Video Assist

Here is how the work lines up. Video help in New York is shaped by the unusual density of stage work happening at once inside Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Silvercup in Long Island City, Kaufman Astoria in Queens, York Studios in the Bronx, JC Studios in Brooklyn and Broadway Stages, where HBO drama, Apple TV+ tight series, Netflix NY originals, Amazon prestige and Showtime episodic move crews between shoots on a weekly basis.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. Our video help ops are drawn from that working pool. IATSE Local 600 video help pros who set up and strike video village many times a week, who know the signal routing of each Steiner and Silvercup soundstage by memory, and who carry the wireless transmission, recorder and monitor packages needed for major studio features and series.

Here is how the picture comes together. Crews often support multi-camera blocks that capture three or four bodies at once, manage director, client and producer feeds at separate monitor stations using SmallHD Cine, Atomos, TVLogic and Sony BVM-HX310 reference monitors, and keep backup recordings with the backup that the HBO, Apple TV+ and Netflix delivery specs demand.

Here is what we have to work with. On location the same ops move with the production. Manhattan brownstones for HBO drama, DUMBO and Williamsburg lofts for indie features, the Hamptons for Apple TV+ and Netflix prestige, Hudson Valley for period work, Brooklyn Heights for streetwork — and they keep rental relationships with Stray Angel, Boland Communications and NTP so the gimbal feed lands on village without timecode drift.

Here is the layout. Gear packages cover QTAKE and Live Grade workflows for DIT-side colour management with Light Iron NY at Harbor Picture Company and FotoKem NY supporting on the colour pipeline, proxy generation, LUT management, slow-motion review and clip-marking so the director can compare takes at once rather than waiting for dailies. Secure streaming for off-site producers and executives is built in for global shoots whose stakeholders sit in Los Angeles, London or Vancouver, with forms prepared for the 30% NYS Film Tax Credit and the Made in NY MOME rebates. Coordinators scale the op and gear loadout against the production — a one-day commercial in Manhattan runs a single op with a two-monitor village, while a Steiner feature carries a dedicated team with full backup chains.