By Christine Bunish
Getting time to color grade a commercial, experiment with it, fine tune it and hone images to look their very best is a luxury these days. But Mark Gethin, creative partner and senior colorist at Santa Monica's TRAFIK, got the rare gift of time last year when he color graded the stunning, three-minute Qantas commercial, I Still Call Australia Home.
The latest spot in the airline's long-running campaign, having launched in 1987, the commercial features breathtaking locations from Western Australia to Tasmania intercut with celebrated Australians and children's choruses singing Peter Allen's eponymous anthem. The spot from The Monkeys, part of the Accenture Interactive creative agency, was directed by Kiku Ohe for Rabbit. It netted Gethin the 2022 HPA Award for Outstanding Color Grading in a Commercial.
I do a lot of commercials but don't always get a lot of time with them, and I don't often see the director and DP, says Gethin. The Qantas spot was a really enjoyable project to work on. We graded it over a few days but spread over a long period of time which allowed us to keep looking at the footage and tweaking it, giving it a lot of thought.
The process was director-led, with Kiku getting me involved early and having us do a lot of experimenting to see how far to push it, he recalls. But we came back at the end to something a bit more naturalistic. A lot of the landscapes [shot by DP Jeremy Rouse] have such beautiful light and colors, so we stayed true to their look.
Rouse captured the footage digitally then the raw images were filmed out and scanned back to achieve a film-like quality for postproduction. We had the luxury of doing quite a few grades: an initial grade, then a film grade, which we thought looked too heavy, then a digital grade using the film as a reference, Gethin explains. The agency allowed me to spend time on this. Kiku was always popping in and out with ideas about trying this and that; there was a lot of back and forth with Jeremy in Australia who sent references but let me do my thing. When I grade I always try to add something to the images.
Gethin is one of the world's most award-winning colorists with British Arrows, a UK MVA, AICP awards, Gold Cannes Lions and a Grand Prix among his honors. He originally wanted to be a musician, then got into photography and lighting bands and theater. He became a runner at Rushes in London and was interested in directing before he even knew color grading existed. I had no idea that colorist was a job, but when I first walked into a colorist's suite and saw someone loading up the film - this was in the early 90s - and start coloring I was pretty much hooked, he reports. It seemed a perfect fit for his talents.
He began grading at Rushes and rose rapidly through the ranks. For the first 10 years I graded solely music videos at Rushes, Gethin recalls. A move to MPC London got him into commercials, and by 2008 he was opening the MPC LA office. He became the creative director of MPC LA and MPC NY until the company's merger with The Mill last year. In August 2022 he and some former MPC colleagues opened TRAFIK, an independently owned creative studio, specializing in color, finish and beauty for short and long-form content.
We're built around a collective of great artists who have worked together for many years, Gethin says. The new company has grown rapidly and now boasts a staff of 40, including four senior colorists. There is a ton of crossover with DPs and directors across all forms of content these days, so we've set ourselves up to grade for our clients across all media. We've been both surprised and grateful by the outpouring of support and excitement from our clients since we opened. In addition to winning an HPA Award, TRAFIK was short-listed for eight AICP awards, the most of any grading company globally.
Since TRAFIK opened, Gethin has worked on several Super Bowl films, including one with director Kim Gehrig and Apple for Rihanna's half-time show. I've worked with Kim for years, so it's been great having her in the studio, he says. Gethin also recently graded Expedia's beautiful Made to Travel spot directed by Justyna Obasi, and is coloring an Apple TV+ show slated for fall.
I Still Call Australia Home was the first project that Gethin submitted to the HPA Awards. In the past, I was always working and other people sent things off to various awards, he says. When we opened TRAFIK we wanted to make sure to get our new brand out there, so I'm more involved in submissions now.
It was absolutely great to win - it was a recognition for everyone whose work went into the spot; the director and DP were super happy. You know, a colorist works in a dark room and goes from job to job, so it feels good to be recognized that you did a nice bit of work.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
By Christine Bunish
