Enabling UHD HDR grading and IMF delivery at Gorilla

Legendary Cardiff post house Gorilla have always relied on Baselight for colour grading, but when they got the opportunity to collaborate on a Netflix series with Goldcrest’s Jet Omoshebi, they found themselves in need of a Resolve suite that could handle UHD HDR Dolby Vision, delivered to Netflix’s exacting specifications. Luckily, our Cardiff team were on hand to help them out…

By Liz Sunter February 06, 2019

“When we started grading, a long time ago now, it was all about the kit,” said Gorilla Group MD Richard Moss. “Now, all clients want to know is who the colourist is, and the box is the colourist’s choice. Jet and the rest of the Goldcrest team are all on Jigsaw24-built Resolve systems, so it was a no-brainer to ask Jigsaw24 about this job.”

Building a high-end multi-purpose suite

But this was no standard system. The project was also Gorilla’s first time working in Dolby Vision HDR, and it had to be delivered in IMF format. “Putting all that together was one of the most exciting things about delivering the series,” said Richard. “The advice from Jigsaw24 was excellent, and we were very keen to engage with them and go through the process of custom building something that would suit our needs for this sort of high-end work, but also have the versatility we’d need to use it for other things as well.”

The system is built around a high-spec HP Z8 workstation running Linux. “The Z8 is a beast of a crate, and it’s incredibly flexible, so there’s not much you can’t do with it,” Richard told us. “For this setup, we had an external unit with NVIDIA GPU cards, a huge number of SSD slots for local storage and 40Gb Ethernet. The great thing is, we can use this crate for Resolve, Avid, Flame, Transkoder or any number of other things, so we have a multi-purpose room that can be used for whatever the business needs.”

"Jigsaw24 having a local department is crucial. When something goes wrong, we need support quickly. And when there’s nothing wrong, it’s great that the team can come in and catch us up on new products and developments."

Getting hands-on with Resolve

Once their suite was set up and Resolve was ready to go, we loaned Gorilla a set of Resolve Advanced panels so that they could achieve the precision they needed more quickly. “The panels are very intuitive, and the range is very versatile. We can set up multiple Resolve systems, look at each project and either use the Advanced or Mini panel depending on what the job needs.”

The initial project went so well that Gorilla are now grading another project in Resolve, and now offer a choice of Baselight or Resolve to clients. “The availability of editors and freelancers who know Resolve is excellent, and for us to have gone from not having Resolve to having two projects running through it simultaneously just shows how it’s being picked up in the marketplace,” said Richard. “We’ve already had to put on another Resolve workstation.”

Keeping things local

When we’re not building them mammoth grading workstations, we provide support for all 100-plus of Gorilla’s Avid editors, and are working with them on new fixed rig equipment.

“Jigsaw24 having a local department is crucial,” said Richard. “When something goes wrong, we need support quickly. And when there’s nothing wrong, it’s great that the team can come in and catch us up on new products and developments. We’ve been doing a lot of fixed rig work recently, and we’ve managed to take affordable Blackmagic Design products and integrate them with our existing systems in a really clever way to create some nice boutique solutions, and that’s all made simple by the fact that there’s a local Jigsaw24 team around to discuss things with.”

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