A Continuing Collaboration

After completing the fourth season in Fall 2010, Mad Men was recently picked up for a fifth season airing in 2012. This critically acclaimed and Emmy Award winning show continues to make LaserPacific its home and collaborator in taking the look of the show to a whole different level.

Mad Men Co-Producer, Blake McCormick notes that in television today there is a need to overcome the challenge of  "limited resources and the incredible aspirations of making something really fantastic while trying to bring it all together to make it look effortless."

One of the key issues that drove Mad Men to choose LaserPacific was the ability to utilize the sophisticated tools available in Lustre and the opportunity to work with LaserPacific senior colorist, Tim Vincent. According to McCormick, the show benefits from the use of these tools and the LaserPacific workflow in many ways. Not only does the Lustre have the ability to perform the traditional television color timing tasks such as matching images from shot to shot better, but it can also do it in a way that "has a very natural quality of light." He feels that the Lustre™ can even help to "go back in time to change what was shot on the set and to help the photography in an organic, natural lighting sort of way."

Prior to moving the show to LaserPacific, McCormick, along with colorist Tim Vincent, cinematographer Chris Manley, and LaserPacific dailies colorist Mace Johnson, watched all of the previous season's 13 episodes together, talking through the choices that were made at the time and trying to understand the direction that the show would head. This spirit of collaboration, which extends to the show's Executive Producer, Matthew Weiner, who is extremely hands-on in the color sessions, has helped to reinforce the notion of how creative tools in the hands of creative people can make a difference. McCormick sums it up, "LaserPacific is a large post production facility and it still seems to have  an individualized feel to it... the ability to maintain a boutique feel...and a customized aspect for your show while putting technology in the hands of artists... that seems like a pretty winning combination."

See Blake McCormick talk about the challenges of producing for television today and of art, artistry and technology and the role creative collaborators and tools play.

The October 2008 issue of Post Magazine features a cover story called "Posting Mad Men."