Leading UK post house, The Look, has recently completed the conform, grade and deliverables for primetime ITV drama, The Halcyon, from its brand new facility in London’s Soho.  The Look’s new facility includes grading and online suites and a spacious grading theater which house SAM’s Quantel Rio 4K color, edit and finishing systems and a Neo control surface. The Look has also purchased SAM’s Rio Assist software to support ingesting, conforming and exporting from its main Quantel Rios.

Senior Colorist and Managing Director at The Look, Thomas Urbye, said, “After moving to our new facility last summer, the decision was made to triple our storage capabilities so we could handle shows for Netflix including Lovesick and Fleabag for Amazon Prime in 4K HDR and 16-bit resolution.”

Owing to this upgrade, one of The Look’s most recent projects with Rio includes The Halcyon, an eight-part series for Leftbank Pictures and ITV that was shot on ARRI Alexa. The Halcyon is a period drama set in an upscale London hotel at the outbreak of World War II. The Look spent six months working on The Halcyon alongside other projects, completing the color grade, online and deliverables all from its new 4K facilities using its Quantel Rios.

Urbye adds, “I love working with the Rio because it promotes creativity and speed at the same time. On The Halcyon, we graded and managed picture fixes all on the same timeline, within the same architecture. We were also able to export the DPP AS-11 files for broadcast as well as the DCPs & QuickTime Prores for press screenings directly from our Rio systems, which our client was incredibly pleased with.”

“It’s a very exciting time to be in this business, even a ‘Golden Age’, especially as 4K is becoming a reality for Netflix and Amazon Prime. If we want to stay competitive, it’s important that we have tools like Quantel Rio in place — not only because it handles any format, even 8K — but more so because it really lets us focus on the creative aspect of our job and enables us to deliver an excellent product on time and on budget. Our work on The Halcyon clearly reflects this, and we’re excited for what the future holds” said Urbye. 

SAM’s EVP and General Manager, Media Software Solutions, Neil Maycock said, “We’re delighted that The Look continues to invest in SAM’s media software solutions for some of the UK’s biggest primetime dramas. The Look’s new facility and unbeatable end-to-end post workflows puts them in a great position as the demand for high quality VOD content picks up pace in 2017.”