Skywalker TV
Fear Factor Asia Production Center
"All in all, the Matrox products offer us a very smooth workflow, superior stability and reliability, and the powerful realtime features we need to get the work done quickly without compromising our creativity. And whats more, the ability to work in HDV and DVCPRO HD in realtime, then output to SD in realtime, is simply marvelous!"
Fear Factor is a one-hour stunt-challenge show where contestants' greatest fears become reality. The show is seen in over 125 countries around the world and localized versions have been produced in over 22 countries by three production centers - in Argentina, South Africa and Malaysia. Skywalker TV handles all of the shoots and post-production work for the Fear Factor Asia Production Center, currently working in India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
After several years experience as a cameraman and assistant producer at TV3 Malaysia, Chew Han Tah struck out on his own and started Skywalker TV in 1992. Over the years the company has groomed a stable team of highly professional members and established an international reputation for producing specialized TV programs, commercials, and corporate marketing videos. The company has been involved in many co-productions for local and regional television with TV stations such as TCS Singapore, SCTV Indonesia, HTV Vietnam and MTV Asia. In addition, they have been commissioned for electronic news gathering (ENG) by international news networks including ABN, CNBC Asia, BBC, Bloomberg, IHT-TV and Reuters. Corporate clients include KFC, Pizza Hut, Ayamas, Westport, Bintulu Port, Berjaya Properties, The Star Publication, OSK Holdings Berhad, Pulau Indah Industrial Park, and DRTV, to name a few.
"As founder and director of Skywalker TV, I'm constantly searching for the latest technological advancements and digital tools to facilitate top quality work, said Chew Han Tah. "When the Fear Factor contract came our way, I realized that we needed to expand our post-production capabilities to accommodate the special needs of this project. We had to have a system that would let us handle massive amounts of raw footage, shot on a variety of cameras. We chose the Matrox Axio system for its fantastic realtime capabilities. The realtime color correction and color match features are particularly important, as we simply cannot afford the time it would take to render so many color corrected shots."
"Also important to our workflow is the tight integration of Matrox Axio and Adobe Premiere Pro with all the other Adobe applications. We also extensively use Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. Most of our off-line and preliminary work is done very economically on our four lower-cost Matrox RT.X systems, and then the shows are finished on the Axios. All in all, the Matrox products offer us a very smooth workflow, superior stability and reliability, and the powerful realtime features we need to get the work done quickly without compromising our creativity. And what's more, the ability to work in HDV and DVCPRO HD in realtime, then output to SD in realtime, is simply marvellous!"
"Exploiting Axio's powerful realtime features and its native HD, HDV, and DVCPRO HD support, we are exploring HD, expanding our ideas, and stretching our capabilities to greater heights!"