1.
X TECH FOCUS: Blackmagic Design URSA Camera, Marshall V-LCD71MD Monitor, ProAm USA Autopilot Camera Stabilizer
VIDEO
digital
JANUARY 2015
GOING WILDFOCUS ON THE FILM’S HANDHELD CAMERAWORK
BUYER’S GUIDE:
MONITORS

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DIVINE ACCESS LEARN
E
ditors like the integration of Adobe’s soft-
ware, especially Dynamic Link and Direct
Link between creative applications. This
sort of approach is applied to collaborative work-
flows with Adobe Anywhere, which permits mul-
tiple stakeholders, including editors, producers
and directors, to access common media and pro-
ductions from multiple, remote locations.
One company that has invested in the Adobe
Anywhere environment is G-Men Media of Venice,
Calif., where Adobe Anywhere serves as the
company’s postproduction hub. By using Adobe
Anywhere, Jeff Way (COO) and Clay Glendenning
(CEO) sought to improve the efficiency of the
filmmaking process for their productions. This
is no science project—they have now tested the
concept in the real world on several indie feature
films.
Their latest film, Divine Access, produced by The
Traveling Picture Show Company in association
with G-Men Media, is a religious satire centering
on reluctant prophet Jack Harriman. Forces both
natural and supernatural lead Harriman down
a road to redemption culminating in a final
showdown with his longtime foe, Reverend Guy
Roy Davis.
Steven Chester Prince (Boyhood, The Ringer, A
Scanner Darkly) moves behind the camera as the
film’s director. The entire film was shot in Austin,
Texas, in May of 2014, but the processing of dailies
COLLABORATION, COMMON MEDIA
AND CLOUD MANAGEMENT
Assembling Divine Access with Adobe Anywhere Workflow
OLIVER PETERS
Executive producer Clay Glendenning reviews dailies on set in Austin,Texas, via G-Men’s remote Anywhere server in Los Angeles.

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and all postproduction took place at the Venice,
Calif., facility.
Way explains, “During principal photography
we were able to utilize our Anywhere system to
turn around dailies and rough cuts within hours
after shooting. This reduced our turnaround time
for review and approval, thus reducing budget line
items. Using Anywhere enabled us to identify cuts
and mark them as viable the same day, reducing
the need for expensive pickup shoots later down
the line.”
THE PRODUCTION WORKFLOW
Director of photography Julie Kirkwood (Hello I
Must Be Going, Collaborator, Trek Nation) picked
the ARRI Alexa for this film; scenes were recorded
as ProRes 4444 in 2K. An on-set data wrangler
would back up the media to local hard drives
and then a runner would take the media to a
downtown upload site. The production company
found an Austin location with 1 GB upload speeds,
which enabled them to upload 200 GB of data in
about 45 minutes. Only rarely was more than 80
GB uploaded at a time, since uploads happened
several times throughout each day.
Way explains, “We implemented a technical
pipeline for the film that allowed us to remain
flexible. Adobe’s open API platform made this
possible. During production, we used an Amazon
S3 instance in conjunction with Aspera to get the
footage securely to our system and also act as a
cloud backup.”
By uploading media to Amazon and then
downloading it into their Anywhere system in
Venice, G-Men now had secure, full-resolution
media in redundant locations. Camera LUTs sent
with the camera files could be added to the media
for editorial purposes in Venice. Amazon will be
providing a long-term archive of the 8 TB of raw
media for additional protection and redundancy.
This Anywhere/Amazon/Aspera pipeline was
supervised by software developer Matt Smith.
Back in Venice, the download and ingest into
the Anywhere server and storage network was
an automated process that Smith programmed.
Glendenning explains, “It would automatically
populate a bin named for that day with the
incoming assets. Wells [Phinny, G-Men editorial
assistant] would be able to grab from subfolders
named ‘video’ and ‘audio’ to quickly organize
clips into scene subfolders within the Anywhere
production that he would create from that day’s
call sheet. Wells did most of this work remotely
from his home office a few miles away from the
G-Men headquarters.” Footage was synced and
logged for on-set review of dailies and on-set cuts
the next day. Phinny effectively functioned as a
remote DIT in a unique way.
Remote access in Austin to the Adobe Anywhere
production for review was made possible through
an iPad application. Way explains, “We had close
contact with Wells via text message, phone and
e-mail. The iPad access to Anywhere used a secure
VPN connection over the Internet. We found that a
4G wireless data connection was sufficient to play
the clips and cuts. On scenes where the director had
concerns that there might not be enough coverage,
the process enabled us to quickly see what we
had. No time was lost to transcoding media or to
Adobe Anywhere iPad app displaying dailies and selects on
set remotely from G-Men’s Anywhere server in Los Angeles
Director of photography Julie Kirkwood and director
Steven Chester Prince on the set of Divine Access

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exporting a viewable copy, which would be typical
of the more traditional way of working.”
CREATIVE EDITORIAL MIXING
ADOBE ANYWHERE AND AVID
MEDIA COMPOSER
Once principal photography was completed,
editing moved to the G-Men mothership. Instead
of editing with Premiere Pro, however, the team
used Avid Media Composer. According to Way,
“Our goal was to utilize the Anywhere system
throughout as much of the production as possible.
Although it would have been nice to use Premiere
Pro for the creative edit, we believed that going
with an editor who shared our director’s creative
vision was the best for the film. Kindra Marra
[Scenic Route, Sassy Pants, Hick] preferred to cut in
Media Composer. This gave us the opportunity to
test how the system could adapt to already existing
Adobe productions.”
G-Men has handled post on other productions
where the editor worked remotely with an
Anywhere production. In this case, since Marra
lived nearby (in Santa Monica), it was simpler just
to set up the cutting room at their Venice facility. At
the start of this phase, assistant editor Justin (J.T.)
Billings joined the team.
Avid has implemented subscription pricing
across its product line, so G-Men set up the Divine
Access cutting room with a Mac Pro and “rented”
the Media Composer 8 software for a few months.
The Anywhere servers are integrated with a Facilis
Technology TerraBlock shared storage network,
whichiscompatiblewithmosteditingapplications,
including both Premiere Pro and Media Composer.
The Mac Pro tower was wired into the TerraBlock
SAN and was able to see the same Alexa ProRes
media as Anywhere.
According to Billings, “Once all the media was
on the TerraBlock drives, Marra was able to access
these in the Media Composer project using Avid’s
AMA linking. This worked well and meant that
no media had to be duplicated. The film was cut
solely with AMA-linked media. External drives
were connected to the workstations for nightly
backups as another layer of protection.”
ADOBE ANYWHERE ATTHE FINISH LINE
Once the cut was locked, an AAF composition
for the edited sequence was sent from Media
ComposertoBlackmagicDaVinciResolve11,which
was installed on an HP workstation at G-Men. This
unit was also connected to the TerraBlock storage,
so media instantly linked when the AAF file was
imported. Freelance colorist Mark Todd Osborne
graded the film in Resolve 11 and then exported a
(continued on page 56)
G-Men Media’s production workflow uses Adobe Anywhere to connect the Venice,
Calif., facility with the Austin production team.
Jeff Way (left) and Clay Glendenning of G-Men Media
G-Men’s postproduction workflow uses Adobe Anywhere to combine various
software tools.

5.
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new AAF file corresponding to the rendered media,
which now also existed on the SAN drives. This
AAF composition was then re-imported into Media
Composer.
Billings continues, “All of the original audio
elements existed in the Media Composer project
andtherewasnoreasontobringthemintoPremiere
Pro. By importing Resolve’s AAF back into Media
Composer, we could then double-check the final
timeline with audio and color-corrected picture.
From here, the audio and OMF files were exported
for Pro Tools [sound editorial and the mix are being
done out-of-house]. Reference video of the film for
the mix could now use the graded images. A new
AAF file for the graded timeline was also exported
from Media Composer, which then went back into
Premiere Pro and the Anywhere production. Once
we get the mixed tracks back, these will be added
to the Premiere Pro timeline. Final visual effects
shots can also be loaded into Anywhere and then
inserted into the Premiere Pro sequence. From
here on, all further versions of Divine Access will be
exported from Premiere Pro and Anywhere.”
Glendenning points out, “To make sure the
process went smoothly, we did have a veteran
postproduction supervisor—Hank Braxtan—
double-check our workflow. He and I have done a
lot of work together over the years, and he has more
than a decade of experience overseeing an Avid
house. We made sure he was available whenever
there were Avid-related technical questions from
the editors.”
Way says, “Previously, on postproduction of
[the 2013 indie film] Savageland, we were able to
utilize Anywhere for full postproduction through
to delivery. Divine Access has allowed us to take
advantage of our system on both sides of the
creative edit, including principal photography and
post finishing through to delivery. This gives us
capabilities through entire productions. We have
a strong mix of Apple and PC hardware and now
we’ve proven that our Anywhere implementation
is adaptable to a variety of different hardware
and software configurations. Now it becomes a
non-issue whether it’s Adobe, Avid or [Blackmagic
Design] Resolve. It’s whatever the creative needs
dictate. Plus, we are happy to be able to use the
fastest machines.”
Glendenning concludes, “Tight-budget projects
have tight deadlines, and some producers have
missed their deadlines because of post. We installed
Adobe Anywhere and set up the ecosystem
surrounding it because we feel this is a better
way that can save time and money. I believe the
strategy employed for Divine Access has been a great
improvement over the usual methods. Using Adobe
Anywhere really let us hit it out of the park.” dv
ABC..................................................................39
Adobe ........................................................32, 51
Aframe.............................................................10
Amazon ...........................................................52
Apple ...................................................10, 31, 52
ARRI......................................... 12, 15, 20, 27, 52
Aspera..............................................................52
Atlas Entertainment .......................................26
Atomos ............................................................40
Autodesk ...........................................................6
Avid................................................10, 24, 32, 53
BENT Image Lab.............................................10
Blackmagic Design.........................8, 39, 44, 53
Bon Electronics...............................................41
Brick City Television.........................................8
Canon U.S.A....................................8, 29, 36, 48
Carl Zeiss.........................................................15
Cartoon Network ............................................10
CBS ..................................................................12
Chopperguy Aerial Video...............................39
Clear Channel Communications ..................40
CNN...................................................................8
CompactFlash Assoc......................................45
Cooke Optics...................................................27
Crazy Duck Productions ................................40
Datavideo........................................................41
DAX..................................................................23
Deluxe Labs.......................................................6
DJI....................................................................58
EditShare.........................................................24
EIZO.................................................................41
Encore................................................................6
Facilis Technology..........................................53
FilmLight...........................................................6
G-Men Media..................................................51
Harbor Picture Company...............................20
HBO .......................................................6, 10, 48
HP ....................................................................53
Hula Post Production.....................................10
ikan Corp.........................................................41
iZotope ............................................................31
JVC.............................................................36, 42
Marshall Electronics.................................28, 39
Microsoft ...................................................31, 56
New Line Cinema...........................................45
Nipros..............................................................42
OneRiver Media..............................................46
Open Road Films............................................10
Panasonic..................................................30, 42
Panavision.......................................................27
Plura Broadcast...............................................38
Prime Focus Technologies.............................23
ProAm USA ...............................................34, 43
RED Digital Cinema .................................40, 58
Sixteen19.........................................................10
Skype ...............................................................23
SmallHD..........................................................40
Sony.....................................................38, 40, 58
Sony Creative Software ..................................31
SportsNet New York........................................38
Stargate Studios ..............................................27
Syfy...................................................................26
TC Electronic ..................................................32
The Traveling Picture Show Company..........51
Tiffen Steadicam.............................................16
TVLogic ...........................................................42
Universal Cable Productions.........................26
Vision Research ..............................................40
VMware ...........................................................46
Zplane..............................................................31
COMPANY INDEX
LEARN
(continued from page 53)
G-Men’s Adobe Anywhere hardware installation fits into
a single rack in their server closet.