Produced by Director Scott Brown’s indie company Second Rodeo for HOLYWATER TECH’s My Drama platform, “Playback” is a seventeen song original musical following Maddie Bryce (Amber Laird), a struggling songwriter whose rising success is tied to a secret she can’t afford to reveal. As AI reshapes the music industry, Maddie is pulled into a double life that forces her to confront identity and authenticity. The series also stars comedian and internet personality Hannah Stocking and America’s Next Top Model winner Sophie Sumner, alongside Royce Lundquist and Sarah Sampino.

The series was shot using the Blackmagic PYXIS 6K digital film camera, with DaVinci Resolve Studio editing, color grading, visual effects (VFX), and audio post production software powering the full post production workflow. With “Playback,” the goal was to create something unique. 

The PYXIS 6K became a workhorse, particularly during pickup shoots. Brown explains: “Having a full open gate sensor as well as the incredible dynamic range of Blackmagic RAW really allowed us to capture a wide variety of images from a wide variety of environments, and have not only the exposure latitude, but the color space to make sure that all of our shots matched.” 

Brown shot open gate throughout, a deliberate choice that paid dividends in the vertical edit. “Not only does that give you the advantage of potentially having other distribution options later, it really opens up a whole host of options when you’re doing the vertical edit,” he said. The production also carried a relatively high volume of visual effects for a vertical microdrama, and that sensor flexibility helped keep options open across 12 reels of finishing work.

Powerful Post Production Tools

Post production for the show ran entirely within DaVinci Resolve Studio. “I really had the lightbulb moment of seeing just what a powerful tool this was,” he said. “I’ve been using other editing programs for over a decade, but with Resolve, especially with its most recent updates, it really has turned me into a huge fan of the program.”

Editor Jim Berkenkamp, who came onto the project during the second half of the editing phase, explained, “Resolve made it easy to move quickly between editorial, audio, and finishing workflows while keeping everything centralized. That flexibility became really valuable as the project evolved.”

For Brown, the ability to move between the edit page and the color page without a round trip was a particular advantage on a project with complex sequences. “You can get into your color workflow, realize that you want to change a couple of shots, and just jump right on over to the edit page, tweak those shots, and boom, you’re right back in the color page continuing where you left off.” 

With multiple machines across the office, both Brown and Berkenkamp relied on the Blackmagic Cloud Pod network storage solution to keep media and project files moving efficiently between workstations. “It helped streamline collaboration and allowed us to keep media and project updates moving efficiently between different workstations, especially while handling pickups, ADR, graphics, and online revisions simultaneously,” Berkenkamp said.

For Brown, the decision to build the company’s workflow around Blackmagic Design tools was straightforward. “When you utilize those programs and stay within Blackmagic’s ecosystem, the incredible connectivity between different machines really becomes a no brainer.”

“Playback” is available on the My Drama app.

For information: 

Blackmagic Design

PYXIS 6K Camera

DaVinci Resolve Studio

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