When the stills go to a retoucher and the film goes to a colourist with no shared stills, the campaign splits in public. Feeds, sites, and OOH start arguing.
We pull stills from the same colour-managed timeline, or we send the retoucher a show LUT and a set of control frames. Skin, product whites, and black level are decided once.
Platforms compress both stills and video. A common grade is what survives that compression as one brand. A ‘prettier’ still that ignores the LUT is a different product.
HDR delivery does not excuse a rogue SDR still. We check both, on the same display, with the same stills open beside the timeline.
Agencies that traffic six months of cutdowns thank us when the stills folder is not a forensic project. That is the point of grading together.
Stmercure House is on Buchanan Street, a room behind the shopfront with a cove and a small stage for interviews. The work is music venues, makers and the universities that need a plain record of a building. Evenings are the busy half. We plot the changeover, shoot the empty room, then the set, then leave before the encore if the brief says so.