Toast of Tinseltown graded with DaVinci Resolve

BBC Two’s spin off series Toast of Tinseltown is a continuation of Matt Berry’s BAFTA winning comedy creation, Steven Toast, from the original series Toast of London which aired between 2012 – 2015 on Channel 4.  

Produced by Objective Fiction, the 6×30 series is set in Hollywood and was shot in 4K UHD on the Sony Venice with Suite Post delivering the grade, conform and finish through DaVinci Resolve.  

The series was lensed by Pete Edwards (Sandylands) and directed by Michael Cumming who followed the same look and feel of the original series (Toast of London) for the scenes set in London while embracing some different for Hollywood. 

“We experimented with lots of ideas to try and subtly change the feel, with some references to the 70’s show “Columbo”, and some classic Hollywood colours,” begins colourist Lee Clappison of Suite Post. 

Adding: “It was a very specific look, so we were always mindful of ensuring a level of consistency throughout.” 

“I would split out the red, green and blue channels, and experiment with varying combinations of mixing these channels back together. This provided the main part of the recipe for the grade.” 

Suite Post’s Matthew Roberts onlined and finished the series in DaVinci Resolve with GFX and compositing work undertaken in Fusion. “Taking the AFF from Avid into Resolve meant we could both work from the same project updating grades, edits and effects simultaneously,” Clappison shared.  

There were also a number of booms to fix or split screens to retime reactions, which are quite common for this type of work according to Roberts. “It was usually a case of simply comping a clean shot onto another, although I would sometimes need to use Fusion’s planar tracker if one of the shots was handheld,” concludes   

Toast of Tinseltown is currently airing on BBC Two and iPlayer.