Clear Cut Pictures Newsletter

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HD Drama Docs at Clear Cut Pictures

Post Produced at Clear Cut, BBC'S recently transmitted 3 one-hour Drama–Doc series 'Lost Cities of the Ancients' & 6 part series 'Ancient Rome – the Rise and Fall of an Empire'.

BBC History flagship HD series 'Lost Cities of the Ancients', 'The Dark Lords of Hattusha', 'The Cursed Valley of the Pyramids', and 'The Vanished Capital of the Pharoah', was fully posted at Clear Cut from offline to grade, QC & delivery master.

HD in varied formats posed challenges to get the best out of HD's fantastic potential.

HD Rushes were captured from Panasonic DVCPro HD, Varicam and Sony HDV. The series was Offlined on Avid Adrenaline, with shared media on Unity version 4, then Onlined by Bruno Mansi on Avid Symphony Nitris and graded by colourist Simon Astbury in Clear Cuts' superb Edifis F/stop suite. Danny Finn audio–mixed the series in Clear Cuts' Surround–Sound theatre 3, versatile enough to be an ideal setting for dubbing both the Drama & Documentary elements.

Careful Scheduling dovetailed in complex versioning in different transmission lengths for BBC Worldwide, National Geographic and ZDF. This was achieved using Clear Cuts' versatile HD Sony SRW 5500 & J30 HDCam decks.

The acquisition of the 'arm & a leg' Sony SRW 5500 is a significant investment for Clear Cut Pictures, demonstrating our total commitment to affordable HD excellence for our clients.

The experience gained on this and other high-profile HD projects, proves Clear Cut is an excellent Post House choice for complex HD projects with multiple deliverables.

Ancient Rome – The Rise And Fall Of An Empire

For the first time on television, this is the story of the first and greatest superpower, told as a factual drama shot in Bulgaria, Morocco and Tunisia. It's the story of some of the most powerful rulers in history and of how their greed, lust and ambition shaped the world.

6 x1 hour BBC1 Autumn 2006 'Caesar', 'Constantine', 'Nero', 'Rebellion', 'Revolution' & 'The Fall'.

All six films are entirely dramatised, the dialogue is contemporary while based on rock–solid historical Roman sources. There is no presenter, archive, stony–faced academic line–up and no one digging bits of pottery out of the ground. Just a superb cast, set in spectacular surroundings mixing CGI, models and live action.

Post House of choice for the BBC History department on this multi–million pound blockbuster series was Clear Cut Pictures.

Three editors from the series went on location with computers & laptops. Clear Cuts' Horacio Queiro edited daily scenes in Morocco for the 'Rebellion' episode, using Avid Xpress on his laptop, linked to backed-up fire–wire drives and networked with an Avid Adrenaline & a PC containing a huge selection of sound effects, atmospheres & battle sounds! The episode was shot on Ridley Scots' Kingdom of Heaven set, used to recreate ancient Jerusalem. The series was filmed using up to 4 cameras to give maximum coverage.

Vital statistics – on the first day of the Nero shoot eleven murders had to be scheduled and shot, so 20 litres of fake blood were used and 50kgs of silicone to make the prosthetic moulds for the fake body–parts.

Audio Newsflash!

Our popular Sound Department are very happy to announce that due to lots of companies wanting to audio mix at Clear Cut Pictures, dubbing mixer & editor, Liam Milner has joined our audio team. Formally at TSI, Liam worked on such shows as 'What Not To Wear', 'Child of Our Time', 'Masterchef' and 'Secret life of…'. Liam's already gained credits at Clear Cut for 'Perfection', 'Teen Tycoons' and 'The rise and Fall of Rome' DCI versions.

Clear Cut Hires Pinewood

Current Feature Films in Post Production using equipment from Clear Cut Hires include:

Available from Clear Cut Hires is a large range of fully-supported Avid FCP or Lightworks systems with or without networked storage, anywhere in the world. Call Fazal on 0845.257.0500

Meet Harding fails head–On!

Technical review is a complex hurdle at the best of times, regardless of the Broadcaster, but forewarned is forearmed! Clear Cut now offers a swift 'Harding report' service with a full printout alerting you to frames and shots likely to fail review. We can also do the fixes for you if that's useful.

Contact Clear Cut's bookings department on 0207.605.1700 for more details of this new service.

Clear Cut Talent Agency

Clear Cut Talent, now in its 6^th month of successful operation, was conceived from a steady stream of requests to Clear Cut Pictures for us to recommend skilled editors, which we were happy to do. We wanted to provide a more organised level of service and introduce a structure that would actively promote the many skilled professionals on our books, so Clear Cut Talent was born.

"Our clients asked our advice on editors both on a creative and technical level" comments Jo Beighton, Clear Cut Pictures MD "I wanted to keep this uniqueness and create a company with the structure that you would expect from an agency. It took some time, but Nicky Smith joined us in January."

Nicky has an extensive background in media recruitment, having had 3 successful years with a leading media agency and as a senior recruiter working for Channel 4. "The combination of Nicky's and our assessment experience has created a really powerful service".

Clear Cut Talent offers a swift no-fee service to identify, match and present a selection of freelancers for you to choose from. "Whether your Post is at Clear Cut or not, we are still committed to finding you the correct personality." says Nicky Smith. "Editors are screened technically, so we can confidently stand behind their skills. I don't believe anyone else does this, but we believe it's imperative."

Nicky also offers a permanent media recruitment service for various sectors including production. "Having so many clients on our books proves to us that Clear Cut Talent is really working and I'm delighted to have placed permanent Production Managers and AP's. I'm now looking to fill Pr-editor (Producer/Editor) vacancies".

If you are recruiting, need an Editor, or are looking for a new role yourself, just contact Nicky Smith on 0207 605 1752

Clear Cut Pictures Group Newsletter September 2006