"It began in Afrika-ka-ka-ka " Becoming a Colourist -By Carlotta Rio - Evolutions
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Berwick Street
Sheraton Street
Great Pulteney Street
Gloucester Avenue
Whiteladies Road
Edition 13 St Paul’s Road
The Beagle is back with news from the past few months. From Christmas to the remote Island of Contadora, have a read for all
things Evos
"It began in Afrika-ka-ka-ka..." Becoming a Colourist —By Carlotta Rio
When people ask me, "how did you end up here?" or "why did you
want to be a colourist?", I'm never quite sure what to say and normally
end up quoting this Chemical Brothers song; however, it's true - my
passion for colours was a gift from the Red Sea. I grew up in Italy and
studied fine arts, but have always been interested in photography.
Before ending up in London, I was travelling around the globe
working as a professional diver and shooting underwater pictures in
the most amazing places! Even though travelling and diving were all I
could ever have wanted, I discovered that underwater photography
was way more exciting.
I used to hover on top of corals for ages; fully geared up, fiddling with
my camera and juggling lights and a white balance slate. No matter
how deep down and dark it was, I stayed until I got the best picture
possible. When I came to London, I started as a runner and my dream
was to learn how to grade and become a famous colourist. Or at least Whale-Shark in the Red Sea, dive site Thomas Reef, near
understand how colour systems work. Sharm el Sheikh — photographed by Carlotta Rio
At the time, learning to grade using Nucoda or Baselight seemed a long way off but as my Mum always says "you just have to get on
with it". And so I did.
It took several shy shadowing sessions (she sells seashells on the seashore) with Tim and Nick and more time spent in a dark room
by myself randomly pressing ALL the buttons (Tim O'B - I swear it wasn't me turning your pre-titles sequence orange that time).
Nick taught me how to be organized and keep my stacks tidy (I'm still working on that) and how to get the colours RIGHT the
blacks black and the skies looking lush! Tim taught me how to do cool grades and equally how to be cool with clients, as well as how
you can achieve a lot by only using the balls (for those who are not familiar with that term, they're also known as 'primaries').
What I had to teach myself were probably the hardest lessons for me; how to be patient and move carefully from shot to shot while
getting used to being alone all day and never
letting the tiredness affect your eyes. I used
to have a sunny personality but now I'm pale
and grumpy. But I LOVE it.
I love to be involved in one of the most
creative parts of post-production. Colour
grading is about bonding with the clients
and understanding their vision to create a
look together. I think these are the most
important skills a colourist can have, apart
from the obvious 'good eye' and 'good taste' -
but that comes naturally to Italians, we like
things looking good!
Inside the Factory: Pizza, Voltage TV for
BBC Two—graded by Carlotta Rio
1
Well-Being... By Ricky Martin
Over the last year, Evolutions has made great strides about
being open about ourselves at work and increasing an
awareness of both our physical and mental well-being. It’s
sometimes difficult to see the progression from within, but
much has happened.
We completed our first well-being survey – this is no small
feat. One hundred and sixteen of us responded to the
questionnaire, allowing us to get a really accurate idea of our
company’s happiness. Some statistics were pleasing – we are
all well hydrated, except two dried-up members of our staff
who claim never to drink water. Some statistics were
worrying – 31 of us do no exercise at all in a week. Some
statistics shocked us – 4 claim to never ever eat a healthy
lunch.
The one that probably made the greatest impression on us was that one in three of our staff have dealt with or are
dealing with some type of mental health issue. One in four is the national average – but there is a known increase of
mental health issues within the creative sector, especially in sedentary media roles of which we have many – so we are
not unusual, but we wanted to improve this statistic and offer help to those who need it.
The fact that so many have answered, and so honestly, highlighted a genuine openness amongst us from which we
could begin to build a platform to talk about this and start to consider how we help as a company. Focus groups were
setup with staff from various roles within all the departments to talk about our findings. We asked how we could help
each other, what would help to improve well-being and make Evolutions a better place to work.
It was absolutely inspiring to see all the departments working together to make something that will improve life for
everyone, and truly demonstrated the effectiveness of being open about issues rather than hiding them away or
pretending they don’t exist.
In November this year, Evolutions launched its very first well-being package. The package provides at its centre a 24/7
confidential support line to help all of our staff. The line offers counselling and advice across almost any subject, from a
mental health crisis to advice on finance or legal services. This line not only gives staff someone to talk to but allows
management to get help quickly to those in need, where we may have struggled in the past.
Alongside the support stuff, half-price gym membership at local centres was announced to encourage staff to stay
active, money off at local healthy food outlets was rolled out, and a whole raft of discounts on shopping and services
were added to help make people’s money go that bit further.
The uptake by staff has been fantastic, almost
every person has used the package at least
once for something and most have been
using it all the time. Not a day goes by in
reception where I don’t hear someone talking
about the gym class they’ve just been to, or
the free coffee they get on the way in.
So, all in all, when it comes to well-being,
2018 has been a big step in the right direction.
It’s also been an eye-opener, but we know
now well-being and openness has to be
worked towards and that’s what we will all
continue to do.
2
What on Earth...
Earth London, based in our Berwick Street building, has had another busy few months. Since the last Beagle, they have
created all visuals and the show control system for Dave’s Beat The Internet With John Robins, then smoothly ran the system
for filming of the series in a London studio. Earth also designed all visuals and 3d AR players for Football Genius on ITV,
designed visuals and systems for BBC Scotland’s Wonderball for our friends at Mighty productions and created various titles
including one for Avalon’s Hard To Please OAPs.
Work continued on Raw’s hugely popular Gold Rush: White Water and Earth also created a realistic CG sequence for Bosch,
highlighting key features of their new boiler systems. January 2019 also saw Earth running their show control system for
another series of BBC’s !mpossible (and another series of !mpossible Celebrities).
London Project News
Race Across The World, 8pm on BBC Two Studio Lambert’s Race Across The World has become
everyone’s new obsession, and it calls Evos it’s Post
home. With a format that has universal appeal, it has
audiences either drooling with wanderlust or gleefully
watching the teams endure train journeys from hell.
Generating a warmth of viewer engagement, you only
have to glance at twitter to see how taken people are
with those competing. The figures further speak to the
show’s success, with the consolidated ratings of ep 1 at
1.91m, ep 2 at 2.43m, and episode 3 beating Top Gear!
Travelling on a budget of £1329 across the globe can
only make for some interesting, funny, and addictive
TV. See you in Singapore for the finale!
London Welcomes: Promotes: London Staff Moves and More
Michael Lawrence—Edit & Media Support
Max Seriani —SS Shift Supervisor
Tiona Devereaux—Finance Assistant Babygrow
Thomas Surridge—Dispatch Librarian
Justice Sylverkin— IT Support Engineer given to
Silvia Big—Bookings (Secondment)
Steffi Gordon—Finance Assistant Michael by
Will Malins—Dubbing Mixer
Martin MacAleese—Business Development the Celebs Go
Manager Dating Team,
Congratulates:
featuring his
New Runners: Congratulations to Michael Wood and his wife
new album
Lucy on the birth of baby Benjamin! And on
Ben Gale | Owain Williams |Charlie Evans art.
the release of Michael’s first Album Whoa
Evie Cotton | Maddy Harris| Jack Cokell
Melodic
Rosie Bewley | Adrian Holgate | Chloe Bond
Seb White | Joe Boden | Jennifer Biederman
Molly Jones | Theo Ashley-Brian Check him out on spotify!
3
News from the West... By Gabriel Wetz Rise of the Warrior Apes received multiple nominations at the Wildscreen Panda awards and went on to win several awards including the Golden Panda for the Best All Round Film! Director/Producer James Reed sent a very humble email to the team; “Massive congratulations for such a successful Wildscreen. It was great to receive awards for Best Sound and Script (which in our case was essentially a nod for storytelling, to which you all contributed enormously as there was no commentary) and the Golden Panda Award - best overall film in the festival. Given Wildscreen is the biggest festival in this genre, that means best natural history film in the world this year. It's not possible to get this award unless the film works on all levels, so it reflects the extremely high quality of everyone's work. You all did an exceptional job!” Aah thanks James! Client loyalty is an incredibly important part of our existence, and to have that loyalty we sometimes have to go through the mill to achieve the vision that our clients have in mind. I know it isn’t always smooth sailing while we are in the eye of the storm, but we aren’t really in a 9-5 business, we are in a whatever-it-takes business, but it is certainly worth the pain to win awards like this! RTS West Of England Awards 2019 And the winner for the RTS West of England Sound award is… Will Norie! Congratulations to Will for his work on GOD’S KINGDOM, a film by Guy Soulsby. And to everyone else who worked on the film, including Owen Hemming- Brown from Echoic Audio who shares this award! Longstanding client of Evolutions Bristol, Drummer TV, also spent the night celebrating after winning best Children’s programme award, My Life: Mumbai Street Strikers. Full post of which was done at Evolutions. Although Will was not there in person, the best from Evolutions Bristol were out in force to represent him to represent him. Managing Director Simon Kanjee and Sales Director Darren Musgrove were also in attendance to celebrate the win! 4
Project News...
New Production Clients
The very well-respected Nick Mirsky, previously the head of documentaries at Channel 4, moved to Bristol a few
months ago and set up his own indie, Five Mile Films. They will be taking over the whole of No2 St Pauls Road from
around about now (as in right now they have just moved their stuff in!) and we will be doing the post on their first big
8-part series, which is ace!
Existing Clients
Countryfile and Gardeners’ World have both committed to another year’s successful partnership with the Evolutions
Bristol team, which is fantastic news. These are two massive series that have really become part of our facility family
and we look forward to pushing standards even further with both of these series throughout 2019 (and hopefully
beyond)!
Spun Gold continue their broad slate of regional productions with us as well as their main office up at our 38
Whiteladies Rd facility.
Drummer Television continue their award-winning streak, adding a Bafta to their cabinet this time for Best Factual
Children’s Programme with Mumbai Street Strikers. They have also been working closely with the British Sign-
Language organisation to make a raft of bespoke series including a their first drama for a deaf audience!
Work with the NHU continues has continued with Earth From Space our most recent posting with a TX looming. The
series was highly complex as there were many occasions where the satellite images going natively into our Baselight
reached 30K resolution plus!
RDF have more Crystal Maze in the pipeline, as well as the return of Tipping Point and another series of the popular
Eat Well For Less.
Moomin Valley is still going through post for Gutsy which includes delivery in UHD HDR.
All in all 2019 is lining up to be a busy and exciting year!
Evolutions TV is set to take green issues to task by joining BAFTA
albert’s affiliate programme, bolstering the number of industry
organisations working together for a greener industry. albert affiliation is
aimed at helping companies contribute to creating an environmentally
sustainable industry and society. Driven by Evolutions Bristol Head of
Sales and Client Services, Esta Porter, joining the albert initiative has
inspired each Evolutions facility to become more environmentally
conscious.
Starting small with aims of a much greener future, Bristol has begun with
the basics. It has started by initiating changes such as buying supplies in bulk to cut down on unnecessary packaging,
replenishing stationery cupboards with pencils instead of plastic biros, and only using air-conditioning in business-
critical areas. London sites have swapped out plastic cups to Evos-branded pint glasses, is working towards paperless
minutes in meetings and uses motion sensor lights in edit suites. It is by these small adjustments, change by change,
that Evolutions intends to snowball into a more sustainable company. As a proud BAFTA albert affiliate, we are excited
to be contributing to the industry’s green future as a whole!
Staff Moves and More
Since the last edition of the Beagle we have welcomed some new faces to our Bristol facility:
Lisa Williams joined the bookings team.
Toby Weller joined us as Chief Engineer and has been working his technical magic across the facility. He has
brought in his deputy Clayton “CJ” Fulmar, who is playing a strong second in command role keeping the facility
moving.
Sophie Kane joined the Ops team adding a great calmness and strength.
Dominic Grose moves from the Bristol running team into the Data Assistant role
Barnaby Malins just promoted into the Edit Support team from Data.
Parsifal Elviro is moving from the Bristol running team into the Edit Support team on a 6 month secondment.
Mark Owen had made the journey home and is now in position in his native Bristol.
5
Explorer Corner...
No Streams, No Glory—By Elliot Leigh
Between September and October last year 4 men were flown out
to Chile, grizzled perfect specimens with the aim to show the
world what it is like to be part of the SAS. At the same time 4 boys
from Evolutions went out to help film them doing this. These
boys were Jack Douglas, Ellis Frodsham, Juan Menchana, and me.
SAS: Who Dares Wins is a show by Minnow Films where 4 Ex-
Special Forces soldiers put recruits through a recreation of the
SAS selection process. Series 4 was filmed last year in Chile where
the temperatures can be 20°c in the day and drop to -4°c at night.
It can be sunny one day and snowing the next.
The rig ran smoothly with plenty of time to appreciate the sights, like glamorous glaciers, wonderful waterfalls and luxurious lakes
all surrounded by snow-topped mountains within walking distance of camp. The location was like something out of Narnia only
with more screaming drill sergeants and less magical wardrobes.
There was still plenty to do with up to 20 cards coming in a night, 10 streams continuously recording with Cinegy media for the
loggers and trying to keep up with all the action that unfolded every day on and off site. We were very busy while we were out
there but not too busy that we weren’t able to enjoy Chile and go to places such as Santiago and El Morado.
The whole show was an incredible experience and showed us how much dedicated organisation goes into a rig. We were lucky
enough to experience how naturally beautiful and culturally enriching Chile was thanks to the locals who were more than happy to
help us on any occasion, plus Juan spoke Spanish which meant not having
The Island— By Team Evos to worry about ordering meals via google translate.
Imagine flying 11 hours across the world and setting foot in Panama, a country where the skyscrapers tower over you at every stop
at the traffic lights. Then imagine getting on a ferry and seeing those unmistakable skyscrapers disappear over the horizon. It then
dawns on you just how remote the tiny little island of Contadora truly is.
So tiny in fact, that the island doesn’t have a pier. So now imagine 50 members of crew (camera bags and suitcases included) having
to climb off the ferry into a rickety fishing boat to be taken ashore. Everyone and everything made onto dry land and we were met by
the smiling and tanned faces of various members of Shine who had been here since January 2nd. A short (very short) buggy journey
later and we arrived at The Point, our work/home for the next month.
The Point is an interesting place. The first week or so we battled with having no running tap water, some thought-provoking dinner
choices, multiple jellyfish stings and very nasty bug that claimed a large percentage of the crew. But the show went on, building a
fully functioning server room, machine room, 3 edits and the loggers room - it was just a stone's throw from the comforts of Soho.
Team Evos were responsible for the wrangling, ingesting and syncing of each day’s rushes. Not a tall order - until the GoPro had no
timecode, which was quite often as not many civilians know or care about that kind of thing. But each day we battled through the
challenge. We were also met with the challenge of the London edits
starting much earlier than previous years. Jack was lucky enough to be
tasked with getting the rushes back safe and dry in time for the edit.
Days off were spent exploring the island, and some of us getting
extremely sunburnt (cough... Jamie). Sam was brave enough to kayak
to a nearby island, which according to him was “way further than it
looks”. Juan’s days were spent teaching us very useful Spanish words
such as ‘Hombre fantasma’ (ghost man, i.e. Jamie). And Jamie
celebrated his 24th birthday in true Panamanian style, drinking Abuelo
in Mangitos (the local rum in the only bar on the island).
And though we won’t miss the food, it’s going to be hard coming back
to London. We will all certainly miss the 30 degree heat every day,
being able to go for a swim at lunch and most of all working in such
close quarters with the absolute best team we could have asked for.
Pictured: Juan Menchaca, Natalie Keeney, Jack Douglas, Sam
McGowan & Jamie Moulds
6
News from London...
"LAD ALERT, B-TRAIN MAKES SURPRISE DETOUR THROUGH
LONDON EVOS" —By Josh Phrakhun & George Holland
With Christmas around the corner, Thomas Taylor's annual Cello
performance was fast approaching and the London Data team didn't think
December could possibly get any better. Until… a special someone,
dressed in red and carrying a sack of LTO's came knocking on our door.
Thursday the 6th marked the day that Bristol's own wrangler & librarian,
Barnaby Mallins, would plant a firm footprint on Soho.
Equipped with a pen, pad and can-do attitude, Mallins was here to learn
everything xendata related and proved to the team he was more than up
to the task. Navigating his way through the xendata management console,
Bristol's home-grown talent was writing LTOs like they were going out of
fashion. "Holy smokes, check out the speed on that!"
The fun didn't just stop there. After working up quite the appetite Barney went on to cement his
position amongst the elite team of wranglers as he was christened with the humble Jumbo Eats…
Upon catching sight of the falafel faourz wrap for the first time, he exclaimed "Wow, check the size
of that puppy!"
Barney stole our entire teams’ heart. He will always remain, the wrangler that arrived with a bag of
LTO's, but left with a bag of memories.
Since this visit, Barnaby has gone on to be promoted from Data to the Ops department. Congratulations!
Pride Of Britain—By Rachel Pitcher
This year’s Pride of Britain project came and went like a whirlwind, taking over most of Sheraton Street for 3 weeks and 4
weekends across October/early November. Being new to the Evolutions team, this was a great project for me to get to know
the Sheraton Street crew - most of whom I hadn’t worked with much before that point having been based at Great Pulteney
since I started.
The Pride of Britain Awards is always fast turnaround, high pressured and very demanding for all those involved. They
offlined for 2 weeks continuously to cut their VTs which then went through a Symphony grade, online and full mix. We
delivered via tape to the Awards show literally on the day of the ceremony, so we cut it rather fine! The Awards were recorded
on the Monday evening and we received the media back at Evos at approximately midnight. To say we needed ‘all hands-on
deck’ that night is an understatement as it was imperative everything was prepped and available for the offline to continue
editing first thing Tuesday. The offlines then ran for the rest of the week to edit the main show, final post over the weekend
and deliver in time for TX.
Throughout the entire process, I had a tremendously strong team supporting me. The creatives worked tirelessly to ensure the
Execs remained happy and calm as well as meeting the tight deadlines. The MCR and Operations department were hard
working, flexible and extremely helpful in ensuring the production’s ever-changing schedules and the channel’s moving goal
posts were always met with a ‘yes, we can accommodate’ rather than ‘this is crazy’ which is what we were really thinking.
We received great feedback from ITV and Shiver who were both pleased with everything we achieved throughout those tough
few weeks. We were thrown a few curve balls along the way, but everyone coped and adapted remarkably well. I have
worked on fast turnaround jobs before so I am no stranger to the set up but what proved to be the most challenging were the
long days and having to work weekends. Aside from that though there are many positives to a job like this. The joy of working
on a project such as Pride of Britain is that it allows you to build lasting relationships with both the production team as well as
our own staff. The expression ‘we’re all in it together’, excuse the cliché, really rings true.
For all her late nights, enthusiasm, professionalism and dedication, Rachel won Employee of the Month for her work on Pride
of Britain. Congratulations again Rachel!
7
Staff Events... By Claire Pritchard
I think we can all agree the most frightening part of the quiz was
the Paddy/Sixth Sense mash up. He might see dead people, but we’ll all
be seeing this in our nightmares. Or dreams. Depending on what you’re
into. Either way, you’re welcome. This may seem like a long time ago
now, so for those who need it, here is a quick recap.
As everyone settled in and I forcibly extracted team names, Simon began
with the traditional round of ‘Head or Hips’. After a tense bout of
questions, we were left with just four players: Stine, Joe, Ryan and Marie.
Brought to the front for all to witness and eyes closed to ensure fair play,
they battled it out until Stine clinched the victory on the question ‘is two a
prime number?’ (spoiler, it is), winning the first bottle of champagne. And
with that, the quiz truly began.
General Knowledge, 2018 So Far, the infamous Face in a Hole round. A
feeding frenzy of pizzas followed quickly by the General Ignorance
Geography Round and then onto The World Cup. As Owen said when
asked why he didn’t win, ‘there were a lot of sports questions.’ We came
to the final round with a musical bang. Karine and Emily’s voices coming
through particularly clearly when the Dawson’s Creek theme tune filled
the room. The Pokémon intro was something else.
After the cheaters were wheedled out (Zweck) and the points were counted, the misleadingly named ‘I’m Leavin At 9’
won the quiz and ultimately the magnum of champagne. In true victory style it was polished off right there and then.
The Christmas do saw everyone turn up to party like it was the 1980’s. A feast of curry, LED tables , Magnum P.I., Doc
Brown, Space Invaders, shimmering foil curtains, prom style portraits, Madonnas, mullets and two Adam Ants. Bravely
rocking a neon-pink leotard and lime-green sweatbands, Tiona took the champagne prize for best dressed. The photo
gallery captures the night’s decent into happy drunken chaos. And although that marked the end of year for parties at
Evos, the photos will last forever. Which leads me nicely onto the below... (sorry Joe and Raniero!)
Caption Competition
Top three are numbered, well done Guilhem !
1) It was at this moment Raniero knew he wouldn't
go back home alone — Guilhem Coulibaly
2) ‘Joe that’s nothing, check out this third one…. It’s
the source of all my powers’ — Sarah Zweck
3) “Yes Raniero, you too could have sensitive nips
like these if you become a homeowner” — Ryan
Alborough
Harrison tries to hide the fact it was him that stole
Raniero's nipples—Eoin Brogan
The auditions for Stan and Laurel sequel fail to
impress Run DMC fans—Dave McGrath
NOT COOL!!!! — Joe Harrison
Joe: “This chain is chafing my nipples!”
Raniero: “Well my manly Italian nipples are just fine. See take a look!”
Joe: “Wait! Crap someone’s watching us!” — Stephen Morrison
Santa's new look was a bit of a shock—Nick Adams
When Dave and Terry are down the booza and they realise Brexit is in full swing and definitely happening—
George Marsella
@evolutions_tv @Evolutions _TV Evolutions Post Production 8
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