GOAT, from Sony Pictures Animation, is an original action-comedy set in an all-animal world. The story follows a small goat named Will, who has the big dream of playing roarball – a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport that's dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world. Will’s new teammates aren’t thrilled about having a little goat on their roster, but he is determined to prove “smalls can ball!”
The feature was directed by Tyree Dillihay and features a voice cast that includes Caleb McLaughlin, Gabrielle Union, Stephen Curry, Nicola Coughlan, Nick Kroll, David Harbour, Patton Oswalt, Jelly Roll and Jennifer Hudson.
Picture Shop senior colorist Travis Flynn collaborated closely with the filmmaking team to create the final look of the film.
“About a year after first meeting the production designer Jang Lee and art director Richard Daskas we started the color grade,” Flynn recalls.
Flynn received creative direction from director Dillihay and co-director Adam Rosette, alongside Lee, Daskas and the visual effects supervisor Jason Greenblum. Sony Pictures Animation supplied Picture Shop with character and environment mattes, which were used for the subtle adjustments to help balance out the animation when needed.
From the beginning, most of the animation had the look the creatives wanted. But, there were the occasional sections that needed some finessing.
One example is towards the end of the movie, where a couple of scenes had higher red and green saturation. Using the mattes, Flynn was able to isolate where to tone down some of that saturation to help keep the feeling while not overpowering the story.
“The movie has lots of different locations, from bright sun to fire and ice,” he shares. “All the different locations are unique to the story and the game they are playing. The bold colors in the last game really made it fun to work on.”
One of the biggest challenges was managing all of the film’s different deliverables, which included 2D and 3D theatrical releases, Dolby Vision Cinema and the new Barco HDR projection format. Picture Shop also finished the home video Dolby Vision HDR/SDR release. Working in the ACES format enabled smooth changes to keep all the versions similar but also gave the chance to expand in the HDR.
He used Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve to complete the grade.