Brightwood Productions last fall used the Sonnet Technologies Fusion F3 portable two-drive RAID storage system for storage and video backup of footage shot for a documentary about the LA La Ride, a cross-country motorcycle trip by actresses Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer to raise awareness for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
According to Peter Thompson, who served as director of photography for the production, the Fusion F3 not only was rugged enough to withstand the demands of travel but also made it easy to store footage shot each day during the ride.
“I could offload a large volume of material from three cameras very quickly each evening," Thompson said. "Most important, I had peace of mind that our data would always be protected, whatever conditions we found ourselves in."
The LA La Ride is a project of Acting Outlaws, Sackhoff and Helfer's project aimed to raise money and awareness for the Gulf Restoration Foundation. In October 2010, the two actresses embarked on a cross-country motorcycle ride covering 2500mi from Los Angeles to New Orleans.
Brightwood Productions joined them on the trip to provide video footage that is currently being edited into a feature-length documentary. Shooting mainly 1080i video with a Panasonic DVCPRO HD camera, Thompson saved the footage onto a Focus FS-100 portable DTE recorder during the day, with videotape providing the master backup. Since the Focus drive could only hold about four hours of footage, the day's shoot was offloaded every evening to the Fusion F3. In addition, content from P2 cards recorded by a second Panasonic camera and still photos from a digital SLR camera were also offloaded to the Fusion F3.
The Fusion F3 is specifically designed to meet the demands of audio and video professionals in both studio and on-location productions. It offers high throughput, a rugged design and quiet operation, as well as a quad interface and integrated universal power supply.
For the LA La Ride shoot, Thompson also used the Fusion F3 to support on-site editing of some footage for daily clips, which he delivered to the project's website by connecting the system to his Mac notebook running Final Cut Pro.
