Post Facility the Look Gets Cinematic for TV Drama Quirke Using Pablo Rio

London high-end post facility, The Look, recently completed the picture post production for BBCs major three part drama series Quirke on its Quantel Pablo Rio system. Set in 1950s Ireland and Boston, Quirke is the story of the eponymous pathologist who investigates sudden death victims. Quirke has been widely praised for its high production values and film noir look - with a striking extra dimension of bright color moments; Wonderful, atmospheric settings and unusually artistic cinematography, wrote one reviewer.

Colorist at The Look on the three episodes was Thomas Urbye. Each of the three 90 minute films had different directors and cinematographers, Urbye reports. My brief from the series Producer, Lisa Osborne, was to create a cohesive and cinematic look and feel across the three stories, while punctuating them with moments of strong color to accentuate particular characters and moods. For example, when the lead character Quirke hits the bottle in despair, I wanted to create a rugged, bleak look across the scenes, reflecting the difficult time he was going through. In contrast, Sarah and Mals house is opulent, with her bright orange dress standing out in all her scenes.

Along with Top Boy, this is the job of which I am most proud over the last three years, Urbye continues. I enjoyed the depth of the story and got deeply involved in the emotion; the cinematic approach from all involved combined with the budget helped me to do this. Most TV drama moves along at a great pace with lots of cuts, but Quirke was much more like three individual but connected feature films, giving the viewer plenty of time to embrace the atmosphere. Everything came together to create something with a huge amount of suspense.

We had three days per episode for color and finishing, all carried out in our grading theatre on our Pablo Rio with the directors and DPs in attendance. What made it all extra special was that De Lane Lea, who weve worked with a lot, did the audio mix - one of the big names in movie sound, really helping to add to the cinematic atmosphere, Urbye adds.

Our Pablo Rio with the Neo color control panel gives us the power to create the cinematic feel - using the built-in contrast curves means that we can get a sophisticated look very quickly. The speed with which we can apply subtle shapes is also very powerful in quickly building a great look. Furthermore, Pablo Rios built-in finishing toolset means that we were able to do all the conform, color, finishing and deliverables within the one system - and it was also easy to drop in VFX and simply apply the chosen grades to them, says Urbye.

Whats next for The Look and its Pablo Rio? Companies are now spending big money on quality content; viewers are increasingly expecting the same values from TV as the high-end movies. At The Look weve always worked hard to make sure we understand exactly what the director is trying to achieve and transcend that to make the projects as visually striking as possible - but always to enhance the storytelling. Post is no longer about lets make it look pretty but lets tell a real story - thats what we do and our Pablo Rio is the perfect tool to help us do it, Urbye concludes.

Pictures can be downloaded at hi-res at: http://www.quantel.com/repository/files/Quirke_pictures.zip

About Quantel

Quantel is a world-leading developer of innovative, high performance content creation and delivery systems for News & Sports production and high quality Post. Quantel fast-turnaround production systems give broadcasters the creative, productive and flexible workflows they need to stay ahead in todays competitive global media market. Quantels post production systems deliver the quality, resolution and performance post houses need to capture high margin, high value work.

Also part of the Quantel Group is Snell, a world leader in enabling broadcasters and media organizations to process and manage their valuable media content. Snells expertise empowers customers to achieve greater efficiencies and increase revenue while delivering their content to multiple distribution platforms. Snell TV Everywhere and Live TV products bring tangible benefits throughout the production chain.

More about Quantel at http://www.quantel.com; more about the Snell product range at http://www.snellgroup.com

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