Splice has completed the grade and audio post for The First Team, a brand new comedy series from The Inbetweeners creators, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris.
The show follows the dynamic between a team of hapless young football players and their eclectic backroom staff, including Chairman Mark Crane (Will Arnett).
The Grade
The series was shot by DOP Simon Tindall using the Sony Venice with Zeiss Supreme lenses to create a clean but gently sharp look. After talking to Tindall, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, Head of Colour, Adam Dolniak, was guided to make the show look and feel as authentic as possible.
Locations were sometimes large with limited access, so lighting was concentrated on the actors, whilst backgrounds were kept lit using practical lighting. This helped ground the images in the “real” world and often gave interesting colours that complimented the foreground for Adam to play with.
The blue hue that can be seen throughout the show, which was instilled through the Zeiss Supremes, was amplified in the grade to enhance the crisp, late-winter look that the team wanted, considering the show is intended to be set in February.
Audio Post-Production
Senior dubbing mixer, Matt Baird, mixed the series using Pro Tools 12 on the Avid S6 M40 control surface. He was assisted by sound editor Michal Maletz.
The chief outlook for audio post-production on this series was to preserve the Beesley and Morris stamp of comedy. Atmos was kept quite low to not distract from the house-style that is so notable in the show’s dialogue and ADR was kept to a minimum to highlight the action on-set, which was captured by veteran sound recordist, Bob Newton.
The First Team is on Thursdays from 28th May on BBC Two, or on BBC iPlayer.
Jon Creamer
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