In Broadcast - November 2015 - 36


36

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 11 | November 2015

InStudio

AJA Ki Pro Boogies
With Peanuts Gang

Busting moves with animated characters is all part of the show at the Toronto International Film Festival
press screening of The Peanuts Movie...

E

ntertainment journalists got a
chance to boogie with the Peanuts
gang during Fox's press screening
of The Peanuts Movie at the Toronto
International Film Festival (TIFF).
Los Angeles based visual effects
company BlueScreen LLC, working
with Junket Productions and Fox,
oversaw the on-site shoot, which
captured 60 journalists dancing oncamera to Meghan Trainor's song from
the movie's soundtrack Feels Better
When I'm Dancing.
The footage was composited live
with a CG scene featuring a Soul Train
dance line style of Peanuts characters,
played back via AJA Ki Pro Rack. Each
take was then recorded to CF cards,
which Fox sent to press ahead of the
film's debut for use in on-air segments
about the movie.
One Shot Deal
Bob Kertesz, owner of BlueScreen
LLC, mapped out his workflow ahead
of TIFF. Having implemented many
green screen shoots for press junkets
prior, he knew he'd need a reliable
playback device, one that he could
easily ship to and from Toronto and
play the animated footage multiple
times throughout the day without any
system failure.
About opting to use Ki Pro Rack, he
said: "This was a one shot deal; we
only had these journalists for a day,
and had to shoot more than 120 backto-back takes. If equipment failed,
it would have jeopardised the entire
production, but I never questioned my
Ki Pro Rack.

Bob Kertesz only happy when he's dancing. Inset: The set for the TIFF shoot

"It's a great piece of gear that I never
worry about on set; it's built solidly
and is remarkably reliable under battle
conditions. There really isn't any better
recording and playback device out
there for live compositing work."
Prior to the shoot, Kertesz set up
his equipment; he quickly dragged
and dropped a 1GB file containing
the animation from Fox to the Ki Pro
Rack's KiStor drive and was ready to
roll.
"Ki Pro Rack saved me a lot of time
and frustration on this one," he said.
"I was able to get my ProRes HQ file
to the device in under 45 seconds,
without having to go through 19 steps
and without any transfer loss in the
quality of the footage. The ability to
transfer files to the Ki Pro Rack over

the network, or directly to the KiStor
media via FireWire 800, makes the
entire system extremely versatile."
Live Composite
Using a Sony camera, Kertesz shot
live action footage of each reporter
dancing on green screen, while the
Ki Pro Rack repeatedly played back
a ProRes HQ animation file of the
Peanuts gang dancing on the gym
floor.
To combine the two scenes and make
it appear as though each reporter
was dancing with the animated
characters, Kertesz used an Ultimatte
11 Deluxe live compositing box. He
sent the composited output to an
external recorder equipped with CF
cards; monitors also surrounded the

Woodstock gets festive in Fox's
The Peanuts Movie

AJA Ki Pro Rack provided the
playout with Ultimatte 11 Deluxe
live compositing the shoot

set, allowing journalists to watch
themselves on-camera as they made
their way through the animated Soul
Train dance line, encouraged by
characters from the Charles Schultz
comic along the way.
Summing up his experience, Kertesz
concluded: "Ki Pro Rack is ideal for
what I do. In terms of setup, the
embedded audio is fantastic, and it
genlocks, which is a big deal when
you need to integrate into any kind of
professional workflow, and unlike the
vast majority of technology today, it
also has analogue audio outputs.
That made it easy to feed the
speakers and mixer on this project,
which was crucial to playing music on
set and getting people in the mood to
dance."
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pCoVQDD-OY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmzToEbqio4
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - November 2015
