Asahi bets on remote and collaborative post-production with DaVinci Resolve

The union of the platform Blackmagic Cloud and DaVinci Resolve Studio post-production software allows Asahi Broadcasting Nagano to remotely and collaboratively post-produce its informational program ‘Shingo Fujimori’s Nagano Tourism’.

In Shingo Fujimori’s Nagano Tourism Association, it is popular comedian tour the region exclusively guided by information collected in X. Each recording session, which spans two days and one night, serves to cover two municipalities, which will allow the production of four to six 30-minute episodes.

Yotaro Murai, general director of the program, starts from an approach based on improvisation against different unforeseen events. In this way, on many occasions Fujimori can find a review that catches his attention in X, scroll to the location, and see that it no longer exists. In the process, an important selection of solutions are deployed taking into account the format approach: “In addition to two cameramen, we use vehicle-mounted cameras and even action cameras operated by myself and other crew members, so we usually end up shooting with six or seven cameras,” Murai explains.

The material recorded in each shoot can weigh up to 1 TB, which is then converted into files proxy and climbs to Blackmagic Cloud. The content is then shared with the internal team and editors freelance for later editing. This is when the workflows begin. collaboration: "I do some of the editing myself, but since we only have two in-house directors, it's difficult to handle editing four weeks' worth of episodes, so we're increasingly turning to freelance directors. Once we outsource this stage of the process, a director shares his timeline about a week later for review. Using the chat function in Blackmagic Cloud, I can send him feedback and correction instructions, and the director makes adjustments accordingly. We repeat this process about three times."

Before implementing Blackmagic Cloud, they used another editing program and shared the material through Dropbox. However, it took them about a whole day to upload and download the files proxy. The exchange of projects was carried out through data XML, and the team had to create the file in that format every time they carried out a screening.

The dynamics of work with DaVinci solves these limitations: "Every time we formed the shared XML file for a review, there were often discrepancies. Sometimes the file links would not work, and the material would become unlinked. Resolving these problems could take almost half a day, and it was a constant challenge. When we tried Blackmagic Cloud, it was so revolutionary that it made us wonder why we had not implemented it before. Now we have the ability to share the same timeline instantly and use the chat function directly in DaVinci Resolve. We can also share marker information, making it easy to mark points that require adjustments.”

"Before, we sometimes had to ask Nagata to come to our office for final reviews or screenings. Thanks to Blackmagic Cloud, this is no longer necessary. Looking forward, we hope to involve talented editors and creators from anywhere, to bring new perspectives to the production of the program," he concludes Magpie.