Dolby Atmos is a way for audiences to experience multi-dimensional sound, ensuring they become fully immersed in a story. Our audio team leader Pete Rowe thoroughly enjoyed working with it on Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors.

Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors is a docudrama that includes documentary footage of the team who work at the burial site of the first emperor of China – a place discovered only 50 years ago – as well as dramatically recreated scenes leading up to the first emperor’s death, when members of his household and family conspired to seize power for themselves. Over 90-minutes, we follow the painstaking creation of the terracotta warriors and witness their eventual brutal destruction, with many crucial moments of the Qin dynasty vividly brought to life.

Footage was shot in 4k and received an excellent colour grade from Matt in our team, so the audio needed to match up. Mixing with Dolby Atmos, Pete had the capabilities to automate sound effects that created the highest levels of drama. In several scenes, you hear arrows flying over your head, as if you were there. If you know what a Wilhlem scream is, you’ll find that deep in the soundscape too.

With any drama you need to create a soundscape, says Pete, but with period drama there’s an added layer of complexity as you work to establish what the soundscape might have been in reality. In Atmos, you begin with creating beds – the  multilatyered soundscape for each location –  then  automate objects to enhance the three dimensional elements, for instance in battle scenes.

The battle scenes in Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors involved huge gatherings of people, generated with CGI, meaning  a lot of time was needed to create a complex atmos and SFX mix to help convey the sense of scale of the battles and the majesty of events.

Mahoney Post created the foley, and a live orchestra provided the music, which really added to the drama. With creative teams hitting the highest standards in every aspect of the production, Pete and his team gave it everything to deliver an equally powerful mix.

Andy Briers describes himself as one of our lifers, joining us when Crow TV was acquired and became Radiant. Now he’s paying forward the benefits of his career, sharing what he knows with the next generation in post.

Andy’s the guy who first summed-up what we do as giving productions their final polish. It’s a phrase that chimes exactly with our Radiant name and accommodates every aspect of what we do – online, colour grading and audio – with all the deep technical skills each of those areas involves.

Polish and shine in project and client relationship management are just as important, of course, and it’s in this field that Andy works now, as our director of post production. He has a role in every production, providing a guiding hand to younger members of the team so they achieve the best possible service level and support high quality output from our creatives. He understands how effective project management sets the scene for rich creativity and everyone’s motivation for doing the job well.

Andy learned the importance of softer skills from great mentors he had along the way and now he’s enjoying passing what he’s learned on to others. Remember that client relationships are about conversations, Andy says, and working together to find a way when there’s a challenge. Sharing ideas and being positive rather than limiting, contributes to everyone working on a project together and to clients returning to work with you again.

Andy is so enthusiastic about the skills, creativity and culture of the Radiant team that he has recently bought into the business, which gained him the title of director and means everyone across the business can continue to enjoy his great insights and unlimited generosity with his knowledge.

Tom Dunlea, head of engineering, is instrumental to our streamlined hybrid working operation and continues to push the possibilities of what can be achieved with remote teams.

Hybrid is here to stay says Tom, but we can’t simply meet the needs of the here and now, we also need to have a view on future modes of working and build the infrastructure that can adapt to even broader expectations.

Flexibility is key, to ensure real-time collaboration and the highest quality standards are always achievable no matter where people are located. Plus, in an industry so driven by precision, creativity and deadlines, there should be no limitations on the software that can be used and minimal downtime and delay. 

It was this range of considerations that informed Tom’s design and build of our Manchester facility, which has thin clients and NDI decoders installed in the editing suites, while our Avid estate is centralised offsite in a datacentre.

This means, our clients no longer need to book an edit suite for the entirety of a booking – though they can if they’d like to – they can simply book the Avid machine. They can also mix it up, booking the onsite edit suite for in-person collaboration and review, with exactly the same Avid available to the team as they’ve been using remotely.

The hybrid opportunities provided by our Manchester studio were so successful we’ve rolled them out to our London facility as well, even turning our online finishing rooms into hybrid suites using routed SDI instead of NDI video. 

More developments are oncoming as Tom and the tech teams discuss the workflows and innovations involved in post production, now and in the future, and how technology can support them, no matter where you are.

It was a chance conversation between our MD at the time and a driving instructor that led Elliott to a running position in our company and freelance offline editing work in our studios today.

Our MD, Elouise Carden, asked the driving instructor if he knew any young people who wanted to get into TV and Elliott, then working in a café, got a mention. He got the job as front of house runner and started work the week of his 18th birthday, standing red-faced blowing out candles while the team sang happy birthday to him on day two.

Elliott describes how the running role gave him access to suites cutting some of his favourite prime time shows and a realisation that these shows aren’t made in a secret Hollywood lab, but by normal people, spit balling ideas and trying things out to construct something against the clock. He decided to persevere to be part of it, helped by our MD’s ethos that TV should be accessible to anyone and everyone. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been to university. Radiant was a place where lots of people had built their career.

Becoming a MCR assistant gave Elliott the tech insights he needed for everything involved in post production and he quickly progressed to senior technical operator in the tech department, where he was responsible for training others. But still he was asked by the business what he wanted to achieve next. 

Editing was Elliott’s answer. It’s not that common for post houses to have an in-house offline editor, but our MD Ben, reached out to clients to offer Elliott’s services as an assistant editor first, for a trial period, to prove he could be a safe pair of hands in the edit.

For around a year Elliott worked with multiple production companies, in varied genres, achieving credits as editor for shows delivered to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and streaming platforms including Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Paramount+. Elliott is now a freelance editor, a career achievement he says our company was instrumental in shaping.

Working on the documentary Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story, was one of those moments when you know you’re involved in something truly game-changing and important.

From the first rushes we were privy to, we knew we were helping to tell a powerful story – contributing to an eye-opening documentary about the widest miscarriage of justice in British history.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office: The Real Story was broadcast on ITV in 2024 and accompanied the four part drama series of the same name. Together, the drama and documentary generated extensive media coverage and the documentary went on to be nominated for Best Documentary at the Edinburgh TV Festival, as well as winning the Factual Award at The Television & Radio Industries Club TRIC Awards.

There was widespread pride in our team for playing our part in sharing the real voices of those involved in the fight for justice and conveying the details of tragic life events that the drama couldn’t accommodate.

We were commissioned to work on the documentary by production company Little Gem and in close collaboration we worked on the offline, grading, online and audio to give the narrative of this 60 minute documentary the full emotional punch it deserved.

Generated with advanced 3D computer modelling and virtual animated studios, the eight-part Disaster Autopsy series demanded new ways of doing things and a custom workflow.

Production company Blink Films is a pioneer in the use of 3D computer modelling and virtual animated studios, and with Disaster Autopsy for National Geographic they took their technical innovation and creativity to the next level.

Viewers see experts seamlessly interacting with “live” 3D animations of infamous disasters of the modern era. The reality of how these were constructed is far more complicated than it seems, with the animations filmed in an entirely blacked-out set. It’s not until post production, that the shows contributors finally get to examine the virtual evidence and reconstruct each disaster.

Disaster Autopsy relies on highly creative VFX and animations composited seamlessly via a process known as blending modes, coupled with sophisticated motion tracking. This required meticulous planning from pre-production and studio shoot onwards, through to offline rough-cut and final post.

Offline used the Boris Continuum Suite in Avid Media Composer. This enabled editors to achieve a close approximation of the final composite, while remaining in their preferred multi-cam cutting environment.

In-house we developed a custom workflow to accommodate the offline, through to native conform at UHD, with final grade and online in Davinci Resolve, ensuring that all attributes flawlessly carried from one system to another, whilst leveraging Resolve’s native compositing and blend modes.

This approach allowed for a full UHD grade and online to enable rescaling and compositing for HD delivery. Whilst filmed using static isolated cameras, the final affect effortlessly places the contributor into the environment of the animated studio, matching scale and position and giving the illusion of a fully immersive environment.

Created as a tribute to a past MD within the Radiant Group, we’ve been proud sponsors of the Elouise Carden Rising Star Award for Post Production several times, most recently in 2024.

Elouise Carden (Ellie) was a powerhouse in post production, joining our business in 2005 and quickly moving up the ranks to become general manager, then joint managing director in 2014, working alongside Ben Plumb, who remains our MD today. Ellie very sadly passed away aged 39 in 2020.

We established the award in Ellie’s name, with support from the Women in Film and TV Awards and with the aim of continuing Ellie’s sterling work of encouraging women in the industry and bringing up the next generation of women in post production. The award puts a spotlight on new female talent, bringing attention to the outstanding work of early career women working in this field.

The winner receives a £2,000 bursary which can be used for training, professional development and equipment to further their career in post. The nominations are considered by an industry jury.

Nominees are required to have worked in the industry for up to five years and to have made a real impact for colleagues and/or clients. The eligible roles are junior audio assistant, junior facilities assistant, junior online editor/colourist, junior post producer, junior technician/machine room assistant, VFX assistant and runner.

Nominees need to show a genuine curiosity and passion for post production, and to consistently go above and beyond expectations of their role. Just as Ellie always did.

Every project has its unmissable deadlines but Drama Queens was particularly fast paced.

Commissioned by Lime Pictures, we worked on the show together in our Manchester facilities, with Lime completing the offline edit onsite and grading, online and audio being completed there too.

The show was focused on Manchester and the Northwest and featured stars from three of the most iconic soaps in the UK – Hollyoaks, Coronation Street and Emmerdale – giving viewers an insight into the their professional commitments, late-night finishes, photo shoots and last-minute learning of lines.

The pace of post was just as rapid with new footage coming from multiple places – the stars’ homelife, red-carpet moments, award ceremonies and behind the scenes filming.

So it was really gratifying to receive a note from Lime Pictures saying how brilliant our team were in supporting the production. Post producer Joseph got a special mention for being across everything, making sure everything was done quickly and efficiently, and keeping Lime in the loop at every stage.

The tech team received feedback for being brilliant too, for their handling of last minute requests and making sure the deadlines were hit every time.