIONS POST_SUP:POST_SUP_ 2/16/09 5:18 PM Page 1 Storage Solutions CalDigit salesman. Patrick Read Johnson: (CalDigit’s HDPro is an eight-drive dependable storage hardware RAID with 20GB ultra-high “can give an extra bandwidth connectivity. You can con- six weeks of reliable nect together “as many HDPros as you up-time to my want”and it’s also a SAN-ready storage creative team.” subsystem.) “We were so happy with the HDPro that we soon bought two HDOne units as well,” Johnson says. “And all three have worked flawlessly since we first turned them on.” Johnson also values the investment he made in converting all his footage, in all its many formats, to 1080 24p video on D-5 tapes. “Because of the ‘aspect ratios within aspect ratios’ for- mat and ‘70s graininess we were going for, we knew we’d never really need better than that for our final material. When we finally got around to shoot- ing ‘The Hollywood Section’of the film, we did end up scanning all of the Super-35 anamorphic at 2K. But the rest of the picture — the Super-16 material — is now all QuickTime clips at Apple ProRes 4:2:2 resolution and it’s absolutely beautiful.” workflow truly speed things up? dreams of filmmaking, Johnson and “To the degree it allows more time crew shot a lot of Super-16mm 1:1.85 FILMWORKSFX SPRUCES to actually try things, and see these and reduced the frame and centered it UP MANURE things actualized with faster render in a 2.35 anamorphic frame: “That was Every once in a while you get a times, and fewer system failures, a the format that felt like Wadsworth, whole movie’s worth of VFX dumped in smooth-running editorial pipeline is a Illinois, in 1977.”When our hero (who is your lap — like when a production godsend,”says Johnson. “What I hate to obsessed with the recently released abruptly decides to change vendors. see, however, is the misperception by Star Wars) finally makes it to Ken Locsmandi and FilmworksFX expe- some that just because the system is Hollywood the film format switches to rienced something like this recently faster, you should automatically allow Super-35 anamorphic. Home-movie with a film that needed to make it to for less editing time. A director and sequences used Johnson’s own origi- Sundance. This year’s Sundance. editor still need time to feel and think nal Super-8 camera. VFX were shot on “We had to finish 123 bluescreen and analyze the consequences of their anything from DV to HVX to CineAlta. composites in four days,” says post production choices.” Johnson and crew were happy with Locsmandi, “from delivery of the materi- Johnson does not relish giving away their XServe RAID but, when they al — with no VFX editorial.”The comedy advances in workflow speed purely for needed more HD storage, they went film, Manure, starring Billy Bob Thornton the sake of budget. He’d like to tell film for something more portable — a low- and Tea Leone, was shot on Red by pro- financiers that “it’s worth investing in a cost CalDigit HDPro. Johnson’s con- ducing brothers Michael and Mark faster, more capable system not cern over the unit’s portability were Polish (Michael directed). Locsmandi because I can shave six weeks off my assuaged when he saw the FedEx and the Polish brothers grew up in the editing schedule, but because I can delivery man show up with the box on same hometown, and Locsmandi felt an give an extra six weeks of reliable up- his shoulder. When his team installed obligation to give the film and all its VFX time to my creative team so they can the new system they were shocked and environment shots his best shot really put the film through a proper that it was up and operating in five despite the demands of the deadline. creative shake-down cruise.” minutes. It had already been pre-for- The film ultimately had 300 VFX shots — To evoke 77’s small-town teen with big matted to Johnson’s RAID level by the including 200 bluescreen shots for S-4 • STORAGE SOLUTIONS POST_SUP:POST_SUP_ 2/18/09 2:03 PM Page 1 POST_SUP:POST_SUP_ 2/18/09 2:03 PM Page 1 Storage Solutions Manure: FilmworksFX provided VFX, including airplanes, on a super-tight versions and viewing and Assimilate deadline to make Sundance.