The Project

Splice housed offline and completed full post-production on the Netflix documentary. A passionate exposé with astonishing access, this series observes Diego Maradona  as the manager of the second division Mexican football team, Los Dorados de Sinaloa, and the display of passion in all its forms. Caroline Hewson was post-producer on the series.

Colour Grading 

Grading in HDR on DaVinci Resolve for a Dolby Vision Netflix delivery, Head of Picture, Adam Dolniak, capitalised on the extra range of colours to maximise the brightness, beauty and vibrancy of Mexico. The flood-lit football matches also benefited from the HDR range by bringing the on field action to life.

It did come with some challenges, however; matching shot footage of the football games with the Mexican broadcaster footage proved the biggest hurdle. Adam used secondary hue corrections, paying particular attention to the grass and football kits to ensure a perfect likeness.

Audio Post Production

The dub was mixed on an S6 console in 5.1 using ProTools HD. Izotope's RX7 Advanced was used extensively to improve and enhance the dialogue throughout the series; maintaining consistency across match commentary and headshots.

Creative uses of Altiverb and Speakerphone were applied to provide depth and focus. Halo Upmix was used to lift and fit the composed music around the often chaotic atmosphere.

Online Editing 

Head of online, Tristan Lancey carried out the online in DaVinci Resolve 15. Working with Netflix and Dolby to agree the workflow, Splice's technical teams built robust systems and pipelines capable of the complex delivery required by Netflix. Completing the full picture-post pipeline in one system proved hugely beneficial.

He made use of Resolves built-in effects for titling, pixel fixing, de-flickering, stabilising and tracking, as well as the dynamic zoom tool for digital rostrum effects on stills. Mocha pro was used to assist in roto and corner pinning screen replacement effects.  

Much of the footage was shot at night, due to these low-light conditions camera sensor noise in HDR was problematic. Tris employed Neat Video noise reduction plug-in extensively to restore the images.

A multitude of camera formats and frame rates were used, combined with various archive footage from Mexican broadcasters, bringing everything together to match was the main challenge of the online.

Where to Watch

You can watch Maradona in Mexico on Netflix from 13th November.