Anthill Films’ Editing and Grading Workflow Now Twice as Fast with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Blackmagic Design today announced that Canadian production house Anthill Films was able to cut its post production time in half when editing and grading the documentary “The Engine Inside” by using DaVinci Resolve Studio.
Anthill Films is a full service British Columbia based production house that specializes in creating film, TV, web and commercial productions for active and outdoor lifestyles, working with clients such as Lululemon, Clif Bar, and PeopleForBikes. Its newest film “The Engine Inside” follows six people across the world in Ghana, Canada, and Cairo, and explores how the simple act of riding a bicycle can create a better world for everyone. Covering topics across climate change, social justice, mental and physical health, and women’s equality, the film focuses on the overlooked potential and power of the bicycle.
Anthill Films initially made the transition to editing and color grading fully in DaVinci Resolve Studio after the team found the software to be an asset in shortening the editing timeline when preconforming and reconnecting footage.
Anthill Films Copartner and Head of Post Darren McCullough explained, “We immediately saw the cost savings from switching to DaVinci Resolve Studio, as our editing process went from days of work down to hours. Then, as we continued diving into the software, new benefits came up that solidified our love for the platform. For example, the layout of the edit and color pages, and the ability to switch seamlessly between them, sped up our process as we no longer had to go in and out of different programs.”
Sound Supervisor Jo Osborne highlighted the software’s Fairlight tools as playing a crucial role in syncing recordings and footage, especially since he was able to easily open McCullough’s editing sessions and prepare the post production audio within the edit.
“This is huge from a sound perspective. All the audio can be linked flawlessly back to the picture, allowing the sounds from talent, atmospheres and real sound effects to be resynced to the picture,” said Osborne. “All of this audio can quickly overcomplicate the edit timeline. Resolve allows us to hide multiple audio sources inside a single audio region on one track. The audio is also linked to the picture clip. This means as a picture clip is moved in the edit, these multiple audio clips that appear to the editor as one mono track can be easily and automatically moved with it.”
DaVinci Resolve Studio also provided Anthill Films an easy way to organize the clips before diving into the editing process, which was crucial when working with the extensive amount of footage needed for the full length documentary. Ingesting all of the footage into the media page, McCullough and his team were able to prepare footage, sync clips, organize media into bins and add metadata before the editing process began.
“Since we had such a massive library of footage, having the ability to tag and sort our clips by keywords was incredibly useful,” McCullough explained. “So many times, we were able to search in DaVinci Resolve Studio and find clips that we maybe hadn’t utilized before. This ability made sure that we were always using the best footage possible.”
McCullough concluded, “With DaVinci Resolve Studio, the whole process was much smoother and cleaner, resulting in a workflow that was efficient and less time consuming. DaVinci Resolve’s color management sped up the grading process by at least double and gave us such a great base to work with. It’s going to continue to be the backbone of post for our future projects.”
“The Engine Inside” kicked off its world premiere tour in July 2023. For more information, please visit: www.engineinsidefilm.com
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