Hold card flat to lens · Do not color correct

Every camera on Earth is calibrated to us.*

*Technically, to the 18% gray card we're named after. We spend our days trying to deserve it. A family-run production company in Los Angeles — script to delivery.

Exposure
0.0 EV — CORRECT. AS THINGS SHOULD BE.
01 — Why the name

The most important boring card in the kit.

Before take one, somebody holds up a flat, featureless gray card. Every light meter on the planet is built around it. Every exposure decision that follows is measured against it. No drama, no opinion — just the reference standard.

That felt like the right thing to name a company after.

If you know the card, you already know what we're promising. If you don't: it means the unglamorous parts — exposure, backups, schedules, deliverables — are handled with obsessive precision, so the interesting parts can be fearless.

Kodak made it famous. We made it a business plan.

02 — Script to delivery

Seven stages. Two people.
Zero hand-off losses.

Most projects lose something every time they change hands. Ours don't change hands.

01 / DEVELOP

Script & Story

Concept, treatment, screenplay. Every strong frame starts as a strong sentence.

ELENA
02 / PREP

Pre-Production

Shot lists, boards, schedule, locations. The plan that survives contact with day one.

BOTH
03 / SHOOT

Direction & Cinematography

Camera, lenses, light. Exposed on purpose, moved with intent, framed to mean something.

OLEG
04 / INGEST

Data & Dailies

Checksummed offloads, sync, proxies. Your footage exists in three places before anyone goes home.

OLEG
05 / CUT

Editorial

Structure, rhythm, performance. The version of the story you didn't know you shot.

ELENA
06 / GRADE

Color

Correction and finishing. We push the image as far as it wants to go — from a calibrated middle.

OLEG
07 / DELIVER

Masters & Deliverables

Every spec, every platform, correct gamma, on time. The boring ending every project deserves.

BOTH

ALSO AVAILABLE À LA CARTE: DP / CAMERA DEPT · COLOR · ON-SET DATA · WRITING · EDITORIAL

03 — The crew

A married two-person crew.
(The production meetings are short.)

Writer · Editor

Elena Tcherkas

Elena writes the first word and makes the final cut. Scripts and story structure on the way in, editorial on the way out — which means the edit always knows what the writing was trying to do.

ScreenwritingStory DevelopmentEditorialPost Supervision
DP · Colorist · Data

Oleg Tcherkas

Oleg produces and directs when a project calls for it, but lives behind the lens: cinematography, camera department, color correction, and on-set data management. Cartless, never careless.

Cinematography / DPCamera Dept.Color CorrectionData · Sync · Proxies

Between the two of us: development to delivery under one roof — and one last name. For bigger days, we scale with a trusted bench of local crew.

04 — Selected work

Properly exposed evidence.

FULL ARCHIVE ON YOUTUBE AND INSTAGRAM.

05 — Music videos

Pictures, but make it loud.

A different rhythm than narrative work — faster setups, bigger swings, and a grade that can go wherever the track goes.

06 — Selected credits

Before the sign went up.

18% Gray Production opened in 2024 — and our very first booking was color-correcting a feature documentary. The rest of that first year looked like this:

Hunter's Laptop: Requiem for Ukraine
2024 · Documentary Feature
Color Correction — Oleg Tcherkas
View on Amazon
Iran: The Great Game
Documentary Feature
Edited by Elena Tcherkas
View on Amazon
All the President's Men: The Conspiracy Against Trump
2024 · Documentary Series · Tucker Carlson Network
Color Correction — Oleg Tcherkas · Edited (3 episodes) — Elena Tcherkas
View series
07 — Roll

Slate it.

Tell us what you're making, when it shoots, and roughly what it should cost. You'll get a straight answer — usually within a business day.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA · WILL TRAVEL FOR GOOD LIGHT