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Why Democracy?
'Why democracy?' is a project that explores the meaning of the term 'democracy' for each and every individual. Twenty thought-provoking short films, dealing with issues around the theme of Democracy, have been created. These explore personal, political and rights issues relating to this buzzword that is often difficult to define.
It is the largest factual media event in history and has a potential global audience of 300 million. During October 2007, 42 broadcasters around the world screened a series of international documentary films, dealing with this phenomenon.
The HDHUB in Cape Town www.hdhub.co.za has been home to postproduction for the 'Why democracy?' television series.
Over the past three months, the HDHUB have carried out the post production and versioning of the films with ten full length documentaries and eighteen short films. This resulted in over 470 hours of broadcast masters for 42 of the world's top broadcasters including BBC, NHK, ZDF, ARTE and PBS.
The HDHUB provided two HD online suites as well as a colour-grading suite. Working back to back on this project, HDHUB Managing director James Middleton had the following to say about it: "Each film had a different set of requirements. On some projects we had to do a full online and grade while others just required titling and subtitling to meet the broadcast requirements. We finished each film to HDCAM and made standard definition copies on Digital Betacam. Our tape transfer facility worked around the clock to meet the delivery needs of each broadcaster."
Some of the films required standard converting and due to the stringent technical requirements of broadcasters, central London-based TT Visuals handled the conversions using a Snell and Wilcox Alchemist standard converter, with tapes couriered between Cape Town and London.
It was a great opportunity for those at The HDHUB to be involved in a landmark project such as this, in addition to working with award winning filmmakers around the world, not to mention being involved in such a thought provoking series.
The HDHUB was awarded the project after working on what became the first film in the series 'Please Vote', which resulted in winning 'best feature documentary' at the 'Silverdocs' documentary festival in America. After a short cinematic distribution it has received an entry into the second stage of nomination for The Academy awards.
Perhaps the greatest feather in The HDHUB's cap is the recognition of executive producer Don Edkins and the BBC commissioning editor Nick Fraiser. They had the confidence in the HDHUB and the visuals group to bring a series of this magnitude to Cape Town.
http://www.whydemocracy.net/film/11
Written by: Monique Smith