Pinewood Chooses VCube HD For High-Definition Dubbing

eMerging, distributors for Switzerland's Merging Technologies in the UK, have supplied four more high-definition Merging VCube digital video playback systems to the Pinewood Studios Group for use in their film and TV dubbing theatres, adding to the single high-definition VCube already in use at Pinewood.
Dennis Weinreich, Managing Director of Pinewood Film & TV Post, explained: "We've upgraded all of our VCubes to high definition. There are certain things that our dubbing mixers feel they can do on the VCube that they can't do on anything else."
Standard-definition Merging VCubes have been used across the Pinewood Group for several years, but following a comprehensive refit lasting nearly three years, the group's post-production facilities, based at the original Pinewood site just outside the M25 west of London and at Shepperton Studios, to the south-west of the city, have all been upgraded to incorporate high-definiton Christie projection systems, and VCube HD was chosen as the video playback platform.
Nigel Bennett, Post-production Facilities Manager at Pinewood, explains why Pinewood's dubbing stages, now rebranded after their refit as Pinewood Post, have been long-term users of Merging's VCube. "Having the flexibility of random access on a dubbing stage was a revelation when we first got the VCube. It really came home to us when we were working with Ridley Scott on Kingdom of Heaven, a few years ago.
"We were already mixing, working from a digital version of the film, but Ridley decided he wanted to remove a scene. We cut out 15 seconds in the VCube, the sound team re-conformed the stems, and then printed a reel so he could take it the States. To offer that flexibility on a dubbing stage was just marvellous; before that, the 35mm film would have had to go back to the cutting room, and it probably would have been a day-long process to re-conform picture and audio.
"Of course, now there are a lot of other systems out there, but they do not offer the same flexibility as the VCubes. If you've got a six-reel picture, you can put them together in a matter of seconds, and if there are any recuts, you can bring in a scene or end titles with great ease.
"We have had two SD VCubes at Pinewood for several years, and we purchased our first HD VCube when Ridley did Kingdom of Heaven here. We would have upgraded the VCubes sooner, but it didn't make sense to do that while we still had SD projectors. What we really wanted was a consistent workflow and automation in all of our theatres, so that we could move projects around freely and flexibly from room to room. It was hard to do that when some rooms could work in HD and others couldn't. Also, more and more of our clients wanted to work in high definition when dubbing."
According to Bennett, the move to high-definition dubbing became essential for Pinewood and kick-started the refit of the group's post-production facilities, which grew to encompass an upgrade not only of the projection and playback facilities, but also of the audio monitoring. Along with the upgrade, a new media transfer centre was opened for picture and audio laybacks.
The changes, as Pinewood Post MD Dennis Weinreich explains, have altered the mix of post-production work passing through the Group. He said: "This used to be simply a sound department for movie production, but thanks to our upgrades, we can now handle a complete digital post-production workflow for film or TV. The type of work we're doing here now is very different to how it was even three or four years ago: there's a lot more TV work, for example, and we've also started a foreign-language versioning service."
Nigel Bennett is in no doubt that the upgrades have been worthwhile. He said: "When I first started here, you'd work to a dubbing dupe, which weren't of very good quality and had no proper colour. Films often didn't really come alive until the images were replaced with the cutting copy, right at the end of the process. What we're trying to do here is offer that finished level of quality from the very start of post-production. Sound is very much built around a picture, so even when you're premixing at an early stage of production, you want the director, the editor, the sound and picture crew to be working to a good image: ideally one that looks exactly like the final image is going to look to the public. One of the biggest things that sells our rooms, now, is that people see great pictures in there, instead of a downgraded, smaller image."
Two of the four new HD VCubes are being used at Shepperton, in Theatre 1 and the Korda Theatre at that site, while a third unit joins the existing HD VCube at Pinewood and the fourth may end up in Theatre 7 at Pinewood, or in the Foley and ADR Theatre at Shepperton.
The sale of each VCube to Pinewood has been overseen by Paul Mortimer of eMerging, giving an element of continuity to all of the sales stretching back over a decade. Nigel Bennett commented: "Paul supplied us with our original SD VCubes years ago, and then handled the purchase and support of our first HD VCube in 2005, so it made sense to go back to him again for our HD upgrades."
Paul Mortimer commented: "It's rewarding to see the VCube HD upgrades completed across the whole Pinewood Group - we know they're already seeing the benefit of the consistent workflow and the improved customer satisfaction derived from working in high definition. We're confident the upgrades will keep them at the forefront of the British post-production industry."
(KMcA)