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LATEST NEWS

Misfits Entertainment’s new feature documentary The Contestant, acquired by Hulu!

11th October, 2023

“Loved working with OnSight for THE CONTESTANT. Especially grateful for their support and endless patience with what was a complex online!” - Clair Titley, Director

“A very complex post project beautifully managed. Incredibly accommodating with last minute changes and help. I couldn't have managed this project without them.” - Dorothea Gibbs, Line Producer

Hulu has acquired worldwide rights (excluding Japan, U.K., and Canada) to The Contestant! The film premieres on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in other territories.

Misfits Entertainment’s new feature documentary The Contestant, directed by Clair Titley, world premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The film was included in IndieWire’s 20 Hottest Sales Titles at Toronto and Venice Film Festivals.

This true story of a Japanese reality TV star left naked in a room for more than a year, tasked with filling out magazine sweepstakes to earn food and clothing, prompts innumerable questions about our culture of oversharing. The Contestant was produced by Megumi Inman, Andee Ryder, and Ian Bonhôte, Line Producers Dorothea Gibbs and James Harper, with Misfits Entertainment and MRC Entertainment. The Contestant is also going to Camden International Film Festival (C.I.F.F) for its US debut. 

 "The most WTF story in this years' documentary selection" tells the incredible true story of a man who lived for 15 months trapped inside a small room, naked, starving and alone… and completely unaware that his life was being broadcast on national TV to over 17 million viewers a week.

Post Production and Managing Challenging Archive Footage

OnSight provided full post for The Contestant, which was a complex and time intensive project, managed by our Lead Post Producer Jeff Halsey. Our creative team working on the project included Senior Online Editor Adam Sample, Senior Colourist Andy Lee and Re-recording Mixer Andy Coles. The team were all incredibly passionate about this documentary, spending considerable time and effort on the project, as well as undertaking creative work-arounds, to ensure the fascinating story could be told in the right way. 

The complicated archive-heavy nature of this documentary created some challenges for our team to overcome in post. The online process involved sifting through a significant amount of source material, in varying conditions, and often with original picture and sound that was difficult to work with. The Japanese footage offered additional challenges due to different frame rates, sizes, formats, and codecs, which needed to be converted. Much of this  footage was also from low quality beta cams, salvaged from the early 2000s from various sources including VHS tapes. Despite this, we were able to create a uniform look throughout the film, removing the original Japanese dialogue and graphics and replacing them. 

In constructing the audio for The Contestant, the music and sounds of the show had to be completely rebuilt from scratch. The initial project was built in Premiere, which moved to Mystica for the initial grade and then to DaVinci Resolve for the initial online, all of which went through highly technical re-edits to deliver a better storyline. The post overall required highly involved creative and technical work to manufacture the seamless look achieved for the documentary.

The World Premiere of The Session Man is opening the Doc N Roll Festival 2023 at the Barbican on 26th October!

10th October, 2023

The Session Man, a 90-minute feature documentary, tells the story of Nicky Hopkins, the highly gifted and prolific session pianist, and unsung hero. Nicky Hopkins not only played with The Kinks, The Who, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, he also played on solo albums of all four members of the Beatles in the early part of a stellar career that spanned over 30 years. During that time, he contributed to over 250 albums and a vast number of single releases. Nicky’s legendary piano riffs and wonderful musical motifs helped ordinary tracks become extraordinary and iconic. So many of them remain popular today. The generations that followed The Golden Era of Rock And Roll soon discover those iconic tracks that made Nicky Hopkins a legend amongst his peers – tracks like “Revolution” by The Beatles, “Like A Rainbow”, “Sympathy For The Devil” and “Angie” by the Rolling Stones, “Jealous Guy” by John Lennon and “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker. The Session Man’s narrator, Bob Harris, former presenter of the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test, had no hesitation at the end of the film in confirming that, “Nicky Hopkins’ contributions made him Rock And Roll’s greatest Session Man.”

Written, directed, and produced by Michael Treen, with cinematographer Luke Palmer, co-producers Mike Sherman and John Wood, associate producers Gary Byrne, Jonathan Scott Donnet, Sergio Goldstein, Ray Kooyenga, Akos Kunfalvy, Mila Kunfalvy, Eli Miller, Kathy Oliver, and Erin Whitwell, and segment producer Frank Torchia.

OnSight completed Full Picture and Sound Post for this project, with Senior Colourist Andy Lee, Online Editor Andrew Fisun, Audio by Sound Supervisor Andy Coles, and Post Producer Jade Townsend.

Click here for tickets.

Watch the trailer here.

Gassed Up has it's West End Premiere - is released in cinemas across the UK!

09th October, 2023

“Tony, Jeff and the whole team at OnSight went above and beyond for us with “Gassed Up”. The quality of the work and turnaround speeds are second to none.” - Bart Ruspoli, Producer

Commissioned by Amazon Prime, Gassed Up is written by Archie Maddocks and Taz Skylar, directed by George Amponsah, with cinematography by Stefan Ciupek, and is produced by Hester Ruoff and Bart Ruspoli of Ascendant Fox, Edward Caffrey and Rupert Preston of Sunrise Films, Stefan D'Bart and co-producer Ward Trowman of Bromantics, with Sunrise Films handling international rights. Gassed Up had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on the 10th and 13th of October, and won the Audience Award for Best Feature! Vertigo Releasing has orchestrated a UK Theatrical release, and the film is currently in cinemas.

Stephen Odubola (Blue Story, A Violent Man), Skylar (One Piece, Boiling Point) and singer Mae Muller star in the film, as well as Ms Banks, Yung Filly and Harry Pinero. Gassed Up follows Ash (Odubola), a young man desperate to earn money to raise his little sister and send his mother to rehab, as he gets caught up in the organised crime ring of Dubz (Skylar), a young and charismatic Albanian immigrant. The film is set during the peak of moped crime in London, and chronicles Ash’s struggle to keep his head above water as the crimes get bigger and the risks are far greater. 

Post production was delivered by OnSight, with Andy Coles as re-recording Mixer and Andy Lee as colourist, Adam Sample as Online Editor, and Alfie Mitchell on conform, overseen by Lead Post Producer Jeff Halsey.

Gassed Up is Executive Produced by Bradley Butler, Emilie Butler, Michael Gilmore, Eliot Hankins, George Hawkins, Stephen Hole, Ian Kirk, Waleed Maisery, Lucy Middleweek, Tom Newton, Otto Ruoff, Adam Sumner, and Nigel Williams. 

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Once Upon A Time In Tsavo wins at the Jackson Wild Media Awards!

06th October, 2023

At the Grand Teton Awards Gala on September 28, at the Jackson Wild Summit, Once Upon A Time In Tsavo won the Ecosystem - Long Form Award for the film that most effectively explores a habitat and the interconnectivity of its unique ecosystem in the Jackson Wild Media Awards. 

Once Upon A Time in Tsavo is a Deeble & Stone Film, with co-producers Waterhole Films, Terra Mater Studios, The WNET Group in association with PBS and CPB. It was written and directed by Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone, and Executive Producers were Sabine Holzer and Walter Köhler. 

The Jackson Wild Media Awards are considered the highest bar of achievement in natural history filmmaking, and are a recognition of excellence in nature, science, and conservation storytelling. 

Once Upon A Time in Tsavo focuses on arid regions across Africa, where a remarkable relationship between elephants and termites creates a waterhole – a green oasis which is central to every animal’s life. The story follows an extraordinary community of creatures that call the waterhole ‘home’ over a season in their lives. They range from a family of elephants to a pair of hornbills (aka ‘Zazu’ of The Lion King) alongside dung-beetles, chameleons, bullfrogs, geese and killifish.

The elephant family provides the background. They are the ‘architects’ and heavy lifters, but the intriguing narrative centres on the characters that live alongside them – at elephant toe-nail height.

The documentary was also a finalist in 3 other categories: Animal Behavior - Long Form, awarded to the film that most effectively examines animal behaviour in an innovative and illuminating way; Feature, awarded to the feature-length film that best advances an understanding or appreciation of the natural world, and Writing, awarded for the writing that most enhances the natural history story of which it is a part.​ 

Picture Post was delivered by OnSight, with Senior Colourist Andy Lee, Online Edit by Adam Sample, and was overseen by Lead Post Producer Jeff Halsey. The film was made by the same filmmakers we worked with on the award-winning Elephant Queen (AppleTV+), and was filmed in Kenya over a number of years. 
Once Upon A Time In Tsavo has also collected awards  at New York Festivals TV & Film Awards 2023 and Wild & Scenic Film Festival 2023,where it won Best Kid's Film.

Staged 3 writers Phin Glynn and Simons Evans nominated for Best Writer at the Royal Television Society Midlands Awards 2023!

04th October, 2023

A huge congratulations to Phin Glynn and Simons Evans for their nomination from the Royal Television Society (RTS) Midlands for Best Writer for Staged 3 (BBC One and BritBox). Winners will be announced on 24th November in Birmingham. 

You can watch the latest series of Staged now on BBC iPlayer, and catch up on the first two!

Watch here

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