▦ editorial · ☰ terminal
moonlight :: the pipeline

A film is a system. We engineered ours.

Every project that comes through Moonlight follows the same path — from the first byte offloaded on set to the final master signed off for delivery. Each stage has a defined input, a defined output, and a person who owns it. This is that path.

— how a frame begins

A sensor collects light, decides what each color means, and hands it back changed. Every project here starts the same way.

--:--:-- · capture · 24fps · 0.0 EV · 5600K
— sample · drag to compare color · stage 04
— stage 04 · color grading · sample frame la bola negra · 2026 (placeholder)

On set

Where the material is born. The decisions made here determine everything downstream.

— 01

DIT station / data wrangler soon

camera raw → verified offload

Our DIT stations live on set, secure the footage the moment it comes off the camera, apply the show LUT, and hand editorial a verified, organised offload — not a pile of cards.

— 02

VFX supervising on set soon

plates → data + reference

When a shot needs visual effects, the work starts on set — capturing the data, references and plates the VFX team will need months later, so nothing has to be faked or reshot.

Near set / lab

Verification, dailies, and the bridge between the shoot and the cutting room.

— 03

Near set / dailies lab

offload → graded dailies + sync

Checksum-verified ingest, a first-pass dailies grade, sound sync, and proxy generation. Editorial starts cutting the next morning with material that already looks like the film.

— 04

Transmission of materials soon

dailies → editorial, anywhere

Getting the right material to the right people wherever they are — securely, tracked, and in the format their system expects. The plumbing nobody sees until it fails.

— 05

Workflow design soon

the whole path, planned first

Before a single frame is shot, we design the route the project will take through every stage below. The cheapest fix to a post problem is the one made in pre-production.

Post production

Where the film is built. Editorial, picture, and sound, in parallel and in concert.

— 06

Editing soon

rushes → locked cut

Editing rooms and editorial support — the environment, the gear, and the conform discipline that keeps the offline and the online in perfect agreement.

— 07

VFX soon

plates → finished shots

Set extensions, clean-up, invisible effects, the occasional impossible shot. Flame compositing and a pipeline built to integrate with picture and color, not fight them.

— 08

Color grading soon

conformed picture → final look

The single most visible thing we do. A calibrated suite, a colorist, and a director, arguing about light until the film looks the way the story needs it to.

— 09

Sound post production

production sound → final mix

Dialogue editing, ADR, sound design, and the mix — stereo to Dolby Atmos. The half of the film the audience hears but never consciously sees.

Delivery & archive

Conforming the decisions, mastering to spec, and preserving the result.

— 10

Digital lab soon

creative decisions → conformed master

Where every decision made upstream is conformed at full resolution into a single, correct master. The point where the film stops being a project and becomes a deliverable.

— 11

Archiving — LTO, server & upload soon

finished master → preserved, forever

LTO and server archive, plus delivery upload to the platform or distributor. A film that can't be found in five years might as well not have been made.

You don't have to take the whole path.

Most clients come to us for one or two stages — a color grade, a sound mix, a DIT team for a shoot. But because we built the whole pipeline, the stage you hire fits cleanly into the stages you didn't. That is the entire point of designing it as a system.

Send us your script. ↗