Video and audio
HD Pioneers
Groundbreaking documentary relies on integrated HD workflow using Adobe Video Collection
It was a tossup for the creators of Dust to Glory: Was it tougher to actually compete in the grueling Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race, set across 1,000 miles of unforgiving territory, or to shoot and produce a documentary about it? Preproduction on a documentary usually involves rudimentary tasks like culling through video archives and setting up interview times, but for Director Dana Brown, his crew, and Producers Scott Waugh and Mike McCoy, it meant fearlessly following fans and glory seekers flocking deep into the heart of Baja, Mexico, for the infamous race.
“Once we got into preproduction, we realized why no one has ever made a film about the Tecate SCORE Baja 1000,” says Waugh. “It was one of the toughest things we’ve ever tried.” Adds Brown, “We had a 90-person crew and 55 cameras rolling, with our fingers crossed that everyone would come back safely.”
For Director Dana Brown, a top priority in creating Dust to Glory was to convey the struggles some of the world’s toughest desert racers endured during the race.
Everyone did return safely, and the result is Dust to Glory — a film about the madness and mayhem of the Baja 1000. Distributed by IFC Films, the film will appear in theaters in April 2005.
“The Adobe HD workflow is tremendously freeing for us from a creative standpoint, and the numbers really make sense.”
producer, Dust to Glory
Pioneering high-definition editing
A 2004 survey of motor sports enthusiasts listed the Baja 1000 as one of the best known motor sports events — right alongside the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Daytona. Ironically, this well-known event is also known as the race that no one has ever seen, because of the incredibly rugged, remote terrain the race covers and the fact that the Baja 1000 is the longest nonstop, point-to-point race in the world. Dust to Glory changes that by bringing the inside story of the race to moviegoers.
For Director Dana Brown, a top priority in creating Dust to Glory was to convey the struggles some of the world’s toughest desert racers endured during the race.
Although the subject matter of the documentary is entirely new and the shoot was challenging, what’s perhaps even more groundbreaking is the behind-the- scenes story of the technology employed for editing and postproduction. Brown and Waugh bypassed the traditional, high-pressure workflow, which involves either purchasing hundreds of thousands of dollars in gear or renting an editing bay at hundreds of dollars per hour. They also found a way to forgo the tremendous cost of owning multiple terabytes of storage normally required to edit uncompressed HD footage.
Lower costs, more creative freedom
Using a BOXX HD [pro] editing workstation and Adobe® Premiere® Pro software, the Dust to Glory team combined miniDV, HD Cam, 24p video, film, and other formats into a single, compressed HD file format. The CineForm Prospect HD codec enabled Brown and Waugh to boil down 250 hours of footage into about 30 hours’ worth of compressed content. The entire project was edited in HD using a single BOXX HD [pro] editing workstation and Adobe Premiere Pro software.
A 90-person crew and 55 cameras shot Dust to Glory, capturing the thrill and danger of the infamous Baja 1000 off-road race. The 1,016-mile course stretches from Ensenada to La Paz, making logistics a major challenge, especially if a participant is injured or a vehicle needs to be repaired.
“The Boxx system and Adobe Video Collection are the ultimate dream machine for independent filmmakers.”
director, Dust to Glory
“We would normally spend at least $600 per hour in an HD editing bay, amounting to expenses of four thousand to five thousand dollars each week for color timing, creation of optical effects, and online assembly,” says Waugh. “We’re excited about the HD workflow enabled by the Adobe Video Collection because we can use a nonlinear workflow in a single, desktop, online HD bay. The Adobe HD workflow is tremendously freeing for us from a creative standpoint, and the numbers really make sense.”
According to Brown, whose filmmaking father Bruce Brown created The Endless Summer and On Any Sunday, HD and desktop editing tools have revolutionized the way that independent films are shot and made. “HD gives us the quality we need, plus one-stop shopping for creatively experimenting and finishing editing, titles, color correction, and effects on our own,” says Brown. Brown’s first feature film, Step into Liquid, was one of the first films to be shot using Sony HD cameras.
An integrated, productive workflow
Filmmaker and Adobe software expert Jacob Rosenberg joined Brown and Waugh to develop a workflow and supervise the online editing and finishing of the film. “My goal was to help develop a workflow in which every effect and every creative choice that Dana and Scott had could be articulated and executed using the software in the collection,” says Rosenberg. “We did exactly that, and the results are stunning.”
The Dust to Glory team edited the project using Adobe Premiere Pro. Edited portions of the video were passed to Adobe After Effects® for color correction, effects, and titling, and additional graphics and some 2D elements were created in Adobe Photoshop® CS. “The beauty of the Adobe workflow is its high level of integration,” says Waugh. “The Adobe tools — Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and After Effects — all offer an advanced feature set and work well together, so the process is a matter of simple drag and drop.”
Race organizer Sal Fish greets racer and producer Mike “Mouse” McCoy (far right), who faced extreme fatigue and survived two major crashes during his epic race at the 2003 Baja 1000.
The result is a tremendous accomplishment: an online edit of a film in HD on the desktop, with extremely high quality and resolution. For film festivals and other venues, Brown and Waugh can export a Microsoft Windows Media file or HD tape from Adobe Premiere Pro, sparing the expense of film prints. Using the online edit as their digital intermediate eliminated the need to optically print every effect, title, and transition; instead, the online version was printed directly to film. As a result, the Dust to Glory team estimates an incredible savings of nearly half a million dollars.
Based on feedback from audiences attending early screenings, it is difficult to tell the difference between film prints and the HD digital projections, except that the film print has visible grain. With IFC Film’s distribution, the film will be seen with both digital projectors and traditional film projectors.
Fewer steps from imagination to film
Brown says the film contains plenty of “thrills and chills” scenes in which racers are in extreme danger. It also details many of the touching human interest stories happening on the periphery of the race. “I’m most proud of the film’s ability to capture the heart and spirit of the people who participate in this crazy event,” says Brown.
For independent filmmakers like Brown and Waugh, the Adobe Video Collection offers them all the features they would use in high-end systems, except that the pressure is off. Eliminating the need to sit in bays costing hundreds of dollars per hour translates to a level of creative freedom that they’ve never experienced before. “The BOXX system and Adobe Video Collection are the ultimate dream machine for independent filmmakers,” says Brown. “They work like a champion and allow you to put on film exactly what’s in your imagination.”
That’s the good news. According to Brown, the bad news is that independent filmmakers no longer have any excuses for making mediocre films. But for Brown and the producers and crew of Dust to Glory, that’s not a concern.
