Kodiak Mobile Television s Grizz HD Truck Caters to Sports Postproduction

Five years ago, business partners David Kearnes and Paul Bronsteader founded Kodiak Production Group, a company committed to delivering top-notch production and postproduction in a smaller, more cost-effective package. The two have since added a sister company to the portfolio, Kodiak Mobile Television, and a new 45-ft. mobile-production unit, Grizz HD.

Kodiak caters to the sports postproduction market with 10 AJA Video Systems Ki Pro hard-drive recorders,.

Kodiak Production Group offered clients a single EFP camera for shooting and editing and rented additional units based on need. However, with the transition from SD to HD and resulting cost increase, Kearnes found that many clients couldn't afford the jump in price.

During that time, we started working on our plans to build a better mousetrap, so to speak, he says. We were trying to come in there with a little more cost-effective solution but yet give them most of the production tools they were used to having. Everybody still wants all the equipment, but they don't want to pay as much. We tried to get as much of the equipment as we could in a smaller, lighter, cost-effective package to be able to get what they wanted production-wise but more affordable.

Thus, Kodiak Mobile Television was born. Based in Broken Arrow, OK, the newly minted company took delivery of the rack-ready trailer in January 2013 and worked with EH Concepts in San Antonio, TX, on the interior work. Systems integration was done by Kodiak.

Grizz HD hit the road in February, featuring a Grass Valley 2.5M/E Kayenne switcher, Calrec Omega digital 5.1-surround audio console, two EVS six-channel XT Nano replay servers, Tightrope Media Systems eight-channel ZEPLAY replay server, Utah Scientific 400S router, and Chyron HyperX3 graphics system. It comes equipped with seven Grass Valley LDK 3000+ cameras with Fujifilm lenses.

Grizz HD rolled out in February 2013.

Because the bread and butter of Kodiak Production Group and now Kodiak Mobile Television is sports postproduction, Kearnes and Bronsteader paid special attention to recording, editing, and playback.

When everyone started going HD, it was much harder to do because those old sports trucks used to have DigiBeta and meta decks for isos. You could tape all those cameras on reels and take them back in post, explains Kearnes. [Now], everybody's using EVSs and [might] only have a couple of tape machines for ingest and outgest, and they really [can't] iso all those cameras where you could walk away with material on tape.

Kodiak Mobile Television installed 10 AJA Video Systems Ki Pro hard-drive recorders, an Avid/FCP HD edit system with AJA I/O, and Apple Final Cut editing system.

With the Ki Pros being able to do all those iso recordings and then audio recording for someone's post show, it's just really great, says Kearnes. Oftentimes, those units get rented and added into trucks, [and] since we already have them integrated into the truck, it's easy to iso all those cameras and audio and everything and get somebody media at the end of the day. We just physically pop those drives, put them in a pelican case, and [clients can] walk out of there with them 15 minutes after the shoot. Then they transfer them to their edit system, and it works out very well.

LINK:	http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2013/12/kodiak-mobile-television-griz...
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