digital studio - dec 2009

SON OF BABYLONIraqi director on the making of his latest lm

Digital Studio showcases the best broadcast projects of 2009

An ITP Business Publication Vol. 11 Issue 12 December 2009

DIGI-CULTUREThe ins and outs of render farm technology

udio udDigital Stud owcases the best broadcast projects of 2009showc es the best broadcast projec

TOP 10INSTALLATIONS

www.digitalproductionme.com DECEMBER 2009 1

CONTENTS

DECEMBER 2009 VOLUME 11 ISSUE 12

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5 NEWSOasis lights up Al Jazeera Arabic for 13th anniversary / Sony and BCS tie to support student lm fest in Lebanon / DIFF to woo YouTubers / Radio Tunisia streamlines work ow with NETIA / MTV and twofour54 come together for comedy

2009S TOP 10Digital Studio lists the best of the best installs of 2009 from di erent systems integrators in the Middle East.

FACE TO FACEDavid Shepheard, Abu Dhabi lm commissioner, discusses ADFCs role in boosting lmmaking in the region.

POST PRODUCTION Maya unravelled and render farms put in the spotlight by our resident VFX experts.

RAPID FIREWith Salman Almutaiwee on the Riyadh Media and Multimedia Exhibition in Saudi Arabia.

40 ON LOCATIONIraqi director and DoP Mohammed Daradji on the making of his lm, Son of Babylon.

MEBS / MEBV - REPORTSound bites from the inaugural edition of the broadcast and TV show in Abu Dhabi.

52

46 PRODUCTSWe bring you the newest launches in the market.

DECEMBER 2009

DECEMBER 20092

COMMENT

We have seen at least three lm festivals hosted in the Middle East in the last three months but Im convinced that the Dubai Inter-

national Film Festival (DIFF), which will run this month, will be the most successful of the lot not because it is the oldest of the festivals or has had more time to learn from its previous mistakes, but because it knows how to engage the community and woo the right media to its shores.

When Dubai launched DIFF several years ago, it did get a couple of international names to run some parts of the show but it retained power in its own hands and let local lmmak-ers and leaders play a role in shaping it. As a result, local lmmakers who had dedicated themselves to the art were not made to look like second class citizens unworthy of sharing space with international indies. Instead, DIFF embraced both with open arms. Furthermore, it hosted the Gulf Film Festival (GFF) to ensure that local players had an even wider platform to showcase their lms.

O cials at DIFF dont shy away from cam-eras; they are happy to give you an interview if you want one and PR personnel dont hang around to guard their clients from select me-dia. Besides, there is greater transparency and openness in the way DIFF operates.

DIFF has also been careful to attract both the tabloids and the trade media to its event.

While the tabloids are not to be dismissed, the event organisers have not forgotten the role regional trade titles dedicated to the TV

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WHY DUBAI SELLS!

VIJAYA CHERIAN Editor

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ON THIS MONTHS COVERDigital Studio takes a look at the top 10 installations in the Middle East in 2009. Read the full story on page 16.

T b ib l

and lm industry play in ensuring that local lmmakers get mileage in this market, where they will most likely ply their skills in the future.

Unfortunately, few other regional lm festivals have recognised this. As a result, ce-lebrities walking the red carpet take up most of the air space at their events while local lmmakers or regional talent are given only token mentions.

This must change. Film festival organisers must brief their PR personnel on the impor-tance that regional trade titles play in covering such events. While the tabloids and interna-tional media will, no doubt, cover the glitz and glamour and also carry sarcastic opinion pieces on oil rich countries ush with money, its the trade titles that will serve to introduce regional talent to the local production industry and bring the two together for projects.

The workshops and conferences that governments invest in to encourage local production will only bear fruit when some of those budding lmmakers gain visibility in a workspace that will most likely absorb them.

Trade publications play a key role. Its some-thing that DIFF has understood, respected and appreciated. Its something that other regional festivals must also acknowledge to ensure that their e orts bene t the local lm community.

*BPA Worldwide Audited Average Qualified Circulation 6,023 (Jan - June 2009)

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REGIONAL UPDATE


NEWS

IN BRIEF

ABU DHABI CINEMA CHAIN INVESTS IN 4K PROJECTORSAbu Dhabi cinema operator RoyalCine will install four Sony CineAlta 4K digital cinema projectors in its Delma Mall-based theatres, marking a rst for the region in the rollout of 4K digital cinema technology.

The deployment, which is being carried out by Pal Group and is set to for comple-tion in Q1, 2010, will enable the Delma Mall-based facility to screen HD lms in four of its 14 theatres.

RoyalCine group GM Fazal Ameen said the operator planned to purchase a further 10 projectors over the next two years, e ectively creating the Middle Easts rst all-digital cinema at Delma Mall.

Muhammad Nasir Ali, CTO, Pal Computer Systems added: HD TV is already available in homes and the time is right to equip cinemas with the digital experience.

Al Jazeera Arabic channel has revamped its sets for a new on-air look to coincide with its thirteenth anniversary. While the sets were redesigned by US designer BDI, the lighting was replaced by Dubai-based systems integrator, Oasis Enterprises.

One of the main elements of the US $400,000 project was the installation of a complete LED wall in the background. Besides this, DeSisti cool lights and ETC dimming and control systems were installed at the facility.

We replaced the uorescent lights with LED lights from Italian manufacturer Coemar. LED is more easily controlled, provides more power sav-

OASIS LIGHTS UP AL JAZEERA ARABIC FOR 13TH ANNIVERSARY

ings because it generates less heat and also requires less maintenance. Besides they have a much longer lifespan, claimed Basel Al Aref.

As with most projects of this nature, Al Aref added that Oasis worked towards a very tight deadline to complete the project on time.

It was mission impossible but we did it. We liter-ally focused the lights ve minutes before going to air normally, you need to have time to do a rehearsal for such projects but it went without a single hitch, he added.

Al Jazeera Arabic went on air with a new look on November 1, 2009.

SONY AND BCS JOIN HANDS TO SUPPORT STUDENT FILM FEST IN LEBANON

Le Temps Des Cerises, directed by Robert Cremona, walked away with the first prize at the third annual student film festival held by Lebanons Notre Dame University Louaize last month.

The festival, which was held from November 8-15 in collaboration with the Monaco Film Festival and sponsored by Sony Professional Solutions Middle

East and systems integrator Broadcast & Communication Systems (BCS), received a number of entries from eight universities in the country for its competition seg-ment, which was open only to students. The winning entry each day received a free copy of the Sony Vegas software.

These films compete in interna-tional film festivals and the students who participated are all majoring in Radio/TV production and filmmaking in their respective universities, commented Nadine Matta, sales manager, BCS.

We have identified the potential in this market and have looked at working with students right from the beginning to help them realise their potential. Our role is to encourage young artists and the new generation of filmmakers in Lebanon. We have eight major universities that teach AV production and several institutes offer this as a major to students, she added.

Speaking about Sonys involvement, Takashi Miura, general manager, Sony Professional Solutions Middle East com-mented that the company has always invested in the regions talent.

The Arab world has tremendous potential in content creation and our support at this festival and other re-gional festivals is an endorsement of this sentiment. Sony has previously lent its support to the Middle East International Film Festival in Abu Dhabi and has been closely aligned with the Dubai Interna-tional Film festival for the last couple of years, thereby reinforcing the importance we lay on the content creation industry in the Arab markets, he added.

As part of its aim to celebrate women in Lebanese cinema, the festival or-ganisers also screened one feature film directed by Lebanese female directors on each day of the festival.

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Above: Elie Yahchouchi, BCS CEO (extreme right,

front row) and below, Sonys Takashi Miura.

Al Jazeera Arabic went on air with a new look on November 1.

REGIONAL UPDATE

DECEMBER 2009 www.digitalproductionme.com6

NEWS

IN BRIEF

ADFC ANNOUNCES FUNDING COMPETITION FOR SHORT FILMSThe Abu Dhabi Film Commission (ADFC) has launched A am Quaseera Production Fund to encourage the production of short lms. Twenty proposals will be selected for development, of which ten will eventually be selected for production. Each selected project will be eligible for up to US $27,000 in production funds.

The competition is open to lms of 5-12 minutes in length and can be from any genre (drama, comedy, documentary, childrens, animation, horror, etc). Scripts in English or Arabic in standard screenplay format can be entered.

To qualify, participants must be 18 years or older, and be a UAE or GCC national or a resident of the UAE for more than 1 year. Entries must be submitted by December 20.

Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) will woo the YouTube generation this year with snippets from the festival every 30 minutes after every red carpet screening or special programmes and workshops through a special 17-member strong team headed by the SAE Institute in Dubai.

Heading the YouTube programme, a rst for the festival, is Giorgio Ungania, head of commercial services at SAE International.

We wanted to have a live channel online that would continuously feed information about DIFF to our viewers. YouTube will be perfect for this but we will also utilize Facebook and Twitter. Our objective is to use all social networks to promote the activities

DIFF 2009 GOES THE EXTRA MILE TO WOO YOUTUBERSat the festival, explained Ungania. It obviously has to be short snippets and appeal to YouTube viewers so interviews will be done in a fun style but within the bandwidth of this culture. Well, for instance, ask actors some whacky questions about their favourite stu rather than about the movie per se, he explained.

Although plans are not fully rmed up at this stage, SAE will rope in its lm students to take on the roles of cameramen, anchors, editors and so on. SAE sta will o er additional support by editing clips to ensure timely upload of video footage to YouTube.

An interesting element of this project will be the use of JVCs newest GY-H100 and GY-H700 cameras for lming at DIFF. JVC Gulf is supporting the project by supplying four GY-H100s and two 700s for the shoot.

All footage will be shot in High De nition and be archived for DIFF for future use. They will, however, be downscaled for YouTube viewing, he clari ed.

The team hopes to open up opportunities to UAE residents as well to join the team as anchors.

Online social networks have the amazing capa-bility of making content viral and were sure that if we follow a fun way of doing this, DIFF will get even further mileage, added Ungania.

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Dubai-based Eclipse Digital, a new entrant in digital media, archival and content acquisition management has signed a deal with Paris-based production and distribution rm, Wild Bunch.

Under the terms of the deal, Eclipse Digital will digitise

more than 1000 titles presently held by the French company. The agreement will also see the two parties work together to acquire other original content for TV, cinema and broadband distribution. Eclipse Digital will manage all services required to convert, restore and repurpose every type of content into a digital format, ready for archiving and commercial application.

Most of the content is on celluloid so we intend to digitise it and in some cases, restore it to its original state and repurpose it for di erent media platforms, explained Peter Einstein, CEO of Eclipse Digital.

In some cases, we will also o er the content in di erent languages and ultimately, distribute it for commercial purposes. We are also negotiating a joint licensing and ownership of certain parts of the content but this will be discussed further only in the second phase.

Einstein adds that this deal will translate into more tra c for digitisation and storage.

Content owners around the world are recognising the huge potential in transferring original form content such as lms, video, images, books and works of art into digital les. This deal o ers us the opportunity to establish a commercial distribution platform using the latest digital distribution techniques and utilising the Wild Bunch access to diverse libraries and acquisitions, he stated.

Eclipse Digital, however, will be outsourcing the content digitisation to third parties until the company has a facility of its own.

We are still in the process of determining where our facility will be built although the designs are ready, explained Einstein.

Eclipse Digital aims to grow its digital servicing business through a variety of means in growing markets.

Vincent Grimond, CEO of Wild Bunch added that partner-ship with Eclipse Digital would help the two rms push the boundaries in the digital market.

ECLIPSE DIGITAL TAKES ON THE WILD BUNCH

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SAEs Giorgio Ungania says social media networks will help promote DIFF further.

Peter Einstein, CEO

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REGIONAL UPDATE


NEWS

IN BRIEF

SONY TO HOST POWER OF IMAGESSony Professional Solutions & Middle East will showcase several new products in the Middle East this month including the SRW-9000 HDCAM SR camorder; the PMW-EX1R; the PMW-350 shoulder-mounted solid state camcorder; the MVS-6000 multi-format video; the BRS-200 HD-DS video switcher; the Sonaps news production system and the ELC newsroom automation system. Sony will also hold special sessions titled Beyond codec in the tapeless work ow, 3D technology and HD live production work ow at the event, which will be held from December 16-17 in Dubai.

THOMSON REOPENS GV SALE TALKSThomson is holding active discussions with a number of buyers to sell Grassval-ley, according to a source close to the deal.The Thomson Group is also looking to sell its PRN digital signage unit as it looks to focus on services for content creators including its set top box business and the Technicolour lm processing business.

Radio Tunisienne Chaine Internationale (RTCI) has installed NETIAs Radio-Assist digital audio software to streamline its broadcast work ow, from acquisi-tion through playout, for its international radio programming. The end-to-end solution enables RTCI sta to record, edit, or prepare playlists from within a single application.

Marouane Gallah, technical director of RTCI commented that Radio-Assist is a comprehensive broadcast system that provides all the functionality we need in a smart, highly automated work ow that speeds time-to-air.

The software suite ensures e cient handling and management of content, simplifying our ac-cess to media, and providing sta the exibility in creating radio programming and distribution to multiple platforms, he said.

RTCI uses a Radio-Assist system built on two servers and equipped with NETIAs DBShare to ensure the security and integrity of its stored media. DBShare ensures the stability of database contents, synchronising all databases automati-cally, and thus providing automatic, transparent redundancy and automatic database restoration, in the event of any incident.

The broadcaster also tted out two on-air stu-dios with NETIAs Air-DDO broadcast module and added a third station to support automatic playout of night-time programming.

The Air-DDO graphical user interface displays the broadcast channel along with help and prepa-

RADIO TUNISIA STREAMLINES WORKFLOW WITH NETIA

Radio-Assist enables RTCI staff to undertake all their work from a single application.

500 comedy episodes are aired across the MENA region every month - IPSOS

VITAL STATS

MTV AND TWOFOUR54 COME TOGETHER FOR COMEDY

MTV Networks International (MTVNI) and twofour54 have con rmed a new deal to establish an Arab comedy content production studio under the Comedy Central brand. Based within twofour54s content produc-tion precinct, Comedy Central Studios Arabia will produce local comedy programming, Arabised versions of existing Comedy Central staples and dubbed versions of existing Western content.

The organisation will also use the production, post production and broadcast facilities at twofour54 intaj.

Twofour54 CEO Tony Orsten said the new initiative would provide Arab comedians and comedy producers with an unprecedented opportunity.

From individual stand-up talent right through to major comic productions, Comedy Central Studios Arabia will provide an opportunity for Arabic comics and comedy programming talent that simply never existed before, he said.

Imagenation Abu Dhabi and partners Hyde Park Entertainment Group and Singapores Media Development Authority (MDA), joined forces with songwriter/producer Dave Stewart to produce Street Dancing, a story set in the world of a cutting-edge dance competition in Singapore and New York. Music for the lm will be provided by Stewart along with Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman.

Ashok Amritraj, chairman of Hyde Park Entertainment Group com-mented that this pop-cross-cultural project is an organic match for continuing our partnerships between Hollywood, the Middle East and Asia , and gives us the ability to explore the exciting new distri-bution format of mobile technology. Imagenation Abu Dhabi CEO Edward Borgerding added that the project is ideal to commence our partnership with Hyde Park and the MDA.

IMAGENATION AND PARTNERS ARE STREET DANCING

ration tools for cueing, on-air monitoring, playlist modi cation, recording, and production. Directly linked to the scheduling workstations, Air-DDO keeps track of the latest changes made to the playlist in real-time and automatically displays the refreshed playlist data.

The project includes two production worksta-tions dedicated to acquisition and editing.

Three additional workstations support music scheduling, advertising scheduling, and record-ing of phone inserts while a fourth enables journalists to call in and trigger recording using a security code.

RTCI has also installed Radio-Assist workstations for logging, streaming, and internet broadcasting using NETIAs Air-Push and dispatcher.

calling all content creatorscreate opportunitiesThe Arab world has an estimated 300 million people looking for quality content. twofour54, based in Abu Dhabi, is the regions premier centre for Arabic content creation in the media and entertainment sector across media platforms including television, radio, lm, publishing, online, mobile, music, gaming and animation and we can help you reach them.

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REGIONAL UPDATE


NEWS

MOVERS & SHAKERS

DIGITAL VISIONMichael Freudenthal has joined Digital Vision as CEO from December. The appointment follows strong Q3 results and continues the companys investment in key sta to develop and deliver innovative image enhancement and restoration solutions. Freudenthal, who has held key high-level roles in the technology sector, will lead the company from its Swedish headquarters in Stockholm. He recently held the position of VP and COO at IQUBE.

DIGITAL VISIONIGITAL VISIOROSS VIDEORoss Video has appointed Brian Olson business develop-ment manager for XPression, Ross Real Time 2D/3D HD character generator. Olson will be based in Nebraska and will be responsible for supporting the XPression product line in the United States. Olson joins Ross from Miranda Technologies, where he worked as director of Business Development.

MIRANDA TECHNOLOGIESRoger Sewell has joined Miranda Technologies European sales team as business development director EMEA. In his new role, Roger will initially focus on strengthening customer, systems integrator and dealer relationships in Eastern Europe. Prior to joining Miranda, Roger worked with Pro-Bel, where he held a variety of roles, including positions in project engineering, sales and network management.

BEXELBexel, a unit of Vitec Group Systems Division, has ap-pointed Helen Carr to the post of Bexel ASG Pro Audio sales manager. Carr will be responsible for overseeing the sales e orts of Bexels national team that sells, installs and supports a wide range of top audio brands including Calrec, Lectrosonics, Zaxcom, Clear-Com and many others.

Carr, a 20-year broadcast veteran, joined Bexel in 2003 following a successful career with companies like Quantel and Snell & Wilcox. Prior to that, she worked as a docu-mentary producer for such clients as Discovery Network, The Learning Channel and Home & Garden Television.

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INTERNATIONAL PROJECT


NEWS

TEDIAL IMPLEMENTS ADVANCED ONLINE SERVICES FOR SPANISH SENATE

The Spanish Senate recently undertook a major project in conjunction with process and automation specialist TEDIAL to upgrade its existing broadcast facili-ties to provide comprehensive online access to users.

The new solution enables users both within the Senate and via the internet for journalists and Spanish citizens to access debates live and search the archive by subject, speaker or date.

The project involved the integration of the TEDIAL media asset management system with Grass Valley K2 broadcast servers and the Gelabert parliamentary planning database. It is this tight integration that makes the system particularly exible and supportive for all users.

In a 21st century democracy, people expect to be able to see and understand what decisions their elected representatives are making on their behalf, says Jos Mesas, CEO of TEDIAL.

We have installed one of the most ad-vanced systems in the world, allowing any citizen to search through the Senate archives to see how such issues have been debated.

Before each days debates, the TEDIAL system collects

fundamental information includ-ing the topics to be covered and the

speakers scheduled to be called from the Gelabert system.

As the debates develop, the TEDIAL TD Live ingest client adds additional information, such as other deputies who speak, and emergency topics that are discussed. The searchable index is, therefore, created in real time.

On a parallel note, the TEDIAL MPM media management system creates the online con-tent. The television coverage of the chamber is recorded in MXF DV25 format on the Grass Valley K2 video servers while MPM simultane-ously creates four additional copies: in MPEG-2 for DVDs; Windows Media proxies to allow desktop searching over the Senate intranet; and low bitrate Windows Media and Real Video for the internet.

The content is streamed live, but because the database and content are linked so close-ly within the TEDIAL system, with parliamen-tary information from the Gelabert database, users are able to search for content immedi-ately, even before a debate has nished.

KEY SYSTEMSTEDIAL media asset management system Grass Valley K2 broadcast servers Gelabert parliamentary planning database

Emilio Lopez Zapata, CTO of TEDIAL says the project is an illustration of how technically exible the system is.

We have gone live with this system, which delivers real bene ts to users. The tight integration between the Senates existing planning system and our new media asset management minimises errors and speeds the delivery of content to users, whether inside the Senate building or anywhere around the world, he explains.

The TEDIAL media asset management system implemented at the Spanish Senate includes the latest versions of the Tarsys mod-ule (audio-visual archive management), AST (hierarchical storage management to archive and retrieve historical content) and Media Process Manager (systems and applications integration). It runs on standard IBM hardware delivered as part of the project.

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CLIENT: SPANISH SENATE

KEY INTEGRATOR: TEDIAL

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NEWS

EDITORS CHOICES

MOST READ WEB NEWS STORIES:

ANALYSIS

QATAR RISINGHow Qatar is pioneering the implementation of AV technology

TECHNOLOGY

CODE BREAKERSThe key technology easing multi-platform challenges for broadcasters

Morocco is the only the Arab nation nominated in the for-eign language Academy Award.

The full list of the 65 nominated countries has been re-leased with only Iran and Morocco representing the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

The contenders are Moroccos Casanegra by Nour-Eddine Lakhmari and Irans About Elly by Asghar Farhadi.

Traditionally, Egypt and Lebanon have been the prolific

producers. Although both had representations last year, they were absent from the 2009 nominations. Lebanons 2008 nominee Caramel was short listed for the award, building on the success it enjoyed through out the 2008 festival circuit.

Despite a number of initiatives to encourage production in the region, there is yet to be any significant visible impact on international markets.

MOROCCAN FILM SOLE ARAB NOMINEE FOR FOREIGN OSCAR

1 Killers call time on bench warmers

2 Thomson reopens Grass Valley sale talks

3 AV Tech upstages Abu Dhabi F1 action.

www.digitalproductionme.com www.digitalproductionme.com

SPOT POLL

Which Middle East lm festival has impressed you the most this year?

32.6% MEIFF,

Abu Dhabi

26.1% Doha Tribeca Film

Festival

23.9% Cairo International

Film Festival

13.1% Gulf Film Festival,

Dubai

4.3%Jordan International

Film Festival

Source: www.digitalproductionme.com

IN PICTURESDOHA TRIBECA FILM EST

TOP 10 PROJECTS

16

COVER STORY

DECEMBER 2009 www.digitalproductionme.com

TOP 10Vijaya Cherian looks back at the ten

top broadcast installations of 2009

DIGITAL STUDIOS

TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

Al Jazeera Sport deployed a tapeless ingest, editing and playout work ow this summer with the help of Dubai-based systems integrator Qvest Media FZ LLC. The ambitious project was planned, pre-con gured and installed on-site for on-air operation within four months.

The system, which currently features an 11-channel playout solution, covers nine of Al Jazeera Sports pay TV channels and two of its free-to-air channels.

Qvest Media partnered with its German sister company Wellen+Noethen to meet the projects tight deadline. Plan-ning and pre-con guration for the system was carried out in Germany in two months. Parallel to this, UPS systems, cable routing and wiring as well as the studio furniture and the connection with the central equipment room was prepared for the system integration on site in Doha.

To speed up the nal integration process, the Cologne-based team also integrated the complete IT and AV technol-ogy, which was prepared for commissioning, packed into racks and sent by airfreight to Doha.

Up to 24 multi-format input channels, which are controlled by eight EVS XT units, are now being made available for the signal ingest. They can be used by a technical supervisor and two media managers to manage incoming feeds using central planning software and to control the entire production process even at an early stage.

Several workstations show the central ingest processes, such as the ingest schedule, database and authorisation management. Server monitoring, health monitoring and

central memory management are also shown. Once the ingest process has taken place, the incoming SD/HD signals on the EVS servers are converted to the respective production format using IP directors. Storage takes place via TCP/IP using Avid Interplay Transfer Engines on an Avid Unity ISIS system with 500 hours of HD recording capacity.

The material is then made available to ten editors and cut-ters in post-production for further processing. They can view and index the material using a special browsing software. They can also undertake further cuts, add the metadata and special e ects at the nal processing stage using four Avid Media Composer Mojo DX systems.

To speed up the production process, editors and cutters can also transfer the edited material to the playout environment using Avid Interplay Assist and a send-to-playback command.

This, in turn, makes available up to ve EVS XT units with up to 22 channels, that can be used for recording management, studio transfer, programme broadcasting and much more.

To nalise the broadcasting material and create playlists, ve operators can access two broadcasting channels each in the newly-built master control room.

Besides this, ten existing Vizrt graphic engines have been recon gured into a new central equipment room and inte-grated into the working environment and database structure.

For redundancy, all EVS units between ingest and playout have been linked to each other using an additional SDTI network, enabling available EVS data to be exchanged and

further processed without any losses in the event of a disaster or for direct internal streaming.

Saeed O. Bawazir, technology division director at Al Jazeera, commented that nding the right integration partner for this project was tough owing to the tight deadline.

Having to implement a fully functional and fail-proof system of this size in time to broadcast the UEFA Champions League posed a major challenge. We carefully examined a similar implementation by Wellen+Noethen for the live broadcasting of UEFA EURO 2008.

The digital work ows we have deployed along the entire production chain speeds up our processes signi cantly and enables greater exibility. Now, we make full use of our ap-plications with ease and run the system with many di erent broadcasting formats, including the live broadcasting of the Spanish Primera Divisin, he explains.

Stephan Seelaender, general manager of Qvest Media adds that Al Jazeera was quickly won over by the idea of integrating the high-end technology o ered by its German distribution partners Riedel, LYNX, RTW and the virtual LSB studio controller into the infrastructure.

This project was a valuable experience for us. Close collaboration with the Al Jazeera Sport team at all stages of the project made the smooth implementation of this project possible.

Once the system was supplied to Al Jazeera Sport, techni-cians from Qvest Media and Wellen+Noethen undertook the installation and integration with the existing technology. In parallel, employees including administrators, editors, cutters, operators and media managers were trained to operate the new technology. Qvest Media is also tasked with providing permanent support to Al Jazeera and the technical servicing of the system, he adds.

Client: Al Jazeera SportLocation: DohaSystems integrator: Qvest MediaTask: Switching Al Jazeera Sports to digital

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TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

Abu Dhabi-based Al Dafrah Group under-took a bold and ambitious multi-million dollar HD project that included three studios and a four-camera OB van in early 2009 to help with the production of music videos and other on-line content for its new channels. Al Dafrah has adopted a tapeless work ow and the 1080i 50 format across its entire facility.

As part of the project, the Group built two HD-only studios at Dubai Studio City and a smaller multi-format facility in Abu Dhabi. The two studios in DSC include a 16mx12m production studio that can accommodate six to eight sets at a time and a three-camera virtual studio. The smaller studio in Abu Dhabi can support both HD and SD formats and is designed for much smaller productions.

Each of the three studios is tted with high-end Ikegami HDK-79 EX III cameras.

The studios are based on a HD- le acquisition work ow and employ a mix of hardware and software from di erent vendors.

Hardware for the post production and transmission areas has been sourced from Thomson Grass Valley (TGV) and includes a K2 ingest server, a NAS production server and a K2 transmission server, all which work in 1080i 50. Aurora Edius Craft non-linear editors are connected to the production server. This ensures that a clip that is ingested to the ingest server and then moved to the production server is then available for all the NLEs to work on.

The TV facility operates a fully automated work ow using Pebble Beach automation, that is capable of auto recognition, renaming and overall le organisation within di erent areas of the station including ingest, production, playout and archive.

Although the main format standard of the facility is 1080i 50 for transmission, the NLEs and four newly-acquired Panasonic 3000 cameras that are used for eld production can record at 1080p us-ing the AVC Intra Codec. As the NLEs are tted with P2 card chassis, they can utilise the material straight from the P2 card in whatever format the client wants to use them.

In addition to this, the 3D virtual studio and the production

studio are both tted with Panasonic AJ 110E P2 disc players and recorders, again allowing the source from the studio to be recorded in 1080i 50 directly to the P2 card for either editing in-house or at a clients facility. Alternatively, the studio output can be recorded directly onto the ingest server via the TGV matrix.

We chose the P2 format because of its exibility, size and ease of use. We wanted something that had no moving parts and didnt rely on discs being spun up to read/write speed etc, explains Graham Day, chief consultant, Al Dafrah Group.

As we noticed over the years with using spinning disc technol-ogy, it has certain drawbacks over Flash disc (FD) technology. That isnt to say that FD is the answer to everything, but in a harsh and dusty environment like the UAE, it does have some advantages over tape and spinning disc technology, he adds.

Besides the studios, Al Dafrah has also invested in a four-camera HD OB van with HD DSNG uplink. The van includes two P2 player/recorders and a digital Betacam player/recorder for clients still using SD as a format.

Our biggest USP is that we have a compact and comprehensive HD environment in the middle of Dubai that provides a facility for clients who want to start using HD without making the capital investment, adds Day.

Client: Al Dafrah Group, Abu Dhabi Main locations: Dubai Studio City, Abu DhabiChannels: Al Dafrah Music Channel, Al Dafrah Entertainment Systems integrator: Tek Signals, Abu Dhabi

Syrian TV was gifted a state-of-the-art TV centre that was funded by Dubais state-backed media conglomerate, Dubai Media Inc, that went on air in September.

The project comprised a news production facility including a main studio, an exchange studio, a newsroom system, non-linear editing suites, an on-air graphics system, video servers, and a data tape archive system. The news production

facility is linked to the main TV centre by a microwave link backed up by a

point-to-point bre optics link.At the heart of the centre is a tapeless

newsroom system from VSN that controls the whole work ow from ingest to editing and

news preparation to playout and archiving. VSN was chosen because of its ease of use, compatibility with the Arabic lan-guage and seamless integration with the di erent modules of the newsroom system, namely ingest, playout, graphis system, wires feeds from news agencies and MAM.

The newsroom installation covers 40 journalists desk-tops, eight postproduction non linear editing (NLE) suites and o ers completely redundant PCR and MCR playouts. Expanding the number of video ingest lines, journalists, NLEs, MCR Playouts, PCR playouts, capacity of the online storage, capacity of the near-line storage and so on will be

easy with this solution, claims VSN. Other key kit include Sony E30 cameras, its DVS-9000 production switcher backed up by a Sony MFS-2000 production switcher and a 24ft Jimmy Jib crane, Final Cut Pro and Sony Vegas solu-tions, Miranda X3D powered by a real-time 3D engine from Ventuz, and an o ine graphics preparation station, fully integrated with the NRCS system.

Salam MediaCast has also provided a Qualstar TLS-88132 tape library with 2 LTO-4 drives and 132 tapes, fully controlled by VSNs HSM for data storage.

End user: Syrian TVClient: Dubai Media Inc.Main location: SyriaSystems integrator: Salam MediaCast, QatarTask: Building of a new newsroom and related facilities for Syrian TV

2AL DAFRAH

SI: TEK SIGNALS

3SYRIAN TV

SI: SALAM MEDIACAST

TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

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The Saudi Ministry of Culture and Infor-mation (MOCI) unveiled a brand new, state-of-the-art HD facility in Dammam just after Eid. The $26 million project includes two studios one for production and the other for news.

What makes this facility a showcase is the fact that it houses one of Saudi MOCIs newest HD studios and follows a tapeless work ow. All of Saudi MOCIs new projects are aimed at adopting 720p with a migratory path to 1080i in the future. The equipment at the facility, therefore, fully supports 720p from the Hitachi SK-3200P cameras to the Harris solutions and the Kahuna switcher.

The lighting in these studios again is impressive. Key systems deployed include 500 Channels of ADB Eurodim3 Dimmer Cabinet with Redundant Control System (wired and wireless), 70 x LSI motorised hoists with 4 x 3m poles operated pantograph in each barrel, touch screen control for the hoists, and approximately 400 assorted types of luminaires. Each studio lighting control (ADB PHOENIX 5/XT) has a redundant con guration to ensure that there is no single point of failure in

the lighting control system. At the heart of this installation are several Harris systems including the Nexio servers, the Centro multi-viewers,

the Navigator and Velocity that run the show across di erent parts of the facility.

Special mention must be made of the master control room that doesnt just control and monitor the

equipment in the control apparatus room (CAR) and the studios but also helps to bridge the studios with other TV facilities of the MOCI. Besides this, the playout is controlled by a central server at the MCR that provides feeds to Saudi TV in Riyadh. The facility is also equipped to receive external feeds from M/W and satellites.

At the Dammam facility, the equipment is located entirely in the CAR and end users merely operate from a central server.

Client: Saudi Ministry of Culture and InformationMain location: Dammam, Saudi ArabiaSystems integrator: First Gulf Company, KSATask: Building a state-of-the-art TV facility in Dammam

4DAMMAM STUDIO

SI: FIRST GULF CO.

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TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

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TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

Four years after it was rst conceived and despite being stalled several times with the rise and fall of di erent politi-cal players in Kuwait, the countrys rst HDTV centre went on air this year.

Kuwait TV was one of the rst broadcasters in the GCC to acknowledge High De nition as the format of the future and perhaps also the rst in the region to invest in a HD OB van several years ago.

The HDTV centre includes two studios, a master control room, two linear editing suites, one non-linear editing suite and a virtual studio.

This was a turnkey HD contract, in which INC was respon-sible for the entire broadcast project including building the studios, planning the acoustics for the same, designing, supplying, testing and commissioning the system.

Two studios were built to accommodate di erent produc-tion requirements for the state broadcaster.

The studios are equipped with Grass Valley LDK 8000 cameras and with Canon lenses because Kuwait TV wanted multi-format

cameras with triax support. The facility also includes two linear editing

suites with Sony VTRs and Kayak Vision Mixers to ac-commodate content that comes in from KTVs headquarters.

Harris provided the graphics, character generators and a couple of standalone servers for the project.

Although Kuwait TV will record and edit in High De ni-tion at the facility, transmission will continue to be in SD as the country has no plans for the commercial rollout of HDTV yet.

Client: Kuwait TVSystems integrator: INC, KuwaitTask: Turnkey project for the building of a HD facility

7KUWAIT TV

SI: INC

Twofour54 launched intaj, a multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art facility in Abu Dhabi to provide production houses and broadcasters in the region with a one-stop HD solution that will enable them to undertake their entire work ow from content generation and editing to delivery. In addition, intaj also has a media asset management facility thought to be the rst such service in the region.

intaj currently operates ve studios and 22 post production suites from two sites in Abu Dhabi located at the National Theatre site and Khalifa Park. The entire project was designed and installed

at the facility by Sony Professional Solutions Middle East in conjunction with the intaj team headed by Hasan Sayed Hasan, head of intaj.

This facility has primarily been designed to o er two-four45s partners and other producers in the region with the ability to use industry-standard solutions for their production work. As a result, great attention has been paid to put in place both cost e ective as well as high-end solutions so that clients will have the exibility to opt for solutions that meet their budget requirements.

Much of the installation at the facility is based on the anticipated requirements of most production houses. In addition, intaj has also employed highly skilled people to man its operations so as to ensure that clients can maximise the potential of its equipment.

Client: twofour54 intajMain location: Abu DhabiSystems integrator: Sony Professional Solutions METask: Building a turnkey production and editing facility for twofour54

6TWOFOUR54 INTAJ

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TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

8AL AHLY TV

SI: SYSTEMS DESIGN

Al Ahly TV, launched in early 2009 by Egypts famed football club Al Ahly, tted out a 400m studio that could accommo-date four sets, at Egyptian Media Production City for the broadcast of the clubs matches. The project was undertaken by Egyptian systems integrator Systems Design.

Key to the project was the clubs investments in several Sony and Panasonic SD cameras to facilitate the production of in-house programmes and commentary to complement the broadcast of the football games.

The Sony E30 cameras were chosen for the studios while Pa-nasonics AJHPX500 cameras were chosen for outdoors shoots owing to the exibility provided by the P2 technology to work in a tapeless environment. Al Ahly follows a tapeless work ow.

Typically, feeds of a match are sent to Al Ahly from state

broadcaster Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) , which undertakes production

at the venue of the matches. At Ahlys studios, the footage is then repackaged with special

in-house commentary and analysis, on-air logos, graphics and other branding elements before it is sent to

air. The backbone of the tapeless work ow at the channel is a turnkey broadcast solution from Harris, which covers everything from production, automation and signal processing to channel branding, graphics and test and measurement.

Client: Al Ahly TVMain location: EgyptSystems integrator: Systems DesignTask: Kitting out a studio for the production and broadcast of matches

Saudi MOCI undertook two major radio projects in the Kingdom this year. The rst comprised a major upgrade in Riyadh while the second will see Jeddah also have a radio install similar in scale to Riyadh.

At the heart of both the Radio Riyadh and Jeddah installations are NETIAs Radio-Assist System. The rst was undertaken by the companys local distributor, Jamal Jaroudi Group, while the second was handled by German SI BFE in conjunction with local Saudi distributor DELTA.

The Radio Riyadh project incorporated 15 on-air and recording studios, along with extra studios that serve as backup in the case of an emergency; a total of 65 editing workstations; and six archiving workstations. The interface for the Radio-Assist system at Radio Riyadh is in Arabic.

This installation features NETIAs Media Management, which

handles the circulation of data to ensure that les are always available at the right place, at the right time,

for di erent activities, such as production, broadcast, and archiving. Radio Riyadhs archives rely on NETIAs Archive software, which directs media storage on SAN hard disks.

The Jeddah install, by comparison, includes nine On Air Studios, nine recording studios, four editing rooms, approximately fteen newsrooms and eight archiving workstations, all of which run on Radio Assist software.

Client: Saudi MOCIEnd user: Radio Riyadh and Jeddah radio.Systems integrator: Radio Riyadh (Jamal Jaroudi Group) ; Radio in Jeddah (BFE, Germany & DELTA, KSA)Task: Installation of a turnkey radio solution

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TOP 10 PROJECTS


COVER STORY

Arabian Radio Network (ARN), the radio arm of Arab Media Group, undertook a major upgrade of its facility in Dubai Media City this year. This was the rst high-pro le radio installation undertaken by Al Futtaim Technologies, which marked its entry into the radio business with this project.

Al Futtaim Technologies installed ve edit studios and one additional edit room for recording news and editing clips at ARN. A signi cant part of this project was the replacement of the Studer 2000 with the Studer On-Air 2500 console, the rst of the new model to the installed in the Middle East. Unlike the modular 2000 model, the 2500 is a single unit that is portable and can be t onto any studio console.

Besides upgrading from legacy systems to new solutions, this project also aimed to connect all of the studios to the main control room. With this, ARN achieved two objectives.

For one, by sending the signals from the studios to the control room before they were diverted to the edit, production or on-air studios for broadcast, it maintained tight control over the quality of its content. This installation in also in keeping with the companys objective of maintaining a tapeless work ow. By routing the feeds from the studio to the control room, and from here, back to the studio and on air, it permanently eliminated the use of CDs or tapes in the facility.

Client: Arabian Radio Network Main location: Dubai Systems integrator: Al Futtaim TechnologiesTask: Upgrading legacy systems, adopting a tape-less work ow and connecting the studios to the main control room.

10ARN

SI: AL FUTTAIM TECHNOLOGIES

DAVID SHEPHEARD

DECEMBER 200928

FACE TO FACE


In an exclusive interview with Vijaya Cherian, Abu Dhabis film commissioner David Shepheard talks about some of the initiatives that ADFC will undertake to boost filmmaking in the region

What are some of the initiatives undertaken by ADFC to promote lmmaking?We held the third edition of the Circle Confer-ence (my rst here) in October, which was very successful as we had more than double the participation compared to last year. More than 350 delegates from 30 countries attended the conference this year. Several senior TV executives and broadcasters came to Abu Dhabi to share their experiences with regional lmmakers.

TAKING ON THE REEL WORLD

The Circle provided the perfect platform to network and meet these international players. It also helped promote regional busi-nesses in the international arena as a big part of our job is to also promote the whole of the lm and TV sector here in Abu Dhabi.

However, The Circle Conference is only one project that the lm commission is deliver-ing. Outside of the conference, we have a number of other initiatives year round that are aimed at developing the lmmakers and their talent. As part of that, we will be nanc-ing a series of productions including di erent TV documentaries, short lms and feature lm project across di erent genres.

Have you launched any funding schemes yet besides the Shasha Grant?We plan to launch a number of separate funding initiatives over the next six to 12 months to help regional companies and lm-Shepheard says ADFC will launch several funding initiatives in the next 12 months.

DAVID SHEPHEARD

DECEMBER 2009 29

FACE TO FACE


makers. We have already announced a short lm scheme called A am Quaseera Produc-tion Fund last month to promote emerging writers, directors and UAE-based production companies that are looking to create short lms for international screenings and even-tual broadcast.

Twenty proposals will be selected for development, of which ten will eventually be chosen for production. We also have plans to select six half-hour documentaries that will be nanced by us.

Do you have any projects at hand and speci c budgets planned for them?We have a couple of low-budget features that were nanced through last years ef-forts at the Circle. Budgets will be smaller or bigger based on the requirement of each project. We will assess each project individu-ally for their commercial viability and try and allocate resources to them based on the need. But there is no round gure.

How is ADFC di erent from Imagenation Abu Dhabi?Imagenation is involved in high-end produc-tion funding while we seek to work with emerging lmmakers. The hardest money for lmmakers to nd is the money to develop their rst lms the lms that help them

develop their craft and trade as a lmmaker. Thats the area we are looking at; the semi-pro-fessionals and talented young lmmakers who are looking to develop their professional skills.

Have you had any success stories to date?Actually, we have. Hicham Ayouchis, a Mo-roccan lmmaker, won our $100,000 script writing prize [Shasha grant] last year.

Fox Productions has signed on to produce Ayouchis project, Samba, which will go into production early next year. So from an initial $100,000 fund, that project is now being developed up to a point where a major Hol-lywood studio is taking it on and will nance it into production.

That is a great success story and its being shot partly in the region and partly in Brazil because thats where the story is set. Once Samba goes into production, there will be a lot more PR within the industry about the rst Arabic language lm that Fox did. So for them, its breaking new ground. Its also a sign that more international players are now looking to forge new relationships with the Middle East. Obviously, with a huge Arab speaking population here, its great for them because they can then develop products for this market.

More international studios are looking to

nd out about this region and how they can partner with players here. They are looking at lmmakers and potential stories that they can take into development.

This is why we have got great hopes for Haifaa Mansour, who won the grant this year. We have provided the seed money and there has been great interest in it from industry people who want to talk to her and form a relationship. Imagenation has also signed a rst-look deal with her.

Weve already worked with her in the past because we previously funded one of her short lms, and thats the importance of our role. When we spot a good lmmaker with talent, we invest in their short lm and that then becomes like a calling card.

With Hicham, we only provided develop-ment nance for the project. But with Haifaa, we might take on more of an executive pro-ducers role to help her nd the right script editors and script consultant to lead the story on. Once the project has reached a certain developed stage, someone might o er to give it production nance.

We are working closely with her as a men-tor would. This is what we are doing with a number of our production schemes. We are using our expertise and contacts to help the lmmakers develop their lm.

DAVID SHEPHEARD

DECEMBER 200930

FACE TO FACE


How will you do that? Do you have a team of experts with you full time?Yes, I have professional producers and produc-tion executives as part of my team. If they cant help, we will contract specialists if we need support with a speci c genre. We will even look at o ering one-on-one help to our lmmakers if there is a need. We have a team of twelve now but thats quickly growing. That includes a production and training depart-ment as well as a locations and support team.

Will you support production requirements only within Abu Dhabi?No, certainly not. We will o er locations that match a particular story and help secure per-mits to work in various locations in the UAE, not just Abu Dhabi. The UAE has a diverse range of locations from mountains and deserts to urban landscapes across the di erent emirates so we will be working closely with other government organisations in the other emirates as well to ensure we can keep the production here.

Are you o ering any incentives for producers to shoot here?Its a very competitive market out there. Producers are always trying to nd where the production incentives are, or what we call soft money.

In most places, schemes are based on income tax and obviously, we dont have that here.

Its a di cult one but there are di erent models for production incentives and Im actually working on some proposals now to establish an incentive fund that makes sense for us and is also economically viable for the region.

What are some of the challenges of being a lm commissioner in the UAE?

The challenges here are mostly positive be-cause the industry is so young. We are able to look at some of the best models around the world and learn from some of the best practices to establish this kind of industry. That is the attractive part.

Starting from scratch to build a film industry is a challenge but we have big ambitions and the government is willing to provide the resources to make those ambitious happen. What we are doing here is part of the countrys 2030 plan, which sees the media industry as becoming a major contributor to the UAEs economy in the coming years. And the Abu Dhabi government has lent its complete support to try and make the film and TV sector here strong and vibrant.

What we are doing here is part of the countrys 2030 plan, which

sees the media industry as becoming a major contributor to the

UAEs economy in the coming years

David Shepheard, film commissioner of Abu Dhabi

REVIEWS, Q&As & MORE


EDITING

When Autodesk brought Alias Maya and Softimages XSI, there was some talk about the company integrat-ing its existing 3ds Max and the

newly acquired software applications into one gigantic software. People even started calling it Maxsima or Xsima.

Fortunately, Autodesk has taken some good features out of each of the apps and shared them with each other to enrich users experi-ence. At the same time, it has retained the uniqueness of each application to keep each of the individual software loyalists happy. In essence, though there has been an exchange of features between Max and Maya, the basic user interface and functionalities remain unchanged, and that is a relief.

In case of Maya 2010, Autodesk has uni ed the two titles, Maya Unlimited and Maya Complete. This has been received well, because it now has made some of the more advanced professional tools available to all users at a lower price thus encouraging commercial usage. The new users and learners might have to use their PLE (Per-sonal Learning Edition) version for starters.

Whats New: Essentially, this version includes only a few new features and most of them are post production or rendering related. This includes some great camera tracking and rendering tools.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE NEW FEATURESToxik 2010: One special feature is Toxik 2010,

MAYA INTEGRATED3D artist Suzzanne Rebello takes us through some of the key features of Maya 2010,

which combines some of the best of other apps acquired by Autodesk in recent years

the high performance compositor. Toxik which was Autodesks standalone application is now referred to as Maya Composite. It allows the art-ist to work interactively with visual media, regardless of bit-depth or image size. It also give the ability to export render passes as a pre-comp les from Maya, then gener-ate and pre-visualise compositions in Maya Composite. Furthermore, it provides support for stereoscopic content creation and can import geometry using the FBX le format.MatchMover 2010 - Professional camera tracking: Maya has always had Live which was quite widely used for matchmoving. The 2010 release has a MatchMover software


33

EDITING

www.digitalproductionme.com DECEMBER 2009

that provides a much more advanced toolset for tracking, thus replacing the Maya Live module. You can extract accurate 3D camera and motion data from video and lm sequences and then insert CG elements seamlessly into a scene using Autodesk MatchMover software.

A separate window allows you to track a sequence manually or automatically. When the process is completed, the MatchMover provides a series of tracked points as lines. These can be further simpli ed or tweaked and then exported to Maya as groups all placed under a few locators which can be accessed in the outliner.

MatchMover 2010 allows users to bet-ter map 3D imagery onto a scene, such as adding a 3D images to a 2D video. It can also generate a set of tracking points on an image to create a camera path as the video moves. This allows 3D objects to blend in seamlessly with a 2D video.

Its fast and straightforward to use. Besides, theres also a motion-capture module that allows the end user to capture data from a non-rigid bodies, such as humans, or cloth objects. Stereoscopic 3D imaging With Stereoscopic being the next big thing for lm post-production, Autodesk has updated its support in Maya.

You can take a collection of objects ar-

ranged in a suitable layout (such as near, mid-dle and far positions from the viewpoint) and Select Create > Cameras > Stereo Camera, creating a camera with three xed heads.

You can switch between di erent view-ing modes, such as Horizontal Interlace or Anaglyph by selecting the Stereo viewing mode and adjusting the attributes of the cameras to ne-tune the stereo e ect.

For example, you can increase the 3D ef-fect by decreasing the Zero Parallax setting. This moves objects closer to the camera and lets you see more depth. The stereoscopic e ect is most realistic when the Zero Parallax

Plane is exactly situated between near and far objects in your scene. We have tested this extensively and it works beautifully.

Advanced simulation tools: 2010 has nally given access to the innovative Maya Nucleus uni ed simulation framework and the rst two fully integrated Nucleus simulation modules (Maya nCloth and Maya nParticles) as well as Maya Fluid E ects, Maya Hair, and Maya Fur.

One of the bene ts of the uni ed version of Maya is that the nParticles system is now available to all users. Based on Autodesks Nucleus technology, these make creat-

Autodesk has unified Maya Unlimited and Maya Complete in the 2010 vesion.

2010 gives users access to the Maya Nucleus unified simulation framework and the first two fully integrated Nucleus simulation modules as well as Fluid Effects, Hair, and Fur.



EDITING

OS REQUIREMENTS

* The 32-bit version of Maya 2010 will be supported on the Windows Vista Business (SP1), Windows XP Professional (SP2) and Apple Mac OS X 10.5.7 operating systems.* The 64-bit version of Maya 2010 will be supported on the Windows Vista Business (SP1), Windows XP x64 Edition (SP2), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (5.3 WS) and Fedora 8 operating systems

PRICE

Price: Approx $4000. The Suites provide artists and production facilities with ac-cess to a more complete range of creative tools at more than 35% cost savings, compared to purchasing each product individually. The new Maya Entertainment Creation Suite 2010 options allow for exibility in tool choice and work ow for artists. It o ers a complete CG pipeline system and is very cost e ective for small to medium sized studios.

ing and tweaking realistic simulations of physical objects a breeze, quickly boosting the realism of your scene and minimising manual tweaking.

Maya 2010 o ers more nParticles presets in the Visor, including interactions such as an egg cracking into a frying pan, a gas ame, jet exhaust trail, nParticle rain, nParticle and uids interaction, and others that you can manipulate to t your scene.

The descriptions in the Notes sections of the nParticles Attribute Editor tabs help you better understand how the e ects in the example les were achieved. Animation: In addition to the animation Layers, in which you could do several things such as create and blend multiple types of animation onto a model. eg: an animation of a walk with another of a jump or create layers to organise new key-frame animation, or to keyframe on top of existing animation without overwriting the original curves, Maya 2010 now allows the end user to add constraints and expres-sions to animation layers.

Besides this, one can also use the Ani-mation Layer Editor to drill down through the Hypergraph to identify the nodes that control the animation. Then you use the Expression editor to write an expression and connect it to the node you want to drive. You can use expressions to drive sophisticated layered animation.

The Visor window also features a new set

of motion-capture example files. Switch-ing to the Mocap Examples tab lets you import from the list directly onto a rigged character in Maya.Export: Newly added support for the Au-todesk FBX software le transfer technology helps make it possible for artists to transfer 3D scenes built in 3ds Max, Maya, and Softim-age into Mudbox with greater portability and more data retained than was previously pos-sible using the .OBJ le format. This means greater productivity as artists no longer have to redo as much work.

RENDERING POWERWith ve additional Mental ray for Batch rendering, you can now use a network of computers to render your sequences faster. The Backburner network render queue man-ager is also included with Maya 2010, to help manage the process.

The 2010 release has new image renderings, new lters, new texture maps, and several other updates. There are also some improve-ments to existing tools. In addition, there is the new non-photorealistic render that makes your 3D objects look like drawings an inter-esting e ect to apply to an image.

I am a huge fan of Maya Paint on 3d so I particularly liked the new functionality where I can now use mirroring when doing texture painting. This saves a great deal of time and I can then use it to add more detailing.Autodesk Digital Entertainment Creation

Suite: This includes Autodesk MotionBuilder 2010 and Mudbox 2010. MotionBuilder 2010 is aimed at users of motion capture and 3D character animation. It specialises in render-ing character movement and interaction with other objects. The new version adds several new features, including increased performance to the animation engine, and the ability for users to de ne their own key-ing groups.

The Ragdoll animation mixing feature allows the user to create character thresholds. This is very useful in simulating animation on varied surfaces. There are also improvements made to the Dynamic Joints system which allow for more realistic and uid movement. Add dynamic joints into a characters hair or tails and you will get a satisfactory ow of secondaries.

The New Pose Controls allow a user to record poses for any object in a given scene, which can then be reused for animations.

Mudbox 2010 focuses primarily on model-ling objects and is comparable to moulding a character from clay.

This feature is similar to what ZBrush from Pixologic o ers. It is a highly-advanced digital sculpting software that allows artists to mould 3D objects from digital clay, paint them in 3D, and add textures and e ects to create photorealistic char-acters and objects.


36

EDITING

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Render farms are at the core of any animation or editing work. The faster you can render, the faster you can get closer to your

deadline. It is common knowledge that an exhaustive number of processor hours are required to create visual e ects and anima-tions for lms and TV shows.

For example, render times totalled 40 mil-lion hours for Monsters vs. Aliens, 30 million hours for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and 6.6 million hours for Revenge of the Sith.

A good render time for television visual e ects is anywhere between 30 minutes to one hour per frame, while multiple hours per frame is common for feature lms. Some of the IMAX resolution frames required for Devastator, a character in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, took up to 72 hours per frame.

How do studios get around this?

DIGITAL AGRICULTURE RENDER FARMSThey use render farms that are banks of machines with the express purpose of rendering finished frames. In addition to the systems that animators use, render farms simultaneously use many dedicated processors for rendering.

For instance, Industrial Light and Magic had a render farm with 5,700 processor cores (and 2,000 cores in their artists' ma-chines) when Transformers 2 was produced. Even a small facility with only a dozen animators is likely to have more than a hundred processor cores at their disposal at any point.

Use of render farms isn't restricted to large studios and 3D artists. Smaller studios have their own render farms and many freelance artists have them as well. Com-positors and freelance motion-graphics artists can also make use of them. Some editing systems support the use of ad-

ditional machines called render nodes to accelerate rendering.

This type of setup can be extended to ar-chitectural visualisation and even, to digital audio workstations.

Most 3D software and compositing applications include network rendering capabilities, and many also have some form of a network rendering controller. So, the additional nodes can be managed from your workstation, making it possible to run them as headless systems with no mouse, keyboard, or monitor.

Adding a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) client to each node allows you to remotely manage the nodes without the additional expense associated with adding a multi-channel system keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) switch for sepa-rate access to each.

The hardware in a render farm consists of

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The hand-held camcorder and its big brother, the shoulder-mounted GY-HM700 both record native QuickTime files for Final Cut Pro and XDCAM-EX files for other major non-linear editing systems*, allowing you to start editing immediately without breaking a sweat.

In addition, the camcorders record high definition video and audio directly to inexpensive, readily-available SDHC media cards, so there are no tape mechanisms or moving parts.

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EDITING

many high performance, powerful desktop and rack mounted render servers and ren-der boxes (or render nodes as they are more commonly known).

Render Servers are remotely con gured/managed CPU rendering devices that are designed to make ones creative projects easier. By removing the main rendering tasks from the design studio and onto dedicated Render Servers, they allow the end user to free up time to continue work-ing (rather than sit around waiting for the render to complete). Rendering can be done anytime, day or night with a render farm manager distributing the render jobs (maximising speed, render farm e ciency and project deadlines).

Simply put, a render farm employs many PCs simultaneously by running a queue manager on each box. The queuing soft-ware divides a job into multiple parts and decides which machine executes which part and when. Each machine refers to the job's scene le, which needs to reside in a

KEY RENDER FARM PLAYERS:Hardware:HP www.hp.comDell www.dell.comVerari Systems www.verari.comBoxx Technologies www.boxxtech.comWorkstation Specialists www.workstationspecialist.com

Software / Queue Manager Solution include:Dr.Queue www.drqueue.orgSmedge www.uberware.netQube! www.pipelinefx.comRush www.seriss.comMuster www.vvertex.com

Today, you no longer need to have a physical render farm at your o ce. There are plenty of online render farms that provide high-speed remote rendering. www.rebusfarm.com www.rendercubic.comwww.remote-render.comwww.respower.comwww.renderrocket.com

location accessible to all the machines, and renders its share of frames. Once nished, each system stores the rendered frames back to that central location, ready for review. The operating system governs the choice of queue management software.

Dr Queue won't run on Windows, for in-stance; Smedge will only run on Windows, and so forth. There are several criteria to consider while sorting through the avail-able applications.

Do you want a free or open-source ap-plication, or are you willing to pay for tech nical support?

What kinds of projects do you want to render outAutodesk Maya, 3ds max, Adobe After E ects, or any of a number of others?

It is important to pick a queue manager that sup-ports them. Amitaabh Naaraayan is a 3D and SFX professional based in Dubai.

DubaiP.O. Box: 77391, Dubai, U.A.E.Telephone: +971-(0)4 282 6070Fax: +971-(0)4 286 5626Email: [email protected]

Abu DhabiP.O. Box 97 / 36223, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.Phone: + 971-(0)2 448 1846Fax: + 971-(0)2 448 1845E-mail: [email protected]

QatarP.O. Box: 22652, Doha, QatarTel: +974 441 9459 / 437 6784Fax:+974 442 9659E-mail: [email protected]

KuwaitP.O. Box: 43748 Hawally 32052KuwaitTele-Fax: +965 2266 3152E-mail: [email protected]

SON OF BABYLON

DECEMBER 200940

ON LOCATION


Two months ago, Son of Babylon, a moving tale about a young Iraqi boy and his grandmother who go in search of her missing son, premiered at the Middle East International Film Festival. Iraqi filmmaker and the author of Son of Babylon, Mohammed Daradji tells Vijaya Cherian about the making of his film

SON OF BABYLON

SON OF BABYLON

DECEMBER 2009 41

ON LOCATION


BUDGET

US $1.9 MILLION

APPROX.

Daradji is no stranger to the lm world. In 2006, he made headlines when his rst feature, Ahlaam hit the screens. A telling story

about three inmates in a mental institution in Baghdad, Ahlaam mirrored the chaos and confusion of a war-torn Iraq following three decades of iron rule under Saddam Hussein. Daradji won more than 22 awards for Ahlaam and represented Iraq for both the Oscars and Golden Globe consideration in 2007.

Son of Babylon, his next feature, is also set in Iraq. From the mountains of the North to the sands of Babylon, Daradji takes us on a journey through di erent parts of his home country with the protagonist and his grandmother as the pair hitches rides with strangers and crosses paths with fellow pilgrims on similar quests. As the grandmother struggles to ac-cept the truth about her missing son, the little boy Ahmed retraces the footsteps of a father he never knew. The journey will not just con-nect them to the past, but will also determine their future.

The idea for Son of Babylon came to Daradji

in 2003 when he was walking along Al-Rashid Street in Baghdad, he says.

As I was walking down the road, I heard the news on a radio in a nearby shop that mass graves had been discovered near Babylon. I stopped cold in my tracks as I knew of many fathers and sons of family and friends who had disappeared over the years. My thought went back to my auntie, whose son had gone missing 15 years ago. Despite these mass graves bring uncovered, many people still remained missing or unidenti ed. It was then that the ideas for Son of Babylon came up. I wanted to bind two generations the older steeped in su ering; the younger bearing hope for the future. A mothers search for her lost son; a boys journey to nd himself and his father, explains Daradji.

Over four years, day and night, I prepared and wrote the script while gathering the archival footage of what had hap-pened, he adds.

Scripted along with another Iraqi and British

script writers, Daradji set forth to make his lm in Baghdad.

As a cinematographer, who graduated with a double masters from the UK in both cinema-tography and directing, Daradji preferred the traditional approach of shooting with 35mm.

I am from the old school of thought so I prefer shooting with lm. However, I recently saw what the digital format could do and am seriously considering shooting my next lm with a digital camera, he con des.

Filming in Iraq posed several challenges for Daradji.

For one, every single element that was required for the lm had to be brought into the country including the lm stock, cameras and other kit.

Secondly, lming in a country ridden with daily power cuts

meant driving around with a generator all the time. Se-

curity issues also deterred Daradjis foreign crew from staying in Iraq for too long. He had to rely

SON OF BABYLON

DECEMBER 200942

ON LOCATION

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