fully component digital

During the eight years that it has serviced the commercial industry, post-production house Command Post and Transfer has seen a number of trends come and go.

But the one constant that hasn’t much changed for post houses is the need to stay on top of technological advances.

The latest, and to date most dramatic illustration of how Command Post has stayed on top of change is the company’s restructuring of existing editing services. Along with sister company Medallion, Command Post is now one of only two fully component digital transfer and on-line houses in Toronto.

The new service has many implications, but essentially, it means faster and more efficient posting.

The restructuring began over four years ago with the purchase of a Quantel Harry digital compositing system. It culminates this month with the installation of the Henry suite, a state-of-the-art non-linear editing system.

Command Post will now have four digital edit suites and one analog suite. Each has its own features, and they are interchangeable among the suites.

The company has also introduced a diversified pricing structure that offers clients complete post packages, tailored to the on-line and budgetary requirements of individual jobs.

‘We see the needs of the commercial clients are branching out and going into a lot of various directions,’ says editor and founding partner Steve Robinson. ‘All the rooms are built to accommodate different needs.’

Although Command Post is a fully digital facility, the company has maintained an analog suite for those clients who still require that technology. Also, the analog suite is required for revision work since most old masters are on 1′ tape.

Other than that, it’s digital all the way.

Digital Three, one of two component digital suites, houses the Abekas A-84 switcher, a piece of equipment that allows editors up to eight layers of dissolves and mixes at a time with no generation loss. It also allows them to do color correction at the editing stage, resulting in a cleaner, higher quality picture.

Blue screening, once an arduous process that involved cutting black and white high-con mattes in an Ultimatte transfer, can also be handled easily within the digital suite.

Recently, the room was used for a pool of spots from McKim Baker Lovick/bbdo as part of the agency’s multimedia launch for Molson’s Red Dog beer. Digital Three was used to distort and stretch images, giving the commercial a dog’s-eye-view of life. The digital process was critical in achieving the special effect when the Red Dog was collared by a matte of the diamond-shaped logo.

Command Post’s other component digital suite is the newly renovated Edit One. While both suites perform similar functions, the more traditional style layout of the switcher in Edit One makes it slightly less powerful and a solution for clients requiring digital technology on a smaller budget.

And then there’s Henry. Combining the digital capabilities of a Harry with the speed and ease of a traditional edit suite, the Henry provides the same functions as the Harry – multilayering with no generation loss, rotoscoping, complex special effects and paint animation – in one room.

Henry’s big selling feature is its processing speed. It is able to do six layers of mixes at a time to Harry’s one. The Henry is an effects tool and a powerful final assembly editor as well.

And while the newly revamped Henry room may be the largest of the five suites, the machine itself is compact, especially considering its digital format stores all the information in one place. This means data can be accessed instantly, eliminating the need to book an extra channel of ado, or laying off tape to extra machines.

Although the Henry has increased the speed of processing for those jobs requiring the service, the Harry still has its own market niche. For one thing, the Harry, at almost half the hourly rate of the Henry, should remain attractive to clients with big productions and small budgets.

Under Command Post’s new system, clients can call in their project requirements, describing the finished look they’re after and the budget they have to work with.

Command Post will use that information to determine to which room or rooms the client’s job is best suited.

Often, depending on the complexity of the spot, a job will require the use of several suites. One of the big advantages of digital technology is that it makes the transition between rooms seamless.

‘The beauty of the digital suites is that everything’s transparent. The quality is the same in every room,’ says Robinson.

One of the disadvantages of being fully digital is that other facilities are often unable to accommodate digital formats.

One way Command Post has addressed this is by introducing a dedicated restripe room.

The new room means that 1/4′ or dat (digital audio tape) audio can be restriped to masters of any format. And since restriping at Command Post no longer means tying up an edit suite, the cost to clients is lower.

‘We are able to accommodate any commercial in one of the five rooms,’ says Command Post partner Andy Sykes. ‘Having rooms of varying degrees of power and pricing is designed to suit individual client needs.’