In the just published first installment of a series of Sponsored Entertainment & Advertising Technology features, SHOOT delves into digital workflow solutions, placing the spotlight on five pioneering companies, including Company 3. In this feature, SHOOT connects with leaders who tell their stories of how their tools are helping to define today’s constantly evolving digital workflow.
The feature titled "Workflow in the Digital Age" was published on October 17, 2014 across SHOOT's digital and print platforms including SHOOT Magazine, SHOOTonline and The SHOOT>e.dition. Company 3's Dylan Carter, director of nonlinear workflow, was interviewed for the article.
An excerpt from the SHOOT feature about Company 3…
This last summer, Company 3–a creative hub for services ranging from pre-pro consultation, through dailies, DI, and final output–handled the workflow for two technically challenging tent-pole features: Transformers 4, which shot in 11 different camera formats, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, which was shot in native 3D. Company 3 provided a range of services including on-set dailies, color correction and, of course, the Digital Intermediates the company is so well known for.
Company 3 also helps filmmakers navigate their digital workflows. Company 3 Director Non-Linear Workflow Dylan Carter remembers when workflow became such an important topic. “In October 2007, RED burst on to the scene, and Company 3 got Gamer, completely shot in RED without any post workflow at all. They were bringing us files out of a beta RED camera, and the guys in post had to figure out what to do with it.” Among the solutions was working closely with Assimilate to come out with Scratch, a toolset that marries dailies, conform, editing, color grading and other tasks.
“For the next five years, every job was new,” Carter continues. “We were continually reinventing the wheel, finding a cheaper, faster way to do things. Or the way we were doing things was perfect, but a new camera entered the scene and broke the mold.” Of course, after RED came the ARRI Alexa, and new cameras from Sony, Canon and even GoPro, often used together in one feature film.
Company 3 devoted resources to make sure that the entire workflow, from camera(s) to final delivery, would work without a hiccup. Carter is clear on the best first step. “The earliest we can get involved the better,” he says. “If we get to talk to the director of photography before he shoots, we can make it work better. If the production doesn’t have the foresight to get us involved early, there’s a good chance they didn’t do things the way we wanted to. Preparedness is the key to keep away from emergencies.”
Carter describes how Company 3 is involved in pre-production. “We listen and help educate,” he says. “We act as a bridge sometimes between the cinematographer and the VFX and editorial departments.” Company 3 also gets involved in how the filmmakers deal with color during production. “On set, we want to know if they want a creative look applied because we have tools that sit between the camera and monitor that allows someone to adjust the color,” he says. “If they like what they see, they can save that as metadata and sent that to the dailies color artists. We want to know what tools we have that can help them or if they’re using tools we can put in our pipeline.”
With a dedicated software division, Company 3 has created a wealth of proprietary tools that are aimed at making the workflow efficient, fast and drama-free. Among those proprietary tools is Colorstream, which gives the DoP on-set color management that translates all the way through dailies. Another tool, Portal, allows the client to automatically pull all the VFX shots needed, scale and color them, all automated and send them to the vendors with notes to the VFX team what’s been ordered; and eVue offers encrypted dailies that hooks to a laptop and play-out to a plasma screen.
“We now have an entire department, called EC3 On-Location, devoted to dailies and anything that happens not related to the final,” Clark adds, noting that the team can travel with “a post house in a suitcase” to anywhere in the world. Company 3 also offers Virtual Outposts, which allows them to send a video feed from CO3’s color correction bay to a remote location equipped with a calibrated monitor. “This allows clients in a remote location, like Austin, to review a color session that is happening somewhere else, like Los Angeles,” says Carter. “We can also do a virtual session from one CO3 facility to another.” CO3 offers 25 Virtual Outposts, nine of which are in international locales.
To read the full "Workflow in the Digital Age" sponsored feature, please visit one of the following links:
Click Here to read the online version of the article.Here's link to online version of article.
Click Here to view article in the PDF version of the October 17, 2014 PDF version of SHOOT Magazine. (click on first issue at top of the page)
Click Here to view/download PDF version of just the article.
Click Here to request information on future SHOOT Entertainment and Advertising Technology sponsored features. Sponsorship includes participation in feature article plus digital and print advertising & promotion.
ABOUT Company 3
Company 3 provides high-end postproduction services to feature film, commercial, music video and TV projects. Services include all aspects of post, including online conform, color correction, and VFX compositing. Company 3 is home to one of the largest and most talented pools of colorists and VFX artists in the industry. Clients benefit from Company 3’s state-of-the-art infrastructure and top-level production and technical staff who oversee every facet of each project from beginning to final delivery. The world of digital cameras and formats is constantly evolving and clients rely on Company 3 to seamlessly move their clients through the post process. Company 3 colorists can work on site with clients at its Los Angeles, New York, London, Atlanta Chicago and Detroit facilities or via the company’s sophisticated network of remote locations and Virtual Outposts. www.company3.com
About SHOOT Magazine / SHOOTonline
SHOOT® Magazine and SHOOTonline® are the leading publication and website for commercial and entertainment production & postproduction; edited for agency, movie & studio creative and production executives, executives at commercial and entertainment production/post companies, TV/Online/Mobile networks, brand marketer production executives, independent filmmakers and artisans including directors, cinematographers, editors, colorists, vfx supervisors/artists/animators, composers, sound designers & mixers. Through its "News" and "ScreenWork" sections, "Columns" and in-depth "Features", SHOOT publishes timely news, relevant information and a behind-the-scenes look at the best new work and profiles/interviews with industry news makers. In addition, SHOOT reports on the latest cinematography, post & editing technology and equipment. If the work involves advertising and entertainment motion picture content that consumers view on a screen—a TV screen, Cinema screen, Computer screen, Mobile screen or Game screen, SHOOT is searching out who's doing the most innovative work and what's coming next. For further information please visit www.SHOOTonline.com®
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