Gorilla Group Expands with DaVinci Resolve Studio for UltraHD 4K HDR Delivery

Fremont, CA – March 20, 2019 – Blackmagic Design has today announced that the Gorilla Group had chosen DaVinci Resolve Studio as part of a facility expansion that has added in support for Dolby Vision color correction and IMF format delivery for Netflix.

Designed by Jigsaw24, the system features a dual boot, HP Z8 workstation running Linux and Windows, alongside an external crate featuring three NVIDIA Titan V 12GB graphics cards, 12 SSD slots for local storage and 40GB Ethernet. The suite relies on Sony BVM-X300 and Dolby PRM 4200 reference monitors.

“We built the system after being tasked to grade a six part episodic drama for Channel 4 and Netflix in collaboration with Goldcrest Post’s Jet Omoshebi,” begins Gorilla Group MD Richard Moss. “Traitors was our first time working in Dolby Vision, and we aimed to replicate Jet’s setup at Goldcrest to facilitate the process as much as possible. Since building the crate, it has become our IMF delivery transcoder box also.”

The job wasn’t without its challenges and Gorilla had to overcome some technical challenges to deliver the grade on Traitors and win its status as a Netflix preferred vendor.

“It’s a steep learning curve learning to deliver through the Netflix IMF workflow, and so we worked closely with Dolby and Netflix’s color science teams to implement an ACES color pipeline,” explains Richard.

The fact that DaVinci Resolve features a full nonlinear editor (NLE) together with its industry standard grading toolset was a significant factor in the Gorilla Group’s decision to implement it.

“We first had to produce a Dolby Vision grade for Netflix, then an SDR trim for Channel 4, where the series was premiering,” Richard explains. “Channel 4 has ad breaks, whereas Netflix required uninterrupted video. On top of that, we had international deliveries to handle, as well as both graded and ungraded archival masters. DaVinci Resolve enabled us to bring it all together.

“By the end we had so many deliveries that round tripping through separate finishing and grading suites, dropping in visual effects, and going back and forth, you’ve got to do it in both systems in parallel. We managed to negate all of that by staying in DaVinci Resolve for the entire process.”

Ultimately, ease of workflow is crucial according to Richard. “When you’re doing 60 episodes off something you have to apply common sense and find the most practical solution, he concludes. “The availability of editors and colorists who now know DaVinci Resolve is excellent which made our decision to implement it that much easier. In fact, we’ve just had a second suite of Resolve to handle new client demands.”

Press Photography

Product photos of DaVinci Resolve Studio, the DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images. 

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.