tv-bay Questions

Bob Pank#

Author: Bob Pank#

Published 1st December 2011


Name & Title?
Doug Garside, Chief Engineer at Edit 19 Ltd. based in Manchester
Who are you? (about yourself and who you work for)?
As a teenage performer, I attended Manchester Youth Theatre for two years running and appeared in numerous amateur and college productions, including once being naked on stage at a catholic college! Having completed my A level's, I moved to Amsterdam for two years and then moved to Cologne for about the same amount of time. During this period, I decided that rather than performing I'd like to be at the other end of the lens so I returned to the UK to undertake a multimedia degree in Sonic Art at Middlesex University. I now enjoy running the technical side of all services offered by Edit 19.
What do you do? What does your company do?
Edit 19 provide a boutique environment for creative editing, grading and broadcast finishing, mainly servicing the commercial sector. With the help of Cypher AMS I designed and built the Fibre San ecosystem and edit suites. On a day-to-day basis I maintain the system, configure automations and administer the media asset manager, whilst providing support to editors and overseeing broadcast QC and delivery.
Tell me a little about your previous experience, what you've worked on and with up to your current position?
After a stint as a production assistant, researching and running on observational documentaries and factual entertainment I progressed to assisting camera operators and Digi crews for small dramas and commercials, and running. Then I started edit assisting for post facilities in SoHo, working across the entire spectrum of programming and theatrical presentations. In 2009, I moved to the North West to run the in-house post services for The Gate Films, which lead to the opportunity of being instrumental in the set-up and design of a new boutique facility in the heart of Manchester.
What specific project(s) do you have in the works?
We have recently completed a series of TRESemm sponsorship idents for America's Next Top Model for award-winning directing duo Bert & Bertie. The job was extremely post and compositing heavy, making it both technically and creatively demanding. The client was extremely happy with the final product and the series sponsorship was increased to include all international versions of Next Top Model. Just out of the door is a really engaging piece for Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses by our lead animator Scott Lockhart. The advert for Butler's Blacksticks blue cheese, inspired by Czech marionette puppetry is a beautifully animated piece, stylistically similar to shadow puppetry with a deliciously macabre Brothers Grimm edge.
What new technology are you working with?
Edit 19's system was designed with a fully digital pipeline in mind. While we have traditional tape decks and rack-mounted bays for easily incorporating hire equipment , the majority of the machine room is dedicated to servers, stations and file based systems. For colour correction, we run DaVinci Resolve both as a local service and via remote allowing Smoke & Mirrors colourists to work live in front of our clients in Manchester. All stations boast Blackmagic Design Decklink HD Extreme 3D cards and all suites 24\" broacast monitors. Using our Blackmagic Design Studio Videohub, I am able to route pictures and audio (SDI Embedded) from room to room on either of the reference monitor's channels, allowing editors and graphics artists to work in adjacent rooms with each others pictures on their second channels for reference. All VDU signals are routed via HDMI/USB over CAT 6 from the stations in the machine room to the suites, by housing the stations in a centralised MCR the edit suites are kept quiet and cool and any station can be easily routed to any room allowing the most flexibility of resources.
What new products/technology are you looking forward to the most?
I'm interested to see the range of available Thunderbolt devices grow, with the ability to convert Thunderbolt to fibre channel, Thunderbolt compliant devices can be easily attached to San systems and laptops alike making them very flexible for both editing and acquisition. Full frame sensor DSLR's have made a huge impact on production over the last two years, now with both Canon and Sony offering Super 35 camcorders I am looking forward to seeing footage shot on these formats as the media format and codecs will have more latitude for manipulation in post than the H264 stream currently recorded by Canon DSLRs. We have worked extensively with Arri Alexa as ProRes, Colourists and Graphic Artists alike love it, but I have not yet worked with any Arri RAW format and that promises to be incredibly flexible for grading and compositing.
During your career in post what was the biggest “turning point” into new technology?
The move to digital acquisition and file based pipelines has been instrumental in the industry consciously adapting to new technology, with the reduced overhead being an enormous influence. While 3D is very exciting for theatrical presentation, I am eagerly anticipating the nationwide adoption HD broadcast. Of course as any self respecting tech, I will be sad to see the end of legacy formats but having technical specifications that are nationally abided by is a key factor in the continued quality of UK broadcasting, a standard which can be aspired to.
What is your favourite / least favourite things about working in post?
Solving problems is both a blessing and a curse! It's extremely gratifying when you work out what's been tipping the server over or why rushes in a certain codec are all coming out with a green hue. But equally, it is infuriating trying to diagnose these problems on-the-fly, possibly with clients in the room! My favourite part is definitely planning for expansion and working out how we will incorporate new hardware into existing workflows, so to a large degree designing workflows and automations to reduce the strain on myself and staff.
What gets you out of bed in the morning to go to work?
I love what I do and have a great environment, that I designed, to do it in! I'm an avid cyclist and I love the daily commute and I like the team and freelancers we've assembled and work with. We are committed to having a comfortable and desirable working environment to make our clients feel welcome and well looked after but we get to benefit from enjoyable environment daily!

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