Worldwide Workflow For New ’24’ Series
Posted on Jun 23, 2014 by Alex Fice
Predominately filmed with ARRI ALEXA cameras in Log C ProRes 422 (HQ), and additional AVCHD and GoPro cameras for pickup shots, each day’s footage was delivered to Encore London on drives – ranging anywhere from three to six hours of content.
Heroic agent Jack Bauer is back in Fox’s series event “24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY,” with on-site dailies and post production services for all 12 episodes being completed by Encore. Shot in London, Encore’s local office managed the dailies workflow, then piped footage back to Encore Hollywood for online editing, grading and finishing.
Predominately filmed with ARRI ALEXA cameras in Log C ProRes 422 (HQ), and additional AVCHD and GoPro cameras for pickup shots, each day’s footage was delivered to Encore London on drives – ranging anywhere from three to six hours of content. Files were then ingested and processed with Rec 709 LUT colour applied initially using Colorfront On-Set Dailies. After, footage was synched, metadata was entered and four deliverable formats were rendered: Avid DNX36 Avid for editorial, ISO DVD for production, QuickTime for DP Jeffrey Mygatt’s iPad reviews and MP4 files, which were uploaded to the DAX Platform for collaborative review. At the start of each day, DNX36 material was copied to shuttle drives and delivered to editorial, then pushed to Encore Hollywood via Aspera P2P. Original source material was archived to LTO-5 tapes and shipped to Encore Hollywood at regular intervals.
Upon receiving the offline edit from production, Encore Senior Editor Heydar Adel, who worked on all eight previous seasons of “24,” conformed episodes using an Avid Symphony to create a cut with high-resolution source footage. He then added secondary fixes and effects like gun muzzle flashes using Adobe After Effects and integrated shots from the VFX department. The show’s trademark split screen adds a layer of complexity to each edit, but the first pass was completed in about five hours with an additional three to four hours for VFX.
Content was then routed to Encore Senior Colourist Kevin Kirwan for grading on a Linux-based Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve system. Having viewed a selection of previous episodes at the outset of the project, Kirwan, with additional guidance from Mygatt, maintained the show’s well-established and stylized look. Unlike more traditional programs where a colourist can ripple a change through a scene, split screen scenes required Kirwan to colour the paneled shots cut by cut. At the end of each session, files were sent to London for notes from Mygatt and the producers, with Lopez provided feedback in the bay. Both Kirwan and Mygatt used professionally calibrated, consumer grade Panasonic plasma televisions for monitoring at 1080p. Once colour correction was complete, a process that takes Kirwan on average 12 to 13 hours, the episode was sent back to Adel to add final titling and graphics, including the show’s clock counting down real-time.
