While that oxymoronic standby ‘less is more’ has proven sporadically true at best over its long life, in the post-production world the adage is gaining some respect. Born of the evolution of digital technology and the constant search for time and cost-saving means of completing a project, smaller gear and a streamlined process are being applied to more jobs at every level.

And as more is done with less, the universe of audio and video post is also contracting, with not only smaller gear and a ‘contracted equipment set’ but convergence of talent. With digital nonlinear post, the job descriptions of audio and video post people as well as engineering and post become blurred. At the same time, talent is now working on traditional as well as digital equipment and methods, both new talent schooled in both worlds and existing talent who have devoted considerable effort to making the leap.

The combination of that intermingling of talent and the expansion of high-level capabilities over a larger equipment base has been, once again, to distill the importance of the human equation; a more level equipment field emphasizes the importance of raw talent and quality from the beginning to the end of the production process.

In the following report, new stars and established players discuss shrinkage, digital dexterity and the evolution of the production and post process.

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Less expensive equipment, open-architecture solutions, time and resource saving methods; it’s been the collective mantra of the post industry for some time. As the seeds of these ideas have begun to bear fruit across the production and post board, perhaps their most visible application has been in the audio realm.

While the high-end, high-cost Scenarias and the Solid State Logic Omnimixs of the world still make audio specialists drool, talented people can produce and finish broadcast-quality sound with products ranging anywhere from $2,000 to $200,000. In addition, as the audio process moves toward – or in some cases has achieved – an all-digital state, the quality of sound is improving for big and small projects alike.

From DigiDesign Pro Tools and Avid AudioVision, smaller digital consoles like the Yamaha 02R to ultra-affordable, off-the-shelf hardware and software, talent residing in small, sleek shops or at-home setups can handle and finish all manner of projects for tv and film.

And as lower cost, higher tech equipment increasingly becomes a leveler, the issue left standing at the end of the day is that of talent; the fact that the digits flying across the microprocessors aren’t necessarily as important as the digits dancing across the consoles.

Ira Leibtag, head of Toronto-based Oz Productions, handles audio production, composition and post for commercials, film and tv and sound for custom Web sites through the Cybertune arm of his company. Leibtag is currently working with mca/Universal on sound for a Jurassic Park-themed attraction and says he is moving toward more film and tv work.

Leibtag says he has been building his studio for a number of years, moving into Pro Tools when version iii was released, which allows him to finish more projects in-house and increases the quality of work he is able to turn out from his home facility.

‘It went in stages,’ say Leibtag of the process of constructing his equipment setup. ‘I would be at the point where I would have the equipment to do most of the work here and then take my portable rack into the studio to get better quality out of the finished product. As time went on and the technology developed, I had to do this less and less.’

With Pro Tools iii and the capabilities of its available plug-ins, Leibtag says he has rid himself of racks of processors and been able to expand from production into the post realm.

The newly released Pro Tools iv furthers the range of capabilities, linking to QuickTime to allow digitization of a piece of video and instant locking.

Even for theater-destined work, including a trailer Oz completed for Famous Players, Leibtag says new tools allow him to cost-effectively complete the process in-house. Currently in beta, a new Pro Tools plug-in from Dolby allows five discrete channel mixing in-house.

Leibtag is also currently negotiating with a software manufacturer regarding a proprietary Web sound product he has created.

Off-the-shelf options virtually limitless

The off-the-shelf options for small home-based operations and the capabilities provided thereby are almost limitless, contingent on the skills of the user. Home studios set up with eight-track digital recorders and inexpensive workstations – Software Audio Workshop, for example, is a pc-based system that runs about $1,500 – are springing up to handle corporate and commercial work.

Other off-the-shelf audio packages provide better-than-broadcast-quality product and are used by home-based audio undertakings as well as larger audio post and dubbing facilities.

A basic turnkey sadie system from u.k.-based Studio Audio and Video can be had for about $14,000 and comes out of the box with full time-code capability, 24-bit audio edit and record, and auto conform, allowing users to import lists off Avid or other systems.

sadie is one of the systems used by Toronto’s Galaviz & Hauber, a shop which handles dubbing into Spanish for clients like Citytv and Imax, as well as audio post. John Hauber says the system is the perfect setup for dialogue replacement and dubbing, with the additional perk of comprehensive tech help and customer service from the manufacturer.

On the film side, the digital tools are allowing Canadian filmmakers another cost-effective option for sound.

Toronto’s ComSound, a small, Pro Tools-based facility which handles sound design, music and sound editing, has completed film projects including Jeff Boulton’s short Hush and will work on an upcoming Canadian Film Centre project from Sean Cathcart called U-Haul. In May, Comsound founder Chris Urbas will work on sound for a Green Couch feature film called Variety.

Urbas has targeted a wide range of work but says it is difficult to break into the commercial sound market through agencies, a concern echoed by many smaller audio and video post shops. Urbas is now looking to the Canadian feature market as well as providing spillover services to other sound shops.

‘I’ve been approaching new filmmakers,’ says Urbas. ‘Because of limited budgets, many of them are prohibited from going to bigger post firms. This is a cost-effective solution for them. As budgets get tighter, micro facilities like this will come to the fore.’

Toronto’s Crunch Recording Group is also looking to expand its purview from its current broad base of commercial and tv work into features. Crunch, along with post shop Optix Post Production, recently moved into a new space which offers affordable, start-to-finish digital solutions in a well-appointed facility designed by Pilchner/Schoustal.

Crunch handles sound design, music production and post for specialty and network tv properties, which comprise about 40% of its work, as well as u.s. and Canadian commercial, multimedia and corporate projects.

The shop is outfitted with three Pro Tools systems, digital betacam, digital consoles and a full complement of digital gear, representing the outer edge of audio technology and allowing, for instance, commercial producers to start and finish spots in one location with the attendant comfort factor of a professional facility complete with satellite and bar.

Owner/manager Joe Serafini says the focus of the shop is on its people and an overall philosophy of providing a comprehensive set of digital tools for cost-effective, top-quality audio jobs, which is allowed by the relatively low equipment overhead.

Serafini says the company, formerly New Sound, recently sold its $150,000 custom mixing board and now has fully stocked digital rooms at a cost of about $250,000. He says clients still raise eyebrows at the smaller scale equipment, expecting a sea of knobs, but the results speak for themselves.

He also cites the lingering resistance to finishing projects on digital workstations like Pro Tools, pointing to examples of major production companies which have up to 100 Pro Tools systems yet still take projects to large audio facilities for finishing.

Serafini says the u.s. has been a growing source of commercial work and that u.s. agencies and producers have generally been more open to new shops and new solutions for their projects.

Taking digital audio to the limit

The evolution of the new tool set, the new upgrades in digital audio workstations, will take the process and the possibilities for filmmakers even further, say proponents.

Taking the digital audio process to the limit is sound engineer John Hazen, who has spearheaded all-digital feature film efforts with his work on Patricia Rozema’s When Night Is Falling in late ’94 and John L’Ecuyer’s Curtis’s Charm the following year.

Hazen has continued the charge since then and this summer, with a group of investors, will launch his own company, Theatre D Digital, dedicated to totally digital non-linear picture and sound editing for feature film. Hazen has employed Avid technology, using Avid AudioVision on When Night Is Falling and mixing the film in Toronto’s Regent Theatre which was calibrated for the occasion by a Dolby engineer.

The culmination of about four years of research into an all-digital post setup, Theatre D will likely launch simultaneously with a new version of Avid AudioVision that is completely Pro Tools-compatible and a new feature film project with L’Ecuyer and producer Sandra Cunningham.

The new entity will provide post-production for picture and sound using an Avid Film Composer and Avid AudioVision tied to a central 100-gigabyte hard drive tower so foley, adr and sound effects are all handled from the same drive for the loading, the editing and the mix; no transfers involved.

‘That’s the important part,’ says Hazen, who refers to his configuration as a ‘contracted hardware set.’

‘If producers looked in their budgets and saw how much they paid for transfers – on a feature it can be anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 – they would realize they could save enough on a single feature to pay for the process; that is, to purchase an Avid or to enhance their film through temp mixes.’

Temp mixes, whereby a picture is temporarily locked during a film’s progress and shown to investors, hangers-on or a test audience, could be an important aspect of bringing increased commercial competitiveness to Canadian features, says Hazen, adding quality temp mixes are more feasible with this digital equipment configuration.

Most often, he says, these temp mixes are more rough-cut screenings with basic, mixed-on-the fly audio.

But using his methods with picture and sound built at the same time, fit-for-commercial-audience temp mixes with foley effects and adr can be made for, in effect, nothing (Hazen says u.s. features can spend about $40,000 on a test mix, which can entail striking about 80 video cassettes for the audio crew).

‘This allows Canadian producers, if they choose, to take a product out and test market it and make changes based on that. I’m interested in doing these as test screenings for commercial audiences,’ says Hazen. ‘I’d rather be paid from the box office – from a profit-generating machine – than from Telefilm Canada.’

The inaugural Theatre D film project with L’Ecuyer – The Ultimate Good Luck, based on a Richard Ford novel – is currently in development and plans are to shoot in Mexico in the fall.

Hazen says he will take his sound show on the road for the film, digitizing the video assist and audio directly into an Avid on location. This method allows the film’s director to review scenes, view a quick cut and make shooting decisions from that vantage point, a technique similar in result as bigger budget films’ use of a video truck on location.

‘The idea,’ he says, ‘is that through this reduced hardware set we are allowing these features a lot of things that larger studio pictures have had, like video editing on location and temp mixes with full faculties.’

With new Avid formatting advances, the new AudioVision will run on the same hardware set – including the same computer and cards – as the Film Composer, meaning adr could be done on location, if desired.

Hazen says he’s not marketing his picture and sound editing approach as a less expensive alternative, rather as a means of increasing the value of the services offered, allowing filmmakers to maximize the dollars they have toward producing a quality result and a commercially viable one.

‘This is a tool to allow Canadian filmmakers to compete in a more comprehensive fashion,’ says Hazen.

Virtual facility

Theatre D will initially target Canadian feature filmmakers, but Hazen says tv series will be considered down the road. Painting a picture of the ultimate scenario for working on a tv series, Hazen says a house in Forest Hill (with pool and barbecue) would be the cost-effective backdrop, with writers and editors and audio post people working under the same roof – a virtual facility.

‘Theatre D Digital is about environment, a project-specific and exclusive environment,’ says Hazen. ‘The point is that the equipment base is so small we take it where we want it to be, rather than building a huge facility around it.’

The idea also applies to features, where final mixes can be done in the appropriate venue, and Hazen says he is even talking to a ride film company about mixing six-track Dolby ride soundtracks on location.

Hazen calls this evolution the second generation of digital, where material is digitized well at the outset and remains digital throughout the process. ‘The first generation was nonlinear, we weren’t really dealing with digital audio,’ he says. ‘The promised fidelity of digital is now starting to happen and the result of staying digital is a very sweet sound.’