It goes without saying that with the pedigree of the producers and the production company behind the international reality hit TV show, The Apprentice Africa, only the highest quality should be expected.
For one, the show will be edited and post produced in what will arguably be the most advanced broadcast post production facility in West Africa. IBST Limited, a division of Storm Media & Entertainment Group is the broadcast facility company commissioned to provide facilities for the show, and is currently installing in its Ikeja GRA offices a suite of dedicated facilities which include 4 x Avid Adrenaline HD Editing Suites and a host of other ancillary post production facilities for audio and video special effects.
Peter Beck, Managing Engineer, Fibretroopers Limited from the UK is currently overseeing the installations and confirms that the current installation after completion will have a fully Fibre-networked post production environment based on a server /client model with capabilities to store more than 700 hours of High Definition video on the servers installed in the facility. The Avid Adrenalins, which have the capability of editing High Definition Video and Film, are also being currently configured for the installation and are being run through their final tests.
Managing Director of Storm Vision (the show Producers) and Executive Producer The Apprentice Africa, Remi Ogunpitan, further highlights that the Apprentice Africa being such a high content show required that four edit suites be available for work running concurrently with the media being available on the Video servers over the network to all the editors at a click of a mouse. This also allows editors collaborate and share editing tasks, as well as being a great time saving process which a tape environment does not provide. “Our facility will now allow us to share postproduction tasks seamlessly and efficiently” he stated, with visible excitement.
The Apprentice Africa will be transmitted across Africa on free to air channels as from March 2008 and part of the installation takes into consideration multi format requirements of broadcasters in Africa. Ingestion and Master transfers onto final transmission copies will be available in Betacam SP, HDV, DVCam, DV and DVD formats.
The most fascinating element of the postproduction installation by Fibretroopers for IBST Limited, includes additional Pro Tools Audio for Video Final Mix suites, 1 x Video Special effects workstation using the Adobe Suite of Software on a Matrox Digisuite and dedicated VTRs in all major tape formats.
Storm Vision during the production will also have access to the newly acquired addition to the IBST facility, which is the mobile 6 HDV Camera Mobile Production Unit, which comprises all the major components of a 6 camera Outside Broadcast Van. This mobile production unit is fitted with a 6 input HD Vision Mixer, Talkback, Audio and Video monitoring, and is fully Serial Digital in full functionality. The Sony HVR Z1 cameras are rigged either to be used as ENG Cameras, or Studio cameras with manual focus and zoom for the boardroom scenes. 2 x Glidecams have also been acquired for a free flow and an out-of-the-box approach to the filming of the show.
Lindon Rankin, one of the show Producers who is working with the Nigerian team, emphasises that the facilities being utilized for the show will help bring to screens across Africa compelling content. In his words, “I am not only impressed by the design of the equipment, but more importantly by the varied scope of coverage and creative scope the equipment will provide the production team, from acquisition to post production”.
Viewers across Africa are looking forward to this show and, thankfully, it would seem that the producers are gearing up to produce a high quality and first-rate TV programme.
