New Edition of TV2’s Iconic Film Genre Style Ads

Soho/Noho based, boutique post production studio Creative Outpost has collaborated across Europe using its CO-STREAM in-house grade and VFX streaming service to do the grade and online for a series of three ads for TV2, scripted and filmed in the style of iconic cinematic genres - British social realism, German existentialism and Hispanic crime drama.

The ads for the Norwegian streaming platform were directed by award-winning commercial director Henrik Sundgen, who recently started collaborating with Swedish creative house Rio, a dynamic creative hub and production company based in Stockholm. The three spots are a clever play on the brief. Henrik commented: “The brief was simple and genius: ‘What happens when people don’t want to watch the TV show that you are in?’ In the meta world of these films, the characters lose their purpose because everyone is watching TV2 instead of them.” Watch the ads here.

Collaborative and accessible approach

When it came to the grade and online, CO-STREAM came into its own, enabling a collaborative and accessible approach for the team who were spread across Europe.  “The whole setup with Creative Outpost was very smooth. And CO-STREAM is ridiculously simple to use. Everyone involved were able to pop in and out of the grading session at their own behest. It was perfect for a project like this,” said Henrik.

Creative Outpost’s senior colourist, Mark Horrobin explains more, “CO-STREAM was the rails on which the whole job ran.  We had Henrik in Stockholm, ANTI, the creative agency, in Oslo and Bartek in Warsaw. They were all able to be involved in the grading process, while the colourist worked out of Lisbon.  

“The participants were viewing high quality, optimised images in real-time.  A truly global collaboration made possible with our CO-STREAM solution.  The online process was also conducted using CO-STREAM.  Setting subtitles for the films became much more efficient as decisions about size and timings were made on the spot.”

Henrik has worked with Mark and the team at Creative Outpost, including co-founder Quentin Olszewski, for many years, “I guess it’s no coincidence that I have worked with them over a long period of time. They are seriously good at what they do and we get along well.

“Quentin used to do a lot of my online work in Stockholm, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. He’s always been more than an ordinary online guy. Besides from making his own biltong in the server room back in the day, he’s always wanted to push for creative solutions and flexible workflows - which is how, I guess, CO-STREAM came about.

“And, with Mark, I always felt that he had a sharp eye, good taste and a good sense of humour. I would describe his style as elegant and cinematic, really respecting the camera negative, but adding just that extra touch. Also it’s easy to get kind of blind in colour grading, but he is one of those colourists that, when you look at something a year or so after you made it, you think - ”Ah, that looks nice”. 

“His only flaw is that he prefers Vegemite to Marmite.”

A multi-national project

The whole project was multi-national in terms of both the idea/content, creative agency, and the production and post production teams.  “Working internationally gives us the chance to do something with different influences and points of view,” said Henrik. “The only challenge was the casting. We wanted to find German and South American actors in Bulgaria. A bit tricky at first, but it worked out in the end. We also did casting in the UK for one of the spots, which was very smooth.”

The director of photography was Bartek Hlawka and it was the first time Henrik had worked with him. “We hit it off right away. And, besides being a great guy, he got really involved in the project. He has that commitment to creating the image in a way that is rare in advertising. Not only caring about lenses and lighting, but being a co-creative in terms of production design and color etc. It’s a great gift as a director to work with someone who is so devoted and ego-less. He is also technically savvy and was also involved in the grading process, which was a huge benefit.”

Leveraging the power of CO-STREAM

Streamlining the grading and online workflow and leveraging the power of the CO-STREAM platform brought many benefits to TV2 and the creative agency. From making the process fully collaborative to dramatically shortening the timeline and keeping costs down, it enabled the project to be executed smoothly and without any hiccups.

Creative Outpost’s co-founder Quentin Olszewski said, “I have been doing remote grading with Mark since 2010 and have seen the evolution of remote grading. CO-STREAM was custom built by our own Tim Davies and is an incredibly powerful, yet simple, tool for clients to use and enjoy the benefits of UK grading talent and VFX.”

Working collaboratively

Creative Outpost has also recently started collaborating with Swedish production company, Two Fat Boys. Said Quentin of the collaboration, “They are representing us for both colour grading, online and VFX work with their new platform, Ghost post.  We have created a workflow for receiving hard drives, so they don’t need to be shipped to the UK, enabling us to pick up the project from that point, do the wrangles remotely and sync the media with our servers in London.” 

Creative Outpost is a boutique post production company offering full service Picture/Audio Studios and end to end post production.

Check out Creative Outpost’s latest work here.