Toby Tomkins Masterclass

A Holistic Guide to OTT Finishing Workflows

Instructor : Toby Tomkins 

Toby Tomkins is CHEAT’s founder and a senior colorist.  

He has a deep impassioned interest in colour and film emulation. Much of his energy and time is invested in research and development, with all efforts consistently focused towards enhancing emotion and story: Everything in service of the work. Always. 

This fascination - nay, compulsion! - has led Toby to develop unique tools and techniques which directly contribute to the success of his clients’ creative projects. He regularly collaborates with globally respected, multi-format directors and DoPs who are the best in their field.

Over a decade of experience has earned him high-profile commercial clients; from BMW and Land Rover to Lloyds and Amstel, as well as a significant role in award-winning TV shows like the hugely successful BAFTA winning, Emmy nominated Netflix/Channel 4 series ‘The End of the F***ing World’, 2020 Netflix US Original series ‘I Am Not Okay With This’, and most recently, Channel 4's 'We Are Lady Parts'.

Toby also has an extensive portfolio of short and feature films, including ‘As I Am', BIFA-winning ‘The Machine’, and ‘Stutterer’ which won the Oscar for best short. His other recent and notable projects include commercial work for Volkswagen, Cadburys and Bumble, with some very exciting projects coming up with the BBC, AMC, Amazon and Channel 4."

Session Overview  

1. ‘Working forwards and backwards’ - assessing broad outlines for workflow dependent on delivery requirements, workflow requirements and sources.

2. ‘Look Development’ - ensuring all creative work at this stage maintains creative intent for all potential deliverables. Considerations around archive delivery requirements.

3. ‘Dailies’ - adapting look development work for (SDR 709) dailies colour pipeline.

4. ‘VFX pulls and drop ins’ - defined by the rest of the workflow but some things to consider as colorist.

5. ‘VFX pipeline from a finishing perspective’ - understanding how VFX are working and how best to work with them (LUTs/transforms/CDL etc) / maintaining quality (source res / colour space etc). Short overview on intermediate/exchange formats.

6. ‘Pregrade Online / conform’ - what this is / maintaining quality and continuity.

7. ‘Conform’ - how everything is brought together and unified ahead of grade. GAM considerations.

8. ‘Colour workflow’ - order of grade and workflow. Working space (importance of working in WCG/HDR). HDR then SDR / Approval process / Mindset.

9. ‘Online’ - options of workflow / considerations (source res export or continuos or both etc), order of work/approval process.

10. ’Trims’ - what are they. Dolby Vision approach. Approach and ideology for both manual and Dolby approach. Considerations.

11. ‘Delivery’ - If everything else above has gone well, this should be relatively easy! Things to consider and watch out for!  Importance of delivery schedules and spec sheets.

12. 'QC and fixes’ - what this looks like and why you shouldn’t be afraid.

13. ’Nuance’ - what remains open for interpretation within an agreed workflow. How to deal with changes. The prevalence of a linear approach (HDR grade>online>SDR grade/trim>SDR online?>mastering) in a non-linear world (ie HDR lock before SDR / colour approval tied with online approval)

14. Q&A