Photo, Design and Media
Find out why London post-production house Absolute Post selected EIZO as their monitor partner.
Absolute Post are an award-winning London based post-production company with a rich and varied history working on Film, TV, Commercials and Music Videos, over their 20-year history. In early 2024 Absolute moved into the new facility, bringing together their edit, colour, VFX, CGI and sound departments under one roof. We caught up with Tom Spenceley, Absolute Post’s Chief Engineer, about their decision to equip all their workstations with EIZO ColorEdge monitors.
Absolute ENVY
Absolute Post moved into their brand-new facility, after they were purchased by ENVY in 2022. Tom provides an introduction to Absolute and his time at the company, “Absolute is an end-to-end post-production facility headquartered in Fitzrovia, London, founded in 2004. When I started at Absolute in 2010, we were a relatively small team undertaking visual effects work pretty much exclusively for TV commercials and music promos alongside our sister company, Blind Pig, who covered animation and motion graphics. We’ve since grown to around 100 full-time staff and a constantly shifting roster of freelance artists. While we still produce work for many commercials, we’re also very busy these days with film and scripted TV work, while Blind Pig are also frequently busy producing fantastic, forced-perspective work for display at, for example, Piccadilly Circus [London] and making forays into AI artistry.”
In the London post-production space there is often movement between companies. Tom explains why after nearly 15-years he is still at Absolute Post, Tom explains, “It’s been such a joy to be here, and to work with so many talented people throughout that time. Absolute as a team has always been so heavily focused on getting the right result, no matter what it takes, which I think is very admirable.” That attention to detail and teamwork is the reason why Absolute Post have retained both staff and customers, which is one of the many reasons why ENVY looked to purchase Absolute Post.
Absolute was purchased by ENVY, Tom provides some insight as to changes and impact of the take-over, “There have been very tangible things that changed very quickly. We moved into one of ENVY’s buildings in Fitzrovia, from our original home in Poland Street, Soho; so that was quite a significant change. We also undertook a comprehensive, top-to-bottom technical refresh at the same time.
But I think ENVY, Absolute, and Blind Pig, complement each other very well so, largely, now we operate much as we used to, with independence, we do the same kind of work as we ever did and to the same high quality.”
Like all post-houses you are only as good as your last project. A large number of elements need to come together for any post-house to be successful in the competitive London post-house landscape everything from staff, environment and tools. Tom and the Absolute management team selected EIZO ColorEdge monitors as the choice within the Absolute creative toolbox.
Pushing the Boundaries
Post-production is very much about pushing the boundaries, as there is always a desire for creatives to deliver something that is new and different. Tom explains the Absolute team balance the importance of technical and artistic continuity, “Post-production is where creativity and technology converge. Choosing the right tool for the task is important here. We aim to provide advanced features where they’re needed, but only where they’re needed, allowing us to undertake highly creative work while delivering value-for-money. Continuity is very important, whether that’s while moving room-to-room, or from one part of the process to another, or even revisiting a job from the past.
We depend on EIZO now. Whether someone has come to Absolute just for colour grading, or whether they’re here for the full end-to-end experience, they’ll be seeing EIZO displays throughout.
We’ve selected four primary models that we’ve chosen for specific purposes. We have some seventy ColorEdge CS2731 displays which we use as desktop UI monitors. We run HP Anywhere throughout the facility, so regardless of which workstation someone is working on, or where they are in the building, they’ll be they’ll be looking at one or more CS2731’s.
We’ve chosen the CG2700X as our primary reference monitor in our compositing suites, the CG319X for our QC and MCR positions and we have the EIZO PROMINENCE CG3146 in our grading suites.”
We stop Tom at this point and ask what an MCR is Tom goes on to explain, “So MCR is a bit of an anachronistic term these days. It’s a Machine (or Master) Control Room. They’re basically the guardians of what comes into the building and what leaves the building. So, they’ll be involved with ingest of incoming material, client review deliveries, quality control throughout the post-production workflow and are responsible for the technical quality of final deliverables for broadcast on all platforms. They also handle all of our data wrangling from shoots, so they’ll be wrangling to conform all material destined for suites. The nature and type of machine used in a modern MCR department has evolved from the mechanical over the years, but they are still, ultimately, dependent on the eyeball viewing a consistent, trustworthy, quality monitor as the last check before transmission.” Again, reiterating the importance of consistency within the post-production, and the workflow that all post-production facilities will go through to ensure the quality of the final output.
While Absolute were historically an EIZO user prior to them becoming part of the ENVY group, this was a complete technical refresh and an opportunity for the Absolute team to start with a blank piece of paper in terms of their monitor real-estate, and what were the right tools for the Absolute toolbox. Quite candidly Tom tells us how EIZO and ColorNavigator fitted into the decision making process, “We certainly evaluated a few other monitors when we were looking at our refresh, but nothing really stood up to the panel uniformity of EIZO thanks to DUE (Digital Uniformity Equaliser) technology, nor the ease-of-use and excellent results of calibration through ColorNavigator. It just makes proper colour control so much easier than some competing models. There were some models we were evaluating as UI displays for our users, of which we have about 70, where if we wanted to get a relatively uniform result, we needed to do a 9- or potentially 16-point calibration routine on each display. Using a somewhat less efficient piece of software as well. The workload involved in that was just so extreme that it couldn’t compete. So, we use ColorNavigator throughout.
Where we have CG319X and CG2700X displays, we have them auto calibrate on a schedule. We’re a bit more manual with the CS2731’s, but it matters slightly less there for us. For our superstar PROMINENCE CG3146 displays we tend to leave it to the experts, and we get an external specialist in. I’d sooner leave those to someone with even better tools.” So even the smallest detail Absolute Post will make sure that they work with a specialist service provider to ensure that they are getting the best out of their equipment.
Tom continues, “Primarily it’s the hardware colour control and calibration, high panel uniformity and supreme reliability. When I started here, Autodesk were shipping turnkey Flame systems with EIZO ColorEdge-series displays. That was certainly the case for our Flame suites, which were very much static solutions, and you’d expect to see EIZO, while the rest of the facility dealt with a mix of lower-end and underperforming display technology.
Our experience with older ColorEdge displays led us to a point where we felt like it was time to extend that kind of uniformity and control to the rest of the facility. As we took on more and bigger CG-heavy projects, we wanted to be more flexible about the way we worked. We’d adopted Teradici PCoIP [now HP Anyware] remote desktop technology throughout the facility. Where previously our Flame operators and clients would be guaranteed to be sat in a Flame suite with EIZO monitors, they could now be anywhere in the building. Conversely, a Flame suite might (for a given project) want to house artists from all sorts of disciplines. These factors led us, over time, to phase out other displays in preference of EIZO.
More recently, we realised this properly in our last top-to-bottom technology refresh. As a part of that, we replaced every last monitor in our facility with new, carefully selected EIZO models.
Some of the work we undertake will only really touch the colour grading suites before it leaves the building. On the other end of the scale are projects that will involve large teams of people using Maya, Houdini and Cinema 4D, with compositing in Nuke, After Effects and Flame. Regardless of the nature and scale of a project, or the stage it’s at, it’ll be viewed on a ColorEdge monitor. Consistency is important to us, at all levels.” EIZO’s technology from the launch of the first ColorEdge models has been about providing creatives with the best possible tool to do their job, and consistency is key. Consistency comes in many forms, at EIZO we look at the uniformity of the panel, ensuring that the colour is uniform across the screen. We then look to ensure that the tolerances between units. Within the CG-range of ColorEdge we ensure colour is displayed correctly through our built-in hardware calibration, which can link through to the ColorNavigator Network software, which closes the loop by ensuring consistency amongst every monitor linked to the companies system.
Optimising the workflow
When workflow is a huge part of your business in a technical field like post-production, then your tools are critical to that workflow. Tom provides some insight as to the consideration process that he went through with the Absolute team when making their final decision, “You do get what you pay for. With EIZO there is excellent consistency both within a panel and display-to-display. You get a certainty with them that I don’t think you’re going to get with cheaper products. The 5-year warranty demonstrates their reliability.
We’ve got the CG319X and the PROMINENCE where we need full DCI 4K resolution, we’ve got the PROMINENCE where we need HDR at 1000 NITs, we’ve got these and the CG2700X where we want self-calibration, and we’ve got the CS2731 where we need colour control while being cost-effective. There is plenty of scope within the ColorEdge range to choose the right tool for the job, so you can make sure that you’re buying the features you need for the places you need them.”
Working with facilities like Absolute Post is more than just being a supplier of monitors, with an integrated solution including ColorNavigator will ensure their EIZO monitor performs consistently on every project, day in, day out.
Should Tom and the Absolute Post team have any issues with their monitors, they have the added confidence that they will be covered by the comprehensive 5-year warranty, plus local customer service and support team. If the worst comes to the worst there are also local engineers on hand to resolve any issues as quickly as possible.
