Ironik and Bluefoot Entertainment Team Up for Marquis Programming on ESPN

It may just be a sports-lover's dream, spending day after day contemplating some of the world's great sporting events: the Masters or the British Open golf tournament, NASCAR races, NFL or NCAA football games, Major League Baseball games, or maybe a little NCAA basketball. But for Tim Horgan and Sean Stall it's just their normal, everyday routine.

Stall, the owner of Ardsley, N.Y.,- based Ironik Design and Post, and Horgan, owner of the West Hartford, Conn.,-based Bluefoot Entertainment, have partnered to turn out hundreds of sports packages in HD for networks such as ESPN and ABC. Their work ranges from creating opens and features to conceptualizing, branding, and assembling entire shows. Both companies rely on Avid DS high-end editing and finishing systems to handle whatever creative post tasks come along.

Horgan, who is also a director and an Avid DS artist, has been working for ESPN for 15 years and seen the Connecticut-based sports programming network undergo tremendous growth. "We just kept getting more and more high-end, high-profile projects from them," says Horgan, who needed to expand his services to keep pace. "I had worked with Sean from a distance, but with the increasing workload from ESPN, I wanted him to be closer."

So, roughly six months ago, Stall packed up one of Ironik's Avid DS systems and moved it into a suite previously occupied by a competitive system at Bluefoot and began working full-time as an Avid DS artist and graphic designer. It was a win-win strategy. Horgan could cost effectively expand his resources with top talent and equipment, and Stall could benefit from Bluefoot's steady client base, while sustaining the Ardsley studio where he continues to run three Media Composer rooms.

Stall quickly connected his Avid DS system to Bluefoot's Avid Unity MediaNetwork setup, sharing 12 terabytes of storage with Bluefoot's two existing Avid DS systems. Since most of their work is in HD, they use the Avid DNxHD 220 compression format for editing. "It exponentially increases our storage space," says Horgan. A Pro Tools digital audio system is also available for sound design and editing and is soon to be connected to the Avid Unity system for a seamless audio and video workflow.

"The talent for finishing and editorial work is all right here [in Connecticut]. There’s no need to go to New York or Los Angeles."
- Tim Horgan, Owner/Avid DS Artist, Bluefoot Entertainment

The Producers

Bluefoot offers more than standard post services to its customers. Horgan has even coined the term "post producers" to describe the work they do. "We are really involved in the actual creation of content, from conceptualization to completion," he says.

For the British Open golf tournament, Horgan worked with ESPN to establish a unique look and feel for the show, designing and producing a variety of graphic elements and interstitial video segments. "We wrote the script, shot five days in the U.K. in HD [with Gary Oldman narrating the piece]. Then we scored the music with composer Boris Zelkin. We delivered a whole series of segments, 15 to 20 of them," explains Horgan. These consistently themed segments set the mood for the final two rounds of the premier golf championship, which aired on ABC.

The Avid DS system was used for the effects, graphics, editing, and finishing for the entire project. "Avid DS is truly a swiss army knife for us," says Stall, who cites the system’s ability to mix frame rates and media, to upconvert and downconvert media, to handle uncompressed and compressed media on the same timeline, and to do color correction and grading right inside the box. Extensive graphics and effects tools are also available for creating nuanced visual effects or for last-minute fixes with Dustbusting, Cloning, and Painting features.

The powerful Nitris hardware makes the system extremely responsive, which helps meet client demands. "There are lots of times when we have to cut on a Wednesday or Thursday for a remote location and have the show ready for Saturday [broadcast]. We don't have time for an eight or ten hour render. The DS processes so quickly that we can get the results we need in a really timely fashion," says Stall.

With the new Avid DS release, those turnaround times will be faster than ever. Stall, who has been a beta tester for the latest Avid DS system, has experienced the new system's speed first-hand. "The new DS really flies with eight processors churning away. There are lots of real-time effects, and the real-time secondary color correction - the same as in Symphony  makes the whole color experience much more complete and far easier."

The latest release also offers an improved workflow for handling digital intermediate files. "There are tools in place to handle 2k and 4k files elegantly," says Stall. Even some small, but welcome, features have been added, such as expanded LUT support and more extensive capabilities when working with 4:4:4 HD RGB.

Stall, an active member of the online Avid DS Users Group, believes that Avid has successfully addressed many of the features that users have been clamoring for. "Avid has really listened to customers this time around and made a concerted effort to take our input to heart," he explains. "Across the board, from a variety of different communities - film, broadcast, advertising - they took the time to appease many people with different requests."

"Avid has really listened to customers this time around and made a concerted effort to take our input to heart."
- Sean Stall, Owner/Avid DS Artist/Graphic Designer, Ironik Design and Post

All the Comforts of Home

Horgan's company is one of many post facilities that use Avid DS systems in southern New England, which has become a hotbed for production because of Connecticut's favorable tax incentives for filmmakers. "A lot of people come to do film work here, and we want to get the word out that they can stay and finish post production too. The talent for finishing and editorial work is all right here. There's no need to go to New York or Los Angeles," says Horgan.

With an integrated and full-service setup, Bluefoot can save clients the expense of sending material out for specialty services, such as color correction or audio work. But that, of course, doesn't tell the whole story of Bluefoot's success. Horgan has a talented, multiple Emmy Award winning team behind him, which, in addition to Stall, includes key contributors Matt McCormick and Daniel Horgan. "Our quality is our stamp," says Horgan. And that is the attitude that keeps winning clients, over and over again.


CREDITS: Courtesy of Ironik Design and Post and Bluefoot Entertainment. Bluefoot would like to thank ESPN for supplying images.