Fremont, CA, USA - Blackmagic Design today announced that Superama Filmproduktion has revived the cult classic “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” with using Blackmagic RAW and DaVinci Resolve Studio’s collaboration tools.

The series, originally hosted by Jonathan Frakes on Fox, became a cult hit in Germany as "X-Factor: Das Unfassbare" on RTL 2. Due to fan demand, RTL 2 had Superama and Wiedemann and Berg Television produce a new eight part series, creating season five. Its success led to the commissioning of season six, consisting of eight more episodes.

Acquiring in Blackmagic RAW on the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro digital film cameras, season six was filmed in Los Angeles, with showrunner and Superama Co Founder Holger Frick, W&B Executive Producer Benjamin Munz, and RTL 2 Executive Producer Gerhard Putz joining DP Edward Salerno Jr.

A unique media transfer and post workflow using Blackmagic Cloud, developed for season five, was enhanced for season six. It involved backing up daily rushes and transferring them to a 100TB raid station each night in LA, with proxies generated using Blackmagic Proxy Generator app and automatically uploaded to Dropbox.

“Each day someone in Munich would check the proxy files first thing and transfer any material for each new story into the cloud project to be edited. So just a week or two after we started shooting, the editing process was already underway in Germany using DaVinci Resolve,” says Frick.

Superama’s workflow employed the Blackmagic Cloud Pod network storage solution, allowing three remote editors to collaborate seamlessly, and added the Blackmagic Cloud Store 20TB networked storage solution for media syncing with Dropbox.

“We came back from America with 55TB of RAW footage, from which we had generated 20TB of proxies,” says Frick. “But we didn't have to wait for computers to do the job. We already had most of the stories we’d shot in a rough first edit using those proxies.”

“The project was always online, you can access it from anywhere,” he continues. “If you can't come into the office, you can keep on working. There’s safety in the cloud backup, and it’s budget friendly.”

VFX, including creature effects and gunshots, were outsourced, but DaVinci Resolve Studio’s Fusion page was deployed for numerous post fixes.

“We did a lot of work in Resolve’s Fusion,” says Till Diener, post production coordinator. “Masking, screen replacements and logo replacements are all simplified because of Resolve’s Magic Mask. I’d just draw on an object, and then Magic Mask automatically tracks the whole thing.”

The team from Superama prepared the timelines for each story, and Colorist Florian Wolf returned to grade season six. “With everyone able to work on the same project file at the same time, we didn’t have to rely on intermediary codecs,” says Diener.

Wolf used a lot of Resolve FX, such as Light Rays, Lens Flares, Halation and Film Grain to enhance the stories. “Using the DaVinci toolset is always fun and a bit like playing piano,” he says.

With Wolf utilizing Blackmagic Cloud’s Presentations, team members were able to watch a live grading session remotely.