[24 January 2013]
– On-set preview system improves quality, speed and saves time and money during the production of daily dramas –
GrundyUFA, the largest producer of original television content in Europe, has added FilmLight’s on-set colour management technology, FLIP, to its production workflow, helping to improve quality and save time and money, both on-set and in post-production.
GrundyUFA produces four daily dramas at its production facilities in Cologne and Berlin, including the highly successful Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times) and Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love). Broadcast five days a week and attracting huge audiences across Germany, both shows’ production schedules are extremely demanding.
GrundyUFA is now using FLIP during the production of both dramas.
“We are saving a huge amount of time and achieving consistently higher production values,” commented Oskar Kammerer, Senior Colourist at GrundyUFA.
Ordinarily, GrundyUFA would adjust the lighting and camera settings each time a production moved to a new set – a timely process considering Forbidden Love employs more than 50 sets alone. This impacted post-production, as establishing exact consistency on set was not possible. Since employing FLIP, the footage delivered to post is much more consistent and closer to the desired final look, allowing colourists to devote more time to polishing the look and making aesthetic enhancements.
“In the past, maintaining a consistent look for each show had been a huge challenge,” stated Kammerer. “FLIP allows us to maintain a database of pre-designed looks and apply them live. We can adjust each grading element and make sure that the lighting and camera settings are perfect. Once the look is set it is logged against the relevant shot and returned to the colourist as grading metadata in exactly the same format as the original database. It is then a simple process to load the files into the Baselight timeline.”
Kammerer notes that FLIP is important not only for camera and lighting settings, but also for making critical judgments about make-up, costumes and sets. “Previously, we often had to make compromises, we had to make sure things were ‘safe’ for shooting,” he recalled. “With FLIP we can go further in our aesthetic choices because we can review make-up and costumes on the set and know that we can handle it.”
About GrundyUFA
As an independent subsidiary to UFA, GrundyUFA produces more than 45.000 minutes of fictional series a year. Using a perfectly coordinated modular approach, GrundyUFA is the leading German series producer. In 1992 GrundyUFA developed “Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten (Good Times, Bad Times)”, the first and most successful daily series in Germany to date. “Unter uns (Among Us)” and “Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love)” followed in 1994/95, “Alles was zählt (All or nothing)” in 2006.
With transmedia storytelling and original content the GrundyUFA Unit DigitalDrama extends the series into the Web. Besides social media activities and TV accompanying online material on websites such as GZSZ.de DigitalDrama develops strategies and produces online series, such as “Clarissas Tagebuch” (2010, DasErste.de), “Unter vier Augen”(2011, RTL.de) and “Des Jägers Herz” (2012,RTL.de). For their online series “PIETSHOW” they were nominated twice for the International Digital Emmy Award.
