Technicolor Montreal gs furer with Baselight

Doubling of FilmLight grading suites meets increasing demand for film and television finishing in the city

Technicolor, the world leader in production and post-production services, blends innovative technologies with award-winning colourists at its global post facilities, each bringing their own unique approach to the creative process. In support of its commitment to cutting-edge technologies, the Montreal location recently streamlined its service offering by making significant investments in infrastructure and technology to provide a more seamless post offering.

Technicolor supports every area of production: feature and short film, television, documentary, animation and games. As part of its investment into the refurbished Montreal facility, Technicolor has extended its FilmLight colour grading capabilities with an additional Baselight system. Montreal now joins the New York, Los Angeles and London facilities that offer Baselight as part of their DI pipeline.

Montreal represents a major film and television production market, and the expansion in Baselight grading reflects the increasing demand from the industry for uncompromised, high-resolution finishing. In addition to working regularly with the international community of experienced filmmakers and producers, Technicolor Montreal supports new and emerging filmmakers on their very first productions.

Technicolor Montreal introduced its first FilmLight grading system to the facility in 2013, with the installation of Baselight equipped with the Blackboard 2 control panel, increasing both the capacity and future scope of work the post house can support.

The colourists at Technicolor Montreal attract work from the international market as well as the local Quebec industry. Head colourist of the digital intermediate division, Nico Ilies, brings an impressive portfolio; he recently completed Henri Henri and the Hollywood movie, Serena with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. He also just finished The Girl King, which paints a portrait of the brilliant, extravagant Kristina of Sweden.

For Serena, I met the director and DoP in London to decide the look of the movie, explained Ilies. The conform had been completed in Montreal, prior to my journey to the UK, with the RED RAW files de-Bayered into DPX. Due to Baselight's ability to work with native RAW footage and camera colour spaces, I could access the original files in real-time. This was a huge advantage as it meant I was not limited to working with just the DPX files.

Ilies just finished grading the BBC television co-production Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a seven-part adaptation of Susanna Clarke's novel set in the Napoleonic Wars.

Baselight to me is the best grading system in the market, he added. Not only does it perform well, it allows each colourist to personalise their own system, so you always feel you have a logical, intuitive, creative way of working. The OpenEXR format read natively in Baselight has also considerably improved the workflow with VFX companies and helped unify both worlds.

Ilies' colleague, Anne Boyle, colourist and workflow specialist, joined Technicolor recently and was integral in the set up of the overall DI workflow and Baselight integration within the Montreal facility. The support we receive from FilmLight goes above and beyond solving technical issues, she commented. It's like having access to a huge variety of industry experts, always on hand to guide and advise. Boyle is currently working on season 2 of Helix, a US sci-fi thriller TV show distributed by Sony Productions on SyFy and Showcase.

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