It is not surprising that Hollywood has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. After all, movie sets typically require hundreds of people who come together from all over the world to work close together. Production was halted until further notice in early spring 2020. But slowly, quietly, new movies – those filmed during the pandemic – are starting to emerge. How? Filmmakers have found ways to adapt, and now they get even more tools to film safely.
Of course, not every film needs high-tech solutions. Smaller movies, such as those from Netflix Malcolm & Marie or the recent Sundance movie How it ends, can get by with smaller, quarantined crews. But for larger, more complicated projects – the kind that require visual effects and lots of extras – technology fills the gaps on socially distant shoots. Here’s how.
Cloud busting
One of the most innovative tweaks to date comes from Frame.io. The company is best known for providing web-based tools that allow teams to peruse the daily newspapers and send notes back and forth during the editing process. But today Frame.io unveiled a new service, Camera to Cloud, which allows multiple people to work on a shot as soon as the director films it, greatly reducing the number of people on set and contributing from a safe, social (very distant place.
Here’s how it works: suppose you have an 8K RED camera on set. Using the Camera to Cloud system, that rig would connect to a transcoding box, such as a Teradek Cube 655, which records that 8K video and turns it into a smaller, easier to view / share 1080p file. That box is also connected to the internet, as is a Sound Devices deck, which collects audio from all the microphones on the set. As soon as someone “Cut!” Calls the files to be uploaded to the cloud where anyone who has been given access can view them.
From there, people like executive producers and VFX supervisors can weigh in with notes in near real time. In fact, the system allows the movie editor to work on the movie at the same time, even if they are on the other side of the planet. Once recording is complete, the video files (with separate but synchronized audio files) will automatically appear in DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, or whatever editing software they use. Once it’s there, they can drop the last shot in the timeline, apply effects and filters (like punching in a green screen), and quickly export it back to Frame.io for everyone to review and approve. Back on set, the director can view the new cut and leave notes that appear directly on the editor’s timeline with one-frame accuracy.
The files uploaded from the camera can range from 0.5 Mbps (think Zoom Quality) to 15 Mbps (Netflix-like), your choice. The top of the scale is generally more than enough for something like network news and could be broadcast immediately. For movies with a tight turnaround time, the proxy files being uploaded are edit-quality (and the audio, which is much smaller, are the originals) and can be cut right together. When the hard drive with all the files at full resolution ends up in the editing space, they can be swapped to the edit at the click of a button.
Camera to Cloud has been used in one Hollywood production: SongbirdLast summer, the disaster film, which landed on video on demand in December, became the first full production to beta test the service. Actually, Songbird was the first film to go into production after California’s strictest Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, so every effort had to be made to minimize the crew, including shooting with RED’s smallest camera (the 8K Komodo) so that the director photography could also function as a cameraman. Meanwhile, six or more executives watched from a distance as the shoot unfolded.