market intelligence

Making movies at the speed of light

A growing new market is providing fertile ground for fiber-based broadband-services companies. As predicted by industry visionaries, the need for transporting huge files of information many miles in a matter of minutes has come to pass. The film and television programming industry is seeing the light-not to mention, the value-in optical broadband communications.

One pioneer in providing broadband video services to the entertainment industry is JCI Corp., created in 1997. The company was formed specifically to create a next-generation telecommunications network-a proprietary, interactive, and dedicated digital communications network, or extranet-to meet the heavy demands for digital collaboration in areas such as entertainment creation. The JCI Extranet, through the use of its FIRELINE suite of digital collaboration tools, provides protocol and hardware independence, self-provisioning, on-demand service, dedicated access, and pay-per-use billing-all across fiber. Gigabyte-sized digital files can be transported at ultra-high speed as well as online storage and videoconferencing at 30 frames per second. These technologies appeal directly to post-production activities in the making of a film.

"Film and television entertainment is usually created through a consortium or supply chain of production partners," explains John Marshall, founder and CEO at JCI. "The creative output of each must be shared for review and integration throughout the production process. Files are very large-a single high-definition film frame might be 6 Mbytes in size. At 24 or 30 frames/sec [film or television, respectively], a single minute of viewing could be an 8.6-Gbyte file. While courier of tapes, which instills delays in the collaborative process, has been the only viable option for large files, our FIRELINE file transport service can turn waiting time into creative time."

Additionally, couriers have traditionally been used to move the motion capture tapes, called dailies, of on-location shooting to various locations for viewing by producers, directors, and editors. Using optical broadband transport networks can dramatically reduce production time frames and cost structures. The ability to edit scenes in real time introduces a fundamental empowerment of creative collaboration through the use of optical telecommunications.

Last September, JCI signed an initial $35-million contract with Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) to expand its network to meet the needs of North America's entertainment and post-production industry. Over the next 18 months, Lucent will provide JCI with its WaveStar OLS DWDM system, possibly including the new WaveStar LambdaRouter optical switch. Under an additional memorandum of understanding, the two companies will explore ways to use Lucent's network adapters, digital video encoding and decoding systems, ATM switching platforms, and high-speed access technologies within the JCI network.

Saving time and money

In the film industry, post-production can be a slow, costly, and labor-intensive process. Editing the raw film footage often requires transporting boxes of film from location to location, usually via a courier service. The benefit of high-speed digital transport to save time and mon ey is obvious, but there remain many skeptics in the film industry.

Broadband access has taken just 18 months to reach more than one million users, making it one of the fastest technologies on record, second only to direct broadcast satellite.

"Ideally, we would save on the cost of shipping, the time delay, and the interface is clean," says Bill Varley, chief engineer at TOYBOX Studios (Toronto). "There would be very little effort-and efficient efforts translate into real dollars and cents."

A convincing demonstration was necessary to present a favorable case for the use of optical broadband for collaborative processes. In September, about 270 entertainment industry executives were invited to the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, site of the Digital Hollywood trade show. A videoconference was set up to play a film scene from Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York City to TOYBOX Studios in Toronto to the audience at the Beverly Hilton. JCI's Marshall and Ken Topolski, a Hollywood producer, hosted and managed the demonstration.

A scene was first videoconferenced to the audience in Los Angeles, where it was fast-forwarded, played, rewound, played, and fast-forwarded. TOYBOX then inserted several hundred frames of new footage into the scene and played the new version for the audience. The second stage allowed an audience member to tell the editing studio to move a title around the screen and change its color, resize it, and rotate it. All the instructions were accomplished in a matter of seconds.

"In a stunning moment, an audience member asked the editing studio to change the color of a card in the background of the scene from yellow to red," says Mads Lillelund, vice president of new media at Lucent. "The studio did it as the audience watched. The demo was a pretty good simulation of the kinds of requests made during post-production-only this was being done in real time, collaboratively, between New York City, Toronto, and Los Angeles."

Global benefits

The post-production process requires the shooting location to send raw film footage to the studio and network to review. The executives involved in the production view the footage and make any changes they deem necessary in terms of cuts, additions, sequencing, color, placement, etc. Optical transport of the scenes enables immediate involvement from producers at all locations, speeding up the entire process. This capability could make it an invaluable tool for film producers-not just in North America, but globally.

"It breaks down the barriers of distance in this industry as productions work around the world," says Hal Rosenbluth, president of Kaufman Astoria Studios. "This broadband technology is yet another step in letting production operate on an even more efficient basis. This capability, at competitive rates, allows production companies to bring the coasts much closer to each other."

Rosenbluth sees optical broadband being applied to other areas of the industry, including film previsualization, storyboarding, teleconferencing, and distributing images for various departments within one organization. "We have previously used the Internet for some of our file transfers," says Rosenbluth. "This has worked well for next-day approval, but tends to stall out the creative process. Also, using the Internet leaves us at the mercy of the 'worldwide-wait.' A high-bandwidth network would eliminate this time sensitivity."

There are many ways the entertainment industry would benefit from advances in optical technology, particularly in broadband. According to Rosenbluth, broadcasters could sell images to a much larger audience. Film distributors could save on the cost and quality loss of release prints by delivering digital content. Special venue shows, such as prizefights and rock concerts, could reach a larger audience.

Entering the optical world via technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet and 10-Gigabit Ethernet, video-broadcasting transmission times are greatly reduced. An entire movie can be sent to post-production in minutes instead of days, dramatically streamlining the editing process.

"Audio and visual quality improve greatly with digital delivery," says Rosenbluth. "Coordination of a project being produced by a number of post-production houses can be facilitated by real-time, high-quality teleconferencing."

Rosenbluth hopes theaters will also embrace new optical broadband technologies. He was recently in the projection booth at a multiscreen theater for a preview screening of a feature TOYBOX was involved with. From the projection room, he had clear views of two theaters-one showing an "e-cinema" digital projection on film and the other showing a 35-mm release print of a different film.

"Both features originated on film, but the e-cinema projection was far superior in terms of focus, color, image stability, and cleanliness," says Rosenbluth. "The 35-mm release print audience clearly did not yet know what they were missing. They will."

Riding the light

It appears certain that broadband optical transport will sweep the entertainment industry. With today's films being produced with price tags in the hundreds of millions of dollars, segments of the process such as post-production editing are made simpler and more cost-effective. Hollywood producers are discovering that optical broadband proposes an appealing business case for their industry.

"We think the entertainment industry will be one of the first to take advantage of broadband networks," says Lillelund. "The post-production industry is clearly a first mover because of its need for fast file transfer and collaborative discussion and development of programming. This is an $8-billion annual industry whose livelihood depends on fast turnaround of high-quality image and sound."

Optical broadband may be the fastest new horse out of the gate in terms of pure opportunity. The entertainment industry, among others, shows some impressive promise for providing applications for emerging broadband equipment and services. According to Lillelund, an even larger opportunity for optical broadband exists in the digital content-distribution industry-about $20 billion this year, with projections up to $90 billion in 2004. Areas include systems and services involved in Web hosting, collocation, networking, and access-where optical systems will play a major role.