MPC has entered into a partnership with postproduction company Ditch to offer remote color grading in Minneapolis. The announcement was made by Ditch owner and editor Brody Howard and MPC New York managing director Justin Brukman.
“We’ve been looking for a post company in Minneapolis to partner with for remote color work and Ditch is the perfect choice for us,” said Brukman. “We’ve got great agency relationships in Minneapolis, which has always been a source of stellar creative work attracting the best directors, editors and VFX artists. So it’s only natural that we looked to that market to offer clients the convenience of accessing our team of colorists from a familiar base right in their own city.”
The addition of remote color grading in Minneapolis at Ditch joins MPC’s other remote grading outposts at charlieuniformtango in Dallas and Austin, Mondial in Richmond and The Work in Detroit. At each location, Brukman explained, clients utilize a dedicated internet feed and identically calibrated monitors to work with MPC colorists as though they were in the same room.
“We’re very excited about adding the capabilities of MPC’s colorists here at Ditch,” said Howard, who founded the studio in 2008 after working at other independent editing houses as well as at Fallon Worldwide. “MPC was referred to us by some mutual agency clients, and for us it’s just a perfect fit, particularly in how we’re expanding what Ditch has to offer.”
Howard recently added editor Aaron Nelson to its roster and promoted assistant Ben Thompson to full creative editor status. Howard has also launched Ditch Creative, a digital design and development studio, with plans to bring in additional creative companies that will work out of Ditch’s space in downtown Minneapolis.
Ditch focused initially on offline editorial for a number of years, Howard pointed out, but has since added visual effects capability and finishing. “Adding color was the next logical step, and this provides us with a great solution for our clients,” he added. “They can work with us now through all aspects of post, from edit to finish, or just pick and choose the services they need. We’re small and nimble, and that gives us a lot of flexibility.”
With MPC’s color suite housed right off Ditch’s main entrance, Ditch sr. producer Leah Rogers noted that color grading clients almost feel like they’re working at a stand-alone color boutique, but with all the support that Ditch provides. “It allows our agency clients to stay local and access world-class color grading talent. It really broadens the options agencies have here in Minneapolis, and we’ve found that MPC has been extremely accessible in terms of working with our schedules and our budgets.”
Since launching their partnership, Ditch and MPC Color have collaborated on work for such local agencies as Carmichael Lynch, Microgigantic, Periscope and Olson.
