LATEST NEWS
Beneath the Surface at Sheffield Doc Fest 2022
23rd June, 2022
"Beneath the Surface, directed by Alex Irvine-Cox premièred to acclaim at the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival. It was a harrowing and strongly emotional film touching on distressing themes such as sexual abuse, racism and prejudice in Norway, a country normally admired for its liberal and inclusive social behaviour. This was a film needing sensitivity, and the visual landscape became as much a part of the character of the film as were the human participants. Working with Onsight to deliver those demanding needs was always a pleasure and the production team is hugely grateful for their skill and dedication that contributed to this important and moving feature documentary.” - André Singer, Executive Producer, Spring Films.
Beneath the Surface, is a powerful feature documentary highlighting silenced stories of abuse from indigenous Sámi women, men and children in Tysfjord, Norway. Directed by Alexander Irvine-Cox, in his feature length directorial debut, Beneath the Surface investigates generations of negligence and suffering through recovered evidence and unseen archival footage. The community undertakes a legal challenge against the Norwegian authorities to break the cycle of generations of racial subordination and systemic discrimination against Norway’s Indigenous peoples.
Beneath the Surface is a co-production between England and Norway by Spring Films and Medieoperatørene with Ingvil Giske as Producer and Cinematography by Tore Vollan. BBC Storyville presents the documentary in collaboration with Norwegian pubcaster NRK. Executive Producers are Fiona Stourton, André Singer, Mandy Chang and Lucie Kon.
This June, Beneath the Surface has featured at both Krakow Film Festival and Sheffield Doc Fest and was nominated for the Tim Heatherington Award in Sheffield!
Post Production at OnSight:
OnSight provided full Picture and Sound Post production services for Beneath the Surface, overseen by Post Producer Joana Coelho. The story behind Beneath the Surface is an incredibly important, but delicate, story to tell. As such, OnSight handled the footage with the utmost care, discretion and sensitivity.
OnSight’s Adam Sample carried out the Online edit and Alfie Mitchell was Conform Editor. We created two versions of the feature, for both international cinema and BBC broadcast.
Sam Smith for Can’t Cancel Pride 2022
15th June, 2022
iHeart Radio’s Can’t Cancel Pride 2022 - Proud AND Together event streamed online on June 14th, featuring performances and appearances from some of the most influential voices in the LGBTQ+ community, including Sam Smith, Elton John and Katy Perry.
This marks the third annual Can’t Cancel Pride fundraiser event, which focused on the challenges and celebrations of “The Year in Pride”. The hour-long event showcased community and activism, as well as issues which continue to impact the LGBTQ+ community today and messages of strength.
OnSight are extremely proud to have facilitated the 4K post production of Sam Smith’s Can’t Cancel Pride performance for SiFi Productions, with Post Producer Jade Townsend overseeing the project, and Colour by Steve Atkins. The one shot live performance was filmed at St Pancras Old Church, where Sam performed their first gig. Paul Dugdale directed the performance, with cinematography by Bret Turnbull and Simon Fisher as Producer.
Watch the full Can’t Cancel Pride 2022 event, including Sam Smith's performance here.
Brian and Charles wins Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival: London
14th June, 2022
After its breakout success at Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Brian and Charles was selected by the Sundance Institute programming team, in collaboration with Picturehouse, to close Sundance Film Festival’s London offshoot on June 12th. This was the UK premiere of Brian and Charles, directed by British filmmaker Jim Archer in his feature debut. Brian and Charles won the Audience Award, voted the best of the fest by audiences attending screenings.
The feature film, written by David Earl and Chris Hayward, is an extension of Archer’s 2017 award-winning short film of the same name, which gave the spotlight to comic Earl’s acclaimed stage character Brian Gittins (who has previously appeared in Ricky Gervais’ Netflix series After Life, pilot Gittins, and one-off David Earl & Joe Wilkinson’s Summer).
Brian and Charles is Produced by Rupert Majendie for Mr Box Productions, a UK producer who offer comedians a platform to create and broadcast their own sketches and podcasts. The film was developed and co-funded by Film4 and the BFI and picked up by Focus Features for international distribution. Executive Producers are Mary Burke for the BFI, Lauren Dark and Ollie Madden for Film4 and Damian Jones.
Shot in a mockumentary-style, with cinematography by Murren Tullet; Brian and Charles follows Brian, a lonely and unlucky inventor in rural Wales, who spends his time building unique and unconventional creations, usually with little success. Undeterred by his failures, Brian attempts his most ambitious project yet - enter Charles, an artificially intelligent robot made from odds and ends, played by Chris Hayward. Louise Brealey (Sherlock; Death in Paradise), James Michie (Outlaw King; Game of Thrones) and Nina Sosanya (Silk; Killing Eve) star alongside Earl and Hayward. The feel-good comedy tells a heartwarming story about friendship, family, finding love, and letting go and promises to leave audiences uplifted and entertained.
Post Production at OnSight
Senior Post Producer Jeff Halsey oversaw OnSight’s post production services for Brian and Charles including the offline edit, conform, VFX, online edit and delivery to Sundance, Bankside and Focus Features. OnSight’s Adam Sample performed the conform and online edit, with some great artistic input from Archer.
“It was a great movie to work on and it was thoroughly enjoyable during the online getting all creatively pink for the massive main titles, whilst sat alongside Director Jim Archer on his debut feature film. This will absolutely smash it at the festivals and cinemas as it is such a fun and touching movie” - Adam Sample, Online Editor.
Following its premiere, Brian and Charles was shown at Glastonbury festival on June 23rd and subsequently will be released into UK cinemas on July 8th, watch the trailer here.
EXPLORER - A portrait of Sir Ranulph Fiennes
03rd June, 2022
“Working at OnSight on Explorer was fantastic and the team couldn’t have done more to make the experience work for us.” - George Chignell, Producer.
EXPLORER, directed by Matthew Dyas, tells the definitive story of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, an inspirational leader credited as the World’s Greatest Living Explorer. Amongst his wealth of extraordinary achievements, Sir Fiennes was the first to circumnavigate the world from pole to pole, he crossed the Antarctic on foot and even discovered a lost city in Arabia.
EXPLORER was Produced by George Chignell and Co-Produced by Christian Holland for Explorer Pictures and distributed by Universal Pictures, with Executive Producers Richard Brousson, Simon McCallum, Helen Parker, Tim Platt and Gillian Scothern. With cinematography by Chris Openshaw, EXPLORER provides exclusive access to Ranulph, his spectacular film archive, which has been preserved by the BFI National Archive, showcasing decades of expeditions and contributions from close friends and colleagues. This collection of footage has led to the creation of a truly personal film, which goes beyond a simple retrospective of Fiennes’ record breaking achievements, revealing the man behind the myth, simply known as ‘Ran’.
Post Production at OnSight
OnSight are proud to have provided the post production for EXPLORER, overseen by Senior Post Producer Jeff Halsey. Senior colourist, Andy Lee, created three versions of the film for different deliverables using P3/Theatrical, Rec 709/Broadcast and HDR grades. OnSight’s Adam Sample provided the Online Edit.
A Creative Solution to Technical Audio Challenges
Andy Coles was the Re-recording Mixer for this project. Given that almost all of the interviews in the film were recorded over the phone during lockdown, Andy and the OnSight team faced a significant challenge with the audio. To tackle this, the team decided to create a feature of the audio by making the interviews sound as though they were speaking through walkie talkies, as Ran has spent much time communicating via radio throughout his expeditions.
EXPLORER is released into UK cinemas on 14th July with a special Q&A with Ran himself and will be available to own and rent worldwide from 29th August. Watch the trailer here.
Signora Volpe
01st June, 2022
Signora Volpe is a crime drama series executive produced by Marc Samuelson and Josie Law of Route 24 (an ITV Studios-backed production company). The show comprises three 90-minute instalments and it arrived in May 2022 on Acorn TV in the UK, US, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Silent Witness star Emilia Fox plays Sylvia, a former M16 operative who gets drawn into crime-solving when she visits her sister in a quiet village in Umbria, Italy. The disillusioned spy is trying to start a new, slower-paced life but it seems that trouble simply follows her around. Try as she might, Sylvia can’t quite shake her innate sense of justice, and plain nosiness, so finds herself embroiled in some dark and compelling crimes.
“OnSight are a wonderful, friendly team of people who always went above and beyond to help us deliver a great show. At every level we and the show were looked after by highly skilled, very talented and very nice people who really cared about the project and always delivered first rate work, on time and on budget. We enjoyed the experience of working with them immensely.” - Josie Law, Executive Producer, Route24
International and Remote Production
The Post Production scope of Signora Volpe was an exciting challenge for our team at OnSight, each 90 minute episode was given the same love and attention as a complete feature film. Led by Post Producer Joana Coelho, the OnSight team coordinated with the two directors of the show, Dudi Appleton (Silent Witness) and Mark Brozel (Troy: Fall of a City) to online the 3 episodes.
During the shoot, rushes and dailies were coordinated and delivered to our London post facility from the DIT team out in Italy using OnSight’s Aspera service. The series was offlined in Avid at OnSight with a mixture of remote access and in-house facilities all on shared networks for both editors and edit assistants and then onlined by Adam Sample, our Senior Finishing Editor. Andy Lee, OnSight’s Senior Colourist, made the stunning views of Italy look outstanding with its delicate warmth, which added to the fun storyline.
All episodes had some elements of spoken Italian within them, this meant a fair amount of time was spent getting the subtitles and translations perfected to make the storyline flow with ease. There were a number of VFX shots within the show, most were quite subtle and yet some were quite time-consuming. Nonetheless, the results stood out and are a testament to the skills involved by the VFX department.
Sound was supervised by OnSight’s Andy Coles, who added: “During the coldest months of the year here, I had the pleasure of mixing all three episodes, full of the sound of cicadas and hot Italian countryside. A great way to escape the winter gloom.” - OnSight Sound Supervisor, Andy Coles
Overall the show is a fun, gentle spy-thriller with a touch of romance thrown in for good measure. Viewers have the opportunity to feel like they are in the beautiful Italian sunny hills. A great escape for us all!