New studios being built in Canada face a twofold techno-challenge, as they must provide facilities and services to both 35mm productions while concurrently meeting the new demands of digital and HD filmmaking.

The new Filmport megastudio in Toronto epitomizes that dual focus. Although Filmport is designed to service both conventional and digital filmmaking, selected features – most notably its communications network – are created with digital production in mind.

Filmport’s fiber-optic communications network incorporates data, intercom and paging capabilities, and is built on 100% redundancy, which effectively means there’s automatic backup for all data that crosses that network.

‘A backhoe down the street can cut through one of our fiber lines,’ explains Andy Sykes, VP business development, but will not trigger an interruption in service, since a second line ‘is coming in the other side of it.’

‘Whether it is something as typical as a phone call or an e-mail or Internet activity…let alone the higher value [content, it is] all redundant,’ explains Sykes.

Filmport’s engineers have also strived to ‘future-proof’ the complex, according to Sykes. ‘We didn’t build [it] for 2008, but for 2010,’ he explains.

During a June tour of the new facility, Sykes acknowledged that capacity limitations of external communication networks currently pose a barrier to the Internet-based transfer of film and other large files to outside production and post facilities in Hollywood and around the world. However, Sykes believes that these external challenges will likely soon be resolved.

‘As it becomes more and more common to send these large files around our Filmport campus, around the city, or around the world,’ Sykes explains, ‘we want to be at the hub of that activity so we can quickly and efficiently disseminate these data files.’

Filmport’s IT infrastructure still awaits its first ‘real life’ test, in the form of a large-scale digital production.

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s North Shore Studios’ network has already proven that it can readily accommodate digitally shot television productions such as the ABC Family series Kyle XY.

North Shore has wired all of its buildings with a new internal fiber-optic network, according to plant supervisor Steve Klassen. The full duplex communications network flies at 100 Mbps (or one hundred million bits per second) and provides 100% wired high-speed Internet access throughout the entire complex.

However, the one big digital glitch studios confront is the inherent threat of piracy. First and foremost, the networks are susceptible to unauthorized access by hackers and others. As a result, studios must take extra precautions to secure internal communications and intellectual property (e.g., scripts, moving images) transmitted across their networks.

Filmport has addressed these concerns, in part, by utilizing a private wireless network, along with a combination of other tools such as password authentication and employing ‘rogue monitoring’ to confirm that only legitimate users are on the network.

Digital information is also susceptible to damage or destruction by natural or man-made causes. And while the destruction of digital information may lack the vivid imagery of burning back lots and film vaults (such as the TV footage of the June 1 fire at Universal Studios in Hollywood), the loss can prove equally devastating. Nonetheless, long-term storage of content, regardless of format, still remains largely in the hands of individual clients.

‘Our communications infrastructure is fully redundant, but we…don’t offer storage,’ notes Sykes, adding: ‘Production will want to do that. Editorial will want to do that.’

Sykes says companies such as post house Deluxe – which has announced plans to move to the Filmport complex at some point – ‘will have their own storage capacities.’

For its part, North Shore does not currently maintain a backup system to prevent the loss of digital information by natural or man-made causes. However, Klassen reassures that ‘the client could if so desired.’

Meanwhile, traditional filmmaking continues while studios try to keep pace with the digital revolution, but none of the Filmport or North Shore reps ventured to predict how long traditional and digital filmmaking will co-exist at their respective studios.

‘It’s not like we’re anticipating that we’re going to be right out the gate and film cameras are never going to show up,’ Sykes observes. ‘I don’t see that at all. We…want to give somebody the opportunity to choose. If you want to shoot film, you can shoot film. If you want to shoot digital, great. If you want to shoot data, great. The environment that we’re offering supports all three.’