Mexico. El Taller is a creative studio in Mexico City that offers post-production services with a vision for the future. It remains constantly evolving and owns the first color correction theater in Latin America equipped with DaVinci Resolve Studio and a Barco DP4K-P projector, which has the most accurate color reproduction of all 4K projectors.
The Workshop was started in 2007 as an animation studio, but a few years later began offering post-production services of all kinds for the growing advertising industry in Mexico City. The city's top directors, photographers and advertising production houses began to arrive with their projects, and very soon, El Taller consolidated its dominance of the commercial scene with top-level brands such as Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Visa and Blackberry.
As demand grew, El Taller's technical and creative capacity reached new horizons. Once the post-production studio added color correction to its growing list of skills, it became one of the most in-demand services.
"It is a resource that our customers appreciate a lot, we are becoming an integral post-production company where all processes can be carried out in one place," says Ivan España, founder and VFX supervisor of El Taller. "We are very focused on the opportunities that technology provides us, and we exclusively use the powerful color correction tool DaVinci Resolve. It has been an essential tool for our leap into color services."
Recently, El Taller finished a commercial campaign for GMC Mexico, focused on the new 2015 Chevrolet Cruze. The commercial was a replica of last year's Chevrolet Cruze ad, and even used some of the same images, but this time it was shot with the new model in red instead of last year's gray. The changes were few, but very complicated at the post-production level, and Alexis Rodil, partner and main colorist of El Taller, depended heavily on Resolve for last year's shots to match the new material.
The biggest challenge was to match the weather conditions of both years, since the day of the previous shoot was sunny and the following year cloudy. Alexis used Resolve's 3D tracking feature constantly to follow the shape of the car through the different frames and to isolate the color from the sky. He also had to keep in mind the reflections on the surface of the car. Because it reflects many different textures at different times of the day, he also had to isolate the car's color correction for consistency.
Working with Resolve has opened new doors for El Taller, and they recently began migrating to film. Because of Alexis' film experience, gained after graduating from mexican film school CCC and entering the industry as a cinematographer, he took the film route, showed traction among his colleagues, and retained many friendships, including those with Dariela Ludlow and Max Zunino. The director of photography and the director, respectively, of an independent film project, Dariela and Max asked that Alexis do the color correction of the project in Resolve, obtaining credits for El Taller with the feature film, Los Bañistas (Open Cage).
This was a turning point for El Taller. After evaluating the success of the film, the El Taller team saw an opportunity in the growing Mexican film industry and realized that they could elevate their creative skills to the next level. It was decided that the post-production house would provide services for cinema as well as advertising, as Ivan and Alexis felt that cinema was a big piece of the pie and wished to get their own slice. Having the ability to offer color correction services for a wider range of clients and projects would give them an advantage that no one else had. The time had come to upgrade its technology.
"Last year, we started the project to move to a larger facility," Ivan said. El Taller's new facilities are located in a beautiful neighborhood a few blocks from the heart of Mexico City. The larger space has allowed them to significantly expand their post-production infrastructure, meet the demands of any domestic or foreign production.
