Press release from Well Above
The Lab Sydney recently completed its work on series two of Underbelly – A Tale of Two Cities. According to producer Prue Fletcher the second series, although working with stricter timeframes, was more seamless than the first.
Fletcher said, “We moved straight from working on Baz Luhrmann’s Australia to Underbelly – A Tale of Two Cities, so we were all prepared for the volume of work to be done in a short amount of time. We have a long-term successful working relationship with Screentime having also just finished The Informant and False Witness for them so everybody knew what was expected in terms of quality and service. To stay ahead of the game, for Underbelly – A Tale of Two Cities we also did a lot of pre-testing grades so Screentime and the Nine Network could approve the look ahead of schedule.”
With Screentime having the editorial department set up on location and taking care of ingest and initial QC, we completed our own spot check on rushes before moving to the next stage of post production.
Fletcher continued, “This was a fast paced project. Will O’Connell completed the HD conform within Smoke, final HD tape to tape grade was performed using the 2K da Vinci Renaissance with Peter Simpson and then back into Smoke with Will to finalise the HD Mastering. We had to create two masters per episode, in less than 2 weeks”.
Post Production Supervisor on Underbelly – A Tale of Two Cities Benita Carey added, “"We worked with a fantastic team at The Lab. It’s always great to collaborate with people who are so passionate and dedicated – right through from the colourist and online editor to those doing the restripes and QCs. The technical back up is always there and I can rely on that completely. A great aspect of the Lab’s service is their flexibility. Given the incredibly tight turnaround on Underbelly, it was often extremely difficult to gather Producers for sessions. The Lab were always helpful in accommodating this. I can definitely say that The Lab has made a significant contribution to Underbelly II – both in the look and the technical quality of the show."