American Cinematographer - May 2011 - 82

Post Focus
Special Agent Sam Cooper (Forest Whitaker, at head of table) works with his colleagues in a scene from Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior.

Sokolsky, Stanley Detail “KB Workflow” By Michael Goldman

In digital television production, there is no such thing as a standard workflow. As digital acquisition proliferates, a wide range of innovative solutions are popping up to meet network and producer demands, budget parameters, creative requirements, and logistical limitations. Some shows have abandoned tape altogether. Others remain in an in-between place, using cameras capable of alldata acquisition but continuing to record to HDCam-SR tape. But the reverse is also true, at least for Bing Sokolsky, ASC. Last year, he shot the first 13 episodes of the CBS series Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior with a tape-based camera, Sony’s F35, while simultaneously recording and using data on set and beyond. Sokolsky had just finished shooting a pilot, Nomads, in Thailand, using an all-data pipeline with the Red One in collaboration with digital-imaging technician Kevin Stanley, and he’d enjoyed the benefits of that workflow. FotoKem’s N extLab mobile data system was a key part of Sokolsky and Stanley’s process on Nomads; it enabled them to sync, encode and color-correct data at the production’s headquarters, and transmit that data to editorial back in the United States via the Internet. When they began prepping Criminal Minds , for which the studio mandated a tape-based camera, Sokolsky and Stanley decided to use NextLab again. “We had good success using Reds and a file-based workflow
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on Nomads, but for Criminal Minds we were using the F35, which typically records to HDCam-SR tape,” says Sokolsky. “There are ways, of course, to record files with those cameras using hard drives and other systems, but those record a large digital file, one that would be too large for us to move data and color-correct dailies on set. Using NextLab gave me more control over the look of dailies, and gave dailies to post about a day ahead of a normal workflow, but it didn’t support large files from Codex or Panavision DSSR [Solid State] mags. So Kevin and I explored how we could record data with the F35 that could be ingested by NextLab.” They decided to use Convergent Design NanoFlash HD-SD data recorders to capture proxy 8-bit images (as 4:2:2 Long GOP 100Mbps QuickTime files in S-Log color space) of everything Sokolsky shot, while simultaneously recording 10-bit raw images to Sony SRW-1 decks (as 4:2:2 PSF Sony S-Log files). The team was able to shoot with both of those recorders onboard their F35s. This allowed Stanley to manage and color correct NanoFlash media on his own system near the set. After being recorded, all files were sent via shuttle drive to post facility Keep Me Posted, which used its own NextLab system to render out data, apply color metadata and sound, and synchronize all 8-bit image data quickly. Simultaneously, the production could provide Keep Me Posted colorist Tom Overton with synchronized, raw, 10-bit 4:2:2 HD images from the tapes. “Both versions have embedded time code, so they’re duplicates, making it fairly straightforward to conform the show after

American Cinematographer

Photo by Eric McCandless, courtesy of ABC Studios.

American Cinematographer - May 2011

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