Hangman opened its doors for business in December 2001 and now caters not only to IE Music’s long and impressive client list but also to a large number of external clients. “This year [2003] has included a lot of work for Robbie Williams”, says Tonkin. “For his latest album Escapology we’ve completed all the audio and visual extras, including DVD extras, Web clips, 5.1 mixes, TV and radio commercials, the ‘making of’s…’, and documentaries as well as the production of the promo for the single ‘Something Beautiful’. We’ve also worked on all the DVD extras and commercials for the ‘Live at Knebworth’ concert”.
Tonkin had the rare opportunity to design Hangman Studios from the ground up. He chose to build the video studio around Final Cut Pro. “I encountered a certain degree of scepticism at first”, he admits. “Some people tried to tell me that I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to with Apple technology, but I felt confident that I could — especially with the new products that were becoming available”.
Not only was Tonkin able to create a facility with the same performance levels as rival set-ups, he managed it at an estimated tenth of the cost. He enthuses: “FCP is a great piece of software because it has progressed so quickly in terms of features and yet maintained its price point”.
Final Cut Pro 4, in particular, boasts some significant feature upgrades, not least its real-time architecture. “For someone who has spent a significant portion of their professional life rendering, the real-time architecture is fantastic!”, jokes Tonkin.
Tonkin cites LiveType, the revolutionary animated title creation tool that is bundled with Final Cut Pro 4, as a “very special feature”, and also heaps praise on the loop-based music production app, Soundtrack, which is now available as a stand-alone product. “The option to view duplicate material on the timeline during editing is also extremely useful”, admits Tonkin, “and the colour correction tools are excellent. Increasingly, I’m finding I can stay inside the package to achieve pretty much everything I want to achieve”.
 In addition to the above, Tonkin uses Apple technology to find creative solutions to a range of production and post-production requirements. “We dub to DVCAM with timecode for the purposes of offlining via the DV Codec”, he explains. “Using DV allows for lots of media storage on FireWire drives at low expense”.
He adds: “We also use the Open Media Framework (OMF) to transfer files created in FCP, using the offline real-time movie as a reference, to the audio editor. The reference movie also contains a full-quality, uncompressed mix of the FCP offline track-lay, so the audio editor can reference any fades or levels not carried across in the OMF file”.
As if all that wasn’t enough, Tonkin also uses QuickTime for edit viewing and approval over the Web, Apple Remote Desktop to access the office externally for the checking of renders, iTunes to manage Hangman’s sample library and music collection, iChat AV and iSight for video conferencing, and Mac OS X Server to network, share and backup files. In fact, you could say that Hangman is the ultimate example of how Apple technology can help push the creative envelope in an integrated digital production house. What’s more, James Tonkin clearly loves what he does... and Robbie’s certainly not complaining.
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James Tonkin
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Tools of the Trade
Studio 2 (Audio)
Hardware
Software
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Useful Links
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Photos of James Tonkin copyright © 2003 Living Light Ltd.
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