Case Studies

Technology behind the practical craft of filmmaking

Overview

Customer: Stockholm Film School
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Head of Stockholm Film School: Anders Rune
Technical Manager: David Marquez
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Stockholm Film School was founded in 1984 dedicated to an education that focuses entirely on practical filmmaking. The school takes pride in its diversity and inclusion; hence why it is the only gender equal film school in the world that accepts only a limited number of students each year to ensure its high level of quality teaching when it comes to each student’s individual development. Its unique model “The Stockholm Method” combines world class educational content and targeted master-apprentice training where students learn by doing and analysing what has been done together with industry professionals.

The challenge

As an industry school, Stockholm Film School focuses on the technical craft of filmmaking. Students progress from an idea to a screenplay, to on-set work, and to post-production, so technology is an important and integral part of their learning process. To master the craft of practical filmmaking, the students need to understand the equipment and what the standards are when it comes to image quality. The school needs to ensure that all of its studios and editing suites provide top industry-standard equipment to teach their students the practical skills that the industry demands.

“The industry is becoming more and more technically driven and for us as an industry driven school, it is more important than ever to be in line with what the industry requires,” comments Anders Rune.

The solution

People are sitting in a circle in a room and having a discussion

Silent but powerful workstation

Stockholm Film School’s Technical Manager, David Marquez, mentions how its students ask him if the workstation is actually on because it is not making any noise. “It is so reliable”, he points out. After installing the Dator I Delar Workstation powered by the ASUS ProArt motherboard, the school noticed a huge improvement in their processing. Student rendering time in post-production was reduced more than 50%. They can also now render in 4K, which means the school can really push its students to get the highest quality of their work as much as possible.

Fully calibrated grading suite

The school has also installed the ASUS ProArt PA32UCG monitor in its grading suite. This 4K monitor comes with true 10-bit colour and 98% DCI-P3 colour spaces enabling the students to finish their work according to industry standards. The monitor also comes with 120Hz refresh rate which makes viewing experience smooth and efficient. With a 1000nits sustained and 1600nits peak brightness, students are seeing every detail of the image shown in the monitor, which is especially important when working in HDR.

The second monitor in the grading suite is the ASUS ProArt PA279CV. It is factory pre-calibrated and has a flicker free, low blue-light technology, which enables the students to edit for as long as needed without any eye strain.

“The first time I used the ASUS ProArt monitor it was very interesting to see how my short looked in that monitor compared to other computers and monitors in the past. “The quality was very good and the colours looked very real” says Greta Fatzie, a Practical Filmmaking Program Student.

Reviewing work on a larger canvas

In its cinema room, Stockholm Film School has installed the ASUS ProArt A1 projector. Having a Calman Verified projector that features 98% sRGB enables the students to review their work on a larger canvas while being assured that the colours are matching that they are seeing in the monitors during their grading process. “The movies and the shorts that we do, they end up being very professional thanks to the technology that we use,” says Fatzie. “And the good thing here is that we could see it on the projector in the cinema, and then go back to the grading station and fix up what we didn't like.”

The outcome

With the right industry-standard technology, the school can now teach its students what are the qualities that the industry is looking for and what is the standard that they should be looking to reach once they graduate.

“ASUS has put us in a situation where we have a fully calibrated colour grading station that works perfectly with our cinema projectors. This means our cinematography department can really teach the students how image behaves from 4K up to 8K.” concludes Anders.