The Oxygen Media cable television channel — targeted mainly to women — uses several Macs for such tasks as video editing with Final Cut Pro, Web site animation, sound design, to the creation of the channel’s on-air identity.
According to an Apple Media Arts article Oxygen — the brainchild of Oprah Winfrey and Geraldine Laybourne (one of the powers behind the development of Nickelodeon), and television producers Carsey, Werner, and Mandelbach — built an around-the-clock network featuring original programming, produced over a dozen companion Web sites, and developed 13 programs of original animation in less than a year.
In this same time frame, Oxygen went from 65 employees to more than 650 and launched a round-the-clock network featuring almost entirely original programming, produced over a dozen companion Web sites, and developed 13 half-hour programs of original animation.
Television broadcasting is experiencing “a huge sea change, as big as the Gutenberg galleys,” explains Kit Laybourne, Director of Animation at Oxygen. On the cutting edge of that revolution is digital video.
Apple Media Arts said that Oxygen is creating broadcast-quality video with professional-level three-CCD cameras, a suite of Power Mac G4 computers, and Apple’s Final Cut Pro, that airs day in and day out. Kathy Minton, vice president of programming, and Kit Laybourne, director of animation, worked within Oxygen to create a hands-on, intensive three-week-long DV Boot Camp, which had the goal of training a cadre of producer-editors, called “preditors” in Oxygen’s parlance, capable of producing, shooting, and editing television stories on their own.
“In a Brooklyn hotel suite equipped with Power Mac G4 and iMac DV computers running Apple’s iMovie and Final Cut Pro digital video editing, compositing, and effects software, Oxygen is training a new breed of digital video storytellers,” Apple Media Arts said.