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.
Digitwest produces commercial stills and branded films from Plzeň. Photography leads; motion follows the same key so a campaign does not split in public between a pack shot that looks like noon and a cut that looks like dusk. The rooms on Náměstí Republiky hold a north window, tabletop, and a colour desk. Clients review tethered stills and a calibrated picture in one visit. We travel in Czechia and nearby with a small crew; local support when a story needs more hands. Square light first. Bounce and a quiet key that match the sandstone, not a sunset someone remembered from a stock library. If the window dies we add a small key that mimics it. We do not start over with a second look. Finishing stays in the same building as the tabletop. Masters are named for the media plan. We keep a working project for the revision window written in the estimate, then an archive another team can open without a private scheme.