German television producer Grundy UFA has become the first company in Europe to implement newly-developed file sharing technology from FilmLight as part of a “tapeless” workflow for HD television production.
Producers of such popular German soaps as Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (“Good Times, Bad Times”) and Vebotene Liebe (“Forbidden Love”), Grundy UFA plans to use FilmLight’s Baselight Kompressor technology to provide colourists with direct access to HD media stored on an Apple XSan in DVCPROHD format. The technology promises to save considerable time in post production by allowing colourists to share access to data with editors, without copying or proxies.
“Grundy UFA has been working very hard to push the envelope in terms of file-based production,” said FilmLight Sales Director Mike Grieve. “They have built one of the most efficient workflows for television production in Europe—and possibly the world—and this new technology carries it a step further, enabling them to produce quality HD programming at the speed of a daily series.”
Grundy UFA has been actively transitioning to a file-based workflow for the past three years and currently produces two shows at standard resolution in a tapeless environment. In that workflow, Baselight connects directly to an XSan in order to access uncompressed QuickTime files shared with the shows’ editorial teams.
Grundy UFA first began using Baselight for colour grading last year and since then its engineering team has been working closely with FilmLight to develop ways to make its workflow more efficient. “The help we’ve received from FilmLight has gone far beyond our expectations,” said Grundy UFA Head of Technology, Ernst Feiler. “We view FilmLight, not as a ‘technology provider’, but as a partner.”
Grundy UFA has been the beneficiary of another new FilmLight technology designed to speed work during production. Lookfinder is a modified grading platform that can be used by a production team to apply pre-set colour looks to camera data, so that they can tell quickly if they’ve got the look they want.
“Lookfinder allows us—on the set—to replicate the exact look we have created on Baselight,” Feiler said. “The director, the DOP and Gaffer know exactly what they are going to get. It’s very important for lighting, costuming and other things related to the look.”
Contact – Mike Grieve ([email protected]) +44 20 7292 0400
