Gruelling soap production schedule for Red Rock Ireland aided by TerraBlock

Facilis - Red Rock production still 1 lrFacilis has integrated its TerraBlock 24D 48TB shared storage system within a new production facility in Dublin. The facility has been designed and built to produce Ireland’s first soap series in a generation, Red Rock, which is co-produced by Element Pictures & Company Pictures and broadcast by TV3 Ireland.

The team invested in a new production facility to produce the series and Tyrell CCT was contracted to assist in the design, integration and commissioning of the production workflow. Working closely with Tyrell, Facilis has created collaborative capabilities based on its shared storage system that have helped creative workflows, productivity and production times within this purpose-designed production facility.

“Tyrell recommended the system as the best option for our Red Rock focussed production facility,” said Paula Heffernan, Series Producer (Production) on Red Rock. “The ability to have shared projects throughout the facility: our production schedule would have been impossible without it.”

From day one, Facilis TerraBlock has provided the heart beat of this most demanding workflow. On Red Rock, the turnaround is extremely fast: 22 days for four 22 minute episodes to be shot, edited, graded, sound mixed and delivered to the broadcaster. In reality, this requires four different cycles (of four episodes each) being worked on at various stages of the post production process simultaneously.

“The ability to create a separate volume within TerraBlock for each director’s cycle keeps everything neat and tidy during the edit and when it comes to archiving,” explains John Philipson, Online Editor and Post Production HOD on Red Rock. “Also, having no per-seat licensing fees gives our production team access to 100 clients if needed, leaving plenty of room for our post production department to grow.

“With only two offline editors, an assistant editor, a sound mixer and one colorist / online editor TerraBlock has to look after all the raw rushes as well as Avid, ProTools and DaVinci projects,” continued Philipson. “The ease of use between all these projects is great and again everyone accessing the one set of rushes keeps everything neat. On top of this, we need our server to be efficient and reliable so we can concentrate on hitting our deadlines, and this is what TerraBlock does.”

Red Rock went to air in January 2015. Initially TV3 commissioned two 80-episode series, broadcast twice a week over a 40-week period. Positive viewer reaction, and recent IFTA award wins has created ambitions to go far beyond two series, to broadcast year round, and more frequently in the future.

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