By Oliver Peters
Whether you’re a guitar nerd or just into rock ‘n roll history, learning what makes our music heroes tick is always entertaining. Music journalist and TV presenter Kylie Olsson started a YouTube channel during the pandemic lockdown, teaching herself how to play guitar and reaching out to famous guitarists that she she knew. This became the concept for a TV series called Life in Six Strings With Kylie Olsson that airs on AXS TV. The show is in the style of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Olsson exploring the passions behind these guitarists, plus gets a few guitar pointers along the way.
James Tonkin
I spoke with James Tonkin and Leigh Brooks about the post workflow for these episodes. Tonkin is founder of Hangman in London, which handled the post on the eight-part series. He was also the director of photography for the first two episodes and has handled the online edit and color grading for all of the episodes. Leigh Brooks Firebelly Films was the offline (i.e. creative) editor on the series, starting with episode three. Together they have pioneered an offline-to-online post workflow.
Let’s find out more…
James, how did you get started on this project?
James Tonkin: Kylie approached us about shooting a pilot for the series. We filmed that in Nashville with Joe Bonamassa and it formed the creative style for the show. We didn’t want to just fixate on the technical side of the guitar and tone of these players, but their geographical base — we wanted to explore the city a little bit. We had to shoot it very documentary style but wrap it up into a 20-25 minute episode. No pre-lighting, just a tiny team following her around, interacting with these people.
Then we did a second one with Nuno Bettencourt and that solidified the look of the show during those two initial episodes. She eventually got distribution through AXS TV in the States for the eight-part series. I shot the first two episodes, and the rest were shot by a US-based crew, which followed the production workflow that we had set up. Not only the look and retaining the documentary format, but also maintaining the highest production value we could give it in the time and budget that we’re working with.
We chose to shoot anamorphic with a cinematic aspect ratio, because it’s slightly different from the usual off-the-cuff reality TV look. Also whenever possible, record in a raw codec, because we (Hangman) were doing all of the post on it, and me specifically being the colorist.
I always advocate for a raw workflow, especially something in a documentary style. People are walking from daylight into somebody’s house and then down to a basement, basically following them around. And Kylie wants to keep interacting with whomever she’s interviewing without needing to wait for cameras to stop and rebalance. She wants to keep it flowing. So when it comes to posting that, you’ve got a much more robust digital negative to work with [if it was shot as camera raw].
Leigh Brooks
What was the workflow for the shows and were there any challenges?
Leigh Brooks: The series was shot mainly with Red and Canon cameras as 6K anamorphic files. Usually, the drive came to me, and I would transcode the rushes or create proxy files and then send the drive to James. The program is quite straightforward and narrative-based, without much scope for doing crazy things with it.
It’s about the nuts and bolts of guitars and the players that use them. But each episode definitely had its own little flavor and style. Once we locked the show, James took the sequence, got hold of the rushes and then got to work on the grade and the sound.
What Kylie’s pulled off on her own is no small feat. She’s a great producer, knows her stuff and really does the research. She’s so passionate about the music and the people that she’s interviewing and that really comes across. The Steve Vai episode was awesome. He’s very holistic. These people dictate the narrative and tell you where the edit is going to go. Mick Mars was also really good fun. That was the trickiest show to do because the A- and B-side camera set-up wasn’t quite working for us. We had to really get clever in the edit.
Resolve is known for its finishing and color grading tool, but you used it to edit the offline as well. Why?
Tonkin: I’ve been a longtime advocate of working inside of Resolve, not just from a grading perspective, but editorial. As soon as the Edit page started to offer me the feature set that we needed, it became a no-brainer that we should do all of our offline in Resolve whenever possible.
On a show like this, I’ve got about six hours of online time and I want to spend the majority being as creative as I can. So, focusing on color correction, looking at anything I need to stabilize, resize, any tracking, any kind of corrective work — rather than spending two or three hours conforming from one timeline into another.
The offline on this series was done in Resolve, except for the first episode, which was cut in Apple Final Cut Pro X. I’m trying to leave editors open to the choice of the application they like to use. My gentlemen’s agreement with Matt [Cronin], who cut the first pilot, was that he could cut it in whatever he liked, as long as he gave me back a .drp (DaVinci Resolve project) file. He loves Final Cut Pro X because that’s what he’s quickest at. But he also knows the pain that conforms can be. So he handled that on his side and just gave me back a .drp file. So it was quick and easy.
From Episode 3 onwards, I was delighted to know that Leigh was based in Resolve, as well, as his primary workflow. Everything just transfers and translates really quickly. Knowing that we had six more episodes to work through together, I suggested things that would help us a lot, both for picture for me and for audio as well, which was also being done here in our studio. We’re generating the 5.1 mix.
Brooks: I come from an Avid background. I was an engineer initially before ever starting to edit. When I started editing, I moved from Avid to Final Cut Pro 7 and then back to Avid, after which I made the push to go to Resolve. It’s a joy to edit on and does so many things really well. It’s become my absolute workhorse. Avid is fine in a multi-user operation, but now that doesn’t really matter. Resolve does it so well with the cloud management, and I own the two editor keyboards.
You mentioned cloud. Was any of that a factor in the post on Life in Six Strings?
Tonkin: Initially, when Leigh was reversioning the first two episodes for AXS TV, we were using his Blackmagic Cloud account. But for the rest of the episodes, we were just exchanging files. Rushes either came to me or would go straight to Leigh. He makes his offline cut and then the files come to me for finishing, so it was a linear progression.
However, I worked on a pilot for another project where every version was effectively a finished online version. And so we used Blackmagic Cloud for that all the way through. The editor worked offline with proxies in Resolve. We worked from the same cloud project and every time he had finished, I would log in and switch the files from proxy to camera originals with a single click. That was literally all we had to do in terms of an offline-to-online workflow.
Brooks: I’m working on delivering a feature-length documentary for [the band] Nickelback that’s coming out in cinemas later in March. I directed it, cut it in Avid, and then finished in Resolve. My grader is in Portsmouth, and I can sit here and watch that grade being done live, thanks to the cloud management. It definitely has a few snags, but they’re on it. I can phone up Blackmagic and get a voice — an actual person to talk to that really wants to fix my problem.
You’ve both worked with a variety of other nonlinear editing applications. How do you see the industry changing?
Tonkin: Being in post for a couple of decades now and using Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X and a bit of Premiere Pro throughout the years, I find that the transition from offline to online starts to blur more and more these days. Clients watching their first pass want to get a good sense of what it should look like with a lot of finishing elements in place already. So you’re effectively doing these finishing things right at the beginning.
It’s really advantageous when you’re doing both in Resolve. When you offline in a different NLE, not all of that data is transferred or correctly converted between applications. By both of us working in Resolve, even simple things you wouldn’t think of, like timeline markers, come through. Maybe he’s had some clips that need extra work. He can leave a marker for me and that will translate through. You can fudge your way through one episode using different systems, but if you’re going to do at least six or eight of them — and we’re hopefully looking at a season two this year — then you want to really establish your workflow upfront just to make things more straightforward.
Brooks: Editing has changed so much over the years. When I became an engineer, it was linear and nonlinear, right? I was working on the James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, around 1998. One side of the room was conventional — Steenbeck’s, bins, numbering machines. The other side was Avid Media Composer. We were viewing 2K rushes on film, because that’s what you can see on the screen. On Avid it was AVR-77. It’s really interesting to see it come full circle. Now with Resolve, you’re seeing what you need to see rather than something that’s subpar.
I’d say there are a lot of editors who are “Resolve curious.” If you’re in Premiere Pro you’re not moving [to a different system], because you’re too tied into the way Adobe’s apps work. If you know Premiere, you know After Effects and are not going to move to Resolve and relearn Fusion. I think more people would move from Avid to Resolve, because simple things in Resolve are very complicated in Avid — the effects tab, the 3D warp and so on.
Editors often have quite strange egos. I find the incessant arguing between platforms is just insane. It’s this playground kind of argument about bloody software! [laugh] After all, these tools are all there to tell stories.
Oliver Peters is an award-winning editor/colorist working in commercials, corporate communications, television shows and films.
Syncing Cameras Via Timecode
And one of the great things about the point where we took over is that Episode 5 is its own little capsule episode. We tried to shoot some of the stuff on the base in a similar tone to how they were shooting it. But then, once we got to that monster mission, it became its own thing, and we shot it in our own way. Then, with Episode 6, we were in completely different spaces. It’s a real break from the previous episodes because it’s the midpoint of the season, we’re away from the base, and there’s a big shift in terms of where the story is going. That gave us a little bit of freedom to very consciously shift how we were going to approach the visual language with Jac. It was an organic way to make that change without it feeling like a weird break in the season.
On Captain Marvel, so often actors are just responding to tennis balls and an AD running around the set for eyelines. In this case, it was nice for the actors to see an actual airplane on fire outside their window for their performances to feel fresh.
Boden: I think that we had a lot of the same reference points when we first started talking, like The Cold Blue, an amazing documentary with a lot of footage that was taken up in the planes during World War II. Filmmakers actually were shooting up there with the young men who were on missions in these bomber planes. That was a really important reference point for us in terms of determining where the cameras can be mounted inside one of these planes. We tried as much as possible to keep those very real camera positions on the missions so that it felt as reality-based and as visceral as possible and not like a Marvel movie. We used some of the color palette from that documentary as well.
Was it a really tough shoot?
Typically, on our films, we’re involved in all the other post departments, visual effects and sound, every step of the way. But on this series, we were less involved, although we gave notes. Then Jac did all the grading and the rest of the show. She kind of took over and was very involved. She’ll have a lot of insights into the whole DI process. (See Sidebar)
What were the big editing challenges for both episodes? Just walk us through it a bit. 
How hands on were Spielberg and Hanks, or did they let you do your own thing? 
Boden: Some days we’d show up and suddenly find out an hour into the day that we weren’t going to get an actor that we were planning to shoot with, so we’d have to rearrange the day and try to shoot without that actor. That was a big challenge.
It was during a trip to Florida in February 2023 that we witnessed Bob return back to the water in his canoe for the first time since his accident — a symbolic act of reclaiming his passion and a step forward in his healing process. This experience provided a natural and powerful conclusion to our film, capturing the essence of human perseverance and the support of a community rallying around one of its own.
This opportunity allowed me to learn directly from Joe and the cinematographer, Chris Multop, about not only the technical aspects of filmmaking and camera operation but the storytelling.
Was it shot with natural lighting?
Robbie, I know you’ve worked with colorist Greg Fisher at Company 3 before. How early on did you start working with him on LUTs and the look for this? 
The yoga sequence was maybe the most daunting as a whole, not necessarily from a cinematography stance but for its execution in general. The prosthetic team went above and beyond with a lot of finicky moving parts to manage. Nash and Fletcher Barret were doing most of the heavy lifting, sometimes literally, with the operation and puppeteering in that scene. I’ve filmed a lot of practical makeup effects for films and second unit over the years, and I have such respect for the craft. The effects artists truly give performances that take a while to fine-tune, but I think it’s so worth the time and effort for the visceral and tangible reaction they give an audience.
Did you do a lot of research?
What were the main challenges of shooting this? 
We adjusted stuff in the DI, but it wasn’t a big departure from the dailies. We matched all the shots for continuity. The way we work is that Yvan does his pass first to match it all, and then if I want the scene to be darker, there’s an offset for everything since it already matches. That makes the DI work pretty simple. It also gives us time to do a window here, a window there.
Unfortunately, it was too complicated to have a session with Evan and Laura at the same time, but we managed to keep a good level of communication using review links to share the progress.
Generally, when starting a show, there is a meeting with the studio to present a lookbook across all departments. As I mentioned, both Zack and I shared similar images in our own interview lookbooks that happened to end up in the presentation to the studio. Although many of our images had a period feel, nothing was forced or overly dialed-in. Our objective was always to find the right cinema glass to tell the story appropriately. Our lighting and our LUT would balance the palettes that our production design and costume design teams created.
Did you follow the look created in the pilot? 
Episode 7, the penultimate episode, takes us back to the origin of Calvin and his side of our love story. This episode had a plethora of visual opportunities. Tara Miele, the director of episodes 7 and 8, and I created a unique look for young Calvin’s world in the 1930s. It felt appropriate to strip down the color since this is where Calvin’s life started.
As we reveal Elizabeth’s new profession, we contrast this with a more simplistic approach to the set design, lighting and shot design. In one of the final scenes of the series, we are in the Zott residence, and Elizabeth is hosting a dinner party with all of the characters under one roof. She greets them as she passes through the house from room to room. We designed the camera to dance through this interaction with only one or two cuts. My intention was to have the audience feel as if they were as much a part of this POV and this journey with these folks as Elizabeth was. It felt like a perfect way to say goodbye to our show.
As we transition to adult Calvin, who has become established through his scientific achievements, our world has more color and warmth to it. It felt important to give these two worlds their own characteristics. The way we moved through both time periods felt true to the style of our show. The lenses were the same throughout the series. The true distinction between the 1930s and ‘50s is the color palette of the two periods, a collaborative effort by camera, costume and set design.
Zack Galler had a working relationship with Ian prior to Lessons in Chemistry, and since Zack went first out the gate, he sent some images to Ian in regards to building a show LUT. Ian looked at the images and immediately thought of the old AGFA film stock from the 1950s. It had a warmish quality, but with room for cool tones to pop through. He gave us a show LUT to work off of with those qualities in mind. It was a subtle LUT that complemented that soft 1950s color palette beautifully. Our DIT, Scott Resnick, was able to monitor the LUT based on our lighting and sets and make it work for the changing locations.
As closely as I worked with our directors in prep, I was in full communication with my camera, grip and lighting teams to make images that we were all so proud of. Half the battle is hiring a talented team behind you that you can communicate your vision with, and it’s executed with ease. This team was a sensational bunch that understood the story and knew how to tell it in a compelling way.
The V-Raptor X compact body is built with the keystone features found in the original V-Raptor platform, now bolstered by newly engineered in-camera audio preamps and an optimized sensor cavity for improved contrast. The V-Raptor X has two 12G-SDIs capable of unique monitoring views; a locking Canon RF-style lens mount for rigid and flexible lens selection; and CFexpress Type B media for up to 800MB/s formats, such as 8K at 120fps.
Did you use a lookbook? 
What were some of the challenges of shooting on-location at different places for each episode?
What about shooting the realistic interiors and exteriors in the ILM LED volume? Is this an area you have worked in before?