GIANT ASIAN ROBOTS BRINGS EARLY HISTORY OF SINGAPORE TO LIFE WITH BLUEFISH 444
05 September, 2007
Based in Malaysia, Giant Asian Robots is a motion control service company specializing in location-based visual effect solutions. Giant Asian Robots provides motion control services with a Nero motion control rig for the Asian television advertising industry. Established in 2001, Giant Asian Robots has worked on commercials for Ford, Ikea, Coke, Pantene, Skoda, Toyota and Malaysian Airlines in countries as diverse as Sweden, South Africa, Germany, Australia, India, and Pakistan, as well as Korea, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The services Giant Asian Robots offers has broadened over time to include motion control pre- and post- production compositing support, 3D/Motion Control integration and “on set” test compositing.
Giant Asian Robots purchased a Bluefish 444 HD|Lust video card in late 2006 specifically for a project called “Sejarah Singapura” or “Early History of Singapore”, which was produced by GSM Media for the recently restored National Museum of Singapore. Sejarah Singapura is a ten minute audio visual presentation of precolonial life and the founding of Singapore. Conceived by Singapore artist Ho Tzu Nyen and designed by GSM media, the film is projected using 5 high quality data projectors onto a 215 degree screen that surrounds the audience, giving the visitors an immersive look at life in the past.
Giant Asian Robots determined that the best way to film a 215 degree field of view, while maintaining a reasonably high resolution, was to film 3 HD plates per shot, with about an 85 degree field of view per plate. This was achieved by nodally mounting an HD Camera on a motion controlled geared head and then filming a left, middle and a right plate of action and then stitching them together using the warper tool in Fusion. They then filmed the areas where the action overlapped the joins as additional plates.
The Bluefish 444 HD|Lust enabled Giant Asian Robots to capture the uncompressed output directly from the camera at a higher resolution than what was available to them if they captured from tape. With the amount of post production going into every frame, the extra color information Giant Asian Robots received from the Bluefish444 HD|Lust was extremely important so they could maintain the downstream image quality.
The Bluefish444 HD| Lust also had the added benefit of allowing them to view and playback the selected takes like a video assist package, which meant they were able to immediately drag the selects into pre-built templates in Fusion and see the complete scene within 15 minutes. This gave the clients and the producers a lot of confidence, while still on location, that their project would look really good and also allowed for changes if any problems arose.
Scott Inglis, Giant Asian Robots, states, “What ultimately sold us on the Bluefish444 HD|Lust card, apart from the great pictures it recorded, was that during pre-production we were testing the stitching of the shots and the lenses and we were constantly pulling shots on and off tape, using different VTRs on location and at the office. We found that with the Bluefish444 HD|Lust card we could plug in the deck control cable and it would always control the VTR with no fiddling around. With the other card we looked at, that was not the case.”
He adds, “We have been very happy with the Bluefish444 Lust. It worked well for us as an on location recording/playback tool for the Sejarah Singapura project, delivering us the picture quality we needed with no fuss in very hot, humid, demanding location conditions. It has never given us any trouble. The card continues to be used as an on set tool supporting our Nero motion control rig throughout Asia and elsewhere.”
