By Elina Shatkin, December 22, 2003
Polycom, Inc., a provider of video and voice conferencing, conference bridges, and integrated web collaboration solutions, announced that its industry-leading group video communications system played a key role in the making of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, whose final installment, "The Return of the King," was recently released.
In a first for a large-scale film production, the director Peter Jackson made movie history by shooting all three episodes of the trilogy at the same time in a remarkably fast 274 days over 150 locations. Jackson was able to direct in three places concurrently using video communications extensively to review daily rushes and direct multiple film crews in New Zealand.
Jackson's use of video communications provided significant financial and artistic benefits in the film series production. The director viewed daily footage by linking the movie cameras into Polycom's video conferencing systems and viewing the footage over a high-speed network connection from either the Pinewood editing studio in the UK, the main studio in Warkworth, New Zealand, or on-location sites. The real-time interaction with the film crews and location directors resulted in fewer re-takes, which shortened filming time and reduced costs
.
Video conferencing also played a key role in the post-production process. To help meet the important post-production delivery date, the crew used Polycom's systems enabling the director to provide input from New Zealand to the music studios in London on the final music score.
Satellite communications proved essential to the film series. Although the video conferencing system was originally conceived for video communications only, the ability to integrate phone and network services became a critical part of the operation. The production crew used high frequency radio transmitters and military grade fiber optic cable to connect crews operating at great distances. Once the signal was received, it was fed through the analog video inputs on the back of the Polycom video conferencing system and was ready for transmission. The footage was then transmitted over satellite to the director, whether he was in the central studio or out on-location.
The Polycom video communications systems run full-motion TV-quality video and deliver near CD-quality audio for effective remote communications. An embedded Web server handles diagnostics and simple software upgrades over the Internet. In addition to the simple Graphics User Interface (GUI), the voice tracking camera and preset tracking function ensures customers can adapt the product to fit their needs.
.
|