Undercover Boss

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to spend some time at a new production company called Studio Lambert. The company was founded by Stephan Lambert, who is a heavy hitter reality TV show runner in the UK. He recently opened a US office where the first production was a reality show pilot for CBS called Undercover Boss. My friend Courtney Smith was the lead editor, and he called me in to help them finish up the last week of editorial. The schedule was grueling, but Courtney and the producers were great to work with. They kept the show on the rails while the network made massive 11th hour changes, and they maintained a positive, creative atmosphere until the bitter end. Well, the end wasn’t so bitter, because its just been announced that CBS has picked up the series. Congratulations to everyone at Studio Lambert.

On a technical note, the pilot episode was cut on Avid Adrenaline machines with a MeSoft network for the producers. In the offline edit, we were working at 10:1 resolution in 4×3. The show was shot on Sony XDCam. I came to the show in the last week of editorial, and I had assumed that they shot HD and downconverted to standard definition for the offline edit. I didn’t find out until the up-res that they didn’t shoot HD. They shot standard definition, in 4×3. I assume that was a budgetary decision, but its a surprising choice given that it doesn’t cost much more to shoot and edit HD these days. Sony XDCam is HD. The Avid is HD. The Davinci color correction is HD. The post house isn’t going to charge you less for using SD, unless they are charging for VTR usage. Every consumer that owns an HD TV (about 33% of viewers) *hates* watching SD programming on their shiny new TV set, so I don’t see where you come out ahead by producing a show in SD. Of course, CBS will blowup the image for HD broadcast, but I think the difference is noticeable and the HD purists will still complain.