The crisp January cold of Aspen, CO, was the perfect setting for French luxury brand Moncler to stage its high-end Fall/ Winter runway show for its ski jacket label, Grenoble. From Friday, January 26, to the following Monday, the brand presented a grand fashion show on a snow-covered runway, featuring over 100 models. The whole area buzzed with excitement as fashionistas observed and mingled by the ski slopes. People who had to enjoy the splendor from afar were able to keep up with a steady stream of highlights almost immediately via polished professional videos posted to various social media platforms.
New York-based MATTE Projects, specialists in creative branding strategies for major events such as this one, oversaw the creation of all the clips and stills. Footage was shot by top-level pros and post-produced with the high-fashion feel viewers expect from a brand such as Moncler, extending the brand aesthetic to the typically more ad hoc platform of social media. To. that end, Michael Czeizinger, Sr. Director, Postproduction at Matte, brought New York-based Senior Colorist Tim Masick of Company 3, a multiple-award-winning artist for major fashion campaigns (including some for Moncler), to the event. Working on-site in a temporary grading bay, Masick brought the finishing touches to all the social media videos, ensuring they were all of a quality that reflected the glamour of the event.
We wanted Tim’s eye and skill right there at the finishing stage for all the material,” says Czeizinger. “We could have uploaded material to him in New York, but time was so precious, and we wanted him working in close proximity with creative directors, just as he would on a commercial. So, we set up everything Tim has in his New York color grading bay at the Aspen Meadows hotel right there where the action was happening.”
They wanted the coverage of all the events to turn around at the speed of social media but to have the look of high-end fashion advertisements,” Masick explains, noting that the footage contained a lot of skiing and other activities under bright direct sunlight – which can also sometimes present tricky types of imagery for colorists to work with.
Melina Smith, Production Operations Manager of Short Form for Company 3, also based in New York, works frequently with Masick as a producer and assistant colorist. She oversaw the logistics of stocking the space at the curtained-off space within the Aspen Meadows hotel, or what she refers to as the “war room,” with two color grading control surfaces – a DaVinci Resolve Advanced Panel for Masick and a Mini Panel for herself – and the top-tier Sony X300 monitor used throughout Company 3 for Masick and a smaller Flanders monitor for herself. Rounding out the tools inside this space were hard drives, graphics cards, and CPU power to recreate every facet of working inside a dedicated color grading bay.
Throughout the four-day event, imagery was being continually shot on professional cameras (including ARRI 35 and Amira models, Sony FX 6, and a variety of drones). Drives came directly from the camera to the “war room” and were delivered to an editorial team that had been set up with seven Adobe Premiere edit stations and quickly cut together. Then, cut scenes would be sent directly to the pop-up grading bay, where Masick handled the grading of color and still imagery in DaVinci Resolve under the CD’s supervision. Then, as soon as a clip was signed off on, it was uploaded to the various platforms, all within an incredibly truncated timeframe of often less than an hour from shoot to delivery.
“The response was wonderful,” says Czeizinger of the social media campaign. “Viewers could see video coverage of the event almost as it was happening, but the images didn’t look like what we expect for social media. They could have the refined look of a commercial for a high-fashion brand.”
