Factual | Post Production

Factual television explores us and the world in an engaging and compelling way and is a vital part of our content stable. Sky Post is the safest pair of hands to deliver factual programming efficiently, creatively, and to the highest standards.

Post Production were engaged to provide full post on 'The Overlap on Tour', a new series from Buzz16 that would follow footballing legends Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Jamie Carragher on a trip like no other as they travel to different cities in the UK and Ireland. This series of 4 x 45’ episodes was delivered for Sky Max in HD and with 5.1 audio.

The Solution:

The Overlap On Tour was filmed in 4 different cities, with a mix of VTs and location record (theatres/arenas).

Oliver Bramley, Post Producer said “Due to our flexibility and closeness to the broadcaster we were able to really push delivery times to get the best out of the content, for example TX1 delivered on 12^th June for TX on 14^th June.”

Here's how our Creatives approached the production:

Mark Mulcaster, Colourist

I had a very loose brief in that we wanted to keep the show grounded, yet engaging, along similar lines to A League of Their Own - Road Trip, which we also post produce at Sky Post.

The live recordings were all different, as the lighting set-up was different from stadium to stadium and so the aim was to try to create a consistent look across the episodes as well as managing a lot of out of gamut colours produced from the stage lighting.

The production utilised a mixture of cameras from Sony, Canon and GoPros as well as 10+ cameras for the live recordings. This meant I had to leverage Baselight’s powerful toolset to deal with dynamic exposure changes as well as dramatic changes in tint and hue when dealing with mixed lighting environments. I used a combination of keys and power windows which allowed me to reign in some of the more over exposed or brighter shots.

The production was fun to work on as the subject matter was engaging and it didn’t take itself too seriously. You could see the natural chemistry between the talent leaping off the screen and you can just tell that everyone had a lot of fun making it! I had a lot of fun grading the show.

Julien Wilcock, Online Editor

I was very excited about the show having spoken to Buzz16 about it back in 2022. The concept of the show is great, showing sections of the live stage chat with VTs in between. 

There were lots of ways the online edit contributed to finessing the series. There were several instances of crew members in shot throughout, which we reduced as much as possible by painting them out. In many cases you can remove them without leaving the Avid interface. For example, when the shot is locked off and there is no movement or change in lighting, you can clone areas of the picture to cover up the crew. For more tricky shots where there is camera movement or changes in the lighting it is sometimes better to use After Effects or DaVinci Resolve for their superior tracking software.

I needed to work on the in-car GoPros too as in some cases the focus was more on the rear passenger rather than Jamie Carragher, the driver, and Roy Keane, the front seat passenger. To do this we masked them both out and applied a sharpening filter to improve the focus.

There was also a lot of camera stabilizing and picture sharpening especially in the first couple of episodes because there were a lot of wobbles on the stage cameras. We weren't sure if this was to do with the venues causing the camera to shake when there was a lot of movement from the audience but taking the time to stabilize those shots definitely improved the overall output.

Marek Bielski, Dubbing Mixer

I spoke to the Series Producer briefly before the mixes to outline the overall style and he then trusted me to get on with it and make it sound right. I used timing, silence, nuance, appropriate sound effects and music levels to influence the direction of the narrative.

The really important thing was to make sure all the dialogue was clearly audible. Wherever possible I tried to dig out small asides, under-the-breath type things as they really add to the production. It can be painstaking and time-consuming sifting through hours of people talking over each other and seeking out those relevant funny bits. I found a dialogue line from Jamie Carragher that the Director had never heard before as it was buried under other sounds, and he jumped for joy to have a funny line to help make a scene make sense.

The VTs were recorded in challenging weather conditions and the stadium recordings were difficult to control at times as well. A standout moment was the audio during the skydiving – it was basically just the sound of air rushing past a mic at 1000 ft per second, so I tried to make it as intelligible as possible with multiple passes of Izotope. I’m extremely happy with the end result - so was the series producer - he kept stopping to hear things again as he hadn't heard them in the offline. That for me was the most satisfying aspect of the mix.

The Team:

Julien Wilcock - Online Editor

Marek Bielski - Dubbing Mixer

Mark Mulcaster - Colourist

Liam Stiles - Workflow Supervisor

Oliver Bramley - Post Producer