Blackmagic Design today announced that Matthew Vaughan’s big screen adaptation “The Secret Service” was finished on DaVinci Resolve by Goldcrest Post colorist Rob Pizzey. Set in the world of British super spies, it stars Colin Firth, Michael Caine and Samuel L Jackson.
Based upon the Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ 2012 comic book, 20th Century Fox’s Kingsman: The Secret Service tells the story of a super-secret spy organization that recruits an unrefined, but promising street kid into the agency's competitive training program just as a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.
Pizzey worked with director of photography George Richmond on a quintessential British spy thriller that doesn’t take itself too seriously and features plenty of fun. “We wanted to create a slick looking film while keeping the blacks full of information and filmic,” reveals Pizzey. “Everything based in the Kingsman world had to feel rich and lush while Eggsy's world a little darker, and more oppressive.”
“Having worked with George in the past, I knew that he preferred to setup the look of a film prior to the shoot in order for him to use them during production. For Kingsman, we setup around 25 different LUTs and used them on set for monitoring purposes as well as the dailies, ensuring the rushes were already an accurate representation of the final look George was after. We also spent some time with DIT Joshua Callis-Smith to make sure his monitors matched what we were seeing in the DI theatre. The dailies looked so good and balanced a pre grade wasn’t needed in the edit suite to match out the scenes. When it came to the final DI there were no shocks as everybody knew roughly how the film would look.
DaVinci Resolve was used to tweak the look and isolate small parts of the frame to emphasize the mood George was creating explains the colorist. “During the first two scenes of the film we also had to carry out some anti ageing using a variety of techniques to make the lead actors appear younger as the scenes took place quite a few years earlier than the rest of the film. We also had to carry out a fair bit of wig line removal and beauty correction throughout. All of those shots were worked on in context using Resolve, all in real-time, giving us the flexibility to adjust and modify each shot up to the last day of grading.
“Our workflow is based on using DaVinci Resolve throughout the full DI process including conforming and final online edition. Using the same system at every stage of the DI process gives us the flexibility to never have to render or commit any shot until they have been fully signed off,” concludes Pizzey. “In particular, the multi layer and compositing capability of the system meant that we were able to grade each part of a comp shot independently, such as the Head Up Display (HUD) shots as well as the complicated vertical wipes, including those used in Valentines factory.”
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.
