Studio City, Calif. - Electric Picture Solutions (EPS) supplied editorial systems and support for Revolutionary Road, a new feature from director Sam Mendes and DreamWorks.
EPS designed and implemented two identically-configured Lightworks Alacrity nonlinear editing systems with an Avid Unity SAN used by editor Tariq Anwar to cut the film. It marks the first time that the two technologies have been linked in the same workflow and it allowed Anwar and assistant editor Adam Geiger to capitalize on both the speed of Alacrity, and the flexibility of the Avid Unity SAN. The company also provided Firewire drives to the production when it moved for several weeks to London. The drives were used for duplicating production elements and shipping them to the U.K. Anwar was thus able to continue editorial work without interruption. When the production returned to New York, all of the new assets and project data were transferred to the original Unity. EPS has a long history with Anwar, having previously worked with the editor on the films American Crude and The Good Shepherd.
“Tariq came to us and said he wanted to do this picture on Lightworks Alacrity, he had previously cut on Lightworks Touch” says EPS president/CEO David Pincus.
EPS recognizes the strengths of various editing systems and they also have a great understanding of the software side,” Anwar says. “In this case, as with my previous films, they provided two linked systems and they worked extremely well.”
Revolutionary Road, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, is about a Connecticut couple who move to France to pursue their artistic ambitions. The film is set for a 2008 release by DreamWorks. EPS suggested Avid Unity for use as network storage as it offers greater flexibility and reliability than other SAN solutions.
“We like to offer alternate solutions to our clients,” said EPS CTO Jed Unrot. “Unity is more robust and a lot more flexible, especially in terms of volume and storage allocation. Unity has the ability to grow and shrink volumes as necessary. It allowed us to provide the production with a very flexible environment.”
Although, the Lightworks and Avid products are not directly compatible, EPS found a way to link the systems so that they functioned together seamlessly. “A lot of clients are comfortable with Unity and want to use it on their projects, regardless of the editing system, because it is proven,” Unrot notes. “We don’t favor any one solution—we only want to build a reliable, robust editing environment.” S
uch proactive thinking is crucial to a smooth running editorial operation, according to Anwar, and something that he has learned to expect from EPS. “With software constantly changing it is comforting to work with a company like EPS,” he says. “I know I’m getting the best support possible.”