BURBANK, CA - AlphaDogs (www.alphadogs.tv) has been busy providing online services for a number of popular reality series produced and directed by Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc. "American Chopper," "American Hot-Rod" and "Southern Steel" all air on the Discovery Channel and were onlined at the facility. "American Chopper" also gave AlphaDogs the opportunity to showcase its audio bay, which the company added in late 2004. The studio mixed and sweetened the audio for the show in the new bay.
Terence Curren, president of AlphaDogs, headed the projects, which were posted using a combination of Avid Symphony and Adobe After Effects.
"American Chopper" is a reality show that follows the various business and social activities of a father/son custom chopper building team of Paul Teutul, Sr. and Paul Teutul, Jr. AlphaDogs posted the episodes "Jr. vs. Sr." and "Mikey Special." Both were finished in standard definition, though the programs were shot in both SD and HD.
"American Hot Rod" looks at the business of custom hot rod builder Boyd Coddington and his crew. Pilgrim Films normally edits the show in-house but turned to AlphaDogs for online edits and color correction due to a very tight deadline with the series' schedule.
"Southern Steel" focuses on a Virginia-based shop that creates custom motorcycles. Russell Frazier, VP of graphics technologies for AlphaDogs, created the opening titles for "Southern Steel" and designed graphics treatments used throughout the program. Curren led online finishing and says the biggest challenge for AlphaDogs' editing team was color-correcting the episodes.
"All of 'Southern Steel' was shot on location in the garage or outdoors," Curren explains. "With many of the frames illuminated only by ambient lighting, we had to adjust for different outdoor/indoor environments, times of day and camera angles. Moreover, all of 'Southern Steel' was shot using a combination of Mini DV and DVCAM cameras, which don't give the same range of color information to work with as higher-end cameras."
Set to premier this spring on Discovery, "Dry Dock" was shot in the Bahamas and documents a cruise ship makeover. Frazier created the show's opening graphics. AlphaDogs' sound editors also worked on the show.
The studio is also posting "Ghost Hunters" (NBC/Sci Fi Channel), "The Ultimate Fighter" (Spike TV), and the upcoming VH1 reality series "Strip Search."