Studio Zoo gets 'certifiably creative' with eQ - Quantel

Studio Zoo gets ‘certifiably creative’ with eQ
South African creative hothouse takes a walk on the wild side with Quantel
Thinking together

Cover: Promotion for DStv’s new
Personal Video Recorder and
Decoder.
Right: Hannes Steyn (left) and
Mikael Subedar, Studio Zoo’s eQ
editors.
Studio Zoo gets ‘certifiably creative’
with eQ
With a name like that, the first question is inevitable.
“Creatives are an unusual and fairly wild breed, so ‘Zoo’
seemed like it might be appropriate,” says Adi Leach, one
of the two founders of Studio Zoo. “Walk in here most
days and you’d almost certainly agree – but it is also a
hugely talented collection of creative critters!”
Going it alone
Both Adi Leach and her partner Cathy Ferrara have
more than 20 years’ experience in television
production. The two worked alongside each other at
South African satellite broadcaster DStv for a couple
of years in the later 1990s, and were tasked with
building and entrenching the DStv brand. To this
end, they recruited and built up a small on-air
department and convinced MultiChoice (DStv’s
holding company) to invest in a Quantel Editbox.
DStv’s on-air needs just grew and grew – and so did
the on-air department – until Cathy and Adi decided
to take the plunge and set up their own production
and post production facility, and so Studio Zoo was
born in Johannesburg in 1999.
A different business model
The company’s unique business model incorporated
the housing and management of all MultiChoiceowned
equipment as an extension to Studio Zoo’s
production arm, thereby allowing both stakeholders
(MultiChoice and Studio Zoo) to derive maximum
production output plus financial benefit from the
arrangement. At first glance, this might seem like an
unusual relationship, but MultiChoice has built an
enviable reputation for inspired, forward thinking
innovations, always with an eye to maintaining worldclass
quality and standards. For example,
MultiChoice set up Africa’s first pay TV channel and
was one of the first three companies in the world to
launch digital satellite TV. “MultiChoice naturally
wanted its on-air look and feel to espouse and
project this top class image, which is why they
purchased the Editbox and more recently the two eQ
systems,” says Cathy Ferrara. “They are a fabulous
company to work with – creatively highly demanding,

Right: DStv daily line-up board.
Right: DStv branding promo
endboard created by Studio Zoo.
Far right: The entire Studio Zoo
crew – fronted by founders Cathy
Ferrara (left) and Adi Leach.
which keeps us nicely on our toes, but also incredibly
supportive of what we do.”
Studio Zoo quickly built its business on the back of a
fast-growing reputation for creative excellence (for
which it has received numerous industry awards).
Today the company boasts five edit suites, 4 graphic
workstations and a positively buzzing production
office, all manned by a total of 25 staff.
Blue chip clients
Studio Zoo’s client list includes MultiChoice/DStv,
the pan-African, multi-language satellite broadcaster,
South African satellite/terrestrial broadcaster M-Net,
M-Web (South Africa’s largest internet provider), the
BBC and a large number of commercials clients.
While the majority of Studio Zoo’s work for DStv and
M-Net is promo production, the facility also produces
music videos, commercials, corporates and actuality
programmes. The work with the UK’s BBC has
included a series of operatic music videos and the
South African content for the live millennium
crossing broadcasts – an ambitious project which
tracked the millennium as it traversed each
international time zone.
Powering up
Studio Zoo’s early equipment choices included a
Quantel Editbox for online work, and at the end of
2005, eQ arrived at the Zoo. “We needed a seriously
powerful editing and compositing system that would
also simply slot into our office network,” says Adi
Leach. “That way we could source EDLs direct from
our offline suites and graphics direct from our
designers’ workstations, thereby maintaining
premium resolution. The eQ was the perfect answer.”

Right: Skaramoosh created the
opening titles for Strictly Come
Dancing (UK) and Dancing with
the Stars (US).
Hannes Steyn, Studio Zoo’s senior editor continues:
“Our major client, DStv, requires weekly line-ups that
total around 27,000 frames with 42 different
segments, some of which have 25 layers – which
themselves are first reduced from an initial 48 layers.
Each layer is updated weekly then rendered, and
production time has been literally cut in half thanks
to the eQ.”
It’s not only the eQ’s enormous power and ability to
fit seamlessly into the network that attracted Studio
Zoo. “The eQ is also a multi-format platform capable
of serious high-end finishing,” explains Hannes. “It’s
also very fast with great rendering and compositing
capabilities, easy to use, has lots of plug-ins
available, is great for color correction and, being
pretty new onto the market, has a lengthy projected
lifespan too. And of course it’s Quantel, with whom
we’ve had a great relationship over the years.” That
relationship is clearly set to carry on for some time
yet - at the time of writing this article in May 2006,
Studio Zoo has finally retired the Editbox – and
traded it in with Quantel for a second eQ.
Studio Zoo secured both eQs through Ayanda Media
Technologies, Quantel’s Southern African partner.
Ingrid Falck, Manager of Ayanda Media
Technologies, added, “Studio Zoo is a buzz of
excitement, commitment and hard work and the eQ
systems fit perfectly into their workflow requirement
and outputs. We also look forward to the eQs
increasing the Zoo’s market share in their expansion
strategy.”
Version therapy
With the various DStv promos and retail commercials
being broadcast across Africa, versioning is a vital
issue for Studio Zoo. This is not only the audio –

Right: Piers at the helm (!) of the
Paintbox.
Right: Studio Zoo handles more
than just TV promos. This image is
from a tongue-in-cheek corporate
job the Zoo has recently
completed - animating ‘Idols’ type
wannabees.
Far right: DStv 10th Birthday
promotion created by the Zoo.
graphic boards and titles also need to be tailored to
reflect up to 14 different national currencies and 3
different languages. The eQ provides a fuss-free
versioning environment where the master promo can
be quickly re-worked for each market.
Studio Zoo also makes extensive use of Neuron plugins
on its eQ. “We use the plug-ins to add a bit of
glitz to the promos, and also to give us some
interesting transition effects,” says Mikael Subedar,
the Zoo’s second Editbox and eQ editor. The eQ is
running the latest Eiger hardware and software, and
Mikael really appreciates the extra power. “Eiger
makes a huge operational difference in rendering
and transitions, and rendering multiple layers with
plug-ins is a wonderfully hassle-free experience!” he
reports. “The interface also has a natural familiarity
and is quite a pleasure to work with.”
Idolatry too!
Alongside all the high profile promotions work,
Hannes Steyn cites a recent corporate job as being
a more-than-useful tester for the eQ. The job
required people’s facial elements – mouths, eyes etc
- to be tracked over existing footage of other people
auditioning as ‘Idols’ type wannabes, all for comical
effect. “With the eQ tracking the Idols was a
pleasure! We then had to build faces with animating
mouths and eyes as we worked with stills of the
‘new faces’. It all worked a treat!”
Looking ahead with Quantel
While Studio Zoo has yet to tackle any full-on HD
projects, it still makes extensive use of the eQ’s
unique Resolution Co-existence capability in
handling graphic elements that are built into the
promos. Cathy Ferrara sees the HD side of the

Right: 2006 Award winners (left
to right): Cathy Ferrara, Graham
Pfuhl (Group Marketing & Sales
Director), Koo Govender (General
Manager: M-Net Marketing),
Lester Din (On-air Manager, DStv
Marketing), Adi Leach.
www.quantel.com
system really coming into its own within the next
couple of years, with at least one of the Zoo’s clients
already planning to launch an HD broadcast service.
It is also looking to build its longform business “so
we can stretch our wings a bit,” says Cathy, “and
we’re also looking to move more into the
commercials arena, which is a logical development
from our effects-intensive promos experience.”
Spreading the net
“We would also like to attract more overseas work,”
Cathy continues. “I’d like to think that our work can
stand up against the best in the world.” And indeed
it can; Studio Zoo, which describes itself as
‘Certifiably Creative’ in its publicity, has one of the
best-stocked awards cabinets of any creative house
anywhere; how does one Platinum, 10 Gold, eight
Silver and two Bronze Promax/BDA Awards in just
three years sound?! One hopes they got the
certificates too…..
Stop Press! Zoo scoops 16 BDA/Promax 2006
World Gold Awards
Just as this story was going to press, news came
through of another astounding awards-fest for the
Zoo as the company collected no less than 16 World
Gold Awards at the 2006 BDA& Promax International
Conference. The haul included nine Gold, six Silver
and one Bronze for work done by the Zoo for DStv,
M-Net and the Group against worldwide competition
from the likes of Discovery Europe, MTV Networks
and BSkyB.
MultiChoice Group Marketing and Sales Director,
Graham Pfuhl, said, “These awards are the pinnacle
for any global broadcaster and we are especially
pleased to have won more awards this year –
breaking our own record and that of any other South
African TV company. Clearly DStv is not only in line
with global trends but is also a real innovator. And of
course, we couldn’t have done it without Studio Zoo,
our production company for the last seven years!”
Cathy and Adi were last seen heading off in search
of a larger awards cabinet!
2030-00-
2119-56-515 06-06