At X-LDN, Jax Harney is Writing Her Own Rules

“When I started looking into it, I couldn’t believe that I might be one of the only woman-owned post houses in London,” says award-winning colourist Jax Harney, in disbelief but with a smile. Somewhat ironically, we’re speaking on the 8th of March – International Women’s Day. Even if Jax’s new post boutique, X-LDN, isn’t the only one, there are few and far between woman-owned and led companies in the post production space. 

“How is this possible in 2024?”

At X-LDN, Jax is forging her own path by setting up and running the kind of company she has always wanted to work at. One that strips away all the parts Jax found unnecessary in the past while zeroing in on what she prizes most: good work achieved through heaps of collaboration. 

Jax founded X-LDN four years ago and the decision to branch out on her own was solidified by the experience she had during the pandemic while working at another post house. “When the pandemic hit, everything changed.” With a drastic reduction in assistants and production staff, Jax found herself without the typical infrastructure of a big company - and found that she liked it, quite a lot. “Suddenly, I was in direct contact with the VFX team, the sound team, and the clients. I had more control over what was happening, and I realised that I much preferred working that way; it was more beneficial to me and to the final output,” she explains.

It’s clear how much Jax encourages a direct line of communication between X-LDN and whoever she’s working with - the word ‘collaboration’ is a strong theme and is mentioned multiple times over the course of the conversation. “I love having a good rapport with the creatives, to get a really good understanding of what they want before I even set foot in the suite, it allows me more room to explore, in depth, what we’re trying to create.” Jax sees the colourist’s role as connecting the creative idea with its visual expression or, as she calls it, “adding the sugar and sparkle.” 

Her collaborative approach extends to not just her network of creative individuals or her little black book of talent but to other post production companies too; the likes of JAM VFX, Smoke & Mirrors, and The Mill to name a few. To her it’s all part of the fun and flexibility that X-LDN, and the remote working landscape, affords. “Clients aren’t really going to just one place to fulfil all their post production needs anymore and remote work has made it easier than ever.” Jax likes the flowing and asynchronous way of working that this new process makes possible: “For example, I’m working with a US-based client right now, after they brief me - and while they’re asleep - I’m working on a grade for them to wake up to and that can be happening simultaneously with the VFX and the sound; it doesn’t have to all be under one roof anymore,” she adds. That’s the boutique advantage, “you concentrate on the craft more than the overheads.”

With continuously shrinking budgets, 2023’s SAG-AFTRA strike, and the UK’s unstable economy, Jax says that it’s challenging times to be a colourist. One advantage of X-LDN’s boutique size is the lack of overheads, meaning Jax is able to navigate the uncertainty in an agile way. Still, she wants clients to remember the magic that post elements like colour and sound add to the final product. “Colour and sound design are often the first to get cut when the budgets run short at the end of a production, And it’s such a shame when you watch the final film and its lacking in those extra layers of finishing” she says. Jax can see how some newer brands “don’t necessarily understand what a colourist brings to the table.” Jax adds: “Sometimes you need to show them what a great grade adds to help people understand its value.” 

Rewinding back to the start of Jax’s working life and she reveals that she’s always worked with colour in one way or another. Case in point: she started mixing colours at 16 in a hairdressing salon. So while the road to where she is now isn’t linear, all the ‘detours’ certainly connect. Jax studied photography at university in Manchester and soon she was working with a host of stars and celebrities on photo shoots. 

She is full of stories from those days and, while she can’t reveal them all, she does mention the day she spent with Madonna at the artist’s home in London; the intimate three-person photo session with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University; and the time she spent on a closed set with Adele, listening to her sing and play acoustic guitar for the cover of a magazine. She’s also worked on numerous international and high-profile shoots like the one with Paul Rudd in LA, Nicole Kidman in Nashville, Sarah Jessica Park in New York, and even Kate Moss in Marrakech. Her client list is an impressive mix of luxury brands whose relationships have afforded her to travel the globe spanning over two decades in the industry. 

With all her successes in the world of photography, Jax didn’t exactly have plans to move into the world of moving images. But as many photographers transitioned to directing, her skills were being requested to complement that work. “I didn’t really know the colourist world existed, to begin with, I spent hours studying online tutorials to try and match what I knew how to do in stills in video,” she says. “One day I was asked to go and sit in on the grade because the photographer I was working with was in New York, I was buzzing to get in the room.” In the suite, Jax met Simona Cristea (today the colour director at Coffee & TV) and discovered what colour grading for moving images really looked like. “I was instantly drawn to how the colourist had time to sit and craft and perfect, unlike in the world of on set stills when I’d have about two seconds to swap a celebrity head and body before the talent had time to leave the set and see the results.” From then on, Jax soaked up all the knowledge she could to transfer her vast existing skills in the realm of stills into video, allowing her to start grading fashion films alongside her work in photography. 

Since that pivotal time, Jax has colour graded hundreds of projects across diverse mediums: commercial, episodic, gaming, and longform for prestigious names like Gucci, Aston Martin, Lego, Guinness, and Channel Four. Her style can be described as filmic with the grade contributing a look that ranges from naturalistic to stylised but never flashy or obstructive. “I don’t really believe in a personal style as a colourist,” she nevertheless says, adding: “I feel like my style is all about the project and collaborative nature of how I like to work.”

Outside of advertising, Jax is applying her skills to long form projects too. She first worked with director Jim Archer and writer Jack Rooke on the comedy series ‘Big Boys’ in 2018 and she has recently finished grading the show’s second season - a testament to the creative relationship they’ve built. “From the minute I graded the pilot for this show, I knew it was going to be a hit and each season I've worked on, the comedy just gets better and better. Jim and Jack are a barrel of laughs to work with! More recently, she worked on a “dream project”, especially as Jax is an avid gamer: the trailer for Bethesda’s ‘Starfield’. Jax says it was “a career highlight. I love video games, I love working with Nicole Ackerman, and the world Bethesda created for Starfield is just EPIC. Matching the video game palette to the live action meant that I really had the freedom to play and push the boundaries out there on this one.”

As for the future of X-LDN, Jax is calling out to collaborate with more female post production artists. “I’d love to build on my network to include more incredible female talent, I know they are out there so, get in touch!”

She plans to continue on the creative path she’s on with more fantastic projects across commercials, long form and games. More people joining her in person in Hoxton, where she’s based - to work, yes, and also to hang out because fun is never far from where Jax is. More collaboration with other companies, creatives, and clients. Of course, she would like the scale of the work to increase, leading to even bigger and better things. And there are also things she’ll continue to keep to a minimum too: bureaucracy, workflows that don’t benefit anybody, and any attempts to diminish female colourists' achievements.