Page 21 - Fujifilm Exposure_26 Jack Cardiff BSC_ok

company news
STaluting Greatness
he Machine Room restored, ly successful The British Empire In Colour treated and edited old and (TWI/The Machine Room).
new footage for the three Its producer and director, Lucy acclaimed one-hour TV pro- Carter, says: “This is a challenging proj- grammes that chart the long ect about an epic life, so it was
and illustrious life of Britain’s greatest extremely important for the look and
whether it was shot on film! It was great to be able to treat all the footage, and do everything under one roof at The Machine Room.”
The Machine Room used both tradi- tional film treatment techniques and digital technology to restore the old footage, some of which dated back to 1900. Smoke editor John McLaren, blended archive footage with modern- day drama reconstructions shot on video. This entailed re-sizing all the archive footage to fit today’s 16x9 televi- sion formats and treating the video with a film effect to match the archive shots.
McLaren used the full capabilities of Smoke, and spent time conforming, cleaning, de-spotting and stabilising the original footage, removing film flicker and adding film effects and grain.
Following a full tape grade by Gerry Gedge, The Machine Room team creat- ed captions, delivering both captioned and uncaptioned masters to enable re- versioning for foreign sales. ■
leader, Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill is the story of the man
behind the legend told by those that knew him, from fighting in the Boer War through to his inspiring leadership dur- ing World War II and his old age.
It includes unseen archive footage, private home movie collec- tions belonging to family and friends, first hand personal testimonies, as well as still photographs, original let- ters and diaries and specially shot dramatic reconstructions.
Produced and off-lined by TWI and narrated by Sir Ian McKellen, the pro- grammes air on ITV1 in the UK and PBS in the USA, with a video and DVD accompanying the series.
The documentary was over 15 months in the making and follows on from the high-
the feel of the documentary to reflect that. And as much as we’d have liked to have shot on film to get that dramat- ic filmic look, a documentary budget meant that digi was the only option.
TWI involved The Machine Room from the start to work out the best way to overcome these challenges. After shooting on digital betacam, the footage was imported into The Machine Room’s Discreet smoke to give it a filmic quality.
“We are absolutely delighted with the results... a very rich and luxurious feel, fitting of such a project, but with- out the sky-high costs of shooting on film,” says Carter.
“The video and archive film materi- al blend perfectly and the results look so good that people are asking
The company’s founding ideals remain the focus of everything it does – to provide a complete, bespoke serv- ice under one roof powered by talent- ed, creative people who can take on every aspect of post production – from storyboard to play out.
And while many post-production companies fall down on the sound side, blue’s proud boast is: “If sound is a player in a five-a-side team, we’ve
Photos main: VTR plc Group CEO, John Banks; Above l-r: VTR Limited MD, Ant Frend; blue Post Production MD, Dave Cadle; The Hive MD, Dave Southwood; The Machine Room MD, Danny Whybrow; Clipstream Limited MD, Neil Lane
got David Beckham.” – a claim that will be further enhanced in January when its huge new state-of-the art Dolby 5:1 studio currently being built comes on line.
blue Post-Production
58 Old Compton Street
London W1V 5PA
Tel: 020 7437 2626
Fax: 020 7439 2477
Website: http://www.bluepp.co.uk
THE HIVE
The Hive was formed three years ago with a mission to create innovative images and it now has a team of 25 animators, designers and compositors.
Using a combination of the latest technology such as Flame, Maya, Lightwave and Combustion and acclaimed creativity, The Hive brings a wide variety of content from commer- cials to features to music promos to life. The MD of The Hive is Dave Southwood.
The Hive Animation Ltd
37 Dean Street, London W1D 4PT Tel: 020 7565 1000
Fax: 020 7494 0059
Website: http://www.hive3d.com
THE MACHINE ROOM
The Machine Room has provided spe- cialist production services to broad- cast, production, archiving and distri- bution clients since 1991.
Led by managing director Danny Whybrow its investment in the very best people and technologies has made it a recognised leader in feature film master- ing, archive film transfer and restoration, broadcast editing and DVD authoring.
The Machine Room is a member of the IVCA, PACT and FOCAL. It is also FACT accredited.
The Machine Room
54-58 Wardour Street
London W1D 4JQ.
Tel 020 7734 3433
Fax: 020 7287 3773
Website: http://www.themachineroom.co.uk
CLIPSTREAM LIMITED
Clipstream, founded in 2002, creates online interactive communications solutions including digital asset man- agement – the management of content (video, images, documents, etc.) in digital form.
Clipstream develops cutting edge digital solutions that will revolutionise how media assets are used and man- aged by brand and content owners. The MD of Clipstream is Neil Lane.
Clipstream Limited
3rd Floor
37 Dean Street, London W1D 4PT
Tel 020 7437 0077
Fax: 020 7287 6534
Website: http://www.clipstream.co.uk
Exposure • Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • 19