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Client: Tropfest
FSM: Concept / Design / 3D

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Kate McCurdy

Frame, Set & Match (FSM) are one of the largest independently owned post houses in Australia. Based in Sydney, they specialise in design, visual effects, colour grading, compositing and digital intermediate. With a strong background in design, they have worked on commercials, feature films, television series, re-branding, music videos, and most recently the graphics package for Tropfest 8, the largest short film festival in the world. Not only did FSM create two packages for the event, they were also a sponsor of Tropfest 8, which reflects the company’s strong philosophy of supporting and fostering emerging filmmakers, as well as emphasising FSM’s own participatory role in the Australian film and television industry.

Tropfest graphics package
FSM approached Tropfest early in the production of the film festival, as they were keen to be the first design and post production company engaged by Tropfest. The brief was for a graphics treatment for their AV presentation in the form of two packages, one for Tropfest 8 and for Trop Jr, both with a completely different look and feel. FSM’s strong focus on design greatly appealed to the John Polson, founder and Creative Director of Tropfest. He recalls that ‘from the start, they offered amazing design direction and dedication.’
The result of the collaboration between Emile Rademeyer, FSM’s Senior Designer, 3D animator Ferry Taswim, as well as the art direction of Dean Mathers from Spin Communications is a graphics package that well represents the fun, dynamic, exciting and often surprising nature of the film festival. The package can be viewed on the FSM website.

Keep it in house
Frame, Set & Match pride themselves on their state-of-the-art facilities and the expertise of their staff such as the new addition of Crash Carlucci, formerly of Riot, Santa Monica, whom has recently joined the team as senior colourist. The post house is now, thanks to the procurement of two BaseLight film grading systems and their Da Vinci 2K, able to produce high definition grading and digital intermediates for clients looking for flexibility and creative freedom in grading for their film prints.The strength of FSM is that so much is done in house: colour grading, digital intermediates, sound, concept, design, compositing, editing and visual effects, without the need for their clients to outsource for these services. One of the successful examples of this is when FSM worked on Paul Goldman and Alice Bell’s music video for Silverchair’s Straight Lines. The visual effects team at FSM supervised the shoot, provided rushes, transfers and grade, and brought in Stuart Cadzow as lead compositor to work with the team on compositing the live action and special light effects. The visual effects complemented the intense grade to the pictures, and gave the video a distinct look that won the filmmakers ‘Best Video Clip’ at the ARIA Artisan Awards in September 2007.

Client: Sony Australia
Director: Paul Goldman & Alice Bell
FSM: Grade / Flame

Colour grading for commercials and feature films
Colour grading is the process of altering and enhancing the colour of film prints, and FSM have two Millennium telecine suites at their disposal for HD and Standard definition scanning. The main functions of digital colour grading are most often to restore and compensate for errors in the filming from the shoot, such as changing lighting conditions, but also to optimise the print for compositing and visual effects, and to change the mood or look of the print. FSM are often called upon to grade film for commercials, especially those that require strong branding such as car commercials for the likes of the Mitsubishi Outlander, Toyota TRD Aurion as well as Volvo’s ‘Destination Life’ campaign. These commercials also incorporated composition and visual effects facilitated by FSM’s Flame systems, popular with art directors and producers for their interactivity and flexibility, especially in branding projects.

Agency: Euro RSCG Worldwide
FSM: Design / Grade / Flame

FSM have also completed colour grading on a number of Australian and international feature films, such as Suburban Mayhem, Jindabyne, House of Flying Daggers, and have produced digital intermediates for Catch a Fire and Clubland. Mark Wareham, Director of Photography for Clubland, praised FSM on their chosen technologies: ‘The strongest asset of your DI system is that there are no surprises when you screen the answer print. All detail and subtleness of the colour is preserved. [Their] FilmLight process incorporating the NorthLight scanner, TrueLight calibration and BaseLight grading ensures the organic look of the negative is preserved with no video artifacts.’ Clubland was well received at its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007 with the final print delivered by FSM.

Design and re-branding
FSM are keen to promote their strong design background, and interest in creating concepts and designs for clients, as well as maintaining their reputation as a finishing house. Their talent for design has been recognised with their recent work for the Tropfest film festival and their rebranding of the NRL and Football for Fox Sports in 2007. Michael Neill, Executive Producer for NRL and Swimming at Fox Sports said that FSM ‘came back with a design concept that took the look of our broadcasts in a new direction, while displaying a complete understanding of our aims and objectives.’

Client - Fox Sports
Concept / Design / 3D / Flame

FSM was established in 1984 as one offline edit suite and from their quality work on commercials and music videos has seen them to grow into a significant post house in Australia. Their versatile business model allows them to take on cost-effective and simple projects such as transfers, to more complex digital intermediates, compositing and high definition deliverables for commercials and feature films. Frame, Set & Match’s recent successful graphics package for the Tropfest Film Festival will display their impressive talents in design to a worldwide audience.

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