montreal: Supersuite’s recent move to a complete Digital Betacam environment for its component recording requirements coincides with some excellent marketing results.

Anchored by Sony DVW 500 and DVW A500 vtrs, the digital component environment is highlighted by ‘excellent picture and sound quality and multi-generational capacity,’ says Supersuite gm Francois Garcia.

Garcia says the house will add two pal recorders this fall, meaning producers can post a European broadcast version at the house.

Supersuite won the lion’s share of this season’s long-form Quebec television drama assignments, providing post services that include film-to-tape transfer, rush synchronization, online editing, tape-to-tape color correction and audio striping on four film-originated series this fall – Telescene Communications’ Hiroshima, coproduced with Japan, sda’s 11-hour underworld drama Omerta, Prisma’s 13-hour medical drama Urgence, the latter two originated on Super 16mm, and Telefiction’s four-hour police action miniseries 10-07, shot on 16mm.

Millions in equipment

Volume business is good medicine for post producers who invest millions every year or two updating their equipment. Combined budgets on the Quebec tv series are in the $35 million to $40 million range, while the post producer’s share is typically in the 5% to 7% range.

Garcia says Supersuite geared up for the work last fall by servicing Telescene’s Sirens, a $27.5 million, 22-hour police drama, and the $10 million Cinar Films/Bernard Zukerman Productions miniseries Million Dollar Babies.

The house now has six Sony DVW 500 and DVW A500 Digital Betacam recorders (the A500 unit is analog compatible).

Garcia says Supersuite staff had to really bear down on Hiroshima, a 192-minute drama which wrapped in late June and is slated for its world premiere on Showtime Aug. 6.

Hiroshima uses different originating material, including archival material and new filmed segments for drama scenes, along with Digital Betacam footage for interviews with survivors. All the material was matched using the Quantel Henry in a creative effects design context specified by director Roger Spottiswoode.

Just prior to posting Hiroshima, Garcia says Supersuite set up a digital online edit suite housing an Abekas 8100 switcher and color corrector, a CMX Omni 850 editor, and an Abekas A57, used for f/x like defocus and blowups.

At Supersuite, film is ‘best light’ transferred to tape on the Rank Cintel ursa with no generation loss. The ursa is used in conjunction with the Aaton Keylink system and a Da Vinci Renaissance 888 tape-to-tape color corrector. The master is Digital Betacam.

According to Garcia, the system permits three operations to be done simultaneously: the film-to-tape transfer, the real-time sync for the rushes, as well as the production of multiformat copies.

The work is executed at a highly efficient two-to-one ratio, meaning Supersuite can process an hour’s worth of rushes, or generic material, in about two hours.

Matched on a Henry

On Hiroshima, Supersuite’s Quantel Henry unit, which has 15 minutes of D1 non-compressed storage capacity, was used to match old black-and-white footage with original color film of varying grain textures and densities.

Says Garcia: ‘Hiroshima enables us to demonstrate that we have the team and the technology to take on a big production where there’s no margin for error in terms of time.’

Credits on Hiroshima go to Telescene’s post supervisor Rosanne Cohen, who also did the now-defunct Sirens, Montage Metaphore, where the offline edit was done on an avid editor, and Modulations, where the audio was edited.

Supersuite credits go to Henry operators Richard Watkins and Paul Riggs, online editor Serge Harvey and colorist Serge Robert.

Supersuite is a subsidiary of Champlain Productions, a CFCF Inc. company headed by president Ghislain St-Pierre.

Champlain has interests in R.S. Video, the city’s major production mobile supplier, mgi, a Toronto-based film distributor, and Tele-Blitz International, a design and broadcast engineering joint-venture operation with Productions Pixart.