Sydney based production company Studio Goose used DaVinci Resolve Studio for grading, editing, VFX and audio post production, along with Blackmagic Cloud, to help create the “Country Is Calling” commercial campaign for the Northern Territory Tourism Board. With production and post production talent spread around Australia, Studio Goose used a Blackmagic Cloud and a DaVinci proxy workflow to create a collaborative workflow.
Studio Goose is an innovative production company based in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. It has driven creative and technical innovation on numerous productions since 2005 and is led by Founder and CEO Keaton Stewart.
In 2022, Studio Goose worked with production house Global Headquarters, based in the Northern Territory, and Writer/Director Justin Schneider to finish 10 digital engagement packages highlighting Australia’s Northern Territory’s iconic natural wonders, ancient Aboriginal culture, and spectacular wildlife. The “Country Is Calling” campaign ran alongside the groundbreaking kids show “Barrumbi Kids,” which was produced and broadcast on NITV, with the show’s main characters, Tomias and Dahlia, highlighting the wonders of the Northern Territory.
The Northern Territory, the town of Katherine and the communities of Beswick and Barunga, where the campaign was shot, are remote and stunning locations to feature. The campaign included production and post production talent spread around Australia, and Studio Goose needed a solid remote workflow that was immediately active and location flexible. Using DaVinci Resolve Studio for its complete post production workflow, Studio Goose was able to collaborate with the project’s data wrangler, assistant editor, editors, colorist, sound designers, mixer and online editor using Blackmagic Cloud and a DaVinci proxy workflow.
The DaVinci proxy workflow meant Studio Goose could get the data to each artist within minutes of the rushes being ingested. Without this integrated proxy workflow, it would have taken days to either ship back the rushes or upload large files via slow internet in the remote regions of the Northern Territory.
“The big advantage of using Blackmagic Cloud is greater creative collaboration. Every artist was remote from the others. Data wrangling happened in the Northern Territory managed by Global Headquarters, assistant editing in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, editing by Daniel Oates based in Sydney, grading in Sydney by Shane Dunne, and sound design and mixing in Queensland by Walmsley Audio, which was then thrown back to Sydney for the final online and master at Studio Goose. With Blackmagic Cloud, we have faster turnarounds on high quality projects that need to go between different departments,” explained Stewart.
Campaign creator and Producer Monica O’Brien said, “Keaton and I have always been early adopters to intuitive systems. The Resolve workflow is so smooth. I will never produce a show on any other platform.”
For two of the content packages, Studio Goose had only a few days to complete them in order to meet a screening deadline at the Darwin International Film Festival. Using DaVinci Resolve Studio and Blackmagic Cloud, the team was able to create proxies and use Dropbox to send assets out to each artist, so they could easily start working while only having to download a small amount of data.
“We ingested, edited, graded, sound designed, mixed and finished inside of Resolve,” Stewart explained. “The truly outstanding thing about having the central creative fields of post, including edit, sound, VFX, compositing and grading, inside of one unified program and project is the seamless creative collaboration that can happen in real time. I can’t overstate this enough; this should be the standard.”
Working with the Fairlight page in DaVinci Resolve Studio and being able to connect video and audio artists using Blackmagic Cloud was a huge advantage. “Being able to get the sound designer working quickly on a rough cut versus a picture lock is extremely handy. Sound is so integral to the final emotion of any piece. To have the ability to work back and forth between editor and sound designer without worrying about having to work out what frames have moved and spending time realigning the footage with the sync and FX is fantastic,” Stewart continued.
Studio Goose also used the workflow for the shows “I Am Me” (edited by John Unwin), “For Real” (edited by John Unwin, Daniel Oates and Brendan Cain), “The Gamers 2037” (edited by Keaton Stewart, Daniel Oates and Brendan Cain), “Barrumbi Kids” (edited by Daniel Oates, John Unwin and Pip Hart), and “Muster Dogs” (edited by John Unwin, Fiona Strain, ASE, Orly Danon, ASE, and Brendan Cain, who were nominated for their editing by the Australian Screen Editors Guild [ASE] and AACTA).
“The Gamers 2037,” a high concept tween drama series that aired on 9Go!, is a VFX heavy show that was completed using Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K digital film camera and DaVinci Resolve Studio.
Stewart explained why the Blackmagic Design workflow was so helpful with the show: “‘The Gamers 2037,’ and the VFX heavy shows in general that we do, greatly benefit from Resolve’s unique ability to export individual clips from a timeline. Being able to do this saves a huge amount of time in getting assets to VFX. ‘The Gamers 2037’ is also a show that had a lot of intended reframing, something the tools inside Resolve allow us to do easily and on the fly without interrupting the editors flow.
“The Blackmagic cameras’ ease of use and easy connection with Resolve help massively. With the Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, the resolution we got when shooting the chroma scenes was also important. We shot everything for the VFX using chroma on the Pocket 6K, which allowed for very clean keys and the resolution to reframe.”
