Congratulations to the 2008 Emmy® Nominees & Winners.
You've earned your time in the spotlight. Enjoy every minute.
The 60th Annual Emmy® Awards represent new levels of artistic vision and creative achievement. The entire Avid family is honored to support the realization of your dreams with nominated television work receiving more than 140 nominations in 38 categories that was created using at least one Avid®, Digidesign®, Sibelius® or M-Audio® system. [press release]
Avid Family Users Nominated for 2008 Creative Arts Emmy® Award
With 34 nominations and seven Emmy wins since 2005, hit TV series Lost continued their critically acclaimed legacy by receiving an Emmy Award in the “Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One-Hour)” category and nominations in several others. While Lost uses Avid systems for offline editing, Avid Unity for shared storage and Avid DS for finishing in SD and HD, technology from Avid audio brands Digidesign and M-Audio is used to capture, mix and deliver the production’s highly realistic soundscapes.
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While much of the show is recorded in the field, all the Foley, footsteps and movement are recorded to each episode, often with the help of the M-Audio MicroTrack handheld recorder. “I use my MicroTrack on practically every episode of Lost,” said Emmy-nominated sound editor Thomas de Gorter. “The sound quality is top notch and it’s incredibly versatile—whether I’m on the mix stage grabbing an FX or Foley pick up, ‘worldizing’ effects, or even recording an ADR line. I carry it everywhere I go for recording sounds in the field.”
With a new episode of Lost to deliver each week, the team has only three days to complete the audio for broadcast. Emmy Award-winning re-recording mixers Scott Weber and Frank Morrone rely on a Digidesign Pro Tools|HD® system to assemble each show’s background audio, add sound effects and mix to picture. In addition, the studio’s Digidesign ICON D-Control® system provides unparalleled, tactile control of the Pro Tools software and native TDM plug-in effects, streamlining their workflow in a high-pressure, time-sensitive environment. “Mixing with ICON is a natural evolution for us because we had already been mixing so much through Pro Tools,” remarked Weber. “With ICON, we added input faders and now everything—all 200 plus tracks—is mixed inside the box.”
To translate and refine the pristine high-definition audio delivered by the Pro Tools|HD system, Weber and Morrone also rely on M-Audio Studiophile® Q40 headphones to monitor the mix. “After trying every high-end headphone on the market, the M-Audio Studiophile Q40s are my choice to use,” related Morrone. “They have tremendous frequency range and fantastic isolation. When I work offline and then return to our reference monitors, my mixes always translate well."
In this Film & Video story, veteran editor Stuart Bass, ACE, talks about editing the “forensic fairy tale”—about a pie-maker gifted with the mysterious ability to bring dead things back to life by touching them—using Avid’s ScriptSync feature which automatically matches camera takes to lines of dialogue in the show’s script.
Alf Clausen, Emmy nominee and composer for The Simpsons—this year’s Emmy Award winner for “Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less than One Hour)”—relies on Sibelius music composition software to help him channel his high-volume creative output through the show’s frenetic production schedule. The Simpsons also uses Pro Tools in its production workflow. "Composing for a weekly series does not allow me the downtime necessary to work around software issues. Sibelius saves me time, and its intuitive operation and overall smoothness enhance the notation experience,” said Clausen, who’s been nominated for more than 18 Emmys, winning two, for his Simpsons work alone.
John Adams
Nominated for 23 awards, the HBO miniseries, John Adams which received 13 Emmys including “Outstanding Miniseries”, “Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or Special” and “Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Miniseries, Movie or Special” categories, was edited and mixed using Pro Tools. In addition to the sound awards, the John Adams visual effects team including visual effects supervisor Jeff Goldman of CafeFX, took home an Emmy for “Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Move or Special”.
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CafeFX used SOFTIMAGE®|XSI® throughout the production of the historical drama covering decades of the life of the second president of the United States both in the US and Europe. Striving to be as historically accurate as possible, the 50-person CafeFX team used a full arsenal of visual effects to recreate the world of John Adams. Softimage's Behavior was used for a hot air balloon sequence that was originally shot with only 50 extras in a field in Hungary. Initially, the visual effects team was going to copy the crowd and replicate them, but due to the complex camera angles, the team decided to create a digital crowd instead. Using XSI, they created 15 digital extras using costumes from the production company, animated them using a combination of motion capture and hand animation, and proceeded to create a Behavior simulation of tens of thousands for their digital crowd.
"XSI was an invaluable tool in our CG pipeline. Due to the scope of the work across seven episodes, the team at CafeFX was split up into little 'fire-teams' that concentrated on specific types of effects. XSI's intuitive working methodology and interface, as well as its robust integration with mentalray, allowed a small number of people to complete an large amount of complex work. XSI's ease of use also allowed for freelance artists new to the software to get up to speed quickly and effectively,” said Jeff Goldman, CafeFX Visual Effects Supervisor.
Deadliest Catch, Emmy winner for “Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming” and nominated for four other Emmys including “Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming” and “Outstanding Sound Mixing for Nonfiction Programming (single or Multi-camera),” depends on a complete Avid video and audio production workflow to deliver one of the most engaging reality shows on television.
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For Emmy-nominated editor Rob Butler of Max Post, editing on Media Composer® and collaborating with other editors on their Avid Unity™ ISIS® shared storage system are integral to his production process. “Working on Deadliest Catch, we’re dealing with a massive amount of footage, trying to tell good storylines while also connecting viewers to the previous episode and the others that are to come,” said Butler. “So our Unity ISIS shared storage environment is absolutely essential and even sparks a new kind of creativity because it helps us collaborate. Without it, there’s probably no way we could get a show like this done every week.”
Once offline editing is complete, the episode is finished using Avid DS Nitris systems. “Avid DS Nitris is much better than anything—it’s uncompressed, crystal clear, and you can do all your color and effects all in one place. That saves time, saves money, and it’s also cool as an editor, to feel like you’re doing it all, having it all at your disposal,” added Butler.
The dynamic show uses immersive sound to convey the drama of one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. In order to create a powerful and stirring soundtrack that matches the impact of the video, Emmy-nominated re-recording mixer Bob Bronow, CAS, of Max Post, relies on Pro Tools® systems and M-Audio headphones. Pro Tools is able to deliver the flexibility and pristine audio quality required to meet the show’s intense production demands and tight production schedule. Bronow calls upon a high-end Pro Tools|HD® rig in the studio and a session-compatible Pro Tools LE setup when working remotely. When it comes time to translate the high-definition audio, Bronow trusts M-Audio Studiophile® Q40 headphones to convey truly un-colored and accurate sound.
“Pro Tools gives me the greatest level of flexibility,” said Bronow. “The workflow is such that I don’t want to live here at the studio. I have a small Pro Tools LE system at home where I can do basic mixing, editing, and dialog cleanup.”
On his decision to use the M-Audio headphones, Bronow is equally pleased, “Obviously I can’t be working at two in the morning at home on big speakers, so I’ll work on cans. I find the M-Audio Q40s have a really nice response and they translate well when I come back and put everything back up on the speakers.”
Read how the new comedy, Flight of the Conchords - a hilarious artless take on a starving musician’s existence in and around New York - and a full-length album by the band relied on Digidesign and Avid equipment to keep them airborne.
For the animated television comedy series South Park, each episode is cut and finished by the morning it first airs. In fact, the voiceovers are done the night prior to broadcast. Read how the sound engineers use Pro Tools|HD and how the team thrives on the stress of scrambling to meet its ever-approaching deadline.
The hit TV show American Idol continued to rule in its seventh season and Digidesign systems continue to play a major role in addressing the complex production demands of America’s favorite music show. Read how Digidesign VENUE and ICON consoles streamline production for the Emmy-award winning music show.
The 50th Annual Grammy Awards received this year’s Emmy for “Outstanding Sound Mixing For a Variety, Music Series or a Special”. Read about how Pro Tools along with Digidesign ICON integrated consoles played critical roles in the HDTV and 5.1 surround sound broadcast for the Grammy Awards telecast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Flight of the Conchords