Studio

At the Santa Ana studio we have a Flame suite and a FCP based HD suite. The studio has a full kitchen and comfortable common areas for meetings. Our building is a modern loft space with 12 ft ceilings and a non-traditional layout. When we fitted out the studio we hid over five miles of cable within the walls and attic space. The result is that we have almost all of the hardware concentrated in a machine room with dedicated air conditioning. This means that the suites are peaceful and tranquil, without the hum of drive and fans. It also means that the workstations are very flexible and can be switched around very easily. An artist working some 3D in the Mac suite on one machine can re-patch their machine to the Flame suite to support a session.

The Flame suite boasts a 65" Professional Plasma display in addition to a calibrated ECinema display. The second artist's seat can support with anything from Motion Graphics to 3D.

The Final Cut suite also uses a an ECinema calibrated display and two workstations. Although this room has full blackout curtains, it is possible to pull them back and enjoy the view. During long editorial sessions this can be very refreshing!

Sometimes we have one project divided across five seats, each working on one aspect or part of the job, or five artists may be working on unique jobs. We also make extensive use of remote collaboration. We have artists that work with us from all over this country and beyond. Through extensive use of FTP and collaborative on-line review software we can add these artists to our team seamlessly. The concept of remote collaboration also extends to our clients. There have been jobs where we never even met the client. The source assets and final shots were exchanged over the net. This use of the internet within our work extends to the client who is a block away or a state away. We provide secure areas on-line for the review of the latest shots and for posting assets and elements.

Tools

The Flame | The Flame is ideal for client attended sessions. The responsiveness of the system gives realtime feedback for finishing at any resolution. Flame used to be a limited to single shots, with Flame 2010 we have a fully featured timeline and can easily conform complete jobs. Why Flame over Smoke? Flame offers all of the visual effects tools we need to tackle complex shots. Our system is fully loaded with the Saphire sparks and Furnace from the Foundry. There are sixty Flames at facilities in LA, now there is one in Orange County.

Final Cut Studio | We use our Final Cut systems to support and compliment the Flame. They are used for the editorial work and for compiling and managing effects shots that may be worked on using a variety of software. We use Kona 3 cards in our 8 core Macs and dedicated XRaids attached by fiber channel.

Compositing, Motion Graphics & 3D | We use the tool that is best suited for the: shot, budget and schedule. Shake, still a favorite in the film industry, is often our choice for complex compositing. After Effects is very well suited to Motion Graphics and Maya is our choice for 3D. We also use the Imagineer tools, Monet, Mocha and Mokey.

Workflow & Pipelines | With every project we look at the workflow and choose the optimum pipeline to achieve the best results possible. In the case of new technologies like the RED camera we have researched and tested many different approaches to this new workflow. For some jobs we have done all of our compositing using 4K dpx files all the way back to Final Cut, to maintain the highest possible resolution possible. In the case of the Paul Mitchell project where we shot twenty hours of RED footage at double HD (3840 x 2160 pixels) we used RED Rushes to convert the material to HD Pro Res 422HQ movies. Now with our Flame system new possibilities have opened up for working with the r3d files. Each job is unique and with such cutting edge technology such as the RED system our experience and knowledge puts us in a very good position. We do not own a RED camera, we work with DPs who have them. We do own a Sony EX1 XDCAM, which we use for pick up shots and elements that we need during compositing.

Formats | We are wired for everything. We own SP Beta & Digi-Beta decks and can add HD decks as needed.

Neighborhood

The Artist's Village in Santa Ana is unlike most of Orange County. An urban environment with a stimulating mixture of old and new, with its sidewalk cafes and restaurants along 2nd Street promenade, it feels like a small slice of Europe transported to California. Many of the neighboring historic buildings have been renovated and re-purposed. The city of Santa Ana spent $7.5 million to purchase and refurbish what was the Grand Central Building—originally built in 1924 the building served as the central market for Orange County up until the 1940s. It now houses the Cal State Fullerton Grand Central Art Center, a mixed residential, commercial and educational complex. The Santora building, once a speakeasy during prohibition, is now home to restaurants and galleries. DGWB, our neighbors, took the derelict town hall building and turned it into a stunning space. Our studio is located on the east side of the Village in the new Artist Walk Lofts.

The first Saturday of the month is a great time to visit the Village. There is an Art Walk and the area is usually buzzing with people. All of the galleries are open and often there is music on the streets.