Beta Sight: Sonnet Technologies Fusion F2

To keep up with the Red Digital Cinema Red One 4K workflow for the online series Puppy Love and other projects, Offhollywood used the Sonnet Technologies Fusion F2 portable two-drive RAID SATA storage system in conjunction with an Apple MacBook Pro and a Sonnet Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 adapter.

Offhollywood has built a reputation as a leader in 4K digital cinema services, with major studios and independent producers coming to us for solutions to challenging projects and workflows. We have provided numerous clients with Red Digital Cinema Red One 4K cameras, technical support, workflow, and postproduction services since the first Red cameras were released. More recently, we brought onboard the Sonnet Technologies Fusion F2 portable two-drive RAID SATA storage system to support rapid production within a Red workflow.

Among the first major projects on which we used the Fusion F2 was the original scripted series Puppy Love, created by writer-producer Amy B. Harris and other Sex and the City writers for L Studio, an Internet-only channel created by automaker Lexus. We treated Puppy Love as an indie feature, shooting 10 episodes over a single month and working onsite at a variety of outdoor locations around New York''s West Village.

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Grace Naughton, the co-executive producer, had stressed her desire to maintain a light run-and-gun approach to production, and the Fusion F2 made this possible. With few wires and a compact case that''s about the size of two stacked CD cases, the Fusion F2 packs up easily, making it easy for us to pick up and go. Because drives are individually shock-isolated, they are not only protected during transport, but also virtually invulnerable to the vibration that can cause skipped frames in video capture and playback.

The rugged design of the Fusion F2—along with its bus-powered operation, high-speed drives, and eSATA interface—has enabled our production team to adopt a highly efficient style of on-location shooting and storage. Whether out on location in a park or in an urban loft, the Fusion F2 helped us to work quickly—without concern for grid-based power—while still maintaining the type, scale, and quality of our production work. For this reason, we have made it a standard part of our kit.

During shooting of Puppy Love, our team worked at a new location each day, simply connecting the Fusion F2''s power cable to a FireWire port on the Apple MacBook Pro, equipped with a Sonnet Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 adapter, and swapping out laptop batteries as needed. Each time the scene changed, our tech personnel simply found a seat and work surface, plugged in the Fusion F2, and began offloading and checking footage. Configured as a RAID 1 mirrored volume, the 640GB Sonnet system provides 320GB of redundant storage, enough for a full day of media shot with a 4K Red camera.

After using the Sonnet storage system for backup all day long, we shuttled the unit to our studios, docked it to an eight-core Apple Mac Pro, and transferred files to nearline storage that fed into an Assimilate Scratch color-grading system. The high data transfer rates of the Fusion F2''s eSATA interface and the ability to mount two drives at once combined to enable much faster offloading of media, which saved technicians precious time at the end of a long day.

The workflow we used during Puppy Love and earlier projects has since fueled a wide variety of productions, providing the performance required for high-profile features, as well as the rugged portability needed for shooting in extreme situations and in remote locales. Among many other projects, we''ve used the Sonnet storage system during small “bandit” units for Fair Game, which is currently in postproduction having been filmed with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts in and around Washington, D.C., and New York; on the feature Every Day with Helen Hunt and Liev Schreiber; and at a variety of unpowered and outdoor locations for Spike TV''s True Dads campaigns and other commercial work.

The Sonnet system is an ideal fit for any level of shoot operating in remote locations or in a run-and-gun style. When we''re doing a two-camera shoot with a minimal crew and literally running or grabbing cabs from point to point, the Fusion F2 makes it easy for us to recycle media on the camera. At times, our tech personnel have been working at a crate and under a tarp in the rain or offloading video in the back of the van while moving to a new location. Regardless, the Sonnet unit lasts all day, allowing us to offload in a pinch, with or without power, and its eSATA interface is the fastest way of getting source media out of the camera.

We''re conscientious about protecting media as we acquire it, and the Fusion F2 is a backup that we can rely on in any situation. With roots in postproduction, we have had the opportunity to perform test drives for a lot of companies, and Sonnet has created a very high-quality device with the Fusion F2. The quality of service behind the product also has been good, and in our work that responsiveness can be equally as important as the system''s performance. In the end, the Fusion F2 gives us convenient, reliable performance in a wide range of environments, and this versatility has enabled us to implement fast Red workflows wherever the production takes us.

A.J. Del Cueto is a producer with Offhollywood, a Red-centric digital cinema company based in New York and Baton Rouge, La. Del Cueto heads up production services and the camera department for the company, and he has worked on more than 14 Red features.