Roush Media, an award-winning post-production company providing finishing services for film and TV, delivered Dailies, Digital Intermediate Color Grading and Digital Cinema Mastering for “Overcomer,” a live-action family film from brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick.
The movie tells the story of a life-changing overnight for coach John Harrison when his high school basketball team’s state championship dreams are crushed under the weight of unexpected news. When the largest manufacturing plant in town suddenly shuts down and hundreds of families begin moving away, Coach Harrison must come to grips with the challenges facing his family and his team.
“The producers wanted to create a stunningly beautiful film,” said Keith Roush, Roush Media founder. “They required expertise during pre-production and we created a workflow for supporting the vision of director Alex Kendrick throughout the production and post process.”
According to Supervising Colorist Roush, the studio’s services don’t just start once the edit is complete, but rather from the moment the camera rolls. Roush and DP Bob Scott sat down together at the facility in Burbank, Ca. before a single frame was shot.
“Keith Roush is a color genius,” said Scott. “I could not be happier with the final look of the film on the DI for ‘Overcomer’. Keith is a master technician and true artist who sees every detail. He even flew to Georgia to help create the look for our on-set color which was invaluable during the shoot.”
“After reviewing imagery of other films that Alex liked, we determined what he was looking for and how to achieve that,” said Roush.
A color suite was set up near set in Columbus, Georgia and Roush flew out from California to meet with Scott and Kendrick to finalize the look of the film just before production was to start shooting, A camera test with actors on location were graded with Kendrick and Scott supervising.
In these “look” development sessions Roush, with Kendrick and Scott, carefully crafted the look that could work in HDR or SDR, with advanced color management that was monitored on set right out of the camera.
Editor Steve Hullfish, working near-set sent over cuts of scenes that he thought, for color reasons, might require reshoots. Roush would then grade those scenes and send them back for review and approval, letting him know that reshoots were not required and any inconsistencies were easily fixable
Roush managed the color pipelines for the VFX plates so that they would come back in and look as Kendrick and his DP intended.
According to Roush, “An important part of the DI process is managing the color pipeline through the VFX process. Only the DI company truly has the expertise and knows the ramifications for any modifications to the color of the VFX plates.”
The Roush Media Conform Artist pulls the effects plates and provides these with the necessary lookup tables to the VFX vendors.
“The advantages are clear: With consistent color results and the ability to simultaneously keep grading, even though final VFX shots are not delivered, they will pop in and match the underlined material. This process is highly efficient.
“When you have clients that live on the other side of the country who are very busy, you may only have access to them for a few days for the entire color process. That is why we felt it was necessary to utilize our new ‘live color’ remote color grading system.”
A monitor recommended and calibrated by Roush Media was placed in the director’s home and one to two-hour sessions were schedule with him to allow for feedback on the grades in progress before he came to the Roush Media theater for final review.
“Alex really enjoyed being able to see his colored images and collaborate with our team in real time on the other side of the country.”
From these session notes the grade was continually refined over and over again with the Roush Media team perfecting the image to exactly what the director was looking for, so that when he came in for his final review in the theater it was a very smooth review process and only a few tweaks were necessary.
“It was an absolute joy to be able to collaborate with such a wonderful creative team. There was nothing more we felt could have been done for the image of ‘Overcome.’ It was exactly as planned and the audience will truly be able to experience its beauty,” concluded Roush.
About Roush Media
ROUSH Media is a high- quality award- winning boutique post-production company providing finishing services for Film & TV. Specializing in Dailies, Digital Intermediate Color grading, and Digital Cinema Mastering, its staff goes above and beyond client expectations to provide the best quality and creative work.
Every project is different and manages data and color workflows from acquisitions to delivery. To distinguish the company, it is decidedly not a corporate owned bottom-line focused facility. The studio boasts artists and engineers driven to employ the best art and science to provide a project impressive color– done right.
