Behind the Post Production
Our team loved working with Passion Pictures on this project, read what our Creatives had to say.
Andrew Cloke, ENVY Colourist
“My task was to maintain a consistent grade that honoured the authentic tone and atmosphere of the documentary. The clients sought a clean and natural aesthetic that would seamlessly complement Jon’s narration and the accompanying interviews, without overshadowing them.
In my approach, I carefully refined the archive footage, aiming to enhance its visual clarity without excessively altering its vintage character. Given the diverse sources of archival material spanning various stories shared by Jon, my goal was to optimize its quality and ensure a cohesive visual narrative.”
Dicky Everton, ENVY Online Editor
“The archive footage in this documentary was shot over five decades, so every shot required care and attention to enhance the image without contributing to noise or compression. The early news footage was shot on 16mm, which stands the test of time. The era of Electronic News Gathering (ENG) began in the mid 70’s with portable U-matic recorders, then the better-quality component format Betacam appeared in the early 80’s. I used multiple plug-ins for image enhancement, noise reduction, de-flicker and de-interlace, and was able to improve the quality of every archive source.
The producers wished to preserve the 4:3 images in their native aspect ratio, so this all appears pillar-boxed within the 16:9 frame. This is my preferred option as it means the viewer sees the footage as it was originally broadcast, and it’s not being over-sized to fill the 16:9 frame (the quality wouldn’t stand up to that). All pillar-boxed live-action footage has been masked to produce clean, sharp vertical edges, and slightly resized to remove any blanking issues (some footage head-switching and VITC).”
Matt Skilton, ENVY Dubbing Mixer
“Jon’s career has been truly remarkable, making him a significant figurehead for Channel 4 over several decades. It was imperative to give this project the attention and care it deserved.
The film heavily relies on archive footage, much of which features Jon’s original commentary. To ensure a seamless viewing experience, I utilized iZotope to extract his narration from the clips, effectively eliminating any unwanted background music or sound effects. This enabled the editor, Paul Dosaj, to incorporate his own selection of music and additional dialogue, enhancing the overall tone of the documentary. Additionally, I employed iZotope and Pro Tool’s extensive range of effects to refine, balance and enrich any additional sounds we chose to preserve from the original archive.
It was an honour to work on this film with the team from Passion Pictures, to celebrate and look back at some of the biggest moments of Jon’s life and career.”
Amy Foster, PASSION PICTURES Head of Factual
“When we set out to make this film, we knew that to do justice to Jon’s incredible career, we would need the top post-production talent to make the archive really sing, given the variety in its quality. ENVY’s team did a beautiful job. Andrew and Dicky were so patient and took great care to stay true to the original feel of the archive and when Matt worked his magic with the audio, we were all blown away.”
