An Ideal World, located in Santa Ana, services production companies and advertising agencies. Robb Hart, founder, shares how portable storage can assist a sophisticated production.

Robb Hart, founder of An Ideal World

How did you get started using the Sonnet F2?

We do a range of quite fun commercials, a lot of visual effects-oriented productions. The Sonnet came into play last summer when we were shooting a commercial for Korbel champagne, which was shot with the Phantom HD and the RED camera. We were doing some high-speed stuff on the Phantom, some complicated shots with a motion control rig. [You can watch the spot on their site]. The Director, Aaron Heck, was very interested in bringing post-production onto the set. So we [my colleague and I] brought a Sonnet F2, the 640 GB version and two Macbook Pro 17” laptops. We connected our Macbooks with 2 eSATA cables and a card, giving us the ability to capture HD on set. Not only could we look at the material back from our feed, but we could also do preliminary post-production on set.

How did it work out capturing from the Phantom and the RED?

We could work in a fairly high-resolution. To give some perspective, we took a feed from the Phantom which came in at 1920×1080, and captured it at 29.97 frames per sec using the Apple ProRes HQ codec. So working with FCP, we were able to do real-time playback in HD with the ProRes codec happily…for what was an incredibly long and arduous shoot. From the RED, we took in 720p, which is all you can get from the RED, and we captured that using the ProRes HQ codec.

How was video playback?

It was impressive. The moment we finished a take, myself, the Director and the DP, would sit there and review it. We’ve all used video playback in the past, the difference being, we’d never been able to see it all that well. I know you can play it back off a camera, but when your camera’s on the end of an 18 foot motion control rig, you don’t want to climb up there to review the shot. So, to have hi-res playback on set in a portable way was phenomenal.

Have you used the Sonnet on other projects since?

We were just using the device the other week actually on a new commercial we’re doing for Barona Resort and Casino, down in San Diego. That was also a RED project, only we were using RED and multi-cam. For that project we had lots of layers, the layer where you freeze motion with the multi-cam, foreground plates and background green-screen. I was editing and compositing as we were shooting.
I realized how cool it had all become on the last day when I had to meet with the
Director to decide whether to go with a take or reshoot. I was able to set up my laptop, attached to the Sonnet in reception, editing and showing him the sequence in HD. It struck me then that we’d come to the point I’d always dreamt of. In the past to do something like that you’d have to lug a tower around the set.

So the Sonnet fits very well with a Mac?

It goes very well with the Macbook. I’m particularly pleased by that combination. You can tell that’s what they were aiming at because when you get the box, it even comes with a really cool little sleeve to put your drive in.

So, attention to detail…

Yeah, and there’s nothing like actually using it in that sort of situation. I don’t want to be on set using a thing like that and have to say to them, oh I didn’t get that piece or oops that didn’t capture. I didn’t have any problems at all like that.