Craig Gordon

Craig Gordon is an HD specialist/editor with lots of experience in post-production technology, having worked on various linear and non-linear systems for both film and video projects. His film credits include Spike Lee’s HBO documentary When The Levees Broke‚ the 2008 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Trouble The Water, and the 2004 Cannes Film Festival Palm d’Or winner Fahrenheit 9/11, directed by Michael Moore. Gordon’s latest video project was an 18-minute HD presentation for Panasonic’s NAB booth that required 1.5 TB of storage just for the graphics.

RhinoEdit, based in New York City, offers a variety of editorial services targeted at the advertising and independent film communities. With nine Avid systems (Adrenaline, Nitris, etc.) and a full staff of editors, the company also operates a sister company called RhinoPost, which features two HD digital on-line suites as well as film transfer and color-correct services.

Q: Data management has been a big issue with facilities handling multiple HD projects. How does RhinoEdit approach this?
A: We employ multiple multi-TB networked near-line storage devices that our chief engineer [Rich Torpey] put together here at RhinoEdit. We use PCs with SATA arrays. Sometimes off-the-shelf storage arrays are not cost effective. They’re "unitaskers," and they don’t necessarily integrate very well with other systems we have here. And, in less than a year we’ll need a new storage array, so it’s best to try and develop our own systems. As for data management, each job is clearly identified and always stored in more than one location for safety.

Q: Have you used Avid's new DNxHD36 codec? What advantages does it offer over the previous version?
A: I used DNx36 for loading rough cuts in HD projects. The advantage is saving space. If you’re taking something in at 8-bit, 145 Mbps, and you have a 90-minute rough cut, you get a 300 percent savings. That’s huge. One of the things you’re constantly concerned about—I don’t care how big your storage is—is storage capacity and managing that storage. The smaller you can make things, the less data management you have to think about.

Q: Assuming you use both, what's the difference between Avid's DNxHD and Apple's ProRes 422 codecs?
A: We have little experience with the ProRes codec, but after doing this Panasonic project for NAB, the quality looks OK so far. Time and a variety of work will tell. I’ve seen a test and hear that ProRes is slightly less efficient than DNxHD. I haven’t done a good comparison myself. You really start to see compression raise its ugly head when you’re doing extreme color-correction or keying. That’s when it really affects the fine detail and you want the best codec you can get.

As for Avid’s DNxHD, there isn't a job I do in HD that I don’t use it. When DNxHD first came out, my chief engineer and I did test, from 16mm, uncompressed 10-bit D-5 and 8-bit DNxHD 145. We could not see the difference without taking a negative image, adding the original back, and running extremely high gain (1,000).

Q: Does your facility work mostly uncompressed? How much storage is necessary for an uncompressed HD project?
A: All commercial projects are done uncompressed. Longform is a mix of both. As for storage needs, if it’s a (HD 4:4:4) 90-minute film, I can easily eat up 2.5 TB just loading.

Q: What's the biggest challenge to your business right now?
A: Competing platforms. The Apple and Avid platforms are constantly leapfrogging each other with capability. That makes it hard for someone like me, who makes a huge investment in one company only to have the tools I buy look less capable in less than a year. We use mostly Avid products but have two Final Cut Pro rooms. Apple has been better at integrating tapeless media than Avid has. It’s lots easier to deal with data files in FCP. But when it comes to data management and project management, I still prefer Avid products.

So we have to have both. The challenge is, what do you do when you’ve spent all this money and you’re sitting here with several hundred thousands of dollars worth of hardware that’s useless?

This has happened multiple times, not only with Apple and Avid. We got hurt when Discreet went from Inferno being the primary platform to Flame. You could buy a Flame, and it was everything an Inferno was (minus one or two things), for a lot less. So I sit here with a $75,000 machine and then the company drops the price in half. We had the first DS machine in the city, so it was very tough.

Now, Final Cut Studio offers all the tools I need for $1,500. As an Avid house, it’s hard to compete with that. Because the products I buy cost more, I have to charge my clients more. I charge $400 per hour when someone with Final Cut Studio can charge $200 per hour. There’s always this competitive pressure that’s hard to avoid.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about HD post among your clients?
A: Clients think you need to shoot with an HD camera to post in HD. Since 2000 we as a company has been trying to educate our clients that they can still shoot film, 16 or 35 mm. They can simply transfer the film to a variety of HD formats and go to work.