Veteran colorist Mick Vincent, who recently completed a 19-year run with London-based VTR, has joined the team at the London office of The Mill (which also maintains an office in New York), adding further momentum to the company’s plans to offer Digital Intermediate (DI) workflows for commercial clients.
At The Mill, which has already started to implement new technology for this effort, Vincent will be launching a DI-style data color grading suite specifically designed for commercials–meaning that the work would be done in a nonlinear, random access environment with the ability to grade a spot in shot order.
Today, DI processes are primarily used for features. However, as the technology evolves, an increasing number of commercialmakers believe these workflows are the way of the future for advertising production.
“We’re delighted to welcome Mick to a team that includes [colorists] Adam Scott, Seamus O’Kane, Paul Harrison, Jamie Wilkinson and James Bamford in London; and Fergus McCall and Tom Poole in New York,” said Robin Shenfield, CEO of The Mill. “The next step is to put some even better tools into their hands and offer our clients a new and more flexible way of working.”
Vincent’s career has primarily focused on commercials, yet he was also heavily involved in implementing a DI workflow for both features and commercials at VTR, where he was director of telecine and handled DI on features including the Mike Binder-directed The Upside of Anger.
His lengthy list of spot credits include “Wild” for Lynx deodorant via Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London, and directed by Daniel Kleinman (then of Large, now of London’s Kleinman Productions). In the spot, a man’s actions have a peculiar effect on the ladies around him. The man is sitting in a hot train station. He opens his book and runs his finger down his face, as a woman’s blouse opens and sweats runs down her face. The message is that with Lynx, he is cool but they are not.
Other notable spot work includes “Kobe Bryant” for Adidas via Leagas Delaney, London, directed by Floria Sigismondi of U-ground, London; “Refueling” for Shell and J. Walter Thompson, London, directed by the now late Allan van Rijn of bicoastal RSA/USA; and Fosters’ “Feng Shui” for M&C Saatchi, London, directed by Kleinman (then with Spectre).
SHOOT caught up with Vincent last week at the International Broadcasting Convention (see related story), and the colorist was looking forward to planning the new suite, for which he said workflow will be top of mind. “You need the workflow to be able to turn a job around,” he explained. “Most data grading systems work, but the workflow is the biggest problem.”