Envy has completed post-production on Netflix dating series Too Hot To Handle
On the shores of paradise, gorgeous singles meet and mingle. But there’s a twist. To win a $100,000 grand prize, they’ll have to give up sex. ENVY’s post-production crew have released their creative review and have given us an insight into the processes and techniques used in the making of the show as well as the challenges the team were faced with along the way.
The post-production team is made up of:
- Post Producers: Rosie Hargreaves & Sophie Bagha
- Colourist: Andrew Cloke & Paul Fallon
- Dubbing Mixer: Ben Omerod
- Online: Barrie Pease & Dicky Everton
The brief was to maintain and replicate the glossy and high-end finish that we previously created for season one. Before starting on the project, we did a test-grade, looking at sample footage from each camera setup; assessing the footage shot by shot alongside my prebuilt tools and custom LUT. From here, the goal was to seamlessly tie all the footage together, as there are several formats used in the production it was important to seamlessly intercut the images together and make them as unified as possible. By performing some gentle light tweaking you can maintain shot congruence and show different shots from the same day without them appearing vastly different. This was important to maintain continuity and sustain the natural progression of the narrative. I also implemented the occasional sky replacement and pushed the interstitial scenes to keep everything within the sunny/sexy retreat theme and glossy aesthetic. The camera crew did an amazing job getting the perfect exposure throughout the production. Throughout the post process we had regular reviews, tweaking as we went along and on site viewing – the team sat in a separate room using a comparable monitor so that they could see a true representation of the final grade and could give live feedback to me using the speakerphone system. To perform the grade, I used Baselight and Aces on a Sony x300 reference picture monitor.
Andrew Cloke, ENVY Colourist
The main idea of the brief was to build on the success of Series 1. We wanted to keep the vibrant style of the series and just refresh the sound design. One of the consequences of shooting in such an amazing location and creating a production which has so many unique/spontaneous scenarios is the amount of uncontrollable ambience/sound that will spill into post-production. Luckily, the island was not overrun with cicadas and the sea was calm by the beach. With that being said, I spent a good amount of time in the mix cleaning the tracks of unwanted rustle, clicks and bumps. I mixed the series in 5.1 and Stereo on a 32 fader Avid S6. Once the dialogue mix was working, I added some distant waves and a bit of sea breeze. In terms of the sound design mostly it needed to be smooth and lush so the title sequences and montages could feature bass heavy waves topped with close up water detail. I also added some reverb on the freeze frames and additional sound effects to elevate the track – complimenting the in-show humour and style of the edits.
Ben Ormerod, ENVY Dubbing Mixer
For the on-line of Too Hot To Handle Series 2, we were tasked with maintaining the sun-dappled sheen of Series 1. The pandemic obviously meant a slightly different approach to filming though – with a greater reliance on fixed-rig footage and longer lenses requiring more stabilisation throughout – to perform this Stabilisation I used a mixture of standard Avid ‘Stabilize’ and ‘Region Stabilize’ or Boris ‘Optical Stabilizer’ plug-in. THTH utilises a range of glows, wipes, composite layers, analogue picture break-up, ‘pause-button’ & distortion FX, dissolves and picture-in-picture split-screens to create its look. To achieve the analogue distortion and ‘pause-button’ FX I utilized Sapphire’s ‘TV Damage’. Alongside this full-frame text, overlaid prize-fund GFX and countdown-clocks serve to explain the rules and ramp up the jeopardy.
Barrie Pease, ENVY Online Editor
Too Hot To Handle season 2 is available to stream on Netflix now.
