CBS Eyes Digital
by Roger Maycock

Pro Sound News - November, 1998

With the era of digital TV rapidly approaching, the need to rethink the entire production process has been well under way for quite some time. As television evolves toward an all-digital medium, so does the equipment and the facilities themselves. Nowhere could these changes be more evident than at CBS Television City in Los Angeles.

Television City is the West Coast network operations center for CBS. At the request of Al Kennedy, director of advertising and promotions, the promo facilities have undergone a massive physical restructuring during the past 15 months- incorporating new rooms, new equipment and a centralized server for more efficient distribution of materials in progress. While many rooms are still being renovated, the changes thus far have had a significant impact on the entire operation.

For Warren Giancaterino, director of music for on-air promotion, these changes have resulted in a new room, new equipment plus a substantially more streamlined process for carrying the music and sound effects from conception to completion. While the process of crating television promotional spots typically involves the use of show loads, master tapes and the extensive use of music libraries as part of the production process, Giancaterino finds himself in the somewhat unique position of actually composing original music and doing sound design as a regular part of his responsibilities.

As a result of the steady stream of material needed in order to feed a 24 hour, seven-day operation, Giancaterino’s position is not for the faint-of-heart. Television City produces all of the network’s promotional content with the exception of news, sports and late night, which are handled by the New York operation. Producing promotions for all the various sitcoms, dramas and special events is a fast-paced, major undertaking.

Giancaterino explains, “We produce 10-, 20- and 30-second promotional spots as this provides the network with the greatest broadcast flexibility. From the time we get the assignment, prepare the music and sound-effects bed, move the project through the entire production chain and upload it via satellite, it’s not uncommon for the entire process to occur over a period of three to four hours. Everything goes from here to New York. The actual on-air delivery of the spot will usually occur one to two days later.”

Due to the extremely tight production schedules, Giancaterino uses a variety of synths and samplers for the majority of his composition work, augmenting those tracks with live vocalists or instrumentalists as time and creative requirements mandate. Currently, he uses Mark of the Unicorn’s Performer for sequencing, several Emu E-4 samplers and Roland Super JV1080 and 2080 sound modules. A Yamaha 02R digital console manages all the instrument signals while studio monitors include both Meyer HD-1s and Fostex 6301Bs.

Giancaterino usually works to a finished, “locked” video but with a temporary voice-over. “As the promotional spots are so short in duration,” he says, “it’s more cost-effective for the network to bring in the voice-over talent to knock these out in bulk.” The “temp” voice-over is frequently that of the spot’s producer. To complete his part of the process, Giancaterino mixes the music/sound-effects bed to a Panasonic SV-3700 DAT for use by the producer.

The next step in the process involves synchronizing the music/ sound-effects bed to the promo in one of the Avid Media Composer workstations. Once this has been accomplished, all of the audio tracks (dialogue, music and sound effects) are exported via an OMF (Open Media Framework) file along with a rough VHS video reference to one of the new Digital Audio Production suites where the final voice-over is recorded. Next, an EDL (edit decision list) is generated by the Avid for use in an on-line editing bay for clean printing the video portion of the promo.

The finished video for each promo is then sent back to the Digital Audio Production room already working on the spot for the last stop in the production chain. Here, the final voice-over is placed in addition to audio sweetening and sound mixing, with the finished project’s delivery medium being a Sony D2. At this point, the project is ready for upload via satellite. Throughout the entire process, creative aspects are checked and rechecked by Jack Parmeter, vice president of on-air promotion and Ron Scalera, sr. vice president and creative director for advertising and promotion.

With the start of a new television season just underway, the volume of promotional spots for all the new shows is at an all-time fever pitch. Combined with the dizzying array of new competition from cable and satellite, all of which is vying for much of the same consumer base as network television, the demand for top-notch production is greater than ever. In Giancaterino’s words, “Every aspect of a project gets an incredible amount of creative scrutiny. Where it was once common for background audio to be ‘stone cut’ with very little regard to musical phrasing or other aesthetic considerations, we now make every effort to minimize that sort of thing. Every last detail counts. With 20 seconds or so to get the point across and attract another viewer, you really can’t afford to overlook anything.”

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