Emmy Award Memories

Sitting here watching the Emmy Awards brings me back a couple years when a miniseries we worked on, Elvis, was nominated for 6 Emmy Awards. I don’t even remember all of the categories but I do remember the one we were most proud of, Best Miniseries.

We got a phone call from a friend in December of 2004 and he said he was working on a miniseries and they needed some post help. We said sure send us the script and we’ll do a proposal. A couple weeks later we were contracted to do the final video (on-line, color collection, etc.) and post audio (Foley, sound design, mix, etc.) for the 2 part miniseries that would air on CBS during the May sweeps period.

As luck would have it, the schedule was a suicide mission to begin with then it got delayed in off-line so we had even less time. We used 2 HD Avid systems and had a D5 deck in for 6 weeks since all the source material was transferred from film to D5. I lost 15 pounds in the 5 weeks we were doing post and spent more nights in our building during that time than during any other project in the time I’ve been with IDEAS.

In the end, we delivered Part 1 on Friday morning and it aired Sunday night with more than 13 million viewers, the most watched non-series program of the week. Part 2 was delivered Sunday, a day early, and it aired Wednesday. The work we did on Elvis opened the door to the movies and miniseries we have done since then. Including Elvis we have done 13 movies since 2005. We have obviously learned a lot in that time but we have also proven one important thing- that we can execute Emmy and Golden Globe winning work at a price worth coming to Orlando for.

By the way, Elvis did not win an Emmy but did win a Golden Globe. Go to http://www.youtube.com/ideasorlando#play/uploads/36/v0L7wjP7Y-o for one of our favorite clips.