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video news
A post production facilitator owned col- lectively by all the ITV companies, the Acton-based operation (the initials stand for Independent Television Facilities Centre) prepares over 240 hours of programme material for
Channel 5, TV channels in Malta, the Czech Republic and cable operators in Europe - it is by no means their sole responsibility.
“We can also change the format of the pro- gramme if someone requires it,” Higgs adds, “doing any editing they might need along the way. There might be commercial breaks in the wrong place, for instance. We can take out any logos, standards conversion and the rest of the dubbing and editing required to get that material on air.”
With dedicated staff from Carlton - represent- ing the ITV companies - and Channel 5 based full time at ITFC in what are called ‘compliance units’, specific editing decisions are made on site and can be efficiently carried out.
These might be in order to comply with the ITC code of conduct, trimming a movie for sex, vio- lence or bad language, or simply selecting the ideal breaks for commercials. Another complication comes with the position of The News At Ten in the evening schedule, which sometimes requires a half hour break in a feature film broadcast.
“We basically do that type of editing every day of the week. Once we’ve got everything up to the right technical standards and the material is scheduled for transmission, the compliance units based here view the material on VHS before we despatch it. Then they make decisions on whether they want to trim it for timing or content.
“Obviously if it’s for content, it’s to ensure that the material meets the guidelines for the time slot that they’re going to place that material in. We provide the technical edit facilities for them to go down and make those cuts before we despatch it for transmission.
“If they want to start a film at 8 o’clock, before the watershed, then sometimes there will be too much violence or swearing or whatever, for that time. So we provide the means to do that, and try to do the edit in a sensitive, creative way so that the viewer is not going to notice anything. It’s not just a question of taking a pair of scissors to it. A lot of work goes into ensuring that the continuity is maintained, and people don’t notice the cuts.”
Although the staff from the companies them- selves make the decision of where to edit materi- al, ITFC employees offer invaluable back up and advice. Sometimes they all share in the glory of an ingenious solution to a rather tricky problem.
“The Silence of the Lambs was to air on ITV a year or two ago,” recalls Higgs, “and early in the film the c-word was used, which was unsuitable at the time they wanted to show it. So we had to creatively take that out. We replaced it with the word ‘scent’. That involved exactly the same mouth movements. We found Anthony Hopkins saying ‘scent’ in another movie, so we used that.” ■ ANWAR BRETT
Fuji Professional Video are delighted to be the major supplier of tape to ITFC
broadcast every month.
Director and General Manager Chris Higgs has
been with ITFC for eight years, and it is he who oversees the operations of his 180 staff in the var- ious areas in which they work.
“We provide two real main area of expertise and service,” he begins, “one being video post pro- duction facilities, the other is subtitling for deaf and hard of hearing viewers on the Teletext ser- vice. We are actually the largest provider of these subtitles in Europe, providing about 150 hours of subtitled programmes per week to our customers. That’s ITV, Channel 5, and about five hours a week for the BBC.
“On the post production side we specialise in the preparation of materials for transmission, par- ticularly acquired programming that channels buy in from around the world. These are movies and series mainly, things like Baywatch, Home & Away and the blockbuster films. We specialise in getting that material on air for them, putting it through various processes of quality control to make sure it meets the technical demands of the channel.
“Then we store and hold that material whilst it’s in licence. We have storage facilities for up to about 200,000 items, on film and videotape. We’ve got a computer link to all our customers, so they can dip in and have a look at the progress of that material, see whether it’s in the dubbing process and whether we’ve got technical problems with it. They can then order the material in time for trans- mission from us.”
If it turns out that programme material is far from the highest technical standards, ITFC are able to set about improving it.
“We go through the whole post production process to get that material on air for our clients. If it is of an inferior technical quality then we have to get into a dialogue with the producers, distrib- utors or owners of that material to discuss what the problems are.
“They may be able to make some improve- ments at their end by going back to re-master it or something like that, or we might be able to make some improvements with our facilities here.
“We have a whole range of equipment: 44 broadcast standard VTRs, which include Digital Betacam and D2, three digital edit suites, four Rank Cintel Telecine suites which specialise in film to tape transfer, standards conversion facilities and DVNR - digital video noise reduction systems - which improves the quality and look of different material. We also have colour correction facilities for tape to tape colour correction.”
As in other areas of life, quality control is a crucial but thankless task. If you do your job cor-
VERY DIFFERENT INDEED
rectly no-one gives it a second thought, but if there is a problem everyone is suddenly aware of it.
But Higgs takes this kind of pressure in his stride. While a crucial part of ITFC’s ongoing role with the ITV companies - and other clients such as
CUTTING EDGE
WITHOUT COMPANIES LIKE ITFC OUR TELEVISION VIEWING WOULD BE
Photos: top: ITFC’s Director and General Manager Chris Higgs; below: Edit suite and storage facilities
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