HOLLYWOOD—January 4, 2012— Warner Horizon Televisions’ reboot of the nighttime drama Dallas has become the first production to take advantage of MTI Film’s Remote Control Dailies service to ensure secure, high-quality dailies while shooting on location in Dallas.  Remote Control Dailies offers the same complete feature set that MTI Film’s Control Dailies provides in a facility setting, but configured in a portable unit for use on-set or near-set.  

Installation of Remote Control Dailies in Dallas was overseen by MTI Film’s David McClure. “Our technician arrived Saturday morning and had a post facility set up inside their production office by that afternoon,” McClure says.

Remote Control Dailies allowed the Dallas production team to reduce costs and operate more efficiently. “It was always our intention to do the color for the series at MTI and we prefer to keep our dailies and finishing at the same facility,” explains Bryan Raber, the show’s Associate Producer. “Shooting on location and shipping the drives back and forth to Los Angeles presented a number of issues: the time lost to shipping, the cost, the uncertainty of canceled or delayed flights and the security risk.”  

Remote Control Dailies offered the solution to all of these concerns.  Because the dailies are processed on location, the production doesn’t experience any of the typical delays.   iPad and editorial deliverables are ready for pickup in both Dallas and Los Angeles by 8 a.m. the following day.  The cost for both the equipment and staff is actually less than the cost of shipping would have been.  Most importantly, Raber points out, “The footage never leaves my hands. I have complete control over where it goes and when.”
Having the dailies on location makes it fast and easy to drop in additional shots or re-takes and has allowed the DP to sit in on the coloring sessions thanks to a solution provided by T-VIPS for video over IP using JPEG 2000 compression.  In a flip of the usual remote color session, both MTI’s dailies colorist Troy Davis and final colorist Steve Porter can work directly on the footage stored within the Remote Control Dailies system in Dallas from the Hollywood location at any time.

Dallas is shot on ARRI Alexa, with Remote Control Dailies processing up to 6 hours of footage each day, including ingest, audio-image synchronization, metadata collection, coloring and creating the file-based deliverables.  While the footage is being synched and colored, Remote Control Dailies automatically encodes several outputs in the background - a ProRes proxy for editorial, fully-authored DVDs for the studio, and two H.264 files, one uploaded to dax|D3 for production and a 720p chaptered file for the iPads on-set.  The editorial media is sent to L.A. electronically so it’s available to the editors first thing in the morning.

Raber has nothing but praise for the Remote Control Dailies system and service provided by MTI Film:  “It’s been a really great experience, I’ve really enjoyed it!”

McClure will continue to manage the two commercial product lines – Control Dailies and Correct DRS™ - as well as work directly with Executive Producer Barbara Marshall, Technical Director Dan Aguilar and Restoration Production Manager Bridgid O'Donnell to support the needs of the services side of the business. McClure began his career with MTI Film in 2003 doing Quality Assurance and Technical Support for Correct DRS™ in the Providence, RI office. When MTI opened the Los Angeles office in 2004, McClure added Sales Support to his repertoire. In the six years since, McClure's role has grown to include product management of both Correct DRS™ and Control Dailies, Software Sales and Development, as well as overseeing many operational policies and tools to benefit MTI's employees.

“I am thrilled to take on the new challenges that come with this position,” comments David, “It’s an exciting time for the company, and we are now in a position to more rapidly develop and test new technologies, which ultimately allows us to get higher quality solutions to market more quickly.” To that end, in the brief 6 months since moving to the Sycamore facility, MTI Film has released new versions of both Control Dailies Digital Acquisition Head and Convey dailies deliverable automation software, adding support for several new camera formats and deliverable codecs.

“The move is the right one for both MTI and for David,” continues Chernoff, “David's knowledge of the business, of our products and ability to make smart decisions and forward-looking plans is a benefit to our employees, customers and clients. With David taking on a greater leadership role, I have no doubt this new phase of MTI's evolution will be a success.”

The facility has already delivered the first season of TNT’s runaway hit Rizzoli and Isles and is currently working on the first season of CBS’s courtroom drama The Defenders. Both shows were technologically challenging due to the myriad of cameras used to shoot each day, including RED, ARRI, Sony F23, Sony EX1/EX3, Canon 5D/7D, GoPro Video, Phantom, and Nanoflash.

With their history as a respected vendor to the post-production industry, MTI Film is in a unique position as it enters the services market. “Having such a large and experienced R&D staff in house is a tremendous advantage, “ says Marshall, “Especially with the proliferation of new cameras. We’re able to be exceptionally responsive to whatever a client throws our way, even mid-season.” And while it may seem like an unusual move, Chernoff believes strongly that it is the most logical step in the evolution of the company, “We are a team of ‘obsessors’ who want to help the industry move forward. The most logical intersection of our technological, business and creative paths was to grow into a services provider. The symbiotic relationship between our commercially available software and the services we offer produces enormous benefit to customers on both sides of the business.”

Cheif Engineer John Stevens believes, “A large part of our success so far is due to the fact that we were able to build a facility from scratch using the best of the current technologies and fit together a workflow that isn’t hamstrung by any legacy equipment.”

MTI’s facility boasts an adaptable infrastructure with 5.1 Dolby sound and Davio-calibrated plasma monitors in every room, as well as a KVM framework that allows any station to perform any function. Aguilar notes, “This can benefit MTI’s clients in a number of ways, including the fact that an editor and a colorist can work alongside each other in the same room, while sitting with a client.” The facility boasts support for both Avid and Final Cut Pro, thanks to the flexibility afforded by positioning Control Dailies and Convey at the start of the process, allowing for editorial freedom of choice on each production. Final color is completed using the latest Nucoda Film Master from Digital Vision. Stevens observes, “The workflow is stunning, we’ve really pushed it right to the edge.”