By Randi Altman
When cinematographer Drew Geraci established District 7 Media in 2012 as a specialty production house, he wanted his business to focus on aspects of filming that were more niche and one of a kind.
“When we first started, we only specialized in motion-controlled HDR timelapse, which was great at the time, but since then, we’ve expanded to include aerial/drone work, high-speed, VR, 360 and full start-to-finish productions for commercials, advertising and feature films.” Over the years, Geraci and company have worked with such high-profile directors as Steven Spielberg, David Fincher and Alejandro Iñárritu.
Drew Geraci
Production is Geraci’s second career. He served for nearly 10 years in the United States Navy as a mass communications specialist who was deployed to various locations around the world and stationed aboard multiple ships. He reports that his past work and current work aren’t that far apart.
“I’ve always been a creative person, and I love to tell stories. The Navy gave me the opportunity not only to share stories but to capture once-in-a-lifetime events that would ultimately inspire me to go off on my own and start something new,” he says. “The Navy gave me the tools I needed to keep furthering my career, and once I knew I wanted to tell stories professionally, I made the decision to start my own business. Now, 10 years later, I’m thankful for all the wonderful experiences and people I’ve met along the way while in service to our country, and I believe it’s made me a more well-rounded communicator and leader.”
In addition to its production work, District 7 also shoots stock footage. Let’s find out more from Geraci about District 7…
Can you talk about your post services and what tools you use?
Yes, we offer a wide variety of services when it comes to post production, mainly editing and color management/processing.
We use Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve for all of our color grading and editing work and Adobe After Effects and Maxon Cinema 4D for motion graphics and 3D work. This allows us to take on multiple facets of a job without having to outsource to other production companies/houses. It saves us time and money.
In terms of hardware, my favorites would be the Dell UP3221Q 4K HDR monitor. The color profiles and color management software are fantastic; it’s opened my eyes to a completely new world when it comes to color grading. To accompany the monitors, we use the Dell Precision 7920 with 24 cores, 192GB of RAM and an Nvidia Quadro 6000 GPU. We use it to muscle through all of our 8K content. On top of that, I also use a custom-built workstation with an AMD Threadripper Pro 3975WX with 32 cores at 4.2GHz, 256GB RAM, dual Nvidia RTX 3090s and 18TB of NVMe PCIe4 SSDs. I use this for all our real-time edits and 12K-plus-resolution renders. It flies.
Is your stock work based off the projects you’ve worked on, or are you asked to shoot specific footage?
Our stock is mostly based off projects we’ve worked on, or are currently working on. The way we deal with timelapse photography (since it’s all rights-managed) is based on an exclusive or non-exclusive use, which gives us the right to resell any content that isn’t exclusively used by the client. This opens another stream of revenue for us and keeps costs down for clients.
Some examples include footage of the National Mall though which was used for the 2020 election coverage for NBC. Other astronomical footage was used for an advertising campaign with Sony for the release of its new HDR OLED TVs.
What kind of cameras do you use for your work, and why?
I use all different types of cameras. I pick based on the gig. For my timelapse work, it’s going to be the Sony Alpha 1 or Sony A7R4. I love resolution, and having an 8K-plus readout with 15 stops of dynamic range means I’m going to have the most latitude in post for my clients, and it really gives me an edge on the competition.
For most film or video work, I’ll use the ARRI Alexa Mini or the Red Helium/Monstro, depending on the project.
What is your workflow like when shooting 8K?
My workflow for 8K is very similar to my 4K workflow, but I make sure that all my 8K content is either stored on PCIe4 NVMe SSDs or on our 40Gbe NAS, which can deliver speeds of up to 2.5GB/s to 3GB/s inside of Resolve. It makes editing a breeze and ensures I don’t have stuttered playback or slowdowns during the editing process. No need for proxies either.
My workflow for 8K is very similar to my 4K workflow, but I make sure that all my 8K content is either stored on PCIe4 NVMe SSDs or on our 40Gbe NAS, which can deliver speeds of up to 2.5 to 3GB/sec. inside of Resolve. It makes editing a breeze and ensures I don’t have stuttered playback or slowdowns during the editing process. No need for proxies either.
For the SSDs, I use four 4TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 7100/6600MB/s on a four-slot PCIe RAID card and one 2TB for OS apps installed locally on the motherboard.
Timelapse is something of a specialty for you. What are some of the challenges to working with timelapse?
Timelapse is always a challenge, regardless of whether you’re a beginner or a pro. There’s always something that can go wrong, and it usually does. Since you can potentially be filming in the same spot for hours on end, anything that encounters the camera or tripod —wind, animals, people — has the potential to destroy the shot. Any kind of vibration or movement means the frame is off, and once the frame is off, you must start all over again. It’s very tedious work.
One of the biggest challenges for timelapse is the weather. You might want shadows to film, but if it’s a cloudy day you’ll have to wait until they pass, which is usually a day or two down the road. This means you have to be a meteorologist as well so you can plan your shoots appropriately and get the shot you need.
Aside from filming timelapse, post is also a key element, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, your shot can come out looking very dull and uninspiring.
What are some recent projects: production-wise, post-wise, stock-wise?
Some of our most recent work with production is for Steven Spielberg for the title/credits of his new film West Side Story, which will release this December. We also worked on the new show Gaslit for Starz — we filmed DC aerials for that one.
On the post side, we’re in the middle of creating a new series for Sony, which will release later this year.
For stock I most recently put up a collection of high-speed 4K 120p fireworks shot on a 1200mm lens, which just looks amazing.
Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.
