AMV · BBDO:
Mac Lab Drives Commercial Success
It’s fitting that the UK’s largest advertising agency, London-based Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV · BBDO), should work with some of the country’s best known and most successful brands — the BBC, Sainsbury’s, Guinness, The Economist and BT, to name just a few.
To assemble such an impressive roster of clients, AMV has taken to heart the BBDO–wide operating mantra of “the work, the work, the work” — in short, nothing matters more than great work.
Such stringently high standards, combined with the notoriously competitive nature of the advertising industry, mean AMV is constantly looking for ways to boost its advantage. It recently found one in the form of ‘The Laboratory’, a state-of-the-art in-house digital production facility that runs almost exclusively on Apple technology and combines integrated workflow with shared storage up to uncompressed HD resolutions.
One of the world’s most prestigious advertising agencies has built a new in-house production facility around Apple technology. Now it is reaping the rewards — both in terms of cost savings and the quality of its output.
The Lab has all the Soho trappings, like high–end compositing suites and an expansive viewing room, but there are no costly black boxes behind the scenes; instead, everything runs on a bevy of off–the–shelf dual–processor Power Mac G5s.
The idea for The Lab was hatched in early 2004. Even though the build represented a sizeable investment, Mark Keller, head of post–production and the driving force behind the project, says: “The way the technology was moving, we felt we could save money by bringing things in–house; it would also give us greater flexibility and control”.
“Not only was Apple the most cost–effective solution, but the technology is capable of doing everything we want it to do.”
Given that AMV’s annual spend on outsourcing post–production was around £4 million, Keller felt confident The Lab could meet an element of AMV’s post–production needs at a fraction of the cost. The formula is simple: downward pressure on air–time costs and the speed and flexibility of an in–house resource reduces the cost of making commercials and gives AMV a competitive edge.
As far as the actual technology was concerned, key requirements identified at the planning stage included shared storage, the potential for an integrated workflow and cost–effectiveness. Keller says: “To eliminate a lot of redundancy, we wanted all the machines to be able to do all the jobs we had to do”.
Keller felt Apple’s high–end offerings were able to meet all his technical requirements, while its price–performance ratio consistently surpassed the competition. He says: “Not only was Apple the most cost–effective solution, but the technology is capable of doing everything we want it to do. Xsan really made the difference by allowing us to create a shared storage environment”.
Good things comes to those who wait, or so the saying goes, and this certainly proved true for Keller. He says: “We’d been holding out for Xsan and it’s turned out to be stable, fast and cost-effective — everything we need”.
In line with the principle of integration, Apple Solution Experts NMR supplied The Lab with 15 multi–function workstations, situated in the facility’s main area. At any one time, operators can login and access Final Cut Pro, Shake, Motion, Logic, Photoshop, Maya, Illustrator, InDesign and DVD Studio Pro. The operators can also login under either a work or personal profile with fast user switching.
“All the project files are interlinked so that everything updates across all applications and machines whenever they’re worked on”, explains Keller.
As well as running the same software, all the Power Mac G5s have the same spec: dual 2.7GHz, 4GB RAM, 2 x 250GB internal mirrored drives, DVD-R and CD-RW, running Mac OS X Tiger. They each have a flat-panel 23-inch Cinema Display (the suites have two), plus dual Gigabit Ethernet and dual-channel 2GB Fibre Channel. Additionally, all the units use the Blackmagic DeckLink HD Pro 4:4:4 card for uncompressed RGB HD work.
Behind the workstation area is the heart of the facility in the form of the ‘data wrangling’ area, which features a 30TB Xsan array using five Xserve RAIDs and one for back–up. There’s an additional three Xserves attached to the Xsan that function as triple redundancy built in on the metadata controllers.
Three ingest stations in the area capture data into the RAIDs and there’s also a Pro–Bel switching matrix for the selection of feeds. Keller says: “The Pro–Bel unit is standard definition, but to accommodate HD we have a Blackmagic Design workgroup video hub as the HD switcher. This allows us to convert up and down between standard and high definition, thereby creating a double switching environment”. Keller estimates he has saved around £100,000 by “hanging” the Blackmagic hub off the Pro–Bel matrix rather than investing in a high–definition unit.
Elsewhere in The Lab, there are three edit suites with the same spec and software as the machines in the workstation area, the only difference being they offer more privacy and are geared up for audio and video monitoring. The displays in the suites have iSight cameras mounted on top, which are used for conferencing and as a video intercom.
According to Keller, each suite costs approximately half that of comparable facilities in Soho, and he rather understates his point when he comments: “They’re obviously quite competitive”.
Mark Keller puts the finishing touches on another ad. “Since The Lab was not designed to handle the entire AMV output, we select the most appropriate campaigns based on budget, flexibility, size and treatment”, he says.
Finally, there’s The Lab’s showpiece: a luxurious Dolby 7.1 finishing suite with adjoining voiceover booth. The entire environment is suspended — a room within a room — and mounted on springs to acoustically isolate it. Keller describes it as “the nicest Final Cut Pro suite around” with (apart from the addition of Final Touch real-time HD grading software and Tangent control surfaces) the same machines and software as elsewhere in The Lab.
After an initial pilot period that began in January 2005, The Lab is now up and running in earnest and, as a testament to its high technological standards and unique way of working, it’s already fully booked for weeks to come.
“Now, instead of going out to third–parties, we can stay in–house and stay on top of costs while also maintaining creative continuity.”
Initial predictions as to the amount of AMV work the facility would take in were around 30 per cent; in fact, the figure is closer to 50 per cent. Keller says: “We are already way ahead of projections. Since The Lab was not designed to handle the entire AMV output, we select the most appropriate campaigns based on budget, flexibility, size and treatment”.
AMV’s chief executive, Farah Ramzan Golant, has no doubts about the contribution it will make to the company’s business as a whole. She says: “We’ve opted for Apple because of the unparalleled quality, speed and cost–efficiency it offers. Now, instead of going out to third–parties, we can stay in–house and stay on top of costs while also maintaining creative continuity. It allows us to offer our clients a good ROI and, for a market leader like us, we can’t accept anything but the best”. It seems the mantra at AMV may soon be “the Mac, the Mac, the Mac”.
