Rushes have completed the colour grading for BBC Northern Ireland's drama, ATLANTIS - END OF A WORLD. BIRTH OF A LEGEND.
Press Release from Rushes
Rushes have completed the colour grading for BBC Northern Ireland's drama, ATLANTIS - END OF A WORLD. BIRTH OF A LEGEND. Detailing the historical events that inspired the legend of Atlantis.
Featuring spectacular visual effects, the film tells the gripping story of the greatest natural disaster to shake the ancient world, a disaster that triggered the downfall of a civilisation and spawned a legend."
Directed by Tony Mitchell (Flood, Supervolcano and Ancient Egyptians), it is the first British primetime drama to use the virtual back lot production technique of the movie 300. Incorporating the latest CGI technology, the film brings viewers face to face with one of history's greatest disasters; from the precursory earthquakes through the eruption sequence to the volcanic bombs, pyroclastic flows, and tsunamis.
Having established a working relationship from Ancient Egyptians through to Supervolcano, Tony Mitchell came to Simone Grattarola and Rushes for the grade for the 90 minute and 60 minute films including the 2 minute promotional trailer. The visual effects (580 shots in total) were provided by Lola with the final conform and online completed at 142. The sound mix was particularly complicated, challenging and rewarding, its scale being more like a full blown feature film than a production for television.
Simone comments ‘When Mitch came to me with his new project and outlined what he wanted and the production techniques he wanted to engage, I jumped at the chance to work on it. We really enjoy taking on special projects like this.’
Shot tapeless on Arri D21 cameras, Rushes were supplied with a conformed dpx file sequence of the film by Waterfront Studios in Cape Town. Simone used Resolve DI to grade the project ‘we used the trailer as a way to establish aesthetics of the grade and test the footage. During this process we decided that we would establish the same aesthetics on all the green screen shots and deliver those to Lola rather than grading the footage after post. Grahame Andrew (VFX Supervisor at Lola) was keen for us to key into the green screen and adjust that to the colour of the final background.’
Producer, Detlef Siebert explains ‘the grade was instrumental in helping Lola to obtain clean keys. Resolve is one of the most accurate keying tools available. It's more accurate than any of the keying tools available to VFX facilities. So by changing the green screen to a colour that was close to the colour that Lola intended to use for the CG plate, Rushes saved Lola a lot of cleaning up and roto-scoping work, especially where the keying involved a lot of fine detail, such as hair.’
Simone continues ‘The idea was to grade the green screen to where we wanted it to be. Here you can see we have keyed into the green giving it a cooler feel. We drew out the overall warmth and added contrast. It still allowed us to tweak for our final grade.
‘To establish the aesthetic we started by de-saturating the image and then slowly returning the colour we wanted. On the left (below) you can see the ungraded footage which was very warm in nature. This scene is at night, after the ash has started to fall from the volcanic eruption. We added some ‘steeliness’ and cooled the frame considerably. We brought the lowlights right down and returned some of the skin tones and the fires colour.’
Simone goes on, ‘Once the post was completed we took out a little more of the blue as at this point we realized there was more ash and less moonlight. A few vignettes and blending in of the background and the shot was complete. A seamless blend of green screen, grade and VFX.’
Production Title: Atlantis - End of a World. Birth of a Legend.Production Company: BBC Northern Ireland in association with Moonlighting and EWMDirector: Tony MitchellProducer: Detlef SiebertDirector of Photography: Peter GreenhalghExecutive Producers: Michael Mosley, Ailsa OrrFilm Editor: Nick EmersonWriter: Rhidian BrookPost (Conform): Waterfront StudiosProducer: Barry Strickwww.waterfrontstudios.co.za Post (Final Conform & Online): 142Online Editor: Adam EddyDubbing Mixer: Alan SallabankProducer: Alice Greenlandwww.ascent142.co.ukPost (VFX): LolaVFX Supervisor: Grahame Andrewwww.lola-post.comPost (Telecine): RushesProducer: Carl GrinterColourist: Simone Grattarolawww.rushes.co.uk
Video footage can be found here:Trailhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV9BVTi8t9UMaking ofhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWn2tpYVB8Precursors of Disasterhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gTCILoRlFkThe Volcano Goes Plinianhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCujnt68bVg
ATLANTIS – End of a World. Birth of a Legend (drama)BBC ONE on SUNDAY, 13 March, at 9 pm.
ATLANTIS: The Evidence (documentary)BBC TWO on TUESDAY, 15 March, at 7 pm.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
