Broadcast Beat Magazine 2018 BroadcastAsia Special Edition | Page 44

Seaside Synchronicity
with cinesync & Wacom
S
earch for the UK’s leading VFX studios
on Google Maps. You’ll likely find your
pointer launched into the hustle and
bustle of London’s Soho hub.
Zoom out, past Old Street’s trendy tech round-
about, past Winchester and Southampton. Follow
the map to the south-west and you’ll find the
coastal town of Bournemouth, cosily snuggled
against the English Channel and humbly removed
from the clamor of London’s creative core.
Here lies the aptly named Outpost VFX – a studio
that’s chosen to extricate itself from the tangled
web of London life and set up shop less than a
kilometre from sweeping sea views.
Yet the distance from London (around two hours
by train) hasn’t prevented Outpost from contrib-
uting to the world’s most prominent Hollywood
franchises, stretching from Paul Greengrass’s Jason
Bourne to CG dinosaur extravaganza Jurassic World:
Fallen Kingdom.
44 • Broadcast Beat Magazine • www.broadcastbeat.com
“We feel Outpost is a unique shop in today’s day
and age,” says Gez Hixson, the studio’s head of pro-
duction. “Although location isn’t everything, being
on the south coast gives our team a relaxed and
inspiring environment in which to live and work. A
focus on work/life balance is at the centre of what
we do. We’re hugely ambitious, and love to work
with the most creative supervisors and production
teams worldwide, but that shouldn’t mean people
can’t also enjoy beach life.”
Setups like Outpost are possible today thanks to
technology. We’re now working and creating in an
era in which physical distance poses no barrier to
producing quality work. Incredibly fast broadband
and remote production tools enable teams like
Outpost to work side-by-side with LA, all without
ever having to share the same physical space.
One such tool is Cospective’s cineSync, which
Outpost uses in conjunction with Wacom’s pen
tablets, to facilitate, augment, and clarify its inter-
actions with creative partners around the world.