In Broadcast - December 2011/January 2012 - 20

InVIEW

Film Tails Out
Hold the front page! Breaking news! 2011 is the year that film finally died – sort of. If, like me, you’ve heard the proclamation about the death of film just about every year since you came into the media industry, you’re probably quite skeptical about that statement. However, there genuinely is evidence that 2011 could be the beginning of the end for Celluloid as we know it. The first indication is that the quality of digital acquisition has officially got ‘better’ ‘than film. With cameras like the Red One hugely popular and the Arri Alexa doing great business, Sony’s F65 finally tipped the balance in the favour of the zeros and ones. The new 8k sensor digital cinema camera is the first new image capture system that matches the Academy IIF-ACES Specification. That gobbledygook essentially means that it has better colour and dynamic range than film. The second indicator is that Aaton, Arri and Panavision have all ceased production of film cameras in order to concentrate on high quality digital shooters. Put those two things together and the future looks pretty bleak for film. It may not be dead yet, but I would say its status has certainly changed. Instead of being the goto option for quality, film is now simply one of a number of creative options available to those that can afford it. Now, while the digital trend and the changing status of film, is tremendous news for certain equipment manufacturers, this shift does have implications for the rest of the production workflow. On location, when using digital cameras, you need additional ‘data wranglers’ or DITs (Digital Image Technicians) to look after the memory cards, to ensure that footage is in the right format and to maintain a consistent file naming convention. In post-production the impact is bigger still. 100% digital production requires masses of shared storage which, although more agile than standalone workstations and local storage, is not cheap. And it’s not something that can be easily charged for. I have a solution. It’s not wholly original. But it’s one that might aid the post community. Producers hire their kit and only opt to buy it when it makes sense. Post houses should be able to do likewise, freely hiring extra storage when they need it and only investing when the time is right. A huge SAN with masses of storage is great when that VFX heavy movie or drama is being post-produced, but when it’s sat doing nothing except sucking up power and money during the quiet periods, it seems like a daft investment. As an alternative, buying a basic SAN and being able to rent extra capacity on top when you need it

Medialease’s Paul Robson looks at the need for easy-to-hire storage options when it comes to digital production.
(and send it back when you don’t) would be hugely beneficial. And the cost could potentially be passed on to the producer on a projectby-project basis. I know these types of deals are available, but they need to be more commonplace. And, although I’m not 100% sold on it, there is an argument that a cloud based system could be part of the answer. We need to get over some data protection issues and the fact that you need a local back up to be totally secure. But the ability to scale up and down will be invaluable if postproduction is to avoid being drowned by the data influx of the digital revolution.

Paul Robson

In the long term, if animation and drama continue to be made overseas, this trend will start to impact on the number of qualified, skilled people in this country as there won’t be enough breeding ground here for new talent and we’ll start to fall behind the rest of the world. I mean, look what happened to Britain’s once great manufacturing sector. Almost extinct. Both animation and drama are culturally and financially important to the UK. Let’s recognise that with some financial incentives that allow producers to keep their productions – and their production spend – at home.

Essential Tax Breaks

Quick Reminder

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the UK animation industry and the need for tax breaks. It is said that if this crucial sector is to survive it needs to be given a financial helping hand so that it can compete with cheaper alternatives abroad. I agree with this. Government should definitely step in, especially in these times of austerity, but really, will they? However we should not just stop at animation, there are other parts of TV that could benefit from tax breaks. Drama is one of them. Each year millions of pounds are lost to South Africa, Hungary and other parts of the world because those countries offer tax breaks for shooting drama and we don’t.

And finally from me, a quick point on money (as that’s my thing). We’re coming towards the end of many people’s financial year and that means it’s a great time to reduce the tax bill by buying some new kit! Up to a certain threshold, both cash acquisitions and investment through Hire Purchase (HP) can be off set against that tax bill by using Capital Allowances. These are changing massively from next year and these will not be for your benefit from 2012. Ask your accountants or tax advisors, but it’s definitely worthy of investigation as buying kit this financial year is a great way of ensuring less of your hard earned profit end up in the hands of HM Revenues and Customs.

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In Broadcast - December 2011/January 2012

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