Cool Gradings: How Images & Sound Remote-Reviewed Color Grades from Antarctica Using Flow Capture 

At New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, which sits about 2,400 miles from the nearest major city of Christchurch, New Zealand, the average high temperature is a brisk six degrees Fahrenheit. The facility hosts year-round field researchers of the earth sciences, yet thanks to Autodesk Flow Capture and Images & Sound, Scott Base recently hosted the remotest of all remote reviews.  

The Evolution of Dailies Distribution

Images & Sound is a full-service post-production house working predominantly in feature films, scripted episodic series, and TV commercials. Founded in 1983, the company has been through a great deal of technological change, particularly when it comes to the vital post-production workflow of dailies distribution and review.  

In the early days, Images & Sound sent out dailies on Sony ¾-inch U-Matic tape, then moved on to VHS tape, then DVDs, and later, QuickTime files. “But that was becoming really time-consuming and cumbersome,” says Grant Baker, co-owner and co-principal of Images & Sound.  

Based in Auckland, New Zealand, they were working with more and more clients and collaborators outside of the country. Even digital QuickTime files took days of back-and-forth exchanges. In an increasingly fast-paced production landscape, Images & Sound needed an efficient, online platform for digital dailies distribution that comes with real-time collaboration and the confidence of knowing their content is fully protected.  

This led them to become an early adopter of Flow Capture with PIX after testing it and discovering Flow Capture Rooms. With Rooms, their team was now able to conduct fully accurate, real-time collaborative reviews online from any device. It also gave them peace of mind from enterprise-grade security, including single sign-on and fully manageable permissions.  

“We’re completely reliant on our clients trusting what we do,” Baker says. “We needed a robust, professional solution that clients would judge us on. Flow Capture was the perfect solution. It ticked all the boxes: simplicity of use, rock-solid performance, and the main attraction for us was the color accuracy, so we can be confident that what we send to our clients in real time is the same as what we see in our grading suites.”

Specifically, Flow Capture’s Rooms suits Images & Sound’s collaborative workflows for client approvals and sending secure screening links, with its Offline Edit, Grade, and Online Approval features. Most of their jobs involve someone overseas, whether it’s the client, director, or producer for other creatives. Having everyone in a Room reviewing dailies with accurately calibrated color makes it much easier than having to curate individual review notes.

“The fact that dailies are in the cloud and shareable in real time makes it so much more efficient to do a grading session, like the person is in the same room,” Baker says. “It’s a real time-saver and makes us look great.”

Collaborating from the Frozen Continent

Images & Sound recently got a chance to really put Flow Capture’s efficiency to the test when working on a feature-length documentary about a rugby legend. The director had gone back home to Ireland, while the cinematographer had moved on to another job in Antarctica and was staying at Scott Base. While the satellite-based Internet at Scott Base is limited, Baker says they had to get moving with post-production to deliver the film on time.

Fortunately, the cinematographer negotiated Internet access at the base and he was able to connect to Flow Capture Rooms on an iPad from Antarctica, while the director joined in the middle of the night from Ireland. They could all see what Baker and his team were doing in their calibrated color grading suite in real time and give feedback.

“It’s a great example of the versatility of Flow Capture Rooms,” Baker says. “The bandwidth in Antarctica was certainly restricted, yet it worked perfectly well. It was just amazing; we were so thankful for that.”

Updated and Integrated Post-Production

After more than four decades in business, Images & Sound continues to update its workflows to keep pace with an industry in flux. For production management, they use Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid), which integrates Flow Capture’s watermarks and metadata.

The company also started livestreaming in HDR for reviews in Flow Capture Rooms. “Since day one, every time we’d think about another usage, Flow Capture had already anticipated it,” Baker says. “It was a recent thing to need to work in HDR, and bingo, Flow Capture did that as well.”

Regardless of where Images & Sound’s work takes them next, there’s no corner of the world too remote for an accurate and secure color-grading session.