Firelight Productions Casestudy

Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 July 2009 08:52 Written by Jomar Reyes Wednesday, 15 July 2009 00:00

In the up and coming TV Production Seminar on of the featured presenters is Marcus Gillezeau of the Emmy winning Firelight Productions. Last year Apple Australia published this case study on the innovative production company.

To hear from Marcus in person, join us at the TV Production Seminar, held along side SMPTE2009. To register, visit tvproductionforum.com/seminar.

Founded and headed by Marcus Gillezeau and Ellenor Cox, Firelight Productions is the name behind numerous well-known documentaries and dramas, including the award-winning ABC TV series Afrika – Cape Town to Cairo, In the Line of Fire, Scorched, Storm Surfers and the highly acclaimed Little Dove Big Voyage.

In developing its productions and gaining a competitive edge over other independent producers, Firelight relies on being at the forefront of digital convergence technology. So much so that in 2004, Marcus' book Hands On - A practical guide to production ad technology in Film, TV and New Media was published, a reference still in use by the major universities and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

A major part of the company’s film-making technology is Apple’s Final Cut Studio; and the versatility of Final Cut Studio became fully evident during the filming of Little Dove Big Voyage.

Filmed in Indonesia, Little Dove Big Voyage first “hit the screen” while the production team was still on-board the vessel. Equipped with an Apple PowerBook G3 running Final Cut Pro, the team edited over 30 micromovies and uploaded them to the www.littledove.org Web site.

Again, Final Cut Studio was put to full use by Firelight for the production and edition of 120 minutes of on-line material for Scorched – an all-media drama set in 2012 when Sydney’s water supply is depleted and the city is hit by massive fires. Consisting of mock news broadcasts, YouTube video clips, and an on-line television channel, all the on-line content was cut, onlined, graded and all the graphics and compositing was done using Final Cut Studio.

“When it comes to developing content for the Web,” Marcus says, “it’s a lot more complex than it used to be. What we’re now looking at is creating multiple formats for the Web – HD, H264, Pal DV and iPhone versions. This is one of the key reasons behind our use of Final Cut. We only have to go through the editing process once, then output to virtually any format using the one suite of applications.”

Exploring the latest

In commenting on the reasons behind his strong preference for Final Cut Studio, Marcus explains that as someone with extensive formal training in film editing, he has always been eager to explore the latest in editing systems and post production paths. “We had really embraced doing our offline cuts on non-linear systems, but we were still spending a fortune in linear online suites to finish the programs,” he says. “When Final Cut Pro came onto the market I put it to the test and realised we were able to do the offline and online on the system. Aside from upgrading to new versions, I haven’t changed over to anything else since.”

Features aside, Marcus points to the operational practicalities of Final Cut Pro as making it a best-fit in today’s independent film production industry; and it’s a combination of cost, flexibility and portability that contributes to that best-fit positioning.

“One of the realities of this industry and the current generation of people – writers, directors, producers and editors – is that there is a rapidly growing number of people who are multi-skilled,” Marcus says. “The result is that it’s no longer just the editors who use the video editing suites. It’s becoming a case where our producers, even writers will be putting cuts together on their laptops.”

Marcus goes on to explain that due to the fact that Final Cut Studio can be installed and run just as easily on a MacBook Pro and iMac as it can on a Mac Pro, virtually anyone can have instant access to the suite’s full range of tools. So when it comes to the “crunch time” when production deadlines are looming, the whole team can help get the show finished.

Still on the practical side of things, but at a slightly more technical level, the broad codec support provided by Final Cut delivers what the team at Firelight regards as being a major contributing factor to achieving operational efficiencies and time/cost savings. Marcus explains: “What it boils down to is that we’re able to work with all the native codecs that are utilised in the various makes and models of digital video cameras.

“There’s no need to waste time – which equates to money – in reconfirming from the master and, importantly, because we’re able to import directly in the native high definition codec, we’re not having to deal with low resolution formats.”

“There’s no need to waste time – which equates to money – in reconfirming from the master and, importantly, because we’re able to import directly in the native high definition codec, we’re not having to deal with low resolution formats.”

Storm Surfers - an insane example

The versatility of Final Cut was demonstrated all too clearly during Firelight’s shooting of Storm Surfers, a one-hour documentary for Discovery Channel that focuses on the science and what some consider to be the insanity of big-wave tow-in surfing. Featuring the legendary Australian surfers Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke Jones, Storm Surfers was shot on a Sony XDCam HD and XDCam EX – which gave Firelight the ability to cut awesome slow motion sequences – using the high speed Sony SxS memory cards.

Even while the Firelight team was on site, footage was being transferred directly from SxS memory cards – using the MacBook Pro’s ExpressCard slot – into Final Cut Pro. “Having the MacBook Pro and Final Cut Studio combination meant that we were able to cut micro documentaries in the field,” Marcus states.

In the Line of Fire

Throughout December 2007 and January 2008, Australia’s Nine Network aired one of Firelight’s most hard-hitting documentaries – In the Line of Fire. A four by 24-minute documentary series that gave the world an insight into the exploits of the 70,000-strong New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

Shot using the Sony HVR-Z1P Professional HDV Camcorder and XDCAM HD, the entire series was completed in full HDV quality using Final Cut. But among the major challenges facing the production team was ensuring the archival footage used in the series was correctly graded and converted to high definition; and it was there that Final Cut Studio’s Color and Compressor tools came into their own.

Drawing on footage contained on Hi-8 and Beta tapes, the Firelight team digitised content and ran it through Compressor to convert it to an HD format, and then colour corrected the shots using the colour grading tools in FCP.

Cost? Well, according to Marcus the comparison between using Final Cut Studio and a dedicated colour grading suite pretty well tells the story. “We’ve been quoted rates for use of dedicated grading suites anywhere between $500 and $1,000 an hour,” he says. “At that rate, there’s no time for experimenting – you’re focused too much on getting a good result as quickly as possible and protecting the bottom line.

“Ultimately, Final Cut Studio is giving us the ability to achieve total versatility throughout the entire production process and deliver a highly polished product.”