Cloud-based f ilm a boon for Kiwi f ilm-makers, says LOTR producer

Modern technology allowed Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to have a colourist in Idaho, a cameraman in New Zealand and a studio in Los Angeles, all working in unison.

The production might have shifted to UK, creating uncertainty for the more than 1200 Kiwis who worked on the film, but producer Ron Ames said the cloud-based systems pioneered by the production would prove a boon for the New Zealand industry, as artists and other specialists could be pulled into working on films being shot anywhere on the planet.

Auckland-based production company Rebel Fleet was one of those that lost out when the production moved overseas, but Ames said he had already recruited the company to work on another project in Australia.

During the Rings of Power production Rebel Fleet handled streaming for off-site crews, on-set colour grading and handling of dailies – taking custody of the raw film files and delivering it to post-production crews all over the globe during the roughly 50 weeks of filming.

‘‘The great thing about New Zealand is because you’re a bunch of number 8 wires, you’re able to bring a unique perspective,’’ Ames said. ‘‘The tasks are so specific we really want the best artists.’’

Ames said the new cloud-based approach trialled during The Rings of Power would inevitably become the industry norm, as productions went fully digital.

‘‘We didn’t have paper scripts, nothing was kept in any way other than digitally.

‘‘We never lost a frame, we never lost an asset.’’

He said there were still teams in New Zealand working on season two of The Rings of Power, while others had been recruited into other projects.

‘‘We used this small company in New Zealand called Cause and FX, which is a fantastic visual effects company. We helped develop their pipeline, currently right now we are getting them on two other jobs.’’

The Rings of Power, an Amazon production, used Amazon Web Services’ cloud to store everything from artists’ concept drawings, to costume designs, scripts and raw footage, and specialists tools were developed that could be utilised by other film-makers.

Because everything was shot and stored digitally, Ames said the winding up of productions could happen in days rather than weeks, with minimal physical film to deal with.

Mike Urban is the chief executive of Rebel Fleet, and confirmed Ames had brought the company on other projects, which were yet to start shooting. He was not able to name the projects. ‘‘Things will start to crystallise in the New Year, but I can’t talk about it any more, obviously.’’

He agreed the rise of cloud-based movie making was a boon for New Zealand companies.

‘‘It enables post-production services in New Zealand to leverage the cloud on productions that were shot on the other side of the world as well.’’

Urban said during the height of filming The Rings of Power his teams were dealing with six to 10 terabytes of raw footage per day. ‘‘That’s a lot of data to push.’’

He said credit had to go to the Government-led fibre network, with ‘‘dark’’ or unused fibres able to be used exclusively for the production.

‘‘That’s needed from a security perspective, but also great because we know we can leverage all that bandwidth all the time regardless of if people are at home streaming.’’

Urban said Rebel Fleet never lost a frame throughout the production.

‘‘It’s not an option, there are a lot of processes and verification that happen along the way.’’