Future present

One of India’s senior most experienced film mix engineers, Hitendra Ghosh has just finished overseeing the setting up of a huge audio film post facility in suburban Mumbai. ‘Today, operating just a film mix facility is not a very profitable business,’ he says. ‘Clients want package deals where they can do ADR, Foley, sound design and final mix, as well as visual effects work – all under one roof. And that is exactly what we at FutureWorks are providing. Here, we have also added telecine, VFX [visual effects], DI [digital intermediate] and DI-to-film negative transfer facility in addition to audio post. This is a one-stop-shop for film postproduction picture and sound.’

Located on the sixth floor of a commercial tower in Andheri, the FutureWorks facility is a sprawling complex of hi-tech computer rooms, interconnected by a maze of sterile corridors. The audio department has a film mix room and another multi-purpose room that is capable of 7.1 monitoring, and that does duty for ADR (dubbing), Foley, sound design and audio mastering for DVDs as well as television content mastering.

In the film mixing room, there is an impressive-looking AMS Neve Gemini console. ‘I found the AMS Neve to be a fantastic console for film mix work,’ says Mr Ghosh, ‘It is very powerful and, at the same time, very flexible, and suits my way of working. It has the smoothest and most fluid faders you can find on any console and I, as a mix engineer, love working on them. The DAW is the Pro Tools HD 3, which is very popular all over the world. And coupled to Mac computers, they form a very stable and trouble-free combination.

‘For monitoring, we have JBL speakers driven by Crown amplifiers,’ he continues. ‘Most theatres in India have JBL speakers and so I know exactly how my mix here is going to sound via the release print in the theatre. We do not have a film projector, but video projection is available – our mix room is not very large and the video projector [a Cineo 3 from projectiondesign] suits us fine.’

AMS Neve dealer Cineom carried out the entire installation of equipment. Since the whole complex is on the sixth floor of a commercial building, it did pose some acoustic challenges – the ceiling height was a severe restriction and ultimately dictated the screen size. Real estate being very expensive in Mumbai, the designers did not have the luxury of space.

Roger D’Arcy of Recording Architecture India was entrusted the task of devising maximum working space with minimum space sacrificed to acoustic treatment – and he achieved this extensively through the use of silicone curtains on the walls. No wooden frames, no glass wool, but a simple and elegant solution, which in the future may be widely used in many studios. For FutureWorks, the silicone curtain on the walls is the only acoustic material used with dark curtains draped over the silicone to conceal the treatment. In the subdued lighting that is common in mixing studios, one can hardly see the walls anyway…

Except for music recording, the sound postproduction of a film can be carried out at FutureWorks. This is because most music composers in India have their own studios and prefer to work at their own place – and as Mr Ghosh says: ‘We get the music in multitrack format with all tracks kept open till the very end, to give the director freedom to get his mix the way he wants. And so the engineer also has complete flexibility during the film mix.’

For sound design work, the studios have access to a library of sound effects, all catalogued and available via Soundminer software. ‘We are setting up a library of various kinds of effects that are either recorded or added from stock library collections, so that when we are designing a movie, we have all the effects ready for our use. For example, we have 24 different types of rainfall sounds, so we watch the visual and see what rain falling sound best matches the visual. Whether there is rain and wind along with it, or what kind of surface it is falling on.’ About 10Tb of data in the form of sound files is available in the library – and this is growing every day.

The studio also does Indian language versions of blockbuster Hollywood movies. ‘When we do the Hindi version of a foreign film, they have to send us the picture,’ Mr Ghosh explains. ‘If it is a new film that has not been released, then there is always the danger of the film being copied, so we established that satellite is the fastest and safest way for us to receive the picture. And if it is copied, then we are totally responsible for it, so the client also feels secure knowing that we will not allow that to happen at any cost. For this, we have a secure content delivery system in place, which is used to download high-quality video files from our international clients. A completely tapeless transfer is conducted via a satellite link, and the high-quality video files with watermarks are stored in a totally secure server room under 24-hour camera surveillance. Entry to the servers is restricted by pass codes and hardware locks, and access to such material is strictly controlled and logged. This system is fast and helps us turn around work very quickly. The Hindi language dub of many blockbuster Hollywood movies has been done here. By using our secure satellite-based system, we can move high-quality audio video files back and forth (in a matter of hours) between our studio here and our clients such as Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony Pictures and Fox in LA. Edit changes and approvals can be obtained in hours rather than days and the work was carried out to the client’s satisfaction very quickly.’

Today, FutureWorks can boast of a clientele of International players that are the envy of others. Accordingly, the management makes sure that its engineers are treated as artists, and not as mere technicians. Engineers are provided with training and are given access to any material they need to enhance their knowledge, be it books, magazines or tutorials. They are encouraged to study and evaluate any new technology that is introduced to the market, in order to keep the studio abreast of the latest hardware and software. A separate IT department handles maintenance of computers and updates of software and also handles back-up of all audio video material systematically. There is also a dedicated transfer department that handles all audio video transfer jobs. Engineers are kept free to think creatively for the job at hand and not be bothered about routine engineering tasks.

The services offered by the FutureWorks complex facility have already become highly sought-after. The advantage of having both VFX and audio located side-by-side and interlinked, provides better integration of the two departments and quicker turn-around of material. This, in turn, leads to higher quality output from both departments and better value-for-money for clients. The mix engineer also has the advantage of being able to mix films watching high-resolution video files. For a film like Drona, which was an extremely VFX heavy film, the studio complex did not shut down for close to four months.

Clearly, FutureWorks believes in always pushing the technical envelope. Mr Ghosh was among the first to bring the DAW style of operation into the mixing theatre – to this point, the normal procedure was to use 35mm dubbers or Adats and Hi8s. Now, however, many in the Indian film industry consider his work and his theatre to be the reference in film mixing. At FutureWorks, sound is an integral part of the movie, not an afterthought, and maestros of the industry, like Vishal Bharadwaj and Ashtosh Gowarikar, are among the regular clients. Soon, facilities for DVD and Blu-ray authoring too will be added to the job list.

FutureWorks also has a large mixing facility located at the historic Rajkamal studios in Parel, which has served as a benchmark for film mix studios in this country. FutureWorks is also thinking of expanding operations at other locations in Mumbai and in other cities all over India. With such ambitious plans in the pipeline, the future looks bright.

FutureWorks, India: +91 22 4014 5000

www.futureworks.in

Published in PAA May-June 2010