Based in Denham Media Park, Arion Facilities has had a distinguished record of service to films, commercials and TV drama for more than 20 years. For this highly regarded company, providing telecine transfer services for ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and HD dailies for ‘Casino Royale’ are all in a day’s work.
Arion’s recipe for success – a combination of technology, expertise and service – now has an extra ingredient, with the arrival of a second ContentAgent from ROOT6 Technology.
The second system, ContentAgent-XR with new V2 software, means that Arion is now able to offer its clients the advantage of a fast-turnaround branded dailies service on DVD.
Currently the system is being used on ‘Fred Claus’ (Warner Brothers) and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ (Universal.)
Arion Chairman Steve Davis explains. “Like other facilities we used to provide viewing copies on VHS tape, later moving to DVD. This was originally quite a time-consuming process, using a DVD authoring system that required experienced operators.
“Our first ContentAgent greatly simplified the DVD production process, but subsequently the need for individual copies; for the Director, Producer, DOP, and cameraman, for example, has arisen. As security in the film industry is a major concern, it was important to identify these copies individually.
“The new V2 software enables us to address this uniquely. Using the workflow template we can easily create a specific profile for all authorised users and burn-in their initials or job titles to establish the provenance of each clip or clips. The user interface features a ‘drag’n drop process for constructing the workflow and is pretty straightforward. Dailies will typically contain numerous takes, edit points and camera rolls and all these can be transcoded to MPEG2 and burned to multiple DVDs, with the addition of a simple navigation system.
“Equally importantly for our clients, we can do this quickly – automating the entire process from the original template – which can be re-used by non-technical staff throughout the entire production.”
Another ContentAgent benefit for Arion is in the building and distribution of showreels. The facility simply imports the masters, usually in AVI format, then either transcodes to MPEG2 before burning to DVD or encodes as QuickTime or WMV files for viewing on individual websites. Either, or both, workflow options are fully automated.
Davis concludes, “With V2 software, ContentAgent enables us to set up even the most complex branded DVD dailies requirements. The workflow automation means our clients get an unparalleled fast turn-round together with the essential security required on feature film production.”