Smoke & Mirrors Launches Indian Facility with Pro Tools | S6
Established in 1995, Smoke & Mirrors is a visual effects and post-production company that delivers
exciting, visually stimulating and contemporary work to the advertising, film and music video
industries. With offices in London, New York and Shanghai, it was one of the first facilities
to champion Avid’s industry-leading products and the first facility ever to exclusively install
the Avid Pro Tools | S6 control surface.
The Pro Tools | S6 console provides modern sound engineers with the most intuitive, immersive
mixing workflows. The revolutionary modular control surface leverages the best of the
industry-leading Avid ICON and System 5 product families, providing superior ergonomics and
intelligent studio control. Built on proven technology and trusted by top audio professionals,
it delivers the best sounding mixes possible.
With a global operation running across multiple time zones, Smoke & Mirrors’ latest venture is the
launch of an audio post studio in Chennai, India, to support the increasing flow of incoming work
from the East and beyond. Scott Little, head of audio at Smoke & Mirrors, said, “Since we installed
the S6 two years ago here in London, we’ve gained a great deal of experience using the console — and
it’s been wonderful. When talk of setting up the Indian office came about, there was no question
about it — we were definitely installing the S6!”
The setup in Chennai, done through Ansata Computer Systems, replicates the three studios in Smoke &
Mirrors’ London facility, using the same console, outboard equipment, plugins, software and
monitoring. “Our templates and workflow are also setup in the same manner, allowing us, if needed,
to share projects with ease between the two facilities,” Little said. “A project can be loaded in
a matter of seconds without having to deal with time-consuming project configurations, importing
files and the need to render splits. This enables us to have a very fluid and efficient workflow
between the two facilities. In essence, it’s an extension of our three studios in London.”
The majority of work at Smoke & Mirrors in London and Chennai is short-form, broadcast commercials
and promos. To cater to this, all of the studios are equipped with the Pro Tools | S6 eight-fader
M10 console, apart from one 5.1 suite, which features the 16-fader M10.
“In terms of performance, our systems are built to easily handle the high volume and quick
turnaround of our short-form work. As we record a tremendous amount of voice-over, both in
studio and via Source Connect and ISDN, the S6’s functionality and performance, with its
touchscreen and assignable soft keys, helps us to easily and efficiently manage sessions,”
Little explained.
Looking at how Smoke & Mirrors continues to ride the wave of success in audio post production,
thanks to the Pro Tools | S6 console, Little summarized, “For such a compact console, the S6 is
full of features, extremely powerful and efficient, and is built to complement the smooth, precise
workflow that we use for audio post production.”
The Pro Tools | S6 is trusted by top audio professionals and delivers incredible workflow
acceleration, highly responsive handling and deep DAW integration in the most demanding
production environments.