BEYOND BELIEF PRODUCTION
WHEN THE FIRST TWO EPISODES AIRED, IT WAS RTL’S highest-rated show AT PRIME TIME”
director and writer ensure we matched lip sync. Every character in every story was recast with a voice actor. Usually this process takes weeks, but we had to complete two shows in a little over a month including sound design, grading and VFX. Having the picture post within DaVinci Resolve Studio – and the entire project managed in Blackmagic Cloud – was essential.” On location in LA, a data wrangler took each full card and backed media up onto two drives. Simultaneously, the Blackmagic Proxy Generator was set up to auto-render proxies for transfer via Dropbox to Superama in Germany, ready for its editors to work immediately. On arrival at the facility, the project was imported into DaVinci Resolve, with a project library set up on Blackmagic Cloud. Superama assigned three editors to the show, two within the Munich area and a third in the north of Germany, all connected via Blackmagic Cloud. “Every story needed two to three days for editing, so we needed more than one editor to get the job done in time,” Frick says. “A secure, collaborative and fast cloud workflow was essential.”
Each editor had a hard drive containing the proxy files mirrored to projects managed using Blackmagic Cloud. “The whole project with all 40 stories was run in the cloud,” says Till Diener, who managed the project for Superama. “Working this way ensured everybody was able to access, open and collaborate on the one project file for either edit, colour correction or VFX. “We could create a single timeline for each of the 40 stories, then a new set of timelines for the five stories per episode, including the addition of Jonathan Frakes’ presentation, bumpers, credits and subtitles. All aspects of picture post we synchronised in the cloud.” Other benefits of a cloud-hosted workflow became apparent, explains post-production supervisor Volker Haak. “We were going to use Resolve as an editing and finishing tool even if we’d put everyone in one location, but with the pandemic in our minds, we didn’t want to risk everyone in one place. “Also, our lead editor Sebastian Wild and colourist Florian Wolf appreciated the ability to work from their suites in their own time. No time was wasted
travelling and they could be more productive at home. These were huge positives about working with Blackmagic Cloud – as was not having to worry about backup since the project is always saved in the cloud.” Although the original series was filmed on 16mm in a 4:3 aspect ratio and the new series is HD 16:9, the production went to some lengths to replicate the look of the classic show. This included pairing the A camera ALEXA Classic with older lenses and filters to give the show a nineties feel, and work with Wolf to design a LUT in Fusion in keeping with the original style. “When the first two episodes aired at Halloween, it was RTL’s highest-rated show at prime time and fan feedback was phenomenal,” Frick reports. On the back of this successful reboot, RTL2 has commissioned a sixth season from Superama and Wiedemann & Berg, set to go into production later this year – which Frick intends to shoot with URSA Mini Pro 12K. “If we do that, we will shoot Blackmagic RAW and wrap the whole production in a Blackmagic Design workflow.”
73
definitionmags
Powered by FlippingBook