Seagate drives assist 'Cold Mountain' production

Cheetah disc drives continue to be the No.1 choice for use in the top motion picture editing systems used by the world's greatest filmmakers, according to disc drive manufacturer Seagate.

The company, which has two facilities in Northern Ireland, employs over 1,800 people, who are involved in the development and manufacture of the state-of-the-art computer hard disc drives that read, write and store digital information.

Oscar-winning picture and sound editor Walter Murch who edited the Anthony Minghella film, 'Cold Mountain', which is currently on release in cinemas, used a Rorke Data Storage Area Network (SAN) populated with 1.2 terabytes of Seagate disc drives.

The workflow and scale for Cold Mountain project was enormous: 4,900 takes; 830 daily rolls, 225 video tapes; and 190 sound rolls, covering the film's 211 total scenes shot over 113 days. The Seagate-powered Rorke storage system ultimately handled all of the data storage tasks required by the Cold Mountain team with ease.

Murch, whose credits include 'Apocalypse Now' (Oscar for Best Sound, Oscar nomination for Picture Editing), all three of 'The Godfather' films, 'Ghost' (Oscar nomination for Picture Editing), and 'The English Patient' (Oscars for both Picture Editing and Best Sound), required a system that could provide storage performance, flexibility, and reliability while working in a real-time and data-intensive environment. Reliability was especially critical for the system that was first built and configured by DigitalFilm Tree in Hollywood, California, before being shipped halfway across the world for deployment near the Cold Mountain film set outside of Bucharest, Romania.

He said: "The Rorke storage system loaded with Seagate Cheetah drives performed flawlessly during Cold Mountain's six months of production in Romania and eleven months of post-production in London."

The film, based on the best-selling novel by Charles Frazier, is an epic tale set in the final days of the American Civil War. Inman (Jude Law) is a young injured soldier struggling to make his way home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina, to be with the woman, Ada (Nicole Kidman), he loves and left behind. Duriing Inman's absence, Ada befriends Ruby (Renee Zellweger), who helps her care for her late father's farm.

The star-studded film also boasts performances from Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Donald Sutherland.

Seagate: www.seagate.com.

(SP)