From SHOOT Online (23 October, 2015):

High-Tech Feedback: Innovations and Insights

Assessments of product intros, developments at IBC2015 and SIGGRAPH, challenges of an evolving marketplace

Wolfgang Lempp
Managing Director
FilmLight Ltd

What’s the most substantive new product you’ve introduced to the market this season and why is it significant in terms of the void it has filled or the need it has addressed?

FilmLight has released Daylight, a dailies and transcoding application, into an already crowded market. Why? We believe, far too much effort gets lost between production and post. The creative intent doesn’t always keep up with modern workflows. Consistent colour across production, editorial, vfx and finishing is essential as a basis for achieving this. Daylight provides the missing link between our FLIP product for on-set pre-visualization, Baselight Editions for post, and Baselight for finishing. But it is much more than that. It supports a metadata based workflow through our BLG interchange format, that offers consistency as well as complete creative freedom at any stage. Using BLG colour metadata offers a level of productivity that is unmatched by other tools in the market.

What was the biggest development at the recent IBC2015 in terms of your company and/or the industry at large? And what lesson(s) did you learn from that development or your IBC experience?

HDR was the buzzword at IBC, and FilmLight has been working with its partners for a number of years now to make the most of this exciting technology. And again, our complete understanding of the colour science involved, and our framework for not only displaying, but grading and processing HDR content consistently and to best effect, has been absolutely crucial. HDR content is being created now, even before there is full agreement on the underlying standards. We can support our customers to navigate through this uncertainty with complete confidence, whatever their requirements are.

Share a recent client success story relative to a tool or technology you provided.

Our introduction of the “renderless”, metadata based workflow between editorial and grading has resulted in big improvements in productivity for some of our clients who have adopted it early.

Coronation Street, a longstanding episodic TV program made by ITV, were able to fully integrate creative grading into their incredibly tight schedule. Chainsaw in LA and Technicolor PostWorks in NY are two more of the many clients who have adopted a similar workflow, combining Baselight systems with the plug-in Baselight Editions for Avid. Instead of rendering new versions, they exchange metadata of the latest cut or grade, and cut post production time. The benefits are so obvious that by now a large part of the factual entertainment programs on television in the UK are going through Baselight and Baselight Editions.

What is (are) the biggest challenge(s) faced by your company in a changing industry landscape? And how do you plan to meet that (those) challenge(s)?

As the commoditisation of the industry carries on, there is a split that becomes more and more apparent. On the one hand we have high-end post with stable budgets and demanding creative requirements, on the other a general race to the bottom for everything else. Unless you are exceptionally talented as a creative, it is hard to compete in a global market without barriers to entry.

We have been concentrating unashamedly on the high-end, and as a small company we can afford to do this. We want our customers to have successful businesses, and a bit of exclusivity does no harm at all. But you have to keep earning your reputation. That requires innovation and constant development. It also requires sticking to your core competence. You can’t be the best at everything.

How have the markets you serve changed over the past year or two and how has your company evolved to successfully meet those changes?

As the cost of production and post production equipment comes down and everyone claims to be an expert colourist, there are three areas where we as a manufacturer can help our clients. Expand the creative toolset, increase productivity by improving workflows (within our own product range and also with partner’s products), and have experts directly supporting our customers. We are doing all three. To make colour grading an integral part of the production pipeline, not just a task at the end of the process, offers huge improvements in productivity. It requires dedicated tools at each stage of the process, tools that are integrated, flexible and that expand the creative freedom. All constantly changing as the technology evolves. That is what we have been working on, and that is what our customers care about.