Drama Production PlaybookSuccess stories from Aframe customers

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

So what exactly is a playbook? In sporting terms, a playbook is the set of plans the coach uses to ensure the team succeeds. For Aframe, these ‘plays’ are really just a metaphorical device to bring together a series of different workflows that might be employed by a particular television project, in this case Drama production.

Whilst drama production doesn’t generally have the time pressures of other TV productions (News & Sports and reality for instance), they are still often on very tight turnarounds. The importance of sharing footage around the whole team is probably more important than other genres due to the creative collaboration required to make a drama series. Writers, directors, cinematographers, commissioners, set designers and art directors will all need to see footage as it’s filmed to ensure the show is being produced in the way the team intended. This playbook highlights two key workflows that enable productions to do this efficiently and securely:

• Distribution of dailies• Transfer of rushes from location to the edit, before distributing with the wider team

The three dramas featured in this playbook were all produced using Aframe. Two of the shows represent some of the UK’s finest recent output; the BAFTA Award winning Zombie drama ‘In the Flesh’ produced by the BBC with post-production by Timeline TV and Tiger Aspect’s ‘Ripper Street’. In the US, Aframe helped MarVista streamline their activity on Spring Break thriller ‘Gone Missing’.

This playbook gives an insight into the speed and flexibility of a powerful solution used on some of the most creatively challenging workflows in TV.

Find out more at aframe.com.

Introduction to this Playbook

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

Timeline deliver technical and creative facilities for programmes as diverse as live music and awards shows, political conferences, global and domestic sporting competitions, light entertainment and current affairs.

With two large post-production facilities in London and a third in MediaCityUK, Timeline provide state-of-the-art facilities to major broadcasters including BSkyB, ITV and the BBC.

BBC Three’s second season of BAFTA winning zombie drama ‘In the Flesh’ had high expectations – taking on the time-slot previously allocated to long-running cult favorite ‘Being Human’.

The plot is set after ‘The Rising’, the show’s take on a zombie apocalypse and focuses on a re-animated teenager Kieran Walker as he comes back into the local community.

Challenge

The ‘In the Flesh’ workflow involved over 75 days of shooting on-location around Manchester, using the latest Arri ALEXA cinematic cameras. The footage needed to be circulated and reviewed by a group of exec producers, editors and commissioners spread throughout the UK.

The production team quickly identified the need for a robust, high-speed transfer platform from a trusted vendor that could assist in distributing rough cuts and coordinate approvals.

Solution

The ability to handle a wide range of professional formats, as well as Aframe’s core infrastructure, provided a compelling cost-effective mechanism that immediately met Timeline’s stringent requirements.

The team created around 30GB of DNx36 HD edit-ready format footage on set each day. This was uploaded via Aframe’s integrated high-speed file transfer technology to its private cloud storage, cutting the cost of sending drives by courier and dramatically speeding up the time taken just to review the footage.

Nationwide Viewing & Movement of Rushes

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

Encore Post in London downloaded the DNx36 files, sent them for offline editing on an Avid, created dailies and weekly assemblies and sent them on to a group of 16 producers and the BBC Commissioning team for review and approval.

All camera metadata is included at ingest and is carried with the footage throughout the Aframe lifecycle and into editing, with the ability to add frame-accurate metadata to the timeline within Aframe’s web interface. This makes all of the footage discoverable during production and secures all the team’s feedback as markers within the edit.

“We use a number of different cloud media storage services, but they’re limited in capacity and functionality. That we can quickly transfer rushes with Aframe, while providing a secure backup and allowing the rushes to be viewed and logged, ticks a lot of boxes for us,” said Eben Clancy, Post-Production Director.

Results

By streamlining the Avid-centric workflow and eliminating a time-consuming transcoding step, Aframe helped Timeline TV make rushes ready for the edit and make viewing copies available to clients and executives in less than 5 hours, instead of the usual 35 hours.

“We have found Aframe to be secure, easy to manage with full-resolution capabilities that we have not found elsewhere. As an editor by background, I appreciate how Aframe allows you to organise media without doing the edit for you in a way that limits you. I also like how it allows your team to access full-resolution media wherever and whenever they need it, while still being able to generate viewing proxies for easy review by others,” commented Eben.

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

Tiger Aspect Productions are internationally recognized as one of the UK’s most prolific producers of drama, entertainment and factual shows.

Tiger Aspect is responsible for producing national treasures such as Mr. Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, Billy Elliot and Murphy’s Law. Series 2 of the renowned hit crime drama Ripper Street is set in the Victorian East End of London in the aftermath of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders. The series scored rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic attracting an average audience of 7.1 million viewers on BBC America and a third series was commissioned in 2014.

Challenge

Ripper Street’s workflow involved distributing digital dailies and weekly rough assemblies from on location in Dublin to a set of Exec Producers, Directors, Editors and Commissioners spread throughout the UK. Despite having existing systems in place to facilitate basic media movement, the production team identified the need for a more powerful platform to meet the production’s requirements. These included the need to limit access to certain members of the team, the ability to view clips on mobile devices and the option to download selected clips for offline viewing on laptops and PCs.

Solution

Aframe designed a workflow that would best improve the automation of media movement. To fulfill Tiger Aspect’s stringent requirements, Aframe’s cloud video platform allowed dailies to be uploaded swiftly, stored securely in the cloud and made ready for distribution immediately to a geographically dispersed team of professionals on the move.

Aframe’s automatic proxy transcode enabled footage to be reviewed by any producer on a simple web-based interface. Aframe automatically created web proxies for Ripper Street clips, so footage could be sent instantly for review on a standard web browser. With on average 15x faster uploads than FTP, the team at Tiger Aspect were able to gain access to the footage far quicker than before resulting in a faster and less-stressful production.

Distributing Digital Dailies

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

When reviewing the footage, Tiger Aspect were able to select the best takes from the day and create timecode specific comments, ensuring they’d captured what they needed before reaching the edit. This prevented the need for costly re-shoots at a later date as issues like audio and lighting problems would only traditionally be picked up in the edit suite.

Thanks to Aframe’s FACT certification, Tiger Aspect could rest assured that their footage was completely safe and secure, so no copyright or IP was likely to be compromised.

Results

The secure distribution of transfers via the cloud provided Tiger Aspect with unprecedented rapid access to the day’s rushes, enabling quick and efficient review.

Tiger Aspect rolled out Aframe to staff throughout the UK giving them the ability to upload professional video clips to a globally accessible project. Unique upload technology helped teams with poor or unreliable connectivity maximize their available line speed. The rest of the team could then review the footage, before providing timecode-based feedback.

Throughout the 8 month shoot, Aframe’s platform offered a compelling, cost-effective mechanism for high value, time-sensitive content.

“By using a secure cloud approach to store and share content, we’ve dramatically improved the speed of review, and made the entire process painless yet secure,” said Will Gould, Head of Drama at Tiger Aspect.

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

MarVista Entertainment Inc. (MarVista) is a leading independent producer and distributor of programming that has experienced rapid growth in recent years.

MarVista has produced an unforgettable catalogue of productions that have featured on Syfy, Lifetime, ABC Family, the Hallmark Channel, TeenNick, ION, and the Disney Channel.

Challenge

Production houses routinely must amalgamate footage from a host of contributors and cameras formats into a single project space. They face inevitable delays and complexities when moving footage out of the camera and into the production workflow, and it’s often difficult to coordinate notes and approvals from multiple sources efficiently.

Any solution would immediately be under extensive scrutiny as MarVista had scheduled shooting five independent features simultaneously around the world. The team quickly identified the need for a robust vendor that could expedite ingests from multiple cameras and locations, assist in distributing rough cuts and coordinate approvals.

Solution

Instead of waiting for a courier to drive raw footage across town – and performing transcoding as a separate step, Aframe enabled MarVista to streamline their workflow by sending footage direct from multiple camera types (Sony XDCAM and ARRI Alexa) into Aframe’s secure cloud-based video platform – using the latest accelerated file transfer technology.

Once there, the original rushes were stored as web proxies that Aframe generates automatically – saving an extra step in the production workflow and several hours each day.

Footage from the shoot could be sent instantaneously throughout the world for review on a standard web browser. By having convenient access and timecode specific comments on the dailies, editors could generate a faster turnaround in decision-making, so they were able to get to the Edit more quickly.

“We took to Aframe instantly. It’s a natural, intuitive, fast and invaluable part of both our production process as well as our post-production workflow,” said Rich Carroll, post-production supervisor at MarVista Entertainment.

Simultaneous Multi-Project Management

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

Results

With Aframe, MarVista avoided the need for burning and distributing 10 sets of DVDs each day. Aframe’s ability to transcode and move footage directly from cameras into the cloud, and deliver content as web links in an email, assisted MarVista to prepare dailies for upload and viewing an average of 24 hours earlier than before.

The fast turnaround came in handy – an editor discovered a fault with the production audio on a production as he reviewed the dailies from the first day. The team were able to make the appropriate adjustments on set the next day, avoiding considerabe cost adjustments down the line – allowing MarVista to stay on budget and to the schedule.

Rich Carroll, post-production supervisor at MarVista Entertainment endorsed Aframe as a system that was intuitive and fast enough for them to adapt to both their production and post-production workflows.

“As a rule our budgets and schedules are efficient by necessity, and leave little room for error. Dedicated digital dailies solutions are out there, but Aframe is more budget-friendly. Aframe rivals major digital dailies solutions feature for feature, and its use costs us a fraction of dedicated solutions – an amazing saving that lets us deploy Aframe throughout our operations.”

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Drama Production PlaybookSuccess Stories from Aframe Customers

aframe.com UK & EU: +44 (0)800 197 6870 US: +1 978-799-9440Share this...

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Aframe is the cloud video collaboration platform and one central location where teams can instantly view, access and work with high resolution media. Aframe drives business efficiencies and dramatically increases the usage and value of media assets. Headquartered in London with operations in Boston, New York and Los Angeles, Aframe is trusted by broadcast, media and corporate organizations worldwide.

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