Silverglade had a big list of criteria to fulfil during the grade of this natural history doc
POST Silverglade
Silverglade’s brief for the colour grade on this 90-minute natural history doc was to create a warm feel, complementing the tropical location, even out the night-time infrared footage and balance the sunrise/sunset footage.
The documentary was shot over several months on an assortment of cameras, including underwater shoots.
Colourist Laura Hewett used BaseLight 5 to balance all the cameras and times of day for consistency, as the footage was shot over several hours, during which the light changed.
The infrared-light night shoots were noisy and “very magenta”, according to Hewett, who reduced the effect using a denoising tool and “graded out” the strong colour to a warmer orange hue.
A rich turquoise tone was created for the underwater shots and maintained throughout.
Silverglade also completed the audio post-production work on the programme. Dubbing mixers Nick Handley and Cecile Janet worked in ProTools 12.5 to build up a multi-textured atmosphere to bring the environment and wildlife on the Costa Rican coastline to life. They also added detail to the movement of the turtles.
On top of this, Handley and Janet removed interfering background noise from recordings of the turtle eggs “vocalising from inside the nest”, making the sound much more audible.
Everything other than dialogue and the nest recordings was mute, so layers of sound effects and Foley were added through- out, to create a rich sound bed that reflected the surroundings.
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