Evolutions completes full post on Peter Kosminsky profile for The South Bank Show

18th May 2009

Evolutions, Soho's largest independent post production facility, has completed the full post on one of the highlights of the current season of The South Bank Show, a documentary on noted director Peter Kosminsky.

Kosminsky has directed both Hollywood films (‘White Oleander') and some of the most controversial programmes to air on British television in the past two decades, including ‘Britz', a drama about Muslim alienation in Britain and ‘The Government Inspector', a BAFTA award winning drama about the last days of Dr David Kelly.

Evolutions completed the offline for the documentary on Avid before doing a conform into Symphony Online and a pre-grade, with audio mixed in ProTools. The grade, undertaken in one of the company's Pogle suites by Tim O Brien, was particularly challenging.

"The director wanted the grade to subtely change during the film to reflect the tone of the Kosminsky film that was being discussed at the time," he says. "For instance, in one section the interview was given a slightly blue cast to reflect the blue feel given to the Kosminksy film they were discussing. When they moved on to discuss another film the interview was given a warmer feel in line with that film. And so on....

"It was quite hard to do because the interview took place all in the same room so the grade had to be subtle so as not to look contrived but at the same time be enough to signal a change," he continues. "I used vignettes and secondary colour correction to maintain realistic skin tones while tinting the shadows with tones of blue, green, brown and greys depending on the film being discussed.

The non-interview footage was given a heavy desaturation with often only the skin tone remaining."

The result is an engrossing 60-minute documentary that Jane Alexander, Production Manager, Specialist Factual & Arts at ITV is more than happy with. She is also extremely happy with the way the post process went as well.

"Evolutions was a great place to be," she says. "I have had other projects with Evolutions and every time we have been very well looked after. The staff are all efficient and delightful to deal with and the facilities are great too - what more could you want!"

TX date is 24th May.