Hollywood for the 21st century
Published: ASIA
The China Film Group Corporation is the largest and most influential state-run film enterprise in the country. Richard Lawn takes a tour of its new facilities
In addition to being the sole importer of foreign films in China, the China Film Group Corporation (CFGC) is also the biggest exporter of Chinese films. As the largest and most influential state-run film enterprise in the country, CFGC is primarily involved in film and television production. The Group has produced over 200 films including "Zhang Side" and "Flower or the Bride", but is continually seeking to increase its market share not only in China – but the world. The Hollywood sign may be missing in the nearby foothills to the north east of the capital city, but the facilities have been clearly set up in a manner that will entice increasing numbers of western film producers from the traditional movie-making west.
Inaugurated in 1951 as the China Film Corporation, CFGC was conglomerated in 1999 as the most comprehensive and extensive state-owned film enterprise in China including film production, distribution, TV and video. The creative and production units boast highly skilled editors, sound engineers and technical engineers, many of whom speak excellent English, hence making the facilities highly attractive to world famous producers and filmmakers. Many of the current employees previously worked at Beijing Film Studio, bringing with them many years of experience in producing first-rate Chinese movies. Currently, CFGC is set up to produce come 100+ feature films per year and such an output has ensured its lion's share in the domestic film market.
The sound and editing department within China Film Post Production Co may only be a small cog in the overall China Film Group machinery, but the state of the art facilities can currently output some four feature films at one time.
Located in Yangsong Town, lying on the outskirts of Beijing, the department opened on the eve of the Olympic Games on August 1, 2008. This in itself was a statement of intent to the outside world. The sound and editing department includes four dubbing stages, two Auto Dialogue Replacement (ADR) stages, two Foley stages, a scoring stage, three pre-mix rooms, 12 picture editing rooms, a screening room and no fewer than 26 sound editing rooms. The 10,000-sq-m facility can therefore provide services at all stages of the production process including picture capturing and editing, subtitling, sound post production covering ADR recording, Foley recording, music recording, sound effects recording, sound editing /mixing and optical recording.
The production systems were designed and constructed according to the highest international standards resulting in a large-scale, fully networked, all digital production environment. Unlike established Western post production houses situated in congested areas, whose problematic upgrades often result in downtime, China Film Post Production Co. was provided with the luxury of a blank canvas upon which it artistically designed its own modern infrastructure. Following instructions from project consultant Mr Qiu, the resultant layout revolves around the industry standard Pro Tools. As such, Digital Media Technologies (DMT) Beijing under the project management of Johnathan Wang was called upon to both supply and provide a turnkey solution throughout the facility.
Wang Ding is one of the many sound recordists at the facility, who relocated from the old Beijing Film Studio to the newly built facilities in Yangsong Town. ‘The movies in China are changing rapidly as the expectations of Chinese audiences become greater,’ he explains. ‘It wasn’t so many years ago when we were solely working on dialogue mixing. However, action sequences such as car chases and kung fu fight scenes became much more prominent in the mix, demanding a lot of detail to be added. This led to sourcing many different sound effects and storing them in our library, so that we can greatly enrich the mix now. Music also became an important addition and so it made sense to score and record music here on site. Stereo was the norm, but now everyone expects a 5.1 surround sound mix. Currently, 3D movie production is very topical and becoming increasingly important. Basically, our four main dubbing rooms combine and edit as many as 576 channels of dialogue, music, ambience, background Foleys and sound effects on Digidesign D-Control Icon consoles and Pro Tools HD workstations. Some Disney productions require as many as 100 tracks of ambience alone. At our old studios, we relied on hardware. However, this has been preplaced by Pro Tools software – it’s much quicker and more convenient, in which we can switch scenes easily and smoothly. ‘
The large dubbing stages receive their content from the ADR, Foley, scoring stage and sound editing rooms via a Gigabyte Ethernet fibre network that has been installed throughout China Film Post Production Co. Sound supervisor Wu Ling explains the benefits of this infrastructure. ‘Being a fibre network, you can run content over long distances, which was vital in our case. Our IT infrastructure is forever evolving, but with the network we have adopted, making changes is straightforward as there are no grounding issues or electrical connections required. The cabling runs in visible overhead ducting channels below the ceiling, so pulling cables isn’t an issue either. Once a file has been made available on the network, anyone can access it. Furthermore, there are no bottlenecks in the workflow.’
The Scoring Stage is a colossus for DMT and they haven’t disappointed. ‘Since 2004, we mixed on a Harrison Digital 48-fader console at the Beijing Film Studio and relocated it here for our new operations,’ furthers Wu Ling. ‘Unfortunately we couldn’t get any technical support from the manufacturer in order to reconfigure it for use, so it is currently redundant.’
Under the supervision of Chris Fish, DMT supplied and installed an enormous 72-channel Solid State Logic Duality analogue mixing console into this large studio where sound engineer Wang Dong and his colleagues now mix in comfort. SSL Alphalink AD-DA’s provide the conversion to the digital domain, in which the mixes are streamed to a Pro Tools HD4 digital audio workstation. Six facility panels in the studio allow 12 microphone inputs to be connected to each, using various Neumann, Brauner, DPA, AKG and Schoeps instrument and vocal microphones. A vast selection of outboard is also at the disposal of the recording engineer including Neve, Avalon, Universal Audio, Manley equalisers, mic pre amps, compressors and limiters. TC System 6000 and Lexicon 960L are combined for FX and reverb processing together with a Waves Mercury TDM Plug-Ins suite for Pro Tools. The Genelec full range 5.1 monitoring system includes 7071 Bass, 1038, 1037, 1034B, 1034BC and 1032 models.
Over a period of three months at the height of the phase one installation, DMT posted up to ten technicians on site, including several contract workers. Many of the upper floors remain empty and these rooms will be the scene for phase two in due course. ‘The 26 sound editing rooms are sometimes all in use, especially if we’re working on three or four feature films simultaneously, so we need to expand,’ enlightened Wu Ling. ‘The upper floors will soon be converted to cope for the increasing demand and so we are also looking to recruit more skilled technicians.’
DMT worked closely with project consultant and chief engineer Mr Qiu Chun in creating the enormous, modern studios at China Film Post Production Co. ‘The communications between the different parties were excellent and DMT installed the perfect infrastructure according to our needs.’ DMT new father Chris Fish was naturally proud to have played his part in witnessing the birth of China Film Post Production Co. ‘Without a doubt, Yangsong Town is the Hollywood for the 21st century.’