Sundance: Representation matters, today more than ever

IBC

Two new films screened at Sundance offer powerful takes on Latino American and Chicano culture as minority communities face attack in the U.S.

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First IBC365 goes behind the scenes on autobiographical animation TheyDream then talks to the editor of American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez.

Every film is personal to greater or lesser degree for its principal filmmakers but few dare to open up their family’s love and grief so intimately as William David Caballero.

His feature TheyDream builds on 20 years of documenting his family and makes creative use of animation styles to bring scenes of his late father back to life. 

Lauded for “fully exploring multiple filmmaking techniques blending craft and emotion” and for its “brutal honesty” TheyDream won a Special Jury Award for Creative Expression at Sundance earlier this year.

“I grew up in a trailer in my grandmother’s backyard in rural North Carolina,” Caballero explains. “My family is Puerto Rican, and I was born in New York City, where there’s a much larger Latino presence. Growing up, I always felt a sense of alienation, disconnected from American society, and especially from media.”

While studying fine art and cinema at the Pratt Institute then New York University he made autobiographical feature American Dreams Deferred which set the tone for a singular visual language rooted in tactile set-building and intergenerational storytelling.

“I didn’t see many authentic representations of people of colour, or at least ones portrayed in a positive light. I realised that I wasn’t seeing stories that reflected people like me, and I felt that I could be a missing link — a role model for a quirky, diverse younger generation of filmmakers.”

That feeling really crystallised in college, when a professor told Caballero that no one would ever be interested in a documentary about his family. “In a way, that was the final ‘no; I was going to accept. I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

In the 15 years since Caballero has been telling stories about his family and about myself. “For me, it was a way to stay creative when I went home. I’m someone who always needs to be working on a project. My first feature was almost like a student project about my family, very cinéma vérité. I was holding the camera and recording constantly.”

In 2015 he created Gran'Pa Knows Best using 3D-printed miniature recreations of his grandfather and “hilarious, hysterical voicemail messages” from his grandfather that his nephew had saved. It ran for two seasons on HBO.

“That was when I realised: I should just keep recording and capturing these moments. Sometimes I’d have deeper conversations with my parents about their lives; other times I’d just collect quirky, mundane audio and transform it into something magical.”

The short Victor & Isolina, documented his grandparents’ separation through recorded dialogue and screened at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and at the Museum of Modern Art (Documentary Fortnight). A follow-up short Chilly and Milly, explored the impact of his father’s kidney failure on his parents.

TheyDream which he began in 2020 builds on this work and gave him more time to tell a story that unfolds over different periods in his family history.

A Creative Capital award of $50,000 in 2021 enabled him to start production. “Originally, I wanted everything to be 3D printed (all the figures as physical objects) but the cost of modelling, printing, and painting just wasn’t feasible yet. Instead, I hired animators with very specific styles and gave them a lot of creative freedom, while I still storyboarded everything.”

The film’s animation styles ranges from 2D cartoon to graphic-novel–style illustrations, 3D felt animation, and rotoscoping.  The one consistent element throughout is miniature.

“We created miniature sets for the characters to inhabit, and that became a central visual theme,” he says. “I wanted to combine 3D and 2D with more tactile miniature filmmaking, because I think the miniature work makes people pick up the couch or pick up the characters. It makes the characters feel alive.”

In the early stages, when he didn't have the money to hire a miniaturist, he AI-generated dollhouse backgrounds.  Once they received more funding from public media like ITVS and Latino Public Broadcasting Cabellero he removed them all.

“Instead, I showed the backgrounds to my miniaturist as references and said, ‘I want this made real, and I want it to look even better.’ I also continued to use AI in other ways such as summarising notes, so I could focus more on creativity. But the heart of the film really comes from a wide range of human collaborators.

Many of the animators were Puerto Rican or Latino, he says. “Some were queer, and more than half were women or female-identifying. Each animator brought something brilliant and personal to their scenes.”

He used Adobe tools almost exclusively: Photoshop for image creation, After Effects throughout the project, and Premiere for editing.  3D animators used Blender and Unreal. EbSynth was used for rotoscoping.

“I was the main compositor, though a couple of people helped with specific scenes. I was also the sole editor until the very end, when I brought in an assistant editor to help clean things up.

“Near the end of the process, I used Adobe’s AI features to generate a few extra seconds of footage when animations ended too abruptly. It was very minimal, maybe three times total, but those extra two seconds of padding really helped smooth things out.

“I tend to approach projects with a kind of ‘rule of thirds.’ One third of the work uses techniques I already know well. Another third involves things that are more challenging but achievable with the right collaborators. And the final third is stuff I have no idea how to do — things that scare me in a good way, because I know I’ll learn from them. And because this film is very meta and self-referential, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It also captures the creative process itself.”

Caballero’s mother Milly appears in the film through rotoscoped performances despite having no prior filmmaking experience.

“There’s a moment in the film where I ask her if she wants to help rotoscope animations based on my grandmother’s voicemails. I genuinely didn’t know how she’d react. I was prepared for her to say ‘no’, and to document that, because in documentaries you never know what will happen next. But she completely embraced it. She embodied my grandmother perfectly, even though she’d never acted before.”

Beyond that, we see them in the film working together on other crafts and homages. “Her involvement wasn’t about learning technical skills,” says Caballero. “It was about transformation — turning someone from a passive consumer of media into a creator. It became a way for her to process grief, move beyond it, and heal. Ultimately, that’s what I hope the film does for viewers as well.”

Art is a powerful form of resistance

While TheyDream offers a personal account of Latino American heritage, Mexican American culture is celebrated in a new documentary chronicling the life and career of Chicano playwright and film director Luis Valdez.

His name may be unfamiliar but American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez argues that his artistic reputation has been buried over the years by a prejudicial media. 

“Even in the United States he’s not as well-known as he should be,” says editor Daniel Chávez Ontiveros. “One of the main reasons we made this film was to highlight how important he is as the godfather of Chicano theatre and Chicano filmmaking.”

Valdez is perhaps best known for directing 1987 musical biopic La Bamba starring Lou Diamond Phillips which remains the most successful Latino movie of all time.

Yet aside from a TV movie a decade later, Valdez never directed in Hollywood again.
“It wasn’t that he lacked the drive. He continued writing scripts and directing theatre. It wasn’t a lack of vision or ambition. It was a lack of access,” says Chávez.

“The doors in Hollywood weren’t open for filmmakers of colour in the same way at that time — and to some extent, that’s still true today. It’s sad, because he could have told so many more Mexican-American stories on a larger scale.”

Director David Alvarado is Mexican-American and Mexico City born Chávez has lived in the U.S for a decade and became a U.S. citizen a couple of years ago. He says he hasn’t experienced discrimination directly, but feels the fear that can come with being a minority in another country.

“My five-year-old son was born here. One of my biggest motivations for working on this film was not wanting my son to grow up feeling like a second-class citizen. We are here. We’ve been here for centuries. We deserve to be valued and respected.”

The production drew on over 200 hours of archival footage including 80,000 feet of Valdez’ work sitting undeveloped in film cans. Without the financial support of the University of California in developing and scanning much of that history could have been lost.

“We structured the film around two threads: the archival material telling the historical story, and contemporary interviews with Luis, his friends, and his family reflecting on it.”

Director Taylor Hackford who produced La Bamba and actor Lou Diamond Phillips are among those interviewed. The film is narrated by veteran actor Edward James Olmos (Blade Runner) who gained his break thanks to Valdez. 

Chávez cuts all his films in Adobe Premiere and for this project relied on the software’s Productions feature to organise the material into smaller sub-projects.

“When you’re dealing with huge amounts of media, rendering and saving can take time — and when you’re on deadline, minutes matter. I was in the Bay Area, David was in Brooklyn, and our assistant editor, Claudia Ramírez, was in Los Angeles. Using Productions, we could work remotely and see each other’s changes almost instantly. It allowed for a very collaborative and creative process.”

Chávez himself met Valdez, now 85, on several occasions during the interview process, a rough cut screening and at the Sundance premiere. A former union activist, Valdez greatest legacy is likely the founding of El Teatro Campesino in the mid-1960s in California producing protest plays in support of local farmers.

“What Luis often said during our Q&As is that art is a powerful form of resistance,” Chávez says. “That art builds bridges and breaks walls. That’s especially important at a time when arts funding is being reduced and some organisations are being shut down. This film aims to speak not only to Mexican-American communities but also to people who may not know that experience. Whether someone is Mexican-American, born here, or an immigrant who recently arrived, representation matters.”

Crafting the Contenders: Kostas Theodosiou

 Interview and words for Sohonet

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For more than four decades, Kostas Theodosiou has been shaping the final image of major motion pictures from his grading suite at FotoKem. From the days of film timers and Hazeltine color analyzers to modern HDR workflows and large-format IMAX film-outs, his career spans the full evolution of motion picture finishing. Yet his philosophy remains rooted in the discipline of traditional film timing: red, green, blue, and density.

“We’re here to make sure that the vision of the director and cinematographer is delivered to screen,” he says simply. “That’s the job.”

On over 500 titles, spanning photochemical and digital eras, Theodosiou has collaborated with some of the film industry’s most talented filmmakers including Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler along with cinematographers Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, Autumn Durald Arkapaw ASC and Wally Pfister ASC. His many credits include Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight, Sinners and Jonathan Nolan’s streaming series Fallout. His remastering titles include such classics as Patton, the 1930’s All Quiet on The Western Front, and Steven Spielberg’s first four Indiana Jones movies, Saving Private Ryan, The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun.

This accumulated knowledge stems from an early passion for photography. But when he arrived in America in the 1980s he didn’t know how to channel this into a career.

Finding the craft

“Fortunately, an opportunity at FotoKem opened up,” he reflects. “I started at the very bottom — assembling film, cleaning negative, putting on leaders.” In the lab at FotoKem, the trainee found himself surrounded by the photochemical process.

“I spent as much time as I could watching the film timers work. You had to understand the stock, the filters, and how the negative would translate through the full chain from negative to interpositive, interpositive to internegative, and then to print. Every time film goes through a photochemical generation, light and density change. You had to anticipate that.”

‍Film timing to telecine

Theodosiou remembers when FotoKem took possession of its first telecine - a Rank Cintel Mark II. While these giant, expensive machines were hugely limited relative to today’s systems, Theodosiou was fascinated by the idea of seeing results instantly rather than waiting for film processing.

“You had joysticks for RGB correction, very little power, and everything was transferred directly from negative. If you tried to grade from an interpositive or print, the telecine simply didn’t have enough dynamic range to produce a strong image. Nonetheless the fundamentals were identical. You could see how electronic color correction translated from traditional film timing principles.”

That core philosophy holds for every iteration of color technology since. Even on current projects, Theodosiou starts with primaries - just like printer lights.

“In the early digital days, you’d do primary correction in telecine and then send the material to a separate system like a Quantel or Flame for visual effects. The grading systems didn’t have the power to do much more.

“With the arrival of software-based systems everything opened up. Suddenly, there was no begging for an extra power window or defocus board. You could layer corrections, build mattes, refine highlights, and integrate effects in a single environment.”

‍Respect the negative

One of the most impressive aspects of modern software grading, he explains, is the ability to fine-tune color responses to match historical print stocks.

“When restoring films from the 1960s, ’70s, or ’80s, you often don’t have a reference. You’re working from logarithmic scans of the negative and you have to build a proper lookup table (LUT) that emulates the print stock used at the time to approximate what was originally seen in theaters. Understanding how vintage stocks behaved - their contrast curves, color biases, and density roll-offs — is essential to achieving authenticity.”

Christopher Nolan’s workflow presents a different kind of rigor. The colorist first worked with the director on Memento then Insomnia, Inception, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and Oppenheimer.

Theodosiou notes “Film is the Bible,” for Nolan. “He cuts original negative and the digital grade must match the photochemical result precisely.”

Theodosiou uses a 70mm projector to run a film print alongside the digital image in a butterfly split-screen comparison. First, he performs a full printer-light pass. Then the film print is projected and matched shot-for-shot in digital. Finally, trims are applied.

For Oppenheimer, he also created both black-and-white and color imagery that matched seamlessly across different stocks and formats.

“It’s a heavy workflow. But I want the director to know that what they see digitally will look the same in IMAX. The pipeline is built to match the exact elements.”

‍Instinctual collaboration

While technical knowledge runs deep, the reputation of a colorist and their ability to score repeat business, depends equally on interpersonal skill.

Over the years, Theodosiou has built long-standing relationships with DPs and directors — some from independent films like Nolan who went on to create major studio features.

“I’ve worked with many cinematographers at the start of their careers on indie films, music videos, and commercials. That builds an understanding and later, when they come into the room, I often already understand their visual language,” he shares.

“My role is to reproduce their vision and to offer ideas that push beyond what they may have thought possible. At all times, I protect the image from going too far. The goal is always to create something unique without breaking the integrity of what was captured.”

‍The complex workflow for Sinners

Among his latest collaborations is the multi-award winning and record-setting Oscar nominated Sinners. Written and directed by Ryan Coogler and lensed by Autumn Durald Arkapaw ASC the workflow for the Warner Bros. picture was particularly complex.

Sinners used dual formats — 65mm 5-perf and 15-perf IMAX — with deliverables that included IMAX film prints, digital cinema, and Dolby Vision HDR.

“We had to think about the end from the beginning,” Theodosiou explains. “When I know a film is going back out to film, I stay as true as possible to traditional film timing. The majority of the correction is printer lights.”

He had previously worked with Durald Arkapaw on The Last Showgirl (directed by Gia Coppola) which was shot on 16mm. Now, working with FotoKem color scientist Joseph Slomka, Theodosiou developed a custom LUT during camera tests. After reviewing the first dailies, they refined it further in the DI.

“Our goal was naturalism. Ryan and Autumn wanted to preserve the warm interior lighting and maintain smoke and atmospheric depth. I took care to avoid excessive contrast or unnecessary secondary keys.”

Because the two formats had to be combined — including sequences that expanded vertically in IMAX — the final master was recorded out to a new negative. This required precise testing: digital grade to film-out, projected and reviewed, then trimmed again to ensure seamless translation.

“Autumn wanted to be brave with darkness and underexposure. The quality of the black level was important to her, as were the various skin tones of the diverse cast, which she wanted to look radiant and have depth.”

‍Recognition of the craft

Despite being the final stop in the image pipeline, colorists have historically received little public recognition.

“For years, there wasn’t even a colorist category on IMDb. We were listed under editorial or visual effects.”

There is a groundswell of belief that the craft deserves awards recognition comparable to sound mixing, VFX or cinematography.“ We’re the last stop before the film goes out into the world. We’re the ones massaging the image, making sure it’s seamless from beginning to end.

“Every project is custom,” Theodosiou says. “That includes episodic television or a three-hour movie shot in multiple formats or with multiple cameras. Especially with digital, when every camera under the sun can do different things, it is up to the colorist to devise a recipe that will unify them all. We may be using two Kodak color stocks as we did on Sinners but they are different stock and they have to match.”

Back in the era of telecine, the profession was tiny, with maybe 3,000 color graders worldwide. Today, software tools have democratized the process and there are many online tutorials available to demystify the craft but mastery remains rare.

After forty years at FotoKem, from cleaning negative to grading major studio features, Kostas Theodosiou remains — at heart — a film timer. Only now, his printer lights exist inside a far more powerful box.

 

Fox Sports to Deliver Vertical Coverage of FIFA World Cup with AWS Elemental Inference

Streaming Media

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AWS is the latest vendor to offer a solution to reformatting and syndicating vertical video for live sports as rights holders look to capitalize on the mobile first boom.

Developed over 18 months with beta customers NBC Sports and Fox Sports the ambition goes beyond reformatting highlights for vertical viewing but potentially live streaming whole games in the format.

AWS Elemental Inference is the first AI-powered service launched under its AWS Elemental video brand. Designed specifically for live workflows, the service promises to automatically generate vertical streams and highlight clips from horizontal broadcasts — without requiring changes at the venue or in the production truck.

“This is really about unlocking live,” explains Regina Rossi, Head of Product, AWS Media Services. “On-demand has been able to experiment with AI much more easily. Live has always been the harder problem because you need the right crop at the right moment, and you have to do it with low latency.”

Fox Sports trained the AI model behind AWS Inference on its content over months to refine how the horizontal host feed was framed and cut into vertical highlights.

“The first time we put it through, it was a little choppy, a little rough,” explains Ricardo Perez-Selsky, Sr. Director, Digital Production Operations, Fox Sports. “But by the second and third time, you could see that machine learning taking place. It was improving over time.”

LIV Golf highlights from Fox on TikTok are already being produced through Inference. This weekend the first of 18 IndCar races kicks off with the Grand Prix in St. Petersburg featuring a mobile  vertical exclusive feed from onboard cameras parsed through Inference. Other sports properties to get the vertical treatment include World Baseball Classic beginning next month and then this summer all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup broadcast by Fox.

“For something like the World Cup, you’re talking about 20 cameras on the pitch,” he says. “Through AWS tools, I can utilize essentially a world feed to pull off vertical clips.”

Business rationale

Fox Sports identified that roughly 90% of its digital content was being consumed in vertical formats but vertical video is not treated as a premium upsell. Instead, Fox is leaning into what Perez-Selsky calls an “always-on” strategy.

“If you follow us on TikTok or Instagram, our accounts are live — either with live programming, highlight reels, or evergreen content. Highlights are about reach. Expanding our audience.”

For tentpoles like the World Baseball Classic or FIFA World Cup, Fox plans to offer free previews.

“We might stream the first half-inning for free. Or the first few minutes of every match. It’s about meeting audiences where they are and getting them interested enough to tune in.”

Under the hood

Rossi explains that the system operates entirely in parallel with existing video workflows. “Broadcasters continue to produce live sports in traditional 16:9. At the encoding stage, using AWS Elemental MediaLive for live content or MediaConvert for on-demand the video feed is simultaneously processed by AI models in the cloud.

“The first layer performs multimodal understanding, analysing both video and audio to determine context. The system identifies key action areas and important moments. A second layer of models then generates usable metadata.

“For vertical output, that metadata consists of frame-by-frame X and Y coordinates that define the optimal crop. Those coordinates are passed back to the encoder, which outputs both horizontal and vertical streams simultaneously.”

Crucially, nothing changes in the stadium. “No cameras need to move. No framing changes are required,” she adds. “This runs in parallel with encoding, so from a production standpoint, the workflow remains very simple.”

Because the models must first understand the context before generating crops or clips, there is a six- to ten-second delay for vertical and clipping outputs. So far, AWS says customers have not seen this as problematic, particularly since vertical feeds are often distributed within mobile apps or social environments where slight asynchronicity is acceptable.

Saliency mapping

In early testing, AWS worked across a range of major properties. According to Rossi, sports such as basketball, soccer and American football translate well to vertical. But others - like tennis — present more complex challenges due to rapid lateral camera movement.

In those cases, AWS adjusts smoothing algorithms and tuning parameters so the crop tracks action without creating a jittery viewing experience. The system doesn’t simply follow a ball or object; it creates what Rossi describes as a “saliency map” of the action, balancing object detection with contextual awareness to maintain visual coherence.

Graphics remain an area of active development. When customers provide a clean feed, editorial teams can add vertically optimized graphics downstream. With ‘dirty’ feeds that include embedded horizontal graphics, AWS is exploring post-launch enhancements that could remove or replace those overlays with vertical-friendly versions.

Streaming full games

Short-form vertical clips are already commonplace across social platforms. That was the first use case AWS helped customers establish.

The more transformative capability is live vertical streaming of entire games without native vertical production. That’s largely uncharted territory at scale.

“Live streaming a full game vertically hasn’t really been done unless someone was already producing natively in vertical,” Rossi notes. “Being able to unlock that without doubling production costs is a huge win.”

Managed AI

Elemental Inference is delivered as a fully managed service. AWS handles continuous model evaluation and upgrades behind the scenes.

“One of the service’s biggest selling points may be what customers don’t have to manage,” Rossi says. “You shouldn’t need a team of AI specialists to use AI effectively. We abstract that entire cycle so customers can focus on their content. With AWS Elemental Inference, we’re making it easy for customers to add intelligence to video workflows and unlock more value from their content. That’s what we’re most excited about.”

Perez-Selsky adds, “This is a good model for how AWS likes to work with its clients. Together with Fox Sports, we’ve built something pretty spectacular for the industry.”

Colourist Tim Vincent on Only Murders in the Building

My interview / words for Sohonet

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Only Murders in the Building packs a lot into its 30 minute episodes. Balancing ratatat oneliners and slapstick with murder mystery and farcical storylines, while juggling multiple characters and locations, the show is not only a huge hit with audiences but clearly a lot of fun for its creators to work on.

“I’m genuinely a fan of the show, which makes working on it even more enjoyable,” reports Tim Vincent, the show’s Senior Colourist. “I feel invested in making sure the colour supports the emotion, the storytelling, and the many tonal layers, even if viewers don’t consciously notice what the grade is doing.”

The Hulu series created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman has just aired its fifth season on Disney+, with a sixth already in the works. The multi Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated and awarded comedy stars Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short, with several guest star appearances each season.

Vincent boarded the production in season two and has been the steward of the show’s colour ever since, first working with original cinematographer Chris Teague, ASC, and then with Kyle Wullschleger, who has led photography for the last three seasons.

“The main goal each season has been to maintain the core visual identity established in Season 1, while subtly adjusting the look to support the storytelling of each new season,” Vincent says. “For example, for Season 3’s musical theatre storyline, we pushed saturation, contrast, and brightness in those sequences so that everything connected to the stage world had a distinct feel. Then, when we returned to the everyday environments of our characters at the [grand New York apartment building] Arconia, we dropped back into the more grounded, familiar palette.”

Vincent describes the show’s base look as “naturalistic and film inspired,” with a slightly nostalgic quality. “It’s not ‘old-fashioned,’ but it definitely nods to classic film,” he says. “Wardrobe, production design, and lighting all play into that, and my job is to accentuate the colours that best support what the cinematographer, directors, and showrunners want to bring forward in the storytelling.”

The show LUT, originally established by Teague, is tweaked slightly each season to support the theme and emotional tone of the story.

“Starting in the third season, we shifted to a less aggressive onset LUT to speed up shooting. That meant more of the final look was shaped later during colour correction, with the team trusting that I’d take the material where it needed to go. From that base, I build a refined version of the show’s original film-inspired look for each season.”

Season 4 involved a number of different cameras—drone and surveillance footage, fixed cameras hidden around the main characters’ apartments, even dog cams—each with its own look, whether from the camera itself, the lenses, or intentional colour work. “A lot of grading went into differentiating those perspectives!” Vincent recalls.

Season 5’s storyline revolves around a trio of billionaires (played by Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, and Logan Lerman), and a significant portion of the show takes place in an old casino.

“We recreated that environment across multiple time periods, from black and white horse and carriage days through the 1930s, ’40s, ’70s, and up to the present. Each period required its own carefully crafted look.

“For the modern casino, we used contemporary saturation and colour but still grounded it in the show’s established contrast and grain structure. The surrounding environments were adjusted subtly so that nothing felt jarringly different, but viewers would still feel an emotional shift as we moved between eras and locations.”

To enhance the oldHollywood feel, Vincent adds and adjusts grain levels almost imperceptibly, depending on the storytelling. “For example, a darker, underexposed scene would naturally have more grain if it were shot on film, so we might boost it there. For rougher textures or documentary style moments, we have many variations, some emulating film stocks, others matching the Sony Venice (the show’s principal camera), and a few integrating actual film footage. Blending those looks is a very hands on, scene-by-scene process.”

With production based in New York and Vincent at his Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve station at Picture Shop in LA, he and Wullschleger have established a fluent remote workflow.

“Typically, I’ll do my first pass on an episode and send Kyle a color file for notes. Then we do a review with the showrunners and the rest of the creative team,” he explains.

“Before each season, we meet to discuss intentions, special episodes, and any new visual ideas. We talk through inspirations and ideas, and then I create several options. I’ll present those to the DP and showrunner, and together we decide which direction best fits the story.

“If there are unique episodes, I’ll test looks in advance and send them to Kyle and John so we’re aligned before we get into final grading. We’re also changing shooting locations for the next season (S6), so we’ll have new conversations about how that affects the look, though the core aesthetic will remain.”

Vincent won the HPA Outstanding Colour Grading Award for his work on Mad Men and was nominated for Amazon’s The Last Tycoon, among other drama credits that include Murder Bot and Dark Winds. He says he loves his continuing collaboration on Only Murders.

“Mysteries offer great opportunities for visual storytelling, and those can be accentuated with the colour correction. Editorial considerations might include when to reveal or obscure someone, whether to highlight or hide clues, and how much we guide or mislead the audience. All those micro decisions must be made all the time in every episode, and we always have to balance them against the show’s core tone so nothing feels out of place.”

The creative partnership between the colourist, cinematographers, and production team on the brilliantly visual Only Murders in the Building has been vital in shaping the show’s storytelling. Season six will see the investigative trio in London.

Sky ‘super bundle’ moves pay TV from linear to streaming

Streaming Media

Sky ‘super bundle’ moves pay TV from linear to streaming  

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UK pay TV service Sky’s announcement of a “world first” grouping of streamers under one belt could fire the starting gun on further super bundles – though this particular union does not embrace either Apple TV or Amazon.

Also, one of the streamers Sky is promoting as part of its new single subscription package is Hayu, owned by Sky parent Comcast, which offers a diet of reality TV and is ranked ‘bad’ by 700 UK users.

Nonetheless, with its seven year exclusive first-run rights for local distribution of HBO shows at an end, Sky has acted by incorporating Disney+ into its fold alongside Netflix and HBO Max. The multi-year distribution deal with Disney+ will also see Sky debut a dedicated Disney+ Cinema linear channel. Disney predict the agreement will Disney+'s reach in the UK and Ireland up by around 40%.

New customers will be able to receive HBO Max, Disney+ and Netflix (and Hayu) alongside Sky’s own channels and originals as part of Sky Ultimate TV from £24 ($27.50) a month. These are the with-ads tiers though customers could upgrade to premium versions.

"Sky's Super Bundle reflects what consumers have been wanting for some time now. After years of fragmentation, stacking subscriptions, juggling multiple bills and managing multiple logins, fatigue has set in,” says Giles Tongue, subscriptions expert at Bango.

Two-thirds (66%) of UK subscribers believe there are now too many subscription services, and 60% say they can't afford all the ones they want, according to Bango figures.

“Consumers want simplicity: one place to access, manage and pay for the services they value — and 55% say they want a single app to manage all of their subscriptions."

The move comes just days after Warner Bros. Discovery announced the long awaited launch date for HBO Max into the UK and Ireland. This will land March 26 for a monthly fee of £4.99 ($6.80) with ads or £9.99 ($13.60) standard ad-free.

“This is good timing on Sky's part,” says Tongue. “Growth in standalone streaming subscriptions is slowing, and competition is high. Bundling increases perceived value, strengthens the direct customer relationship and reduces subscriber turnover.”

Further Bango research indicates 63% of UK consumers already have a 'forever subscription' they always keep and never pause, meaning “Sky has a real opportunity to become that indispensable,” according to Tongue. “By aggregating major streaming platforms, Sky positions itself as the gateway to premium entertainment rather than just another broadband, TV or content provider.”

Sky says the combined line-up will be surfaced through the Sky OS on Sky Stream and Sky Glass, including personalised recommendations, cross-app Continue Watching (extended to Disney+ and Hayu), unified playlists and voice search across services. All customers of Sky streaming service NOW Entertainment will get free access to HBO Max at no extra cost, fully integrated within the NOW app.

Calling it “a new era for Sky” Sophia Ahmad, Chief Consumer Officer at Sky said, “Nowhere else offers this breadth of incredible entertainment in a fully integrated experience, with everything customers love watching side by side so viewers can jump from show to show with ease.”

Tongue believes Sky's mega bundle could fire the starting pistol for a new wave of 'super bundles' competing well beyond traditional pay TV.

“We're already seeing subscription marketplaces emerge across telcos, banks and other platforms, where TV streaming is packaged alongside gaming, music, fitness and more. The next phase of growth won't be driven by content alone, but by smarter distribution, bundling strategy, and subscription management.

“But delivering this sort of bundle package at such a scale is extremely operationally complex,” he warns. “Seamless partner onboarding, real-time entitlement and activation, unified billing and data insight are critical. Without the right infrastructure, bundles at this scale risk creating friction instead of loyalty.”

For WBD, the UK & Ireland launch of HBO Max marks “a major milestone as it completes its European rollout.” For Q3 2025, Warner Bros. Discovery reported 128 million streaming subscribers.

HBO Max combines content from HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television, DC Studios and Max Originals. This includes the new Harry Potter TV series available as a HBO Max exclusive, as will the new DC series Lanterns, which premieres this Summer.

In the UK, HBO Max will also become the streaming home of TNT Sports, giving subscribers access to live sports including Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Premiership Women’s Rugby and UFC.

WBD has a pre-existing distribution partnership with Amazon Prime Video in the UK which will see HBO Max plans available via Prime Video.

Sky Atlantic will continue to air upcoming seasons of HBO shows such as Euphoria, House of the Dragon and The White Lotus, alongside HBO Max.   

For more context, Bango provides subscription bundling management services through its Digital Vending Machine and says it has over 170 employees dedicated to subscription bundling.  

 

ISE2026: Thriving on an integrated identity

IBC

A show which mixes a vast number of different business areas shouldn’t work but it does because the underlying technology is finally integrated.

article here

ISE 2026 in Barcelona attracted a record 92000 attendees as the remarkable rise of professional AV shows no sign of slowing down. In the 22 years since the first ISE event drew 3500 people to Geneva, the Pro AV industry has professionalised and matured. Numbers this year were undoubtedly boosted by the permanent closure of 30-year old exhibition Prolight + Sound but what was notable about this edition of ISE was an industry confident of its identity.

This has not always been the case. ISE stands for Integrated Systems Europe, words which once stood for the technical and localised business of systems integration but which now carries more universal weight. A show which still mixes expensive home cinema with bus stop signage and police control rooms with giant stadium displays finally seems to be speaking the same language. It has become integrated.

As Futuresource Consulting note, “ISE has evolved from a collection of specialist AV exhibitions into a single, integrated platform representing a fully connected industry.”

The applications for offices, classrooms, churches, sports venues, hotels and supermarkets may remain distinct but the boundaries between them in technology terms is being erased.

You could readily imagine how streamers and broadcasters could stake out territory at future ISEs as TV and film production and distribution itself becomes almost an application area of AV. Broadcast engineering, like AV, has become increasingly standardised and software-driven. Live sports are already being broadcast in experiential venues like COSM while esports is built on equipment that works in both broadcast and AV.

The majority of AV products now operate as network-connected devices rather than standalone systems, enabling greater flexibility, scalability and integration across applications. It is this which is driving the global market for Pro AV up to $258 billion by 2030 - an astonishing 21 percent growth rate - according to Caretta Research.

Indeed controls, infrastructure and software now represent 37% of the entire pie at $79bn [per Caretta] as the industry evolves beyond hardware to AV-over-IP and centralised management systems.

“It’s clear that integration is where the momentum is,” said Sean Wargo, consultant at Apogee Insight. “The highest areas of growth are coming from services including cloud services and data management.”

Another significant driver is the experience economy—"technology that enables personalisation, interactivity, and immersive experiences,” said Mike Sullivan, Senior Industry Analyst at AVIXA. “Pro AV is central to this trend, supported by advances in display technologies, AI integration, and control systems that make experiences more accessible and engaging.”

 

A new era of broadcasting

The AV market has become one of the most dynamic growth areas for companies traditionally operating in the broadcast and cine sectors. What was once a relatively separate domain is now rapidly merging with the broader world of live events, corporate communication, education, and hybrid production.

“People often say that television or broadcasting is dead. It absolutely isn’t,” said Ciarán Doran, curator and chair of the Broadcast AV Summit. “We’re entering a new era of broadcasting — one where brands and corporates are becoming broadcasters themselves, creating their own channels.”

The Broadcast AV Summit brought together the streaming economy, “where brands connect directly with end users through their own channel or deliver content straight into their inboxes”, with the Creator Economy headlined by YouTuber Callum Hewitt.

“The Experience Economy is where much of the technology you see here at ISE becomes essential,” Doran said. “The era when traditional broadcasters were the sole gatekeepers of high‑quality content is over. Think of the Harry Potter experiences or the immersive exhibitions at the Science Museum in Paris — these emotional, sensory environments are no longer created solely by the broadcast world. They’re built with professional AV technology, and they represent the new frontier of broadcasting.”

The big beasts of broadcast manufacturing have now made ISE home with many, like Blackmagic Design, Sony, Grass Valley or AJA expanding their real estate.

David Ross who runs hardware vendor Ross Video keynoted the Broadcast AV summit and highlighted opportunities for his business within in‑house studios, governments, and ‘architainment’.

“This is where architecture and media come together through the innovative use of LED and projection,” Ross said. “It might be a building façade, an atrium or a feature on a wall in the lobby, but the intent is the same - to make the space itself part of how the organisation communicates.”

“AV end-users increasingly expect broadcast-level image quality with consumer-level usability,” said Guilhem Krier, head of new business and market development for Broadcast & ProAV at Panasonic Connect. “They want cinematic colour, stable IP streaming, remote control, automated operation, and scalable systems, all without needing highly trained operators on site.”

He considers the convergence of AV and broadcast to be a fundamental shift that will define the next decade of video production.

“This will result in IP-native production becoming the new standard; AI-assisted automation playing an increasingly prominent role in camera switching, mixing, and real-time analytics; virtual and hybrid production becoming more accessible; and increased interoperability.”

AI with everything

It was impossible to discuss the future of anything at ISE without mentioning AI but the overwhelming theme was how AI can be integrated into existing systems and practices.

For example, AI might improve integrator efficiency, productivity, and the ability to deliver managed services.

“For decades, the industry has sought to shift from transactional, multi‑year upgrade cycles toward recurring revenue models,” Wargo said. “AI‑powered design tools, automated drawings, and intelligent product recommendations will accelerate this shift.”

Vibe coding already allows developers to delegate writing source code to a GenAI. Krish Shah, product head and founder of voice automated start-up Phonx AI said he only learned to code because of it. “There’s no way I could have learned everything I know in the last two or three years without AI. Today I’m running a team of seven developers and managing interns. That would have been impossible without AI.”

The technology is now advancing to agentic AI, where a large language model is given real‑world agency—allowing it to operate a web browser, perform transactions, and take actions on your behalf. Watch out though, because it will soon have the smarts to do this behind your back.

“We now have AI agents that can interact with each other through A2A (agent‑to‑agent) protocols and MCP, which function like APIs. This opens the door to multi‑agent back‑end systems inside companies,” said Rich Green, Founder, Rich Green Design.

One agentic AI tool called OpenClaw went viral on launch last month because it puts the ability to network a smart home in the hands of anybody. This is a security risk because it could link systems from phones and TVs to doorbells without any human intervention, Green said. He also said agentic software was so potent it threatened to disintermediate the entire professional development community.

Here come the robots

After agentic AI comes physical AI or embodied intelligence: when an AI agent is put into a robot.  “There’s a huge amount of activity in this space right now, especially around building world models so these physical AIs can understand and operate within real environments,” Green said.

It now feels like a race to get robots into our homes.

“We’re already seeing this in AV spaces: automated camera robots, traditional industrial robots, and pet robot companions,” said Rebekka Gingell of Lang. “As we introduce more and more robots into our everyday lives I believe it’s very important that we have laws about how robots are governed, especially as these become increasingly autonomous with AI.”

She added, “A cute robot pet doesn’t feel threatening but a humanoid robot has cameras for eyes. Inviting that into your home feels like inviting full‑time surveillance.”

Resilience and sovereignty are essential

The impact of tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty is upending the supply chain. Dependence on platforms and services that originate outside Europe’s legal framework, or political system creates significant risk. Sovereignty is becoming a guiding principle in procurement decisions — covering AI models, cloud services, and traditional software.

“For years, we’ve talked about ‘Made in China’ — whether LED panels or AI systems — and European companies and governments have been cautious,” said Florian Rotberg, MD, invidis Consulting. “But for the first time, we’re seeing ‘Made in the USA’ being blocked as well. That’s entirely new. Half a year ago, who would have imagined U.S.-made products being restricted because U.S. authorities or intelligence services were uncomfortable with their use?

“This is the new reality we’re operating in. The strategy is no longer just de‑risking from China — it’s also de‑risking from the U.S. Resilience and sovereignty are becoming essential.”

The EU is now recommending that corporations and governments adopt a two‑supplier strategy to ensure independence if something goes wrong. This matters for the entire industry since 80% of all cloud solutions used in Europe come from U.S. companies.

“That level of dependency is concerning,” said Rotberg. “Customers are now asking questions they never asked before: Where is the CMS developed? Is the software European, American, Middle Eastern? What happens if a service is shut down?”

Invidis consulting has recently been flooded with inquiries from major European organisations — including Olympic committees — asking whether alternatives exist to their current U.S.-based hyperscalers.

“The key message for the Pro AV industry is that everyone needs to recalibrate. De‑risking doesn’t mean changing everything, but it does mean building a more balanced ecosystem with at least two suppliers and understanding where the real risks lie.”

Into the Wild, “Nightmares of Nature”

 my interview and write up for RED Digital Cinema

article here

Just like the best horror films, wildlife docuseries Nightmares of Nature plunges viewers into a terrifying world where nothing and no-one is safe.

The opening of episode one establishes the mood. “Nature is full of wonder and beauty,” says narrator Maya Hawke (Stranger Things) over shots of delicate butterflies, an innocent looking frog and a cute mouse. “But for the creatures who live out in the wild, it’s also full of monsters.”

Cue, a slithering snake and a montage of bugs being eaten alive.

The groundbreaking Netflix docu-horror hybrid is produced by Jason Blum, the master of modern horror (Get Out, Insidious, The Black Phone and M3GAN) and award-winning documentary specialist Plimsoll Productions (A Real Bugs Life (National Geographic); Incredible Animal Journeys (Disney+), Big Beasts (AppleTV+).

“The stumbling block we came up against was how to make a horror natural history look like it isn’t just a regular natural history show that’s been graded a bit spookily and has loud sound design,” explains filmmaker Nathan Small of the project’s conception. “When Blumhouse Television got involved, they pushed it towards much more of a narrative-led cinematic thriller following characters as they go on a journey.”

Netflix loved the idea and commissioned two seasons of three episodes: Cabin in The Woods and Lost in the Jungle follow the fight for survival of a pregnant mouse and other heroes including a baby opossum, a raccoon, and an iguana plus a jumping spider barely the size of a dime. The aim was to capture the authentic behaviors of these elusive, speedy and tiny creatures while delivering a polished and visually stunning horror-infused spectacle.

“Our characters were chosen because they exhibited interesting adaptations and cool behaviors that would work well with the storylines,” says Charlotte Lathane who directed Lost in the Jungle. “We spoke to scientists and experts to back the research up and engineered scenarios in which our hero creatures can use that adaptation or superpower to get out of a life-threatening situation. The scenarios may be conjured up, but all the behavior is real.”

Exteriors, mostly shot in Costa Rica, combined with interior sets dressed as an abandoned creepy wood cabin and abandoned laboratory, were lit to mimic the look of classic Hammer haunted house or slasher films.

“We loved that we could lean into horror tropes to capture the drama, danger and dark beauty of nature,” says Small, who directed Cabin in the Woods. “We watched a number of Blumhouse horror films so that we could work that cinematic language into the style and cut a lot of test sequences using our natural-history archive.”

The very specific and challenging lighting design req uired a set of tools capable of photographing extreme close-ups as well as shadow detail and bright highlights.

“Lighting is so important in horror. Being able to create pools of light and pools of darkness and have things appear out of the darkness is so crucial,” says Small. “Being able to operate in low light with confidence was vital. In this case the Dual ISO (800 and 3200) of RED GEMINI was super helpful for us.”

“When it comes to filming authentic animal behavior you don’t want to have to throw loads of light in your animal’s faces,” says Lathane. “The dual sensitivity of the camera meant we’re not blasting loads of light at our creatures to be able to see them and we can shoot with a low light cinematic feel. It means we could be a lot subtler with the lighting.”

RED cameras are the workhorses for natural history, and we are all familiar with them. “We've all been using them for years; the cameras are super reliable,” adds Small.

Cabin in the Woods was shot by DOP Chris Watts using custom-made scope lenses equipped with high-end front objective lenses to offer a range of focal lengths - essentially a full macro prime set.

“At that scale, the depth of field is paper-thin, and a knock or a wobble looks like an earthquake on screen, so to maintain that control, we used a custom motion-control rig,” explains Small. “It enabled us to execute perfectly timed push-ins, creeping pans and slow, deliberate tracking shots at tiny scales — cinematic language, just shrunk down to the size of a cockroach.

For everything beyond those ultra-close moments, they shot with rehoused Contax Primes and high-quality diopters. “The Contax glass gave us that cinematic fall-off and organic softness while the diopters let us push right up against our subjects without losing depth or quality. Together, they gave the woods texture and mood — beautiful, tactile and tiniest bit unsettling, with pin-sharp clarity and distinctive character.”

Lost in the Jungle was shot by DOP Robert Hollingsworth principally with Mamiya primes with the majority of the spider work shot by award winning cameraman Simon de Glanville.

“We chose to pair the GEMINI with Mamiya primes to match the scale of the lens to the scale of our subject and take advantage of the extended depth of field that those lenses allow for,” Lathane says. “The aim being to immerse the audience into the scale of our characters.”

“GEMINI is good in low light and allowed us access to an excellent bit rate and higher frame rates that are required for natural history storytelling. Horror is as light as it is dark, so having a camera that can see into the shadows enabled Rob to light with a higher contrast ratio to create the negative space in the frame. That would allow the audience a sense of uneasiness.”

The camera was gripped using a variety of equipment such as jibs, sliders, and a bespoke macro motion control gantry. The Mamiyas were paired with extension tubes and diopters for some of the trickier shots, and they even found a use for Vaseline on lenses to give a dreamlike feel for certain scenes.

“Horror is nothing without lighting, and the compact shooting package with the small grip fit perfectly in the practical world that we were shooting in, which was a disused building in Atlanta. This enabled us to light for the space as opposed to the character and get practical fittings in close by. Despite the grip used, the camera often remained stationary, allowing our character to drive the narrative.”

A set of vintage Nikon lenses and Laowa 24mm T8 2x Macro Pro2bes were used across both series while Aputure LEDs were the principal light source used for controlling a number of hues instantly – a luxury that filmmakers don’t enjoy in the wild.

“Clearly we don't want animals to be hurting each other so we've had to be a little creative to achieve some shots,” Small says. “Where we've got predator-prey scenarios we've had to figure out ways to get these two shots without ever actually putting them in the same space and harming them.”

For example, a shot of a mouse scurrying away from camera then pulls focus into a spider wrapping its prey was a composite of two shots. Similarly, an opossum and a snake appear to be present in the same frame when in fact they are two shots seamlessly married together.

“We've used a lot of motion control so we don't even have to have locked off shots. We can have the camera moving, capture the first plate that we need of one of the animals then reset everything. Provided no one touches or moves - which is difficult in a cabin because everything's creaky and wobbly – we can get the second animal in and repeat the move - exactly.”

De Glanville also used motion control when filming the jumping spider (who was only around 10mm in length) - most notably to corkscrew the camera down a ventilation shaft in a chase sequence.

Other techniques included shooting at a faster frame rate to be slowed down on screen making the action appear more suspenseful to human eyes.

“A lot of what happens when you watch it happening for real can feel quite underwhelming but when you get it into post and then add the sound design you being to understand that going to work,” Lathane says. “RED just gives you that confidence that what you're looking at on the monitor will hold when we get through post and into the grade. We can trust that the blacks are going to hold up and the shadows are going to look good when it's graded down.”

The natural world may be dog eat dog but editorially it was important to show the horrific impact of humans on the environment. Half-way through episode 1 of Jungle the baby opossum’s family come to a grisly end under the wheels of a vehicle. “The scene was staged to look that way but the number one cause of death for opossums in the wild is being roadkill so we’re not shying away from these facts,” Lathane says. “Having the licence to go for it in this dramatic way was kind of an homage to Final Destination.

She continues, “Often in natural history you are filming the attack of one animal preying on another on a long lens and we often cut away before the critical moment. On this show we need to kill off characters because otherwise the audience will think ‘it's fine everyone's going to get out alive’. Once in a while, we felt it was okay to kill off a character just to let them the audience know not to necessarily expect a happy ending.”

The grade was completed at Films@59 in Bristol by colorists Christian Short and Wes Hibberd. “We’re extremely happy with the look that they've given both of the shows,” Small says. “I think they’re both unique and unlike traditional natural history but also not too crazy into horror. It feels like a rich and classy version of a natural history show.”

With the formula established and with so much ‘horror’ out there in the natural world it feels like the team could be back for more.

“There are endless ecosystems that we could turn our attention to, and we have lots of ideas,” says Small. “We're all really keen to do more and we’ve lots of learnings from the first ones that we’d take into the next time."