Animation Editor's Video Capture Card of Choice

By Damon P. Yoches - Editor - Comedy Central's “Drawn Together”

Damon P. Yoches has made his career as an animation editor. He has worked on over 300 animated episodes for television and film. Projects include Futurama, King of the Hill, Baby Blues and Queer Duck the movie. He is currently editing Drawn Together for Comedy Central and Metalocalypse for Adult Swim. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

I had been working for Rough Draft Studios (“RDS”) for several years on a variety of projects including “Futurama” and “Baby Blues”, among others. At the end of “Futurama”, we decided it was time to get rid of our antiquated edit system because it simply did not meet our needs. We wanted the ability to work tapeless at 24 frames per second until our final output. After coming back from NAB that year and speaking with many other editors, I found that the Blackmagic Design DeckLink Extreme card had what we were looking for in its ability to facilitate the 3:2 pulldown. We ran our tests and decided that Final Cut Pro and a Blackmagic DeckLink card was the way to go, not only for our tapeless workflow, but also for many different projects.

Shortly after “Drawn Together” went into production and the first show was handed over to Comedy Central, “Drawn Together” decided to make a change in editors and approached me about handling the final editing for the season. I quickly accepted, though I was faced with two challenges: the first was that I still had to do the RDS director's cut, and the second was that I had to work on a system other than Final Cut because Comedy Central was already set up with a newly leased system.

Over that first season, my duties were split between RDS and Comedy Central. I would edit with the Director and get the show to how they envisioned their episodes to be. Then, after the screening, I went back into editing and started on the process of giving the show the aesthetic and feel that the creators had envisioned for the show.

After the first season however, the overlapping schedule between animatic and final editing was too intense. The animatics and Director's cuts now are handled by another editor, who sends me the project file that he has been working on along with the source tapes. I bring it back online over here at Comedy Central and continue working off of his final timeline in full resolution.

The second season also saw another change. Comedy Central purchased a new system from The DR Group, which clearly understood our needs and quickly determined an efficient system with a very competitive price. The system is basically a Dual Processor PowerMac G5, DRaid redundant SATA Drive array, a Sony DVW-A500 Digital Betacam and a Blackmagic Design DeckLink Extreme Video Capture Card.

As an animation editor, I need a system that can handle both 24 and 30 fps workflows. Working on a Final Cut Pro system with the Blackmagic DeckLink Extreme at its core allows me the freedom to work on both the animation edit and the final picture.

Metalocalypse

The extremely popular animated series on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network, and a huge hit with the male 18-34 segment, Metalocalypse takes HD into a whole new world. According to Chris Prynoski, "You can see so much more delicious animated goodness on your fancy new TV set..."

Chrysalis

A compelling thriller by author, Ray Bradbury, Chrysalis was produced by Roger Lay, Jr., and edited by Cheyenne Pesko. Using a tapeless workflow and DeckLink HD Extreme, Chrysalis depicts an isolated group of scientists searching for new ways to sustain life and save the planet Earth.

Fields of Fuel

A labor of love for Todd Sali of thesandbox and Darius Fischer of Digital Neural Axis (DNA), Fields of Fuel is a show-stopping documentary film targeting the skyrocketing prices for oil, and the world's concerns over pollution.

Fatima

This film is very entertaining, and at the same time, has become an authority on the subject of Fatima. This feature length film about three children from Fatima in 1917, who claimed the Virgin Mary appeared to them, is the work of award winning Director, Writer and Editor, Frederic Lumiere.

Being Michael Madsen

Being Michael Madsen is the story of a movie star who exacts revenge on an abrasive paparazzi photographer by hiring a documentary film crew to follow him 24/7. In editing this new feature film, Director, Michael Mongillo turned to HDLink for monitoring video because "the depth and detail was stunning".

The Yes Network

As the number one regional sports network, The YES Network are fanatical about HD video quality. Original video content for the New York Yankees and the New Jersey Nets is created with the help of Blackmagic Design's DeckLink HD Pro and HDLink.

Copley

This ghost story is a film that relies on imagery, depth of plot and visual storytelling rather than gore. The real magic happens in post production with this film, where a cutting edge workflow was developed to make shooting on Super 35mm affordable.

The Red Machine

This is the story of a professional thief who is forced to help a Navy spy steal an encoding machine from the Japanese. Using a High Def workflow to create stylized palettes of color and sound, The Red Machine uses a blue-grey world for the spy and a brown world for the thief.