Screen Magazine: “Cut & Color”

Splice Here Colorist Polishes Up Short Film for “On The Lot” TV Series

by Amy Wilschke, Screen Magazine

Colorist Michael Sandness of post house Splice Here (Minneapolis) had the unique experience recently of color-correcting a couple of shorts created by independent filmmakers Andrew Hunt, one of the contestants on the FOX reality series “On The Lot.” For those unfamiliar, “On The Lot” is a contest for which the winning filmmaker gets the chance to win a million-dollar film development deal with DreamWorks. The films are judged by Garry Marshall, Carrie Fischer and a different “guest” director each episode, and viewers can vote to see which filmmakers stay on the show and which have to leave.

One of Hunt’s films Sandness worked on is called “Polished.” The short centers on an office building janitor who tries to act friendly towards his stuffy, white-collar counterparts, but is rejected time and again. One evening, he devises a plan of retaliation. He buffs the floor so it is super slippery and places signs all up and down the hallways announcing “Free Burgers at Noon.” The next day, the janitor sits by his plate of burgers and waits. When the clock strikes noon, the whole office charges toward their free lunch, but one after another they slip and fall on the hyper-polished floor and end up in a heap, groaning and rubbing sore heads and elbows. Content, the janitor chomps on his own sandwich, clearly happy with the results of his little plan.

Sandness says Hunt brought his film to Splice Here because Hunt was familiar with the colorist’s work. “Andrew came in based on some of the other color work he has seen me do for other independent filmmakers up here in Minneapolis,” he says. “We did a music video that was shot on 35mm and he really loved the look we were able to come up with and he loved the effects work, but in particular he liked the idea of being able to do color grading for his independent film.”

For his part, Sandness used the relatively new Apple Color, which he likes because he says the tool offers the option of color grading on a Mac desktop. He says Hunt came to Splice Here with his film stored on his iPod, and Sandness got to work copying the files into Final Cut Pro and loading them up for Color. He says he was able to load “Polished” right into the Color tool and begin working.

“Andrew and I had talked on the phone about the basis of the story and how it was shot, which camera [was used].” explains Sandness. “Those things are pretty important to me as a colorist to know not only what he’s going for [as far as] a look but what I can do with the footage that he’s going to provide me.” He says independent filmmakers use different formats when shooting their films, and with Color he’s able to offer high-end color grading and finishing according to whatever format the project is brought in on.

Since “Polished” has somewhat of a dark comedy feel, Sandness says he came up with a look that was “kind of cold and uncomfortable.” He says his collaboration with Hunt was unique in that the filmmaker allowed him a certain amount of leeway to try some different looks with his film. And, since the Color system makes the process so streamlined, Sandness says he and Hunt were able to focus more on being creative as opposed to watching a clock or keeping tabs on a budget.

Compared to other tools he’s used, Sandness says that, with Color, “The differences are that the integration to the edit is a much tighter integration, so if you’re cutting your short film in Final Cut Pro, in short of doing some prep work you literally can take that edit and bring it into your color grading session. There’s no EDLs, there’s no re-digitizing of the footage; the footage that the filmmaker has and can cut either at his home or with us in our facility, that exact same footage is what I’m color grading.” Sandness says this integration from edit to color and back is what drives independent filmmakers to Splice Here – it’s affordable, the quality is excellent and the workflow is painless.

“I would say that, because of my relationship with Apple, I think Andrew’s short is probably the first production that Apple Color touched that was on broadcast television,” he says. “It was on FOX, and that’s kind of a cool feather in my cap, I think, that I worked on something that was broadcast on a major network that an independent filmmaker can get their work done and have it look as good as a high-end major production. That’s really what we’re going for here is to give people services and quality that they wouldn’t get anywhere else based in their genre and their budget.”