P.E.I. invention connects film crews to speed up production

An Island film producer has his sights set on Hollywood, not with a movie project but with a portable system that streams video from cameras to multiple tablets on the set.

It's called The Visual Assistant and has been developed by a start-up company on P.E.I. called Onset Communication.

Creator Brian Sharp has worked in the film business for decades.

"On set there are all these creative decisions that have to be made on an ongoing basis and that's what slows down production, or it's part of what makes production take so long," explained Sharp.

"Our tool is designed to help make those conversations shorter to make 10-minute discussions into 10-second decisions."

He had the idea 27 years ago in college, but only in the last five years has the technology that the system needs become readily available.

"It's a turnkey, easy to use system that streams video from camera sources to multiple tablets and allows each person that has a tablet to do their own playback of previously-recorded clips as well as communicate with each other visually by drawing over top of the screen in real time," said Sharp.

'It saved us a lot of time'

A pair of local directors got to test drive The Visual Assistant on a 16-day shoot in August, and gave the system a thumbs-up.

"I think this is a Hollywood system," observed Patti Larsen, co-director of a new web series called Lovely Witches Club.

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"Every director, director of photography, producer, the set designers, everybody should have access to this system. It makes our lives so much easier."

"We were able to see if there was a boom in the shot, if there were focus issues, we could tell if the takes were good because you can replay the video," said Renee Laprise, co-director on the project.

Without The Visual Assistant, the crew would have to wait for the dailies to see if there were issues.

"It helped us a lot, it saved us a lot of time," Laprise said.

"The editor would be so grateful. It's an opportunity to have a look at what the movie or TV show is going to look like before you even get into the edit suite," added Larsen.

Hopes for Hollywood

The current system is a prototype but Sharp is hoping to have it in the hands of customers in Toronto and Halifax within six months. Toronto, he says, is key because there are so many Hollywood feature films and TV series being shot there.

"Getting it in the hands of the crews that work on those shows as well as work on Canadian productions will be a proof of concept for the people who make the decisions of what kit to rent and for how much, to get it in the right hands so it will end up in Hollywood," explained Sharp.

Sharp received support from the P.E.I. government for the project and has committed that the company will continue to do research and development here on Prince Edward Island, even though his customers will be scattered across the continent.

The Visual Assistant will be rented out by film crews and the cost will depend on what the production needs.

Projections are for $1.5 million in revenue in the first year, building up to more than $15 to $20 million by year three.

"This is awesome for me, it's like a dream come true," said Sharp.

"I get to play with something that I built that works, I love it."

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