User Spotlight: Crayon - Redefining Remote Collaboration
In this interview, Daniel Stonehouse, founder of Crayon, a Melbourne-based post-production studio known for its exceptional color work, shares how Colorfront has revolutionized their workflow. With team members and clients spread across Australia and New Zealand, Crayon has embraced remote collaboration as a core part of its operation.
Can you describe your current post-production or streaming workflow?
Crayon is a colour focused organisation offering finishing for the moving image. We work across shortform and longform, from music videos, advertising, to feature films. Thanks to Colorfront, we can say we are experts in remote collaboration and have broken down the traditional geographic limits of our industry. While our base is Melbourne Australia, we regularly collaborate with clients nationally and internationally, but beyond that two of our five colourists are based remotely, with one in Brisbane, Australa and one in Auckland, New Zealand. In addition to our roster of colourists, our team of colour producers enable us to offer a seamless and fluid collaborative experience for every project.
We don't think of Colorfront as an extra, or a streaming grade session as somehow a special case - we offer a Colorfront stream on every job, very often getting collaborators on a stream with no notice, to adapt to the changing needs of a particular project.
Colorfront also allows us to host clients at any of our suite locations and allow them to work with any of our colourists, no matter their home base.
Director: @ri__ey
DOP: @tomblackdp
Colourist: @maxfergusonhook
What specific challenges were you facing before using Colorfront?
The work of the colourist has traditionally been local, with clients (and their clients) attending a post house. This greatly limited the flow of projects our colourists had access too, and the creative relationships they could build.
Even when working locally, the ability of all collaborators to participate effectively in a grade was often limited, by time, by travel, by availability. A DP might be interstate for another shoot, a client may be based overseas, an agency CD might not have time to travel.
When clients cant attend, meaning working with WIPS and feedback notes, a projects stakeholders are not as involved in the process as when they participate "live".
What led you to choose Colorfront’s Streamer or Streaming Server solution?
When we first encountered Colorfront, we sensed it was a special product with the potential to transform our business. We'd experimented with many other streaming solutions with mixed results. As colourists, we're used to working quickly, with immediate feedback from those in the room. So low latency is crucial for us - alongside our demands for very high image quality. Colorfront was the first streaming system that we felt wasn't a compromise for our clients, giving them an experience close to being in the room.
Any notable use cases or success stories you'd like to share?
Every project we use Colorfront on is a success story, because it enables ways of working that would not be possible without it.
However one example that sticks out is a feature film project, where Colorfront had a huge impact on quality of life for Director, editor and assistant. The project was based in our suites in Melbourne, and scheduled for three months. The director lived interstate and had expected to have to travel a lot over the three month edit, but instead thanks to colorfront he was able to work from home and spend more time with his family, and only travel for critical meetings and screenings. The Editor lived an hour away from our facility and was able to work from his home edit suite a lot more than he planned (and also spend more time with his family and less time commuting). And beyond that, many other participants in the project, also were able to travel much more selectively. Colorfont lowered travel costs in a measurable financial way, but more importantly freed up everyones time and lowered their stress levels
Director: @mitchkennedy
DOP: @richard_kendall_dop
Colourist: @kalibatemancolourist
How has the system impacted collaboration with your clients or internal teams?
It's transformed what is possible for us, and really become core to our business model of who we are and what we can do. Crayon can now work with colourists who are geographically distant, we can offer their services effectively to clients in any location - Colorfont opened up so many new possibilities for us. Now we think more about time zones than we do about physical locations - unfortunately time zones aren't a condition Colorfront can solve!
Would you recommend Colorfront to others in your field? If so, why?
We're constantly recommending it - and we enjoy sharing it with people in our industry when we collaborate. We recognise common reactions - people will often be puzzled, then amazed at the quality - or others will just get stuck in and start working as if streaming has always been this way - and only afterwards do they realise that something new and special has occurred.