Armando Iannucci's political satire The Thick Of It returns to BBC 2 for a fourth series in September following a three year break. This is familiar ground for Framestore, having worked on series three and feature film In The Loop. This time we completed the grade and online for the new series, a process that varies greatly from episode to episode, depending on how often the crew had got caught up in the comedy's manic filming style.
"As the Thick Of It is filmed using multiple cameras and a free flowing style of operating, that can often provide the bulk of our work from a visual effects point of view, for example boom operators as well as other crew members can often find themselves inadvertently caught on screen" said Smoke Artist Matt Clarke.
"Sometimes this can be a straight forward case of re framing a shot slightly, but in other cases, this can mean actually stripping in replacement bits of the film set to cover them up. You have to think on your feet a fair bit, and it is not a one solution fits all show in that regard. Other effects have been general enhancements such as screen replacements and adding film grain."
Colourist Edwin Metternich, who led the grading, said "It's not a VFX heavy show so my job was to give it that clean, sort of steely blue look that the other episodes have. The challenges were two fold: firstly, balancing everything up into a neutral place and secondly keeping it looking natural, but with the cool grey feeling that so suits the The Thick Of It's world of political subterfuge."
