THUNDERBOLT TO WAR ZONE

WHEN MANAGING DATA REALLY IS A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH

When I got the call to help design the footage workflow for a multi digital camera shoot (somewhere over 30) it was obvious that we were going to need a workstation built for speed, I instantly brought up G Tech's latest Thunderbolt drives with their 10GB per second transfer feature. Along with Apples newly developed Thunderbolt ports on their Macbook Pros they would be perfect for the insane amount of footage that would be copied/cloned and organized by yours truly. But how would they hold up in a real world scenario...scratch that, how would they perform in a war zone. well I was about to find out.

The job:

Forget the simple setup of having a soundstage or office to work out of, the job was going to take me and my fellow crew members smack dab into war torn Afghanistan. Our job to capture the deadly day to day routine of our heros overseas, as they sweep for bombs and any other unwelcome surprises that may be awaiting travelers on the roads and desert. These brave combat engineers risk their lives to ensure the safety of everyone and it was up to our team of crazy/brave individuals to bring their stories home. Being the Data Manager for this adventure many questions arose and It was obvious that the gear that i was to bring had to be compact yet powerful, and able to withstand the harsh elements of sand, heat, power-outages, and anything else the deadly landscape could bring.

So armed with an arsenal of G Raid drives as our backup, and some bran spanking new macbook pro's it was onto a plane and head to our new digs along side the combat engineers for the better part of two months.
     As camera began to roll and the excitement began, I was instantly amazed by the speed of my transfers even with multiple drives connected. The only bottleneck of the process would have been the card reader used (USB 3.0) which was still the most functional and fastest way of transferring footage we were able to get our hands on. Not only that but throughout the entire time moving from base to base, not once did a drive fail, and I had quite a few to deal with at all times. Even with the sudden loss of power on base at times, which we had no control over. Each drive was put through the ringer daily with almost a Terabyte of information being stored daily until there was no more space and then it was onto the next. Cloning a drive was even less stressful knowing that copying and pasting terabytes of information would take a fraction of the time previous shoots in the past would take. I am also proud to say that every drive made it home safe with every bit of our hero's stories intact, for the fantastic Post department over at Big Fish entertainment to cut together.

In the end I would strongly recommend anyone looking for reliable and FAST storage to consider getting themselves one of G-Techs Thunderbolt drives. They are a bit pricey of the get go, but you really are paying for quality, sadly your also paying separately for the actual chord you need to connect the drive. After my experience with these babies though, I can't quite look my old firewire 800/eSata drives the same way. But then again after this job I'll be seeing quite a few things differently.

Photo of our crazy adventurous team right out of our training in Virginia.

Also happy to say everyone here made it home safe and sound.

MAKING A PINATA MAN

Making a Piñata Man

   SteeleMata Creative spends an afternoon in Ferndale, Michigan setting up lights, cameras, and transforming one of their actors into a human piñata. Kelcie Banas (Hair and Make-up artist) really brings to life the concept art created by Erik Steele (Director).

Chad Brothers (Actor) undergoes an alarming prosthetic transformation that leaves him unrecognizable while Terri Rozwadowski (Set Designer) dresses the set appropriately for a child's birthday party

The commercial was directed and written by Erik Steele and shot on the RED ONE cinema camera operated by the one and only Brent Mata (Director of Photography). Brandon Mata (1st AD) kept the shoot running smoothly while Nik Drankoski (Sound Operator) masterfully mixed the audio.

Chad Brothers (Left) and the lovely Vanessa Mendoza (Right) snap a quick pic after shooting their scene together. 

A huge THANK YOU to all the amazing young actors along with their parents for making the day a huge success!