 OKTOBOR
ADDS TO INFERNO
WELLINGTON
New Zealand post-production company Oktobor has reinforced its position
as one of the most Discreet-friendly facilities in the region with
the addition of a second inferno system. The Onyx platform purchased
with the inferno software features full film resolution capability.
Oktobor also purchased a further flame system and upgraded its six
combustion licences to version 2.
Oktobor's choice to add a second inferno system was based on the
number of current and future film projects at the company. "The
inferno is definitely the most loaded machine for film work on this
side of the world," says Dean Lyon, Head of Oktobor. "We've had
a lot of interest in film work and a lot has to do with our involvement
with Lord of the Rings. At the moment we have 10 film resolution
projects in house at various stages."
Oktobor, with its post-production facilities in both Wellington
and Auckland, is at the heart of the New Zealand post-production
market. Over the last six years Oktobor has grown from being an
in-house post-production component of Silverscreen, a very successful
30 years old production company, to become its own unique and quite
separate post-production company.
"We're very heavily invested in Discreet, all of my artists are
Discreet conversant," says Lyon. "We've yet to find anything that
could replace Discreet in the marketplace. We have become reasonably
fluent in Shake, and the company had to consider the advantages
of becoming a Shake house to align more closely with Weta Digital,
but we think that our niche is doing high-speed compositing using
Discreet's advanced products.
"Given that we have the infrastructure of backdraft and HIPPI,
it made sense to add another inferno. In addition, we were given
the entire blueprint as to where Discreet is going with its next
generation of products, but we went for what's current rather than
wait. We are interested in the future architecture, but we're more
convinced that where we are currently is where we want to be. There's
plenty of life in inferno."
Oktobor's newly opened Auckland facility now has 20 staff and Lyon
says the company is still hiring and expanding. Auckland now boasts
two flame seats and a smoke system, two 3ds max licences and two
combustion seats - all of which are networked to the 4K ITK Millennium
telecine. The Auckland and Wellington facilities are linked by a
dedicated 100 Mbit/second network - which is also scaleable to 1Gbit/second.
"We use the high speed data network on a constant basis to transfer
high resolution files between Wellington and Auckland," says Lyon.
"In addition to moving clips around there are many uses that we
had not thought of when we put in the network infrastructure. On
one occasion the clients were in Auckland, but they really wanted
to work with one of our artists in Wellington. We produced the commercial
entirely in Wellington, and then played out the finished job from
flame in real time through the video conferencing system. The clients
were sitting in our conference room in Auckland when they approved
the commercial. So we now have a case study that shows that with
the right 'fat pipe' between offices you can actually run a virtual
company."
According to Lyon, Oktobor is the only company in New Zealand to
offer an uncompressed production pipeline for High Definition (HD).
He explains that eliminating the use of compressed tape formats
during the post process will significantly improve the overall quality
of a final piece.
"We convert the footage to data on the ITK Millennium film scanner
in Auckland and from then on the work we do is uncompressed throughout
the various processes - it is not sent out to tape until we produce
the final dub. We keep all material uncompressed on the servers,
running it back and forth between backdraft and the workstations,
be it smoke, flame, inferno or anything else.
"This also gives us the added flexibility of working full aperture
in 2K or even 4K, in a true universal mastering environment. This
allows us to produce SDTV (NTSC/PAL 4:3/16:9) as well as HDTV (24P/50HZ/60HZ/1080i/p/720p)
and even a film version. We use the inferno to pan and scan and
scale the full frame information into the desired aspect ratio with
pristine results. "Other facilities transfer footage to a HDcam
tape, take it off the tape onto a fire(r) or an inferno, do effects
work, put it back onto tape, and then deliver dubs from that tape
out to clients. We've run tests to ensure that ours is the better
way to work and we believe there is a recognizable difference when
it comes to eliminating compression artifacts."
"One of the interesting things about running Oktobor is that I
have inherited a company that is bigger than anything I would have
built," he says. "My daily challenge is to ask what we can do as
a big company to service the market and feed back into the industry.
"I was one of those inferno guys who thought I could buy five or
six Macs and run a company, but now I'm back into the big league,
and a bigger league than I expected. I said I would never buy another
inferno or a telecine - now I have both. My challenge is to separate
us from the guys working out of a house. One way I can do that is
to build a culture of people with all of the dynamics of a family.
I can then serve those people with bigger and better gear than I
could offer if I was working out of a house. We are more talent-based
than technology-based; we're just fortunate that we have the resources
to buy something as awesome as an inferno."
Aside from the headline-grabbing film work, Oktobor's staple diet
is still high-end TVC work, about 50 per cent of which is for international
clients.
"I still think that Oktobor is best known for commercials - it's
where we are, and what we do best," he says. "The feature film work
has been exciting and interesting for us - 2K digital colour grading
from beginning to end for film and HDTV is an area that is exploding
for us. But for the most part, we are New Zealand's leaders in TVCs."
NEW ZEALAND POST INDUSTRY
On top of the TVC work, Lyon is effusive about the entire New Zealand
post industry, describing it as: "green lights in all regards".
"Advertising is busier than ever, overseas projects are busier
than ever, and the New Zealand film industry is growing faster than
ever," he says. "All of the excitement has also helped raise the
bar in the local film industry, so we're getting a lot of local
films coming to us. We're now having local filmmakers talking to
us about having digital 2K colour grading for a short film."
Lyon believes there is another factor in the burgeoning post industry
in New Zealand: "In the current climate, post September 11, New
Zealand is one of the safest places in the world," he says. "Customers
love to come and stay where they know they can be safe. I went to
LA three times over Christmas and three times the airport's international
terminal was closed due to a terrorist scare. Certain customers
are finding it quite edgy to go to the US.
"I don't think New Zealand is big enough to become a global centre
on its own. But I would love us to be seen as a quality, clean environment,
international, and open to new ideas. We can establish a niche where
people want to come to New Zealand for particular types of creativity
and have the opportunity to work in a beautiful place.
"However, if you add Australia into the equation and evaluate the
region as a whole, then it is certainly the up-and-coming global
centre for post-production. New Zealand and Australia is a winning
combination," he said.
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