Why does my project look different on every screen I watch it on?

The age old question, asked by so many people who’ve come through my suite:

“I’ve downloaded it to my laptop and it looks different?”

Then there is the inevitable panic:

“Thomas, how can we make sure that everyone who watches it, watches it ‘properly’?”

This issue recently came to light here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19650769

As a colourist, I’ve spent a great deal of time learning to understand colour science, thanks to years of discussions and teachings with friends like Martin Parsons @ Image Eyes and Steve Shaw @ Light Illusion.  We’ve had many chats over different screens and different technologies, and discussed the question asked by Producers, Directors and DPs the world over: “Why does my work look different on every screen?”

I’m going to set out why it does, a brief note on the technology and finally, why it doesn’t matter as much as you think.

A visit to my company’s website will quickly tell you that colour is very important to our business revenue, we are predominantly a colour grading company, and clients from all sectors of the industry use us to make their work look as special as it can, in real terms, adding value to what was shot and hopefully taking the image beyond what the client ever thought possible.  In a world where software colour grading tools, like editing and desktop publishing, is pretty much free, anyone can be a colourist now – just like they can be a graphic designer or editor.

The difference is how quickly you get to the absolute best result, your understanding of your profession, your client skills, the client experience, delivering on time and knowing that your screens are calibrated…….

A lot of people think that there isn’t a standard for colour on screens, but there is.

We have a lot of screens at The Look, all of them using different panel technologies inside – we have LCD, LED, Plasma and projection.  They have varying price points, various issues inherent with their design, and they have varying controls over their calibration.  But this blog isn’t about the intricacies of different panels and the complicated world of colour science.

The current standard of HD TV screens and content delivery, the world over, is known as Rec. 709 and you might be surprised to learn, that most panels inside the TVs you buy are roughly calibrated to this standard.  The problem arises when TV manufacturers add special ‘features’ to the TV itself (rather than the actual panel) so that it appears sharper and more impressive on a shop floor against its competitors.  The ones that drive us colour specialists mad is anything with the word ‘dynamic’ in it.  Dynamic Contrast, Smooth Motion, Noise Reduction and various settings like ‘Game’, ‘Dynamic’, ‘Sports’ etc. all play havoc with the image displayed, heightening colours and increasing the contrast, usually causing any detail in the image which is in the darker or lighter areas to disappear completely as the panel is worked hard to make the image more intense – any subtlety is gone – its like turning up the bass and treble on your amp and wondering why certain songs sound terrible, while others seem to sound more ‘epic’.

If you actually turn off everything, and set the TV to standard you might be surprised to know, and this is in my experience true even with consumer sets, that they aren’t that far off the Rec. 709 standard.  At The Look we measure the black level (to make sure picture information isn’t being cut off, or isn’t too ‘lifted’) and we also measure, using a special probe and specialist software, how bright the TV is when a pure white image is put in to it.  We then measure pure Red, pure Green and pure Blue to see if its close to the Rec. 709 standard.  We then check a grey scale to confirm that their isn’t a strange colour cast or tint to the panel.

Interestingly, with most HD panels from decent manufacturers, you can get them pretty close to the standard, certainly for home viewing.

Why bother with any of this?

Because you should want to watch programmes, feature films and commercials as they were colour graded by people like me and the Directors and Cinematographers I work with, and my other fellow Colourists the world over who’ve calibrated our screens.  Thankfully, digital cinema now means that when you go to your local cinema, it should be pretty accurate to what we saw – well, if its properly maintained that is.

The chances are you won’t be able to do much more than going to ‘standard’ on your TV, turning off all the extra stuff I mentioned above, and doing a visual calibration with your own eyes on a film you trust – which may sound crazy, but in my experience, my eyes are as good as any probe I’ve used.

Even after this, its not going to be perfect by any means, and even in a professional environment we struggle to get every colour at every point in the colour and brightness scale to be accurate to the Rec. 709 standard.

So TVs may seem like a pain to tweak, with all their options and settings.  But what about your laptop, your iPad, your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy etc.?

The bad news is, most of these devices don’t have a way of tweaking your screen, they don’t even work to the Rec. 709 standard, some say they work to the sRGB standard, but thats unlikely out of the box.  I recently purchased an iPhone 5, restored my old iPhone 4 settings to it, so in effect they were identical, with the same home image.  Put them next to each other and I was gobsmacked at how different the same image looked, the iPhone 5 was significantly warmer in its colour tone.

iPhone 5 on the right has significantly more yellow/warmth in the whites than the iPhone 4 display on the left

Its true to say, if you buy another iPhone 5, put the same image on it, it will probably look different on that one too.

So when clients say, “sorry I couldnt make it to the grade, but I’ve downloaded your link and the product looks a bit yellow to me” I get a little frustrated!

“Thomas, how can we make sure that everyone who watches it, watches it ‘properly’ as we see it on your screen?”

You cant.

But I have an explanation on why you shouldn’t worry too much.

For hundreds, even thousands of years, man has chosen colour by mixing paints and putting this paint on to a canvas, and this canvas would have been lit by both daylight and candle light, and later, by electric lamps of varying colour temperatures, he or she would have carried on working for days and weeks, and just as we cannot change the colour of lamps and sunlight, neither can we accurately control the colour of the screen or the viewing conditions of the millions of people watching our work.

If you visit any gallery in the world, which has natural light as a source, when you visit at 9am and photograph a painting, and return again at 4pm and photograph the same painting with the same settings, the brightness and colour cast could be warmer, or cooler, based on the natural light.  This in itself will have changed the way we see the painting, the colours will have changed to our eye, but one key thing to remember is that our brain interprets the information that our eyes transmit to it.  If someone is wearing a white t-shirt in an image our brain balances the other colours based on that and other known objects and what colour they are.  When someone owns a TV, a laptop and an iPhone, the colour is neutralised by our brain it appears normal (unless you put them next to each other) and its only if we have a reference (a logo with strong colours) that we might spot an issue, otherwise, everything seems fine.  If your TV is set up a bit wacky, that wacky to you is normal.

However, with the gallery example, we don’t see this as devaluing or ruining a painting or piece of art, it is how the colours are used in the painting (or image) that compliment each other perfectly, how the light in the original scene is rendered and controlled, in essence, creating an image that is visually pleasing in whatever environment you watch it in and on.  As the image above shows, the scene that I photographed in Austria is equally beautiful on both screens, and if you were to look at one phone, and then turn it off, and turn the other one on, if you did this with even a few seconds gap, the chances are you’d think they were identical – that is how bad our colour memory is.

There is no excuse for anyone who offers grading services, individual or company, not to understand the complexities of display calibration, it is a known standard that manufacturers do work too, and it allows screens that the work is seen on later to be off in a particular direction without major detriment to the viewer’s experience of the image, particularly if you have set your black and white levels properly.

So if you are panicking about how your project is looking different on YouTube, your Quicktime on your laptop (oh the joy of Quicktime gamma issues), YouTube on your iPhone and then when its broadcast, don’t loose too much sleep – its never going to change, its not as bad as it seems – you just need to make sure you work with people who know why it looks different and how we can counter the issues as much as we can within the controls and knowledge at our disposal.

I leave you with one final thought, years ago I worked on a Channel 4/E4 series here in the UK called ‘Dead Set’.  It was Directed by Yann Demange, DP was Tat Radcliffe and it was Written by Charlie Brooker.  I can remember all of us discussing the issues described in this blog, and how dark we could realistically go with the colour grade without causing issues for anyone watching this zombie horror during bright daylight hours (it was in places graded and lit in a very moody way), and in an unheard of moment of genius Charlie managed to get the announcer to state before the programme: “Now on E4, ‘Dead Set’, which contains graphic scenes and which is best viewed in a darkened environment”.

I had a wonderful vision of millions of people all reaching up to their light switch and turning off their ‘big light’, and there by increasing their enjoyment of the work we had done, and actually seeing some more of the gory detail!

There you have it, problem solved
Thomas Urbye

MD & Senior Colourist

The Look

London

www.thelooklondon.com

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BLACK ART……anymore

The Internet has given us unprecedented knowledge at the end of our fingertips. Until the last decade, if someone possessed detailed knowledge, it would bring financial, business and personal rewards.  If you were very specialised in a particular field you could become a consultant, be the go to person for businesses and individuals around the world.
The Internet has opened up knowledge to all, whatever field you are in, in any industry, information on your job, what you do and how you do it is available online. The days of just a handful of textbooks and a few limited experts in certain fields having the only information is gone. Now, whether it be Wikipedia, research sites or forums, whatever your industry, it is likely that the information someone might need is online, they don’t need to consult an expert, and that might mean you.
Now, to the novice and the people that do the actual hire, this is fantastic-a double edged sword though, it has no doubt leapt us forward as a civilisation and democratised knowledge, but
what if you make a living from your knowledge and your practised skills?
Does the fact your customers and clients have information available to them, the tools at the touch of a button to do the work that until ten years ago they would hire you to do, does it now impact on your earnings?
For us in the media industry, after years of training and learning a craft, particularly those that are freelancers, find themselves in competition with those that have scoured the Internet for tips and tutorials on everything from lighting, producing, directing, to sound to editing, grading and vfx etc etc. While this access to knowledge is powerful, in my experience those that come to us for interviews, or work that I see shot by DoPs that haven’t risen through the ranks invariably isn’t that good, finding the gems takes us many hours. The sheer ‘chatter’ of people, those that are DoPs, editors, producers, directors, colourists etc mean the industry is diluted, and the people that hire are left with a mountain of choice with both perceived skill but also with, most crucially, wide ranging daily rates-yet their job title the same. Whatever your industry, the number of ‘experts’ has grown immeasurably and they’re advertising it online, and this for me is the big negative of the Internet. For a company, we find it so useful to purchase random bits of technology with a few button presses, where before we’d have to ask an engineer to hunt it down with his/her contacts, now I just google it. When kit breaks, we just have it replaced. When software won’t do something, we google it. What does that mean for traditional engineers? Not good.  However, when you really want to know something detailed, and want to know the information is accurate, the Internet becomes just chatter, full of inaccuracies and novices.
Every person you speak to will counter that it’s now about client skills, delivering on time-the first time, and within budget.  This is all true, but the argument is shall we a) not add to the chatter, giving away our skills to those that can’t repay via forums b) embrace the democratisation of industry and skills and find a way to make it work for us, both in our careers but also financially. After all, you can make a film yourself on £100-300k with decent kit, and that wasn’t possible ten years ago. You can trade money from your computer without a broker, you can make a website and sell your skills for £100 a day-using iWeb, or make music using GarageBand on a laptop for corporate clients, for the price of a hot sandwich.
When you add this up, does this mean that the person that hires you has more of less respect for your ability?  Or has it meant that you’ve got less work and are being paid less for it?  Does it mean that more people are able to work for themselves, and that if you’re a medium sized company with low-medium fee paying clients your shelf life is running shorter and shorter because you’re in direct competition with someone with no overheads who will do it for half, or less, than your company can?

There is no such thing as a ‘black art’ now, experience is not worth what it was.  There are clients of yours that refuse to use someone cheaper with less experience-they dont want the hassle, but are they the old guard, how long till they are replaced or forced to go cheaper?  Does a cheaper product in the end hurt the purchaser, does a rubbish piece of music, or a badly designed website, or a cheap online advert shot on a 5D camera make your products look cheap too?

I’m not sure on the answers, so will all the people and the chatter please discuss?

Thomas Urbye
MD and Senior Colourist
The Look
London

2011 wasn’t all that bad for TV & Commercials, was it? So what does 2012 hold?

2011 was pretty depressing, reading the paper or watching the news was a miserable experience, and all in all, those who still have a job, or have a business should apparently be chuffed to bits!

Interestingly, a lot of my clients have actually had a pretty good year, not exactly the best ever for most, but many have told me that when they actually worked out the numbers, their figures were actually very good – both freelancers and production companies.

So if this is the case, and for us we had our best year ever (our fifth), what is it that makes us all feel so uncertain about 2012, despite quite a few of us media based companies having surprisingly good revenue?  The big thing for many is “Do we expand premises, get more people, invest in new technology, or just keep capital in the business just in case it gets bad in 2012?”.  Unfortunately I think the tendancy is to opt for the latter, and I’m inclinned to agree with them, which does nothing for getting the economy going, but most people are just too scared to risk loosing it all when everyone is telling you that 2012 is going to be horrible.

This year we worked on ‘South Riding’ for BBC, ‘Monroe’ for ITV, ‘Top Boy’ for Channel 4, ‘The Fades’ for BBC, ‘Whitechapel 3′ for ITV, ‘The Bodyfarm’ for BBC, ‘Bert & Dickie’ for BBC and ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ for BBC.  This adds up to 29 hours of drama for us, and we’re very proud of all of the work.  ‘Top Boy’ and ‘The Fades’ stood out for this year as youth orientated shows which both received critical acclaim.  With ‘Top Boy’, Channel 4 invested thousands in advertising, which meant that it pulled in a large and very diverse audience.  During its transmission week, it was the second most popular thing (trending) talked about on Twitter in London, Manchester and Birmingham.  Its fantastic when a series pushes the boundaries of storytelling and its craft, and produces something which is more than just ‘ok’, and ‘Top Boy’, though difficult for many to watch, received such great reviews that everyone involved is genuinely proud to have worked on it.  To engage with such a diverse age range from all different walks of life, is a testament to what can be achieved to create great, world leading UK drama – any comparisons to ‘The Wire’ can only be gratifying for those involved.

We were delighted to work on some wonderful TV drama this year, and I genuinely feel like the standard of UK drama is increasing, despite the year on year reduction in budgets from some broadcasters.  Although more drama is being commisioned next year from nearly all the broadcasters, the chances are there will be more drama series but a little bit more money spread across quite a few more of them.  This does have the unfortunate effect that UK drama has: too few shooting days and prep, too few extras and atmosphere, too few truly realistic locations, and too few decent wide shots if anything other than contemporary UK is the subject – all this hinders UK drama when compared to what the US can produce.  The directing, acting and technical craft is so high in the UK, that its a shame that sometimes the budget and subject matter is often so, well, safe.  For UK drama to really get to a world stage then broadcasters need to increase budgets to capture the aforementioned, give writers more time to finesse their work, and increase budgets on those dramas that really need it, only then can we hope to create true ‘brilliance’ for a world stage on more regular occasions.

2011 continued to be a very poor year for independent British films, with many directors not able to find funding to bring their film to the screen.  Despite successes like ‘The King’s Speech’, and despite post production companies becoming investors, it wasn’t enough for many to get their film off the ground.  I cant see this changing in the short-term, but we will continue to actively look out for great scripts and directors for potential investment, if not move in to Production ourselves in 2012.  We have to hope that other investors can return to the industry with the support of EIS schemes and tax benefits for those investors.

3D Stereoscopic has been huge for Hollywood, with nearly all children’s movies being in 3D.  Here in the UK though, Sky are left to fly the 3D flag for us with sports and natural history programming.  Sky are commited to 3D and I’m sure we’ll be hearing of some big commisions in 2012.  However, a recent survey discovered over half of people who own 3D televisions don’t actually know they have 3D built in!  Viewing 3D in a cinema is one thing, but wearing glasses at home is another.  However, the Olympics and Euro 2012 along with transmitting Hollywood 3D movies could be what Sky and also BBC (if they commit to 3D) need to push the audience into the third dimension, and its not going to be quick – but we cant give up now.  Fingers crossed Sky and BBC increase the momentum.

Finally, I’d like to thank all those that have supported The Look and the team that work here during 2011, we’ve worked with some of the best UK talent and some really lovely people, and we are very grateful to be chosen to work on some great projects this year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you

Thomas Urbye

MD

The Look

Post production company Pepper finally closes?

After a break in recent ‘bad news’ stories, it was with surprise that Soho learnt on Friday of, what seems to be, just maybe, the final closure of post production company Pepper as it has been put in to liquidation by Future Film Group.

http://www.pepperpost.com/

Its terrible for the staff, who may already have endured rough times with the company before, find themselves again in an all to familiar state.  Knowing some of the people there myself, they were shocked that out of nowhere the doors were locked and they were out, for those dry hiring rooms it must have been a scary arrival at Greek St on Friday 10th June.

Demand most of the year outweighs supply in our industry, and Future have looked at the business and made the right decision in this regard.  When companies continually go in to administration (see http://secure.duedil.com/business#/b/pepper%20post) and on occasion leave their creditors with large outstanding debts it not only hits its creditors and freelancers (if they are left unpaid), but when companies do this, they should, in my opinion, close, and stay closed unless major restructuring and redundancies take place.  By conducting and disposing of debts and liabilities in this way it only increases the cost of credit to other production/post/rental companies as the market becomes more high risk for lenders, which in turn leads to smaller profit margins for the rest of us trying to run a business.  The argument of course is saving jobs, but very long-term I’m not sure it results in this as the industry as a whole suffers through excessive undercutting to increase turnover rather than profit.

Hopefully with demand in TV drama increasing, perhaps some of the other international names that have continued to run their post production services at a loss will now start to  charge proper rates for their services, although their clients may find that a bit of a shock!

I hope all the team at Pepper, who included some talented and friendly people, find work quickly, and that Future Films Group continue their success in film finance, an area which has also struggled in recent years in this recession.

Thomas Urbye

MD

The Look

“Who needs an agency/production company/post house anyway?”

What is the biggest single change of the fast moving media world in the last two years?

The dissolving of the traditional structure:

CLIENT > AGENCY > PRODUCTION COMPANY > POST PRODUCTION COMPANY > BROADCASTER / PUBLISHER

And why not?  For so long the traditional route seems so cumbersome and expensive, cutting out one of the processes surely means more money to those left, as technology has moved on, seems only sensible to streamline the process.

Many of the clients we work with, and those that I grade with, have made that decision.  Agencies have bought their own editing systems and installed their own After Effects software, they’ve found good Directors to work with, as Production Companies have shed their own, and with a couple of freelancers in the mix they can take the initiative and remove the Production Companies from the equation, sometimes they don’t even see the need for a Post Production Company for some of the jobs.

Production Companies have become an Agency too.  Makes sense, handling the client can’t be that difficult, and if the Agencies are not going to bring them the work, then it makes sense to seek out the clients and produce the work themselves, they too have got their Final Cut Pros, and more importantly they have the roster of great Directors and Producers.

Finally, there is the Post Production Companies, who see work drying up from both their main suppliers, so they set up their own production arm, approaching new and existing clients and offering to cut out the Production Company, and maybe even the Agency.  The client is winning, the campaign is cheaper, and there is more money for those left in the food chain.

But there are problems.

A short clip from Mad Men demonstrates the fantastic character of Don Draper at work, pitching to Eastman Kodak for a new product, in a time (1960s) when things were done the old way, and have been done that way since now.  Don is a master.  Who then, takes on this role, in a Production Company or Post Production Company?

Here then is the rub.

For those Production Companies that have become Agencies, the shock, the true shock, is the hand holding that clients need.  For years, an Agency has taken all the responsibility for feedback, explaining to the client that now that they’re in the grade that its not possible to put a new pack shot in because it was never shot, the client is educated by their longstanding Agency Manager.  Production Companies now have to handle all of this, chasing down the key people, understanding the client’s brand, what they are doing in their other media campaigns – suddenly, the Production Company instead of just executing the best possible work for the Agency, and taking their guidance, are waiting on emails, Marketing Directors are in meetings, the CEO doesn’t like the edit, but isn’t sure why, the Creative Director thinks the music is wrong but can’t explain what he/she really wants, and no one can get them all in a room or on a conference call at the same time, that was the job of the Agency bigwig, they knew them all and could ‘make the call’ – enter Don Draper.  The end result, a final product that the client isn’t that happy with, the Production Company has wasted literally hours waiting for feedback when they could be looking for new work, they end up reluctantly doing the audio and grade in-house because they have run out of time, even though they had to confirm bookings on audio and pictures suites in Post Production Companies and incur cancellation fees from all angles.  All because the client wasn’t sure if they liked it or not, or if it was what they wanted in the first place.  That then, is what Don Draper and the Agency does.

Agencies then surely don’t need Production Companies.  They can hire in the staff that know about Production.  They can buy the editing and graphics kit – it is after all as cheap as chips.  Sometimes though, the freelance Line Producer you like to work with isn’t available.  Unfortunately, the in-house Director you have isn’t really cutting the mustard for the client, the work is, a little substandard.  The Agency needs a bit more creative edge, a fresh look, but how can we ask for ideas from Production Companies and their experts because we’ve cut them out of the equation, we need to make the right markup on the job.  Well, the Agency know the brand well enough, and the clients, so surely its not that difficult.  Only problem is, the quality of content goes down, the edit goes wrong because the rushes weren’t supplied right, the Agency Junior Production Manager hired the wrong drives and none of the monitors in the whole building seem to be calibrated right – why does it looks so dark?!  Now everything has been encoded wrong – its not her fault, what does she know about film shoots and camera equipment?  In the end, they fix it, don’t really make any money on the job, but its done, and if a Production Company and Post House had been involved surely they would have made a loss?

Ah, but is producing average content, really the big loss?  Does a good campaign breed another?  Does a failed campaign encourage or discourage further investment for the next?

If Post Production Companies are to try the same ideas, do they not come up against all the same problems as the other two, if not worse?  If, as a Post House, you find yourself winning a job over one of your regular Agency clients, you can’t be surprised if you suddenly loose their whole contract – why hire a competitor?  If a Production Company steals a client away from an Agency or vice versa, don’t expect to have them booking you for work in the future.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you just to get a nibble on something else.

Sometimes in life, things have been the way they have been since the beginning for a reason.  Sometimes the chain is there because that meant everything got done properly.  Yes there was cost wastages, yes, sometimes the process was over complicated, but most of the time, the process worked because everyone was able to focus on their core abilities.

My predictions?  In a few years, things will start to return to the older route, CLIENT, AGENCY, PRODUCTION COMPANY, POST PRODUCTION COMPANY.  The ‘content’, which to me always sounds a bit like ‘web filler’ will be done by everyone, but great work, great work which clients really see value in, still needs all the right people involved.

Thomas Urbye

MD

The Look

Making the grade: ‘In-house’ vs ‘out-of-house’

As we enter the Summer of 2010 the UK production industry remains in the grip of recession.  Also, as noted in the recent UK Screen report, competition within the post production industry is damaging its own members with dangerous price wars. However, the biggest threat is coming from another direction – production companies and agencies bringing in-house the sound mix, online, grade and vfx work. Utilising the skillsets of freelance vfx/motion graphic artists and following the trend seen in offline editing over the last five years, it will mean an even faster shrinkage of the post production market. UK Screen’s 2010 UK Facilities Survey questioned production companies about their ‘in-house’ facilities, 69% reported they would be increasing investment again next year, this trend is likely to accelerate, at least in the short-term.

A limiting issue in the past has been the technology, with grading and broadcast systems and tape delivery requiring dedicated hardware and specialist operators that both came with a hefty price tag, just like Avid offline editing a decade ago.
By making continued and sizable investments, facilities quite rightly set their rates high, often up to £750-1000 per hour at the height of the 1990s, with operators demanding over £100k as a salary and an army of assistants needed to keep things running smoothly on a variety of other expensive systems.  You literally couldn’t do anything in-house if you were a production company.

Final Cut Pro has decimated offline rates as it has lead to thousands of editors coming out of university skilled in using it, and while it doesn’t make them ‘editors’, it has caused the end of decent kit fees and the end to music promo revenue, which helped pay the rent and staff, and made running an Edit House a profitable business.

Finishing is going the same way. The majority of facilities will need to reduce staff, settle expensive finance agreements on hefty price-tagged equipment and rethink their entire business model.  While 3D may seem the shot in the arm for the industry, FCP will be able to handle it soon enough, and so will Intel and NVIDIA’s off the shelve hardware, and 3D will be niche for some time yet and generating only a small revenue for London.

Clients producing work at the low to medium end have begun to work in-house, their budgets do not allow them to go to a good facility even if they wanted too.  As Avid’s market was destroyed by Apple’s Final Cut Pro, so it now sets its sight on the grading, onlining, sound mixing and final delivery of video content, with Adobe’s After Effects acting as an Autodesk Flame killer.
Price tags are low at below £1000 (if you’ve not cracked the software anyway), and with Apple’s MacPro and Hewlitt Packard systems advancing at a phenomenal rate, there is no reason why dedicated systems costing £150k + can be a viable option for only but a handful of facilities, who’s operators refuse to use FCP or BlackMagic’s greatly reduced pricing on its newly acquired da Vinci Resolve system.

There is of course a difference between offline editing and finishing. While editors now own their own kit, and can set up anywhere, or walk in to a production company or agency and use theirs, picture and sound finishing requires a more substantial check list for its operators and clients than the skill of the editor alone, but only at the higher-end of the market:

• Calibrated high-end screens and audio monitoring for perfect delivery across multiple platforms
• Digital workflow specialists in a fast changing environment of greater cameras, smoothing production challenges
• A superior service that is dedicated, fast and experienced
• An environment which encourages the pursuit of excellence, which is both comfortable and professional for clients, and their clients
• Most importantly of all, creative operators who are the best in their field, adding tens of thousands of pounds to the perceived budget through their skill as colourists, mixers and visual effects artists.  As an example, there are but a couple of industry respected freelance colourists

Those facilities who realise what clients will pay for and can action these business measures quickly will remain with us, they will have to reduce their rates long-term, but profit, if efficiency is actioned, could be higher – those who do not, will meet their demise soon.

Tough decisions in tough times.

Thomas Urbye
MD
The Look
London, UK

3D Stereoscopic – A shot in the arm for the industry, or the new DI bubble?

I’m excited.

Ever since I first saw decent 3D Stereoscopic (3DS for the rest of this blog) at the iMax, and then at IBC, I’ve wanted to be involved. The thought of a 3DS showreel to wow my clients has been a bit of a Holy Grail, the next stage on from HD images.

So, with the release of ‘Avatar’ suddenly everyone is talking about 3DS in Soho.  There are 2x Projectors and 3DS grading systems shipping to all sorts of places, and its all quite exciting. However, for all the hype, there is another side to the coin – and by a coin I mean a £250k+ investment in projectors, systems, screens, various add-ons etc. per suite.

I’m still keen – maybe its time to invest, surely the rates will be high, there aren’t many people who offer it yet. So just before I get the cheque book out, let’s take a moment here. Already this month, large and small post houses are gearing up for 3DS, even though the work isn’t there yet, and Sky, who are the only ones looking to do high-end stuff (outside of the big screen – and our film industry is on its backside) do quite a bit in-house. Ouch. So, what’s left?  Fashion launches, music promos, low-budget test stuff, concerts?

If all of us in London post production invest, will we cover the cost of that investment in under three years (I prefer two), or will 3DS go the way of DI?…Market saturation, continual heavy investment and poor rates, the result – its better to just shut the department down.

Everyone wants to be a market leader, but my concern already is with so many entering the market, at so many different levels, will 3DS really be the shot in the arm post houses across Soho need?

What is everyone going to charge?  £900 per hour for commercials in the top facilities and suites?  Maybe £500 per hour for long-form – would make sense to me from a business point-of-view.  I’m concerned that with market saturation at all levels you’ll see half those figures.

Let’s see where we are at the end of the Summer when the BBC and Sky are really demanding more content, and let’s hope this time people don’t give their new 3DS services away for nothing and we can all keep our rates at the right price to run our businesses.

Get your specs on (if you are sure which type you should be installing!)

Thomas Urbye
MD
The Look