Will Working Solo become a New Trend?

Nicolas Vantomme is an all-around director creating television programs in his home loft. A PowerMac G5 Dual sporting a DeckLink HD video board and running Final Cut Pro are a permanent part of his environment. His work-in-progress is safe on an FTP-server -- which is always 'ON' -- the very name of his one-man business. He has developed a fast and efficient way of working that has brought him freedom and new grounds to conquer. Working solo for television, will this become a new trend? We visited the young entrepreneur in Gent, Belgium to find out.

Nicolas’s home still bears the marks of an overnight editing marathon. He is currently working on 'Vlaanderen Sportland', a new television program for the Flemish public broadcasting channel. After finishing the rough cut, graphics elements, and first buildup of the soundtrack, Nicolas put the first draft onto the server and went to sleep. Only a few hours later, the producer already has downloaded his first draft and reviewed his work (which he has approved of) and now that the pressure off, Nicolas can leave for Switzerland and have a relaxing week of snowboarding. But first he will tell us about his mission and how Blackmagic Design helped him to reach his goals.

Missing Link

"When I was a child, the “Mac mouse” bit me. I loved this small computer-with-a-mouse right away because it looked like a toy. Step-by-step I taught myself to use all kinds of different applications. Video editing simply was a logical next step. When Final Cut Pro hit the market, I was in my first year at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. I was hooked immediately. I also had a DV camera and it worked perfectly with the Apple gear. I was ready to make a start doing my own small video productions. Most of the time, I did it myself, from the initial idea up to the finished product. The launch of Final Cut 3 for me was a quantum leap; this new version came just in time to give me the tools for finishing my Masters project, a multi-display movie. Soon after that, I bought myself a fast G4 in an attempt to raise the bar to the level of higher quality projects like video clips, commercials and corporate movies. But there was a missing link. How to connect to professional video equipment and how to achieve broadcast quality video processing?

DeckLink

And then, suddenly, there was DeckLink, a video board bringing me SDI connection and broadcast quality images all at once and for less than a thousand dollars DeckLink opened a whole new world for me! I realized that I only would have to add a few fast disks and an SDI PAL monitor in order to be completely ready for the bigger, and more demanding, jobs because now I could work at 10 bit uncompressed quality -- better than broadcast. It was more than what was needed for broadcasters to open their doors for me, that's for sure. It really was a dream come true, and it had happened with a relatively small investment only three years ago. I was lucky -- the moment I graduated, I was able to go full speed."

Flexibility

Nicolas started early. Only 27 years old and he can already show a long list of achievements and flexibility. He can be as a director but when necessary, he can easily change position and become a designer, responsible for the whole product or only do a small part of it. He has done many television spots and billboards, video clips for local pop artists, a series of commercials, and numerous corporate movies. Recently he made the jump to a broader field of television work as well as directing for several magazines. "In fact, I am a content creator but I like the combined effort of directing and doing post production work simply because I have this passion for the technique behind it all. I try to find the ideal creative mix by focusing on the new possibilities in both fields. And that's why I chose for the Mac platform and Blackmagic Design products. The transparency and versatility of QuickTime allows me to do graphics design, video design and editing in parallel. With the click of a mouse, I can jump back and forth between Final Cut, Motion, Combustion and PhotoShop. This flexibility has helped me tremendously in developing a highly visually oriented style and I can do it all at home at the highest video quality. This, for me, is the ultimate freedom.

An example of this creative freedom is Nicolas' latest music video shoot featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw called Insight. Nicolas' production company ON, shot the music video using an HDCAM with Pro35, film lenses and steadycam. Nicolas used his DeckLink HD card to capture HDCAM on to his Final Cut edting system, and for the Offline version he capture the HDCAM footage from a deck using HD-SDI to the DVCPROHD codec.

Connectivity

Thanks to my DeckLink card, I don't have to go out for inputting and outputting footage. If necessary, I can rent a DigiBeta and connect it directly to my DeckLink. It's as easy as connecting a printer. For the average Mac user, this may be self-evident, but simple plug-and-play connectivity is quite revolutionary in the world of professional broadcast equipment. Blackmagic Design is porting Apple's philosophy of making-things-easy to the broadcast world and this is a revolution in itself. It's no surprise that many Apple resellers have specialized successfully in this market, so for me it's no problem to get good support. I also like Blackmagic Design's regular driver updates, all for free, bringing new features to the product . It sometimes feels as if I'm running a completely new video board. For me, DeckLink really makes the difference."

Raising the Bar

One year ago Blackmagic Design started selling DeckLink HD for under 500 dollars. Nicolas did not hesitate one single moment. "Now I can work at home in High Definition at the very same quality of 10 bit uncompressed. If you had asked me a few years ago, even with my focus on new technologies, I would have told you that it was a practical impossibility. But it happened. Technically, it is a large step, but financially, it was a rather small one for me, which I still find surprising. I have a standard PowerMac G5 Dual for hosting the DeckLink HD, and when I play my HD clips, the combination gives me real-time down-conversion, easily enabling me to feed my old SD monitor. Even in this basic setup, everything looks much better than I was used to. In most cases, I start editing in offline and afterwards I do the mastering at uncompressed quality. Using this workflow, I have completed several commercials aimed at cinema projection. And, most importantly, I did not have to leave my desktop for one second to accomplish this. The synergy between Apple and Blackmagic Design brought me the best tools and, because of this, I could raise the bar again and again."

Online

The Internet also is making a difference and, for Nicolas, it has become an indispensable production tool. "Final Cut Pro's Media Management Tool allows me to directly export the editing project and attach it to an email message. I simply can work here doing the offline edit and the editor at the post house can do the online. Finished parts can be sent off without delay. If necessary, I can also upload the complete edit to an FTP server to allow the client to watch the end result within minutes after completion. The H.264 codec is a good choice here. Perfect quality. I don't understand that some people still want to have it all on VHS tape, even where we have shot in HD. Of course, the couriers will like it, but someone has to pay for it. To me, home-based working, and use of the Internet, are the most efficient way to save on costs. And we all have to, these days; we have to do more and more within the same budget. If I can accomplish this simply by using better techniques, why not?"

Faster and Faster

Every coin has its flip side. For Nicolas, there are also dangers in speeding up the process. "The client, the advertising agency, is quite aware of the power of new technologies and has adapted to that. Decisions are being made at the very last moment, and from that moment on we have to move at more than top speed because there's less production time left. The edit is experienced as a simple email coming in, and this brings the risk of schedules becoming tighter and tighter. Of course, Apple Computer and Blackmagic Design owe their success in this market by bringing us lower cost tools, but we have to be careful not to give away this newly acquired freedom.

Moving On

Nicolas considers himself a freelancer and does not want to start up a “real” company, yet. There's still a lot to learn. That's why he looks for maximum variation and for differences between jobs. At the same time, he does not want to be the revolutionary wanting to do it the 'new' way,. "I respect people with experience, I can learn a lot from them. In the end, it's all about communication and you can improve on that all your life, can't you? This is way beyond discussions about techniques used, but, let's be honest, without the right tools, we cannot communicate the right way and these tools should be within reach for all creative professionals. If that is the mission of Blackmagic Design, as far as I can tell, they have already reached their goals. They brought me the toolset I dreamed of, and more.”

Fields of Fuel

A labor of love for Todd Sali of thesandbox and Darius Fischer of Digital Neural Axis (DNA), Fields of Fuel is a show-stopping documentary film targeting the skyrocketing prices for oil, and the world's concerns over pollution.

Fatima

This film is very entertaining, and at the same time, has become an authority on the subject of Fatima. This feature length film about three children from Fatima in 1917, who claimed the Virgin Mary appeared to them, is the work of award winning Director, Writer and Editor, Frederic Lumiere.

Being Michael Madsen

Being Michael Madsen is the story of a movie star who exacts revenge on an abrasive paparazzi photographer by hiring a documentary film crew to follow him 24/7. In editing this new feature film, Director, Michael Mongillo turned to HDLink for monitoring video because "the depth and detail was stunning".

The Yes Network

As the number one regional sports network, The YES Network are fanatical about HD video quality. Original video content for the New York Yankees and the New Jersey Nets is created with the help of Blackmagic Design's DeckLink HD Pro and HDLink.

Copley

This ghost story is a film that relies on imagery, depth of plot and visual storytelling rather than gore. The real magic happens in post production with this film, where a cutting edge workflow was developed to make shooting on Super 35mm affordable.

The Red Machine

This is the story of a professional thief who is forced to help a Navy spy steal an encoding machine from the Japanese. Using a High Def workflow to create stylized palettes of color and sound, The Red Machine uses a blue-grey world for the spy and a brown world for the thief.

The Rape of the Sabine Women

Set in the 1960s, this adaptation of an ancient Roman Myth illustrates the destruction of a utopia. Conceived as a five-act single length film, The Rape of the Sabine Women was shot without a script across nine locations in Germany and Greece.

One Night With You

Joe D’Augustine, a film editor of three decades is proof that Indie film making is not just the domain of twenty-somethings packing a MiniDV and a laptop! As the writer, director and editor of his first feature film, 'One Night With You', D’Augustine details his production workflow.

The Departed

Rob Legato, visual effects supervisor at The Basement has a long list of credits including Titanic, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Good Shepherd and The Aviator. The Basement's work on the Oscar winning The Departed, has seen the extensive use of visual effects techniques using Blackmagic.

James Madison University

John Woody, a teacher at JMU, used Intensity cards to meet the many challenges of setting up a state of the art HD lab. Intensity's HDMI connections provide a solution for capturing in the DVCPRO HD format from the Sony HVR-25 and allow monitoring to a 72” DLP flat-screen.

We Are The Strange

We Are the Strange is a unique full length feature animation composed of mixed media, 3-D, stop motion and 2-D, which took almost three years to complete. The film was produced, written and directed by M dot Strange, with Chaylon Blancett undertaking the post-production.

GTV6 Glendale

Tor Jøhånsen at GTV6 in Glendale has standardized this government broadcaster with DeckLink HD Extreme cards. Tor calls them his “Swiss Army knife” of I/O cards. He has all bases covered from standard DV all the way up to uncompressed 4:2:2 10 bit 1080p.

Howard TV

iN DEMAND is a pioneer in the creative delivery of exciting entertainment. The exclusive television home for Howard TV, this company provides powerhouse sports packages including MLB Extra Innings, and the Emmy Award® winning NASCAR IN CAR. Keith Koby explains how Blackmagic is an important part of Howard TV.

Puppy

Senior Colorist, Warren Lynch, shows how independent film Puppy, a 35mm indie picture, gets a DI treatment even though it was shot on a tight budget and within 20 days. Creating a DI for an extremely low budget film is unusual because of the expense of both the film scanning and film output.

Superman Returns

The latest Superman movie includes the use of a Panavision digital camera instead of 35mm film. This, and the fact, that multiple visual effects houses in the US had to coordinate with the live-action team shooting the movie in Australia. This innovative solution was supplied by Digital Sandbox, who utilize Blackmagic hardware.

Superman Returns

This is Warner Bros. biggest summer movie and a great ride. Behind the scenes, hundreds of artists worry about the math and logistics that underlie the art that creates the thrills. Fortunately, companies like Digital Sandbox along with Blackmagic are there to maintain the quality and like Clark Kent, they have no problem letting the Man of Steel take the credit.