Danny Jones and Craig Reeves on Launching Pickled. Post Production
In the summer of 2017, post production producer Danny Jones joined forces with online editor Craig Reeves and together formed the dynamic and evolving Pickled post-production network. The pair have worked on countless campaigns throughout their careers with experience spanning decades between them. They offer a post production service with a cost effective twist, a boutique virtual studio, empowering clients from production, agency and brand to create, adapt and deliver their content for broadcast, social and digital out-of-home.
At the heart of the dynamic business is a passionate and dedicated creative team with outposts based in the UK’s Midlands and South London. They host an extended talent pool enabling professional creative talent wherever they reside, networked throughout the UK, united with the power of cloud services and FTP systems.
In parts of London’s Soho, leases are doubling with the signing of every new agreement. Pickled’s network model represents London quality post-production, without the costly overheads.
The boutique concept directs its focus on providing intimate around the clock client relations and project fluidity, an offering of long term and short term in-agency post suites and remote production. As technology tips the balance, Pickled utilises streamlined project and movie file encoding with faster communication networks, allowing approval files to be sent to a client, viewed and fed-back with haste.
“A client without in-house capabilities approached us to finish and deliver an online versioning project, with the pressure of parallel campaigns delivering that week, timings forbid the agency team to unite at any one time, we proposed an in-agency setup, bringing the post production suite to the client,” says Jones.
Video conferencing and screen-sharing allow Pickled to demonstrate creative changes and unite teams with agency and production talent. With production teams on a recce one day, pitching the other, the concept provides production and agency creative’s eyes on the project without time spent travelling from agency to suite.
The Pickled team host Flame with Nuke in tow for online finishing and VFX, Davinci resolve studio with midi panels / broadcast monitors for grading. The creative pipeline operates nationally, with resources located in and around London, Birmingham, Norwich, Kent and Manchester with artists collaborating and contributing on a number of projects as and when a project requires.
“We are able to pull together a variety of talent and connect them through our networks. It became apparent that most artists have access to their own systems - however where they may need license or hardware to complete a project, we saw to empower them with the equipment to fulfill their involvement. The best talent may not be sat at any one location and our network ensures that we get the best talent for the job,” adds Reeves.
The concept may appear obvious, but is a model that most big facilities are yet to fully accommodate, over-heads and big-city workflows are staple in this industry. Where there is certainly a need for client facing, air conditioned suites, Reeves and Jones do not attempt to denigrate the traditional client / suite relationship, however have seen opportunity to create a modern boutique. Pickled boasts intimate relationships with their clients, yet within a virtual space, allowing for seamless post-production pipeline integration, the back-end workflow is hidden behind the network curtain, they pioneer the simplicity of the finished picture with a cost effective price tag. It is a breath of fresh air in an industry that has traditionally been shackled to the half mile of Dean Street.
“Our ethos is to be as creative with the business as we are with the content we produce, and the results are proven. Many artists want to see their children off to sleep at night rather than commute for an hour or more, only to have missed time with their loved ones. With client demands coming at varying times of the day - our artists have flexibility with mixing home life with their work. We believe a happy artist is a creative and efficient asset to a campaign,” says Reeves.
Pickled has played a post-production role with brand activations spanning social, digital out-of-home and TV commercial for Fruittella, Travel Republic, Pay As U Gym, Samsung, Parker Pens, Scottish Power, Twycross Zoo, Star Alliance, FIVB Volleyball and Casillero del Diablo to name but a few.
“Every campaign requires a variation of our concept, we adapt to work with the client to provide the best creative outcome. For example, we setup a client facing Flame suite within the agency to complete the final 10% of the Fruittella Campaign, whilst the majority of the post work was completed via our network prior to the finishing session. International clients have access to screen share online sessions and options to review our work with finished movie files,” says Jones.
To find out more, check out Pickled’s site, Pickled.tv
