Tokyo’s Digital Garden has graded Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS) MBS/ Tokyo Broadcasting System’s (TBS) drama series Eren the Southpaw with Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio. The live-action show, based on a manga series by artist Kappy, includes hundreds of shots per episode graded with an advanced collaborative workflow at Digital Garden using a mix of DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel, and DaVinci Resolve Mini or Micro Panel.

Digital Garden’s Masahiro Ishiyama and Osamu Haga are the main colorists for the series, with one handling grading for the present and one for the past. The series follows Koichi Asakura and Eren Yamagishi, who met each other while in high school and continue their relationship as Koichi becomes a designer and Eren becomes an up and coming painter in NYC. “To those who could not become a genius” is the catch phrase for this series and the story depicts the people and environment in the art industry and at an ad agency based on the manga author’s actual experience.

For Digital Garden, best known for color grading TV commercial work, Eren the Southpaw was one of its first long form drama series. The show’s DP, Akiyoshi Yoshida, wanted to use Digital Garden’s commercial expertise and asked them to grade the drama as if they were grading a TV commercial, while at the same time creating two different looks between current and past scenes. To do this, he shot in two different aspect ratios -- 4:3 for past and 2:1 for current.