Pro Tools and Video work in tandem to deliver customer success at Channel 4 UK
Located at Channel 4’s offices in Westminster, London, the Red Bee Media Production centre provide post production facilities to the Channel. Red Bee have a mixture of Media Composers, Symphony Nitris, Digital Tape suites and 2 Pro Tools suites, one housing a D-Command and the other a Command/8.
Although the significant change ahead for Channel 4 and Red Bee Media Production was the migration of playout from in-house facilities to an offsite facility – a more local challenge was to upgrade their current Avid installation to include an Interplay database and extend the viewing and logging application to production areas located elsewhere in the building.
The team were also adopting a new audio workflow – moving sequences seamlessly between the final picture edit and the final audio mix – and back again, with numerous versions to contend with. All using Interplay with a Video Satellite in the dubbing theatre. This required careful workflow planning with their senior operational stakeholders and entailed subsequent user training.
For the first time Avid presented a united workflow and training offering with Claire Humphries (EMEA, Training and PSG) providing workflow and training for all things video and Interplay and Andy Baker (formerly of Digidesign) providing workflow and training for Pro Tools 8.0, Media Composer Video Satellite and the Pro Tools/Interplay workflow.
Claire and Andy presented a united workflow session to the team which enabled a clear, transparent and efficient workflow to be designed across both departments. Editing stakeholders were encouraged to attend, and vice versa; the dubbing mixers had a say in the final edit preparation of the video workflow.
Not only did this engage both craft departments, ensuring that all technical and creative requirements were represented, but the customer was delighted to see Avid working as a team. Formerly, customers saw Digidesign support and training as a totally separate offering to Video workflow consultancy and training. Now the customer sees a One Avid approach helping them to achieve success in their programme making.