Hangman Creates Collaborative Post-Production Flow with DaVinci for 'Life in Six Strings'

The documentary series AXS 'Life in Six Strings' was post-produced by the team at Hangman, which decided to establish collaborative flows based on DaVinci Resolve software from Blackmagic Design.

In each of the eight episodes of Life in Six String, the journalist Kylie Olsson presents intimate and spontaneous interviews with world famous guitarists. The conversation program, which takes place in the musicians' homes or places of interest, presents a almost cinematic appearance which contradicts the improvised style of this production. This is largely due to the aesthetic and post-production work performed by James Tonkin, founder of the production company Hangman: "I was brought in by the series creator (Olsson) to serve as director of photography and supervise post-production. I filmed the first two episodes and defined the style and aesthetic of the series, and I also handled all aspects of post-production on Hangman, from receiving copy to delivering the final product."

The vision of Tonkin was influenced by the film A Star Is Born, for which the director feels a great affinity, which led him to use a anamorphic objective and to capture long shots using a stabilizer, as well as resource shots holding the camera in your hand. The series also features personal scenes that take place inside cars, which were recorded with cameras mounted in a special way, so that it was not necessary to manipulate them. In turn, the production team followed the main vehicle from a secondary one: "It was fast and fluid, and we filmed everything in the same day. Kylie wanted to be able to visit the interviewees' homes and talk to them. There was no time to modify the lighting in the houses. Everything had to go perfectly without prior preparation, but on the screen, it had to look with a pleasant and well-thought-out aesthetic."

In the post-production stage of the series, Hangman decided to go for DaVinci Resolve Studio y Blackmagic Cloud, software allowed Hangman to implement a collaborative work system, whether in editing, grading or finalizing the material, which was mastered in 4K resolution and delivered in HD definition: "It is extremely simple. Just create the project, send a link to an editor and make sure they have access to the lower resolution copies. You can open the project and actually access what I see (...) At the end of the project, Leigh Brooks, the editor, sent me a locked DRT file and the sound in AAF format. We had a 22-minute episode that we could put together and start grading within an hour of receiving the material.”

Getting the most out of DaVinci Resolve

In the final stages of post-production, Tonkin concentrated on color grading, stabilization, aspect ratio adjustment and image enhancement, working directly with the original files in 6K resolution and in format RED R3D. Any issues, such as overexposure, were resolved with DaVinci Resolve Studio's Magic Mask tool: "In the last episode, I had to replace the sky as there was a lot of loss in the in-car shots. I used this to identify and separate out the person first, then the sky. Then I applied another node to replace the sky. This gave me the ability to add an undertone that would normally be very bright and make the sky appear white." On the other hand, the person responsible for Hangman added a layer of grain to give a warm, analog appearance to the images, which is consistent with the theme of this series, music.

Las artificial intelligence tools DaVinci Resolve Studio also offer a automatic subtitles which made the post-production process much more efficient, especially since the episodes are characterized by dialogue: "Each episode consists of a long conversation. However, Resolve's artificial intelligence capabilities allow the material to be analyzed and transcribed in three or four minutes. I watched it over and over again with the intention of applying corrections, but in my opinion it is 90% accurate. Previously, when channels required the delivery of closed captioning, I instantly had to dedicate myself to that task “But now that DaVinci Resolve can do this, it only takes me half an hour longer.”

Looking back, Tonkin estimates that he spent approximately six hours of post-production for each episode: "First, I created a 4K master, then exported it in MXF format and HD definition, ready to be broadcast on AXS TV. That export, along with the subtitle file and 14 multi-track audio components, which was delivered via Media Shuttle, took me ten minutes. (…) For the delivery of the content, we worked with ASX TV, who are excellent, but I also want to give credit to Kylie, who managed to complete the project herself. She has The ability to create wonderful stories from the people you interview. The elegance we have been able to give to the images in grading and finishing has increased the value of this production, but the content is what matters most.”

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