Rust Company Relies on Updated Post Workflow to Maximize Efficiency and Creativity

Rust Company, a post-production facility in New York City located just south of Wall Street, pays subtle homage to its more button-downed neighbors by relying on business savvy and smart investments to nurture its growing business. Just one year after its founding in 2006, the company, which primarily focuses on television and industrial work, has seen its business grow to include an increasing number of film projects as well. This increased workload has enabled Rust to enlarge its office space and add more editing suites to keep pace with its growing client base, which includes Warner Music Group, BMG, Sony Music, CBS, MTV Networks, and A&E.

With two Macintosh-based Avid editing systems already in place - a Media Composer Adrenaline system and a Media Composer XL system - co-founders Jamie Manalio and Anthony Cupo faced an important decision when considering how to outfit their additional editing suites. They were looking for technology that would enable the staff to be more productive with speedy, real-time features and an easy-to-use interface. They also wanted flexible and scalable equipment that could grow with them as their company continues to expand.

These seasoned post professionals were well prepared to identify a cost-effective, reliable, and comprehensive solution that could support their business needs. Manalio brings his own editing experience to Rust Company, having spent the past 10 years at MTV Networks working in a variety of post-production positions. And Cupo, an art director who has worked on commercial spots and promo pieces for companies such as Warner Brothers and Sony Music, has extensive experience in graphic design and animation. One thing they both bring to the company is a confidence in the editing, finishing, and storage solutions from Avid.

“We’ve been using Avid systems for years,” says Manalio. “And they’ve proven themselves time and time again. Because we have such confidence in the performance of the systems, it frees us up to focus on what we do best – the creative.”

They ultimately decided to expand their setup to include a full slate of Avid offline editing, finishing, and shared-storage systems to support their current business needs while allowing for future expansion. The company added four new Avid editing workstations - three Media Composer software-based stations and a dual-boot Avid DS Nitris/Symphony Nitris finishing system. They also upgraded their existing Media Composer Adrenaline system to include an Avid DNxcel card for creating HD media with the Avid DNxHD codec, a storage-efficient compression format for working with HD files. The Avid Unity ISIS shared-storage solution ties all the systems together, enabling simultaneous real-time access to projects and media from any workstation.

“Because we have such confidence in the performance of [Avid] systems, it frees us up to focus on what we do best – the creative.”
- Jamie Manalio, Co-Founder, Rust Company

Opening Up the Workflow

Rust Company oversees assignments that range from HD color correction and editing to creating media for mobile phones, so it was imperative that the company’s editing solution meet the needs of this diverse group of projects. In particular, they were looking for an editing setup with reliable, real-time media storage that could support editing tools from different vendors and handle both SD and HD projects.

As a linchpin to this workflow, they installed an 8-terabyte Avid Unity ISIS shared-storage system that provides uninterrupted access to media across the entire facility. Now, every Rust Company client - from producers and directors to editors, graphic artists, and animators - has real-time access to media that can be simultaneously shared from any of Rust’s editing workstations, including Avid and non Avid tools.

“While most of our freelance editors – I’d say 80 percent - are extremely familiar and comfortable with Avid systems, there are others who have started on Final Cut Pro or Premiere,” explains Manalio.

“So I can have multiple people working on a project with different skill sets. One of the beauties of this new open workflow is that we can start a job on Final Cut Pro and finish it on our Symphony Nitris [system] when we need to, using Automatic Duck to translate and import the EDL.”

Cupo agrees that the Avid Unity ISIS system makes tremendous sense for the company’s diverse needs. “There’s not a project we can’t take on with this shared-storage system,” he adds. “Projects come in all sizes and with a wide range of budgets. Knowing that we have the flexibility to use the right tools for each job is extremely beneficial to us.”

The system’s security is also a big selling point for clients. “When director Matthew Makar came to us, he had more than 275 hours of film for his documentary, which is as yet untitled,” says Manalio. “He was working on 14 different FireWire drives, and he was concerned about keeping it safe. We were able to install it on the Avid Unity ISIS [system] with Raid 6 redundancy, failover protection, and battery backup, which took a huge weight off his mind.”

“Projects come in all sizes and with a wide range of budgets. Knowing that we have the flexibility to use the right tools for each job is extremely beneficial to us.” 
-  Anthony Cupo, Co-Founder, Rust Company

Start-to-Finish Ease

The most powerful editing suite at Rust Company is the dual-boot Avid DS Nitris v8 workstation, which allows editors to use either the Avid DS Nitris or Symphony Nitris toolset. It also supports the 4:4:4 HD-RGB format for unparalleled color accuracy. “In this suite, we can finish pretty much any format on the planet,” says Manalio. “And the support for the 4:4:4 color space is critical for our film clients.”

Rust has seen its work in HD explode over the past year. Typically when they had received HD footage, they would immediately convert it to SD for cutting. But to meet the growing demand for projects to remain in HD from start-to-finish, they created another “power” suite that includes their existing Media Composer Adrenaline workstation upgraded with an Avid DNxcel card for creating HD media with the Avid DNxHD codec. This Media Composer Adrenaline setup provides real-time 10-bit HD-SDI I/O to and from HDCAM, DVCPRO HD, and D5 decks and cameras, as well as the ability to edit multi-stream HD with real-time effects viewable on an HD monitor.

“The Avid DNxHD codec has dramatically simplified the process to edit in HD, with just a simple update to our [Adrenaline] hardware,” says Manalio, citing the ease with which he could add an Avid DNxcel card to his Media Composer Adrenaline setup to create high-quality HD media using Avid DNxHD compression.

The same suite also houses a Digidesign Pro Tools digital audio workstation for comprehensive, professional audio editing capabilities. Because the Pro Tools audio environment is tightly integrated with the Avid editing timeline, laying on high-impact audio becomes a very streamlined process.

An additional suite contains three more Avid editing workstations - two on a Macintosh platform and one on a Windows platform - each equipped with Media Composer software to provide an affordable option for efficiently housing multiple tools in a single cutting room. “We can load and lay-off [media] and not interrupt clients,” says Manalio about this cost-effective, dual-platform setup. “It also gives us the ability to spend some time ‘playing around’ with an element, without taking up time in a [higher-end, revenue-generating] suite.” The flexibility of working on either Windows-based or Macintosh-based systems - and

and seamlessly transferring projects between them  gives Rust’s clients even more options.

And because everything is tied to the Avid Unity ISIS shared storage, Rust has the seamless conform capabilities it needs between editing and finishing systems, along with flexible and secure, real-time access to projects and media. “All the media we need is there, and the speed with which we can access it is just terrific,” said Manalio.

Seamless Offline to Online

With Avid Total Conform, moving between Avid editing and finishing systems is fast and easy – every edit and effect is transferred intact from the offline cut. A typical project for Rust Company is a recent video that Manalio shot for the Christine Martucci Band. Shot at 720p using the JVC JY100 HC camera, the footage was ingested and cut on a Media Composer Adrenaline system, stored on the Avid Unity ISIS system, and then moved to a Symphony Nitris system for conforming, color correction, and exporting into multiple formats for the Web and for television broadcast in SD.

“With the Symphony Nitris, you can work on your high-res footage and it’s so easy to color correct and output to all of the popular formats that clients want,” says Manalio.v

At Rust, creativity comes first. But creativity alone doesn’t breed success. It must be supported by a growth strategy and a commitment to the technology that supports and enhances the creative process. With their newly expanded Avid workflow in place, Rust has the power, flexibility, and scalability to meet the demands of customers today – and well into the future.

For more information about the Rust Company and its work, visit http://www.rustcompany.com/.

CREDITS: Courtesy of Rust Company, R. Jamie Manalio