December 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


TVBEurope 47 The Workflow


station, with a key character looking at a painting that morphs into a Tube map. Other shots in the piece include green screen car windows with period cars composited in. LipSync’s graphics team


A Robber’s Talefeatures a digitally rebuilt Euston Station, circa 1963


LipSync Post plays Coppers and Robbers


By Neal Romanek


LIPSYNC POST provided full post services, including visual effects, for BBC One’s pair of Great Train Robbery dramas marking the 50th anniversary of the notorious heist. The first, A Robber’s Tale, directed by Julian Jarrold (The Girl, Appropriate Adult), follows the story of gang leader, Bruce Reynolds. The second, A Copper’s Tale, directed by Broadchurch’s James Strong, follows DCI Tommy Butler and his quest to bring the robbers to justice. LipSync’s visual effects team,


led by VFX supervisors Ben Shepherd and Leo Neelands, completed around 40 shots


16K put through The Mill as it reimagines post


By Adrian Pennington


LEADING LONDON post- production facility The Mill is intent on resetting the bar on client-artist experience with a tapeless infrastructure capable of handling ingest, DI and master of resolution at 4K and above. Recently, The Mill has also completed a project at 16K resolution, although details about this have been kept under wraps. It plans to move to a purpose- designed 30,000sqft (2787sqm)


studio at Windmill Street, Fitzrovia by next summer. Established 24 years ago at Great Marlborough Street as arguably the capital’s first digital video effects facility, The Mill subsequently branched out into New York and LA (and latterly Chicago). Both main US operations have expanded to 140+ staff and been relocated at least once to accommodate the growth.


High time then that The Mill, consistently voted the UK’s best, refreshed its London HQ.


“A number of things provided us with a new impetus to change the way we work with clients,” said managing director, Darren O’Kelly. “The Mill is still heavily concentrated on VFX for commercials, but it is also experimenting with technology and media across digital, gaming, directed design and animation. We distilled this into Mill+, which is a powerful way for us to originate new types of content but in a manner that lends itself to a different studio working environment.


The continuous courtroom shot inA Copper’s Talecombines 11 plates


across the two programmes. The key effects scene in the Robbers drama involved rebuilding a period version of Euston Station from scratch with a steam train added. The team also created complete CG versions of the crucial railway signals that were tampered with by the robbers, as well as digital removing April snow from what was supposed to be an August day. The Coppers drama features a continuous circular shot of the courtroom, created with around 11 plates and green screens used to fully populate the room using a limited number of extras. The team also created an effects transition from a café to a Tube


“Currently, 3D and design


are on different floors and the intention is for a complete integration of all departments,” he added. “We will reset the standard in


terms of technology and will take some big steps to change how we use the kit. We intend to build a fully tapeless workflow and to design an infrastructure which will challenge the norms and conventions of how post has worked in the past. The layout will enable us to tailor teams of specialists with great flexibility and truly allow those artists to express themselves on a project.”


The facility is testing a


number of systems and will make a decision on its final specifications in about three months. Dark fibre will be run between the two buildings during migration.


created two very different title designs for each film. For A Robber’s Tale, the title sequence needed to set the style of the period and hint that the criminals, imagined themselves as a cool ‘rat-pack’. The sequence introduces the key players with a montage of heavily colour graded shots, with a mixture of original and archive material. A Copper’s Tale took a more traditional approach with a full-frame cut sequence to introduce the film, with titles integrated into each scene and effects transitions between the shots. Art direction and design were by Howard Watkins with additional design, animation and comping by Simon Edwards and Julia Hall. Producer Julia Stannard, who


previously worked with LipSync on United and Falcón, said, “LipSync has once again done an incredible job, on time and on budget, to help bring to life this key event in British history.” LipSync Post is located across


two sites on London’s Wardour Street. Recent credits include film projects Starred Up, The Invisible Woman, Byzantium, and Broken. Projects for TV include Death Comes To Pemberley, Dancing on the Edge, The Sparticle Mysteries, Falcón, Leonardo and Hidden. www.lipsyncpost.co.uk


“Our aspiration is not simply to find a bigger building, but to continue to do the best creative work possible,” O’Kelly explained. The Mill currently has a film scanning facility, but O’Kelly says that more than 90% of the material the company takes in is not shot on negative. “Our view is that, though we love film, it is not going to be a significant part of the future,” he said. “Arguably post is more


influential than ever, but the biggest single shift in recent times has been early stage engagement,” he added. “This means boarding projects early on to help creatives realise their vision. We have a whole team of artists, designers and illustrators at Mill+ who can help clients understand a brave idea by producing tests and CG visualisations.” www.themill.com


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