Ascent 142 has completed the full post on BBC One's latest adaptation of the Jane Austen classic Emma, including the rushes, picture post, grade and audio.
Billed as a fresh humorous take on the tale of an early nineteenth century societal matchmaker, the 4x60minute serial boasts a feature film cast that includes Romola Garai (Atonement) as Emma and Trainspotting's Johnny Lee Miller as Mr Knightly.
The drama - which was shot on 35mm 2 perf film stock - has also become the first 2perf recipient of Ascent and Kodak's 2 and 3 perf scheme.
The scheme offers TV dramas competitive rates for film processing and rushes in line with the traditionally cheaper cost of processing Super 16 film stock. Last year the BBC's flagship autumn drama serial Tess of The D'Urbervilles was the first drama to take advantage of its 3 perf scheme.
This follows a successful campaign which Ascent waged with the BBC last year to prove that 2 and 3 perf 35mm stock is a viable format alternative to HD for TV productions still wanting to shoot on film.
Ascent 142 senior colourist Jet Omoshebi worked from a conformed master using a Da Vinci 2K, with sound and dialogue added so that DoP Adam Suschitzky and director Jim O'Hanlon could maximise the creative choices open to them.
According to Omoshebi her brief was "not to hark back to the past but to provide a modern take on the traditional costume drama by strengthening the contrasts and the colours and keeping it modern in terms of texture."
She adds "It was nice to be able to make a drama on 35mm - it gives you much more creative leverage in terms of sharpness of depth and depth of field. You haven't got anywhere near the amount of grain so you are able to push and stretch things out in telecine much more."
While the drama was set in the Regency England it was filmed almost entirely around that busy modern hub within M25 and consequently required over 100 VFX shots per episode - many of which involved the removal of TV aerials, wires, planes and telephone cables.
Ascent 142 editor Simon Brook had joined the cast on location to take pictures of various buildings and Kent villages to remove artefacts early on in post using an Avid DS Nitris. Jobs included digitally replacing TV aerials with trees on a whole row of houses in the village of Chilham, near Canterbury.
Over in the sound department the team was kept busy with sound effects, track laying Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) - the latter of which accounted for about 80%of the work as noisy costumes, big rooms in grand houses that don't allow for boom mics and the background hum of traffic meant that some of the location sound had to be re-recorded.
The entire post process was turned around in just 15 weeks with many jobs worked on simultaneously as Ascent 142 post producer Alice Greenland explains: "Every day the director moves between different departments but luckily every department - mixing, grading, picture post and audio are all within 100 yards of each other so it's easy to shuffle things about and get things done."
Emma producer George Ormond adds "We worked with Ascent over an intense period and it's been great. It's been a very collaborative experience and it's always felt like everyone has been working together to reach the same goal, which is really important."
Emma concludes on Sunday 25 October at 9pm on BBC One. |
