Quatsch Comedy Club is a legendary stand-up show in Germany, and it’s been a longstanding fixture on network television there. Currently running on Sky Deutschland, Quatsch is filmed in front of a live comedy club audience with three live acts and a host at Quatsch Comedy Club Theatre, inside Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin.

Marius Fischer, director of post production for Sky Deutschland, has graded the show with DaVinci Resolve since 2015, but this year he opted to expand its use on the series to encompass the edit as well.

Fischer explains that all of the shows are shot, including the revue style and standalone solo episodes, then all of the rushes are passed through to post, which normally takes around 60 days to deliver an entire season. “I was keen to put the editing side of Resolve through its paces on a major project, as I could see that there were efficiencies to be gained in our series workflow.”

Quatsch is recorded in ProRes 422HQ, and a minimum of seven cameras capture every comedy set — meaning Fischer has to manage a huge amount of footage for each of the shows. After each live show, he receives a drive with the precut and footage from the seven cameras, and he starts to create new bins and timelines for every episode.

“In this process, I’ve found features such as Sync Bin essential, as it allows smooth playback without the massive file size of a multicam clip,” Fischer notes. “Once all of that heavy lifting is taken away from your process, you have so much more time to focus on the actual editing and making the very best production that will keep audiences entertained.

“Once I’ve got a raw cut, I watch the full episode with our art director. She checks that she’s happy with the angles and cuts that have been selected, and we lock that in. Then production comes in, and we work on polish and finessing. After the final picture look, I render the episode for technical approval, and we separate audio and video for the final sound mix. Finally, we bring everything back together in Resolve, render in final resolution and codec ready for transmission.”

Fischer has also cut this season working with the DaVinci Resolve Editor Keyboard, which he believes added yet another layer of efficiency to his post workflow. “You can work freely with both hands, and there’s very little need to use a mouse. I actually wanted to measure the time savings, so I carried out a little experiment. I tried to make nine cuts within a one-minute-long multicam clip from the series. Working with the keyboard took two minutes less.

“I love how simple and reliable the whole approach is. Productions rarely follow a linear delivery path once in post, and the ability to do everything in one application makes so much more sense. The idea of jumping in and out of pages to make small changes when needed is far more intuitive and saves a huge amount of time. You can continue to finesse and refine the edit at any stage during post, without ever needing to render out a new timeline.”

Fischer concludes, “Quatsch Comedy Club is such an institution in Germany. In fact, I grew up watching it with my family. It can feel quite surreal that I’m not only working on it, but that I’ve also been able to bring the very latest developments in post production, thanks to DaVinci Resolve, to keep the show fresh and funny for the next generation watching at home.”