Powerful post house 'Amnesty'

3rd Oct 2008: Rushes were approached by Ed Sayers at Mother to work on this hard-hitting and poignant project for Amnesty International.

The chance to be involved with such an amazing cause and the opportunity to be able to communicate an important message, powerfully yet sympathetically, was something the whole team really wanted to get involved with and felt passionate about.

This dramatic and high profile piece of communication with the new banner "You Are Powerful" highlights the fact that everyone has it within themselves to stand up against human rights abuse.

A series of seven modern-day characters were shot in contemporary situations, then composited into the existing news footage where they interact and prevent the violence happening in each of the pieces.

The characters’ portraits were shot as individual vignettes on 16mm and on a further day, the characters were shot against green screen, matching the timing and action of the existing news footage, on HDSR using stabilised shots as reference. They were then roto’d and composited into the film.

To create the degraded look of the existing films, whilst still recognising the modern outfits, the graded characters were sent through a VHS deck and re-composited. The process was technically challenging for the team dropping the new characters into existing news footage so that they blended in seamlessly and yet stood out on first viewing.

The central idea relied entirely on post production. 50 days of post work were required but with only 11 days available in the schedule. Rushes led what could be described as a 'Post House Amnesty' with Smoke & Mirrors London and New York and Framestore London also weighing in with their top operators so that the gargantuan task could be completed in time.

Rushes’ Lead Flame Artist Rufus Blackwell comments, "Technically it was very tricky. The footage was already extremely degraded and often, as the sequences we were working with were hand held and the cameraman was walking, the perspective changes were problematic. Before the shoot we stabilised the footage so our green screen actors could match the move. In addition to the Flame Artist supervising on set we had a Combustion Artist quickly making up rough comps of the Director’s selected takes."

He adds, "Naturally we wanted to produce the best comp possible. They looked technically correct but there was something missing … so we used an old video deck from the basement and sent all the new elements through it for that authentic VHS look. The finished product is subtle yet powerful. It certainly makes you think."

The turnaround time was tough so Smoke & Mirrors were able to use both offices and both time zones to their advantage. This meant that Lead Creative Sean Broughton could work through the night in NY with the London office picking up first thing the next day.

Sean comments, “This was an opportunity to do some real good, so pulling out all the stops was the only way to go. Taking Kim Gehrig (Academy Director and Mother Creative) through each scenario and figuring out the best way to shoot our replacement hero’s, was a joy. Understanding exactly how she wanted each shot to feel, as well as work technically, was very important. She shot everything we needed perfectly to make the shots work as well as they did ... while still capturing the right emotional vibe ... in a single day!”

Framestore’s contribution was created over two days in Flame by Senior Inferno Artist Stephane Allender. "The actors had been shot blue screen," says Allender, "I was working with genuine footage of a hanging which was pretty upsetting. The shot was of a noose being placed over a man’s neck. To create our effect, we first reversed the footage, so that the scene was of a noose being removed. We then had to remove the executioner and replace him with our actor. It was actually a very difficult shot because of the inevitable small mismatches between the positions of the real hangman’s arm and those of our actor – we had to stretch the arms and re-time the material."

The vignettes were graded by Rushes’ Head of Telecine, Adrian Seery and will premiere as part of The Secret Policeman’s Ball 2008 on Saturday, 4th October at The Royal Albert Hall and subsequently on Channel 4. There will also be a simultaneous cinecast of the event to cinemas in UK, Canada and Australia before it is released as a standalone cinema ad and online.

The film is accompanied by R.E.M. track "Until The Day Is Done" from their new album "Accelerate".

A passionate and challenging film from the start, the turnaround time was tough, but the achievement goes to prove what a wealth of talent and good will exists within the post industry today when push comes to shove.

Ed Sayers adds, "We all know that post houses share work and, particularly for features, have an incredible worldwide network but to experience first hand such seamless cooperation from four post houses - especially when we turned up with (Amnesty's) cap in hand - was sublime. Rufus, our VFX Artist from Rushes, totally 'got' what was needed. There are many ways to approach any post task and in this case we gained the eclectic opinions of all this top worldwide post talent and when anyone talked, everyone listened. So the film received the benefit of all that experience and the joy of all that talent. It couldn't have been done in the time without this total and ego-less cooperation, not to mention a client who allowed everyone to crack on and come back and truly wow them with a very powerful film."

More information about Amnesty International’s work can be found at: www.amnesty.org.uk

Product: Amnesty International

Production Title: "You Are Powerful"

Agency: Mother London

Agency Producer: Ed Sayers

Production Company: Academy Films

Director: Kim Gehrig

Producer: Lucy Gossage

DOP: Mattias Montero

Film Editor: Joe Guest / Final Cut

Sound Mix: Ben Firth / Factory

Post: Rushes / Smoke & Mirrors / Framestore

Rushes Producer: Emma Watterson

Rushes Telecine: Adrian Seery

Rushes VFX: Rufus Blackwell (Lead), Adam Watson, Richie White, Marcus Wood, Leo Weston

Rushes Combustion: Joe Dymond, Dan Alterman, Anthony Laranjo, Noel Harmes

Smoke & Mirrors Producers: Belinda Grew, Paul Schleicher

Smoke & Mirrors Creative Lead, New York: Sean Broughton

Smoke & Mirrors, Flame, London: Marios Theodosi

Framestore VFX Supervisor: Stephane Allender

Framestore Producer: Pauline Piper

Rushes Postproduction Ltd.

66 Old Compton Street

London

W1D 4UH

Tel: +44 (0)20 7437 8676

Fax: +44 (0)20 7734 2519