Portrait Artist of the Decade

Think it’s just watching paint dry? Think again! There is so much more to Portrait Artist of the Year; so much in fact, that it returns for its tenth series this week. Read on to see how we make this iconic Sky Arts show again and again, and find out more about its enduring appeal, plus a very special start to the series. 

PortraitArtist of the Year celebrates its tenth birthday with a very special one-off episode, which sees previous winners of the competition battling it out on the canvas to decide who will be crowned Portrait Artist of the Decade. It seemed like the perfect moment to speak to some of the people behind the scenes in Sky Post Production who have made their mark on the show over the years, as well as some of the newer faces just starting out on the artistic journey.  

Oliver Bramley – Post Producer 

Storyvault are fantastic to work with as they're always pushing boundaries, really utilising the tech and workflow. At Sky Post Production we provide them with the perfect mix of remote and on-site working and have found this works brilliantly for the programme both in offline and in final post. Portrait Artist of the Decade really is a culmination of this relationship, a result of how we’ve all moved through technology and an appetizer ahead of a fantastic tenth series. 

Caitlin Hattersley – Dedicated Edit Assistant

I’d watched Portrait Artist of the Year a few times before working on it and when an opportunity opened up for me to be a Dedicated Edit Assistant on the show, I was really excited to get started. It’s an absolute pleasure to be a part of something that has been on our screens for ten years and has gained such a big following. You gain a lot of insight into the art world, as well as different styles of art which is very interesting. No two artists are the same and no painting is the same, so you never know what to expect with each episode.  

Everyone has been an absolute dream to work with when it comes to Portrait Artist of the Year and Portrait Artist of theDecade. I think when Portrait Artist of the Decade airs it will be a nice moment for everyone who has worked on the show for the past 10 years to look back on its progression, and it’s nice to know I’ve played a small part in that as well.  

Here's how our Creatives approached the production, and some reflections on previous series of this very special show:

Tatjana Radivoj – Audio Mix Technician & Sound Editor

When I first started at Sky Post Production, I was an Audio Assistant prepping Pro-Tools sessions for the Mix on Portrait Artist of the Year. This is now my second series and I’m Sound Editing and Mixing on Portrait Artist of the Decade! This involves Editing the dialogue and music as well as Sound Designing so I bring creative elements to the show with any sound effects that I add or with additional reverb during my mix pass. I’m also the Audio Mix Technician so I also bring technical elements to the series, such as refining our audio conform workflows as well as collaborating with the clients to decide on file formats for recording.  

The challenges of a show like this are that it’s filmed in quite a large room with multiple sound recorders. This means that the naming and organising of files, both in production and post-production, needs to be very clear and organised. We have been able to decide on and refine naming structures and file metadata with the Storyvault crew so that every step of the process runs as smoothly as possible.  

I am really looking forward to seeing the reactions of viewers to this special anniversary episode! Portrait Artist of the Decade is really fun because it’s very light-hearted and has a great celebrity sitter. It appeals to both people that are interested in art, and those that aren’t - I find myself to be the biggest art critic when watching it, even though I can’t paint anything myself! 

Finn Curry – Re-Recording Mixer

I’ve been working on Portrait Artist of the Year for over nine years now. I started on the series in 2014 - for Season 2 - and have mixed it ever since. For that reason, it was very special mixing Portrait Artist of the Decade as it signified such a special milestone in the show. Occasionally I was reminded of how the technology has moved on these last 10 years, as there were flashbacks to each of the winners and how they progress through the series they won. 

From an audio perspective one of the biggest challenges has always been the Dialogue Edit. Even though the producers keep the intention of what people say, there is often a challenge in making the final edited 'conversations' scan well. Over the past decade, technology has moved on and that has helped the process of mixing the programme. iZotope RX gets used a lot on this show and the workflow within Pro-Tools makes it a much simpler and quicker process to deal with noisy or problematic clips. I was able to clean up some of the older clips for the Decade episode, as the Noise Reduction software available has moved on so much since then.

Having always mixed the show in 5.1 and Stereo, another change was the introduction of Dolby Atmos. I've been delivering it in Atmos for about 5 years now, and we work natively in Atmos right from the beginning of the mix. What we do is subtle; we add reverb in the heights to the dialogue and we upmix the music (using the Nugen Halo Upmixer). Additionally, the Sound Recording team plant microphones high up on the scaffold that surrounds the sitters. We use these mics in the surround and height speakers for general atmos and also many specific spot effects (laughs, applause.). All of this really helps the sound of the show. It adds a quality and lushness to the mix. 

It is always a delight to return to Portrait Artist of the Year every September. I've been with this show every autumn for nearly 10 years now so I can set my year by it! 

Ben Whitney – Colourist

My journey to becoming a Colourist is entwined with the evolution of Portrait Artist of the Year. I started as the Online Editor on Series 2at the end of 2014 but the Director, Southan Morris, suggested that I take on the Grade as well. In those days the Grade was done in Mistika; then we moved on to Grading and Onlining in Avid Symphony which kept everything together within the same application and meant that checks and changes could be made quickly and efficiently. That became the norm for a couple of years with the Grade later moving to Baselight, a much more powerful and flexible Grading tool which still allows full manipulation within Avid via the Baselight Plug-In. The shape, hue and tracking tools in Baselight mean that a lot of what had to be done manually in Symphony can now be done automatically. 

Being able to attend the shoots has been invaluable. Here it's possible to see what everything looks like first-hand and to speak to the DOP, getting accurate information about such things as lighting set-ups and LUTS. With Portrait Artist of the Year the lights are varied, some daylight and some tungsten and at different points in the shoot. And then there’s the brightly coloured backdrops to contend with as well. There are also many different cameras used to cover all the angles and these must be matched perfectly. A few years ago, the cameras changed from Sony to Canon which presented new and interesting challenges and then, on top of all that, Portrait Artist of the Year has gone from HD, to UHD and is now delivered in UHD/SDR and UHD/HDR. The higher resolution and dynamic range of UHD/HDR really enhance the vibrant colours used on set and on canvas, and give extra depth to The Grand Hall and its stunning lattice ceiling at Battersea Arts Centre.  

Paul Kingstree – Online Editor

This is my fifth season working on Portrait Artist of the Year and it’s been really rewarding being trusted to deliver a series for Sky and Storyvault Films. As an Online Editor I’m the final port of call before transmission so it’s vital to work with Audio, Grade and QC to deliver the show as best I can and to showcase the hard work of everyone involved - and all in UHD/HDR! 

Because Portrait Artist of the Decade contains segments from previous series, the UHD/HDR can bring out the compression artefacts from those older shows; I was constantly on the lookout for this. The UHD material is beautifully sharp and really brings out the depth to the artworks as well as the rich, colourful set that they built specifically for this episode.

From a technical standpoint it’s been fantastic for me. You must have a keen eye for faults and be able to repair them quickly including subtle things like dead pixels, camera sensor marks, jump cuts, sync issues and blanking errors. Sometimes all these issues can occur on just one shot! Lockdown was an especially interesting time in the online. The director wanted to have face masks less visible, which meant lots of tracking people’s faces, masking people, and masks, out of shots. In terms of the tools, I find myself using a combination of After Effects to re-composite shots, the Baselight Plug In for making adjustments to Grades, and Avid Media Composer with its powerful set of effects.  

There are roughly twelve hours of content per season and, although not an artist myself, I love to see the different styles and personalities either sitting or painting. I feel very honoured to have been asked to work on the show. I have friends that watch and they are always asking about who’s on, but of course I can’t talk about it, as it’s all very hush hush! 

The Team:

Paul Kingstree - Online Editor

Tatjana Radivoj - Audio Mix Technician & Sound Editor

Finn Curry - Re-Recording Mixer

Ben Whitney - Colourist

Caitlin Hattersley, Jason Gallacher & David Wybrow- Dedicated Edit Assistants

Naman Davda - Workflow Supervisor

Oliver Bramley - Post Producer

Portrait Artist of the Year returns to our screens on Wednesday 4^th October on Sky Arts at 8pm with a special episode, Portrait Artist of the Decade.