MAKING THE GRADE

Sara Buxton, Goldcrest Post Production, London: The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry (dir. Hettie Macdonald, DP Kate McCullough ISC)

“Kate, Hettie and Goldcrest colourist, Rob Pizzey, created a colour bible/lookbook before the main grade started. Due to post production being delayed, I got the opportunity to take over the project and used that as my reference. The film was graded and finished using

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve. We graded P3, Rec.2020 and Rec.709. Final delivery included 4K theatrical DCPs with home entertainment UHD Dolby HDR/SDR versions too. The Goldcrest DI producer was Lily Morgan.

I found working with Kate and Hettie to be a very enjoyable and collaborative process. They wanted the grade to reflect the journey Harold makes, including the ever-changing weather and different seasons, whilst keeping the film visuallyfluid. The grade was a challenge because of those constant changes in ever-evolving landscapes as Harold moves through the length of England. Every few shots the location had moved and the look would have to be found again.

My favourite scenes are the flashback sequences. They had a slightly different look to the rest of the film, a candid, photographic composition style with a bright light in the centre. I think the look established for the flashback sequences really helps to create a snapshot into the past.”

“This was the first Marvel movie I’ve coloured, and I was thrilled to work with James and Henry. Having previously collaborated with them on The Suicide Squad (2021) and individually on other projects, we already had a great working relationship, and this proved another collaborative and positive experience. I had also collaborated with VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti before. We all have similar sensibilities and that made for smooth workflow.

Before principal photography began, James, Henry and I worked together on creating a showLUT that would give them, and all department heads, a sense of where the look would ultimately end up.

We aimed for a different look-and-feel for Vol.3 that was unique from the previous

Guardians films, while still being true to the characters and recognisable as part of the series. The overall approach to colour was more subtle, with a little less of the bright and poppy feel that people associate with the previous movies. However, since there are so many different types of scenes – dramatic scenes, funny scenes, action scenes – and so many universes and locations, there’s still plenty of colour and contrast.

I always use Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve to colour and this project used an ACES pipeline. That was the production’s decision. Company 3 is happy to use ACES, or not, depending on our client’s preference, and the creative aspect of colour grading isn’t significantly affected by those choices. The Marvel team is always involved in the post-production process, and were enthusiastic about the look-dev and the DI, which made for a seamless, dynamic and fun collaboration.”

“I first met Chris and Kelly during the post production on First Cow (2019), when I was able to collaborate with Joe Gawler and the team at Harbor. We immediately hit it off, so much so that they invited me to grade their next collaboration, Showing Up

Showing Up was a success, thanks to our robust work-from-home capabilities. We graded the entire project remotely – with me in New York using DaVinci Resolve, and Chris and Kelly in Portland, Oregon.

We shipped a monitor from our LA office to Portland to ensure they were seeing the correct picture, and quickly settled into a successful workflow. In fact, when they later came to NYC to finish the sound, we had planned to adjust the picture after watching it on the big screen, but we didn’t touch a thing. Our in-house colour science experts had created LUTs that were so reliable that our Rec.709 work translated perfectly to P3 for projection.

The film has a subtle and understated look that was designed to not intrude on the tension of the story. Grain was a key ingredient and we spent some time finding the right balance that would work throughout the whole film. I used real grain from our extensive selection of stocks, more specifically a 400T, but not quite at full opacity. This gave a pleasing film-like quality without calling too much attention to itself.

Chris is an amazing collaborator and a highlyskilled cinematographer, and working on Showing Up reminded me how much I enjoy the colouristcinematographer relationship. It’s a luxury to have two weeks to help tell a story, and it can be intoxicating. We had a lot of fun working remotely on this film, and the only bad day was when Chris and Kelly signed-off on the colour, and the job was over.”

Roman Hankewycz, Harbor, NYC: Beau Is Afraid (dir. Ari Aster, DP Pawel Pogorzelski PSC)

“I feel extremely fortunate to have worked on several projects with Ari and Pawel before, and Pawel involved me in this project early in pre-production. The collaboration, when we were developing the show-LUT, was intense and took many weeks of collaboration between Pawel, me and our colour scientists Matt Tomlinson and CJ Julian.

The overarching goal was to create something completely fresh. We had many discussions analysing photos and films that spoke to Pawel and tried to pickout the elements that he wanted to use from them.

Pawel shot a few test rounds for us to manipulate, and I posted images for him to evaluate on Frame IO. The look went through 21 revisions in total, but the development didn’t follow a linear path; there were a few times we decided to scrap a look, and we then spent a few days pursuing a new one. The final look was completely hand-crafted and took a long time to get right.

When Pawel was happy with the show LUT, he committed to it completely. I know that the unique characteristics of the LUT required him to abandon some of his intuition and rely more heavily on the monitor, but the results were stunning. I remember the first time I watched the cut. I was completely entranced for the entire three hours. The lighting and story are so incredible, and the way the light breaks on faces still blows my mind.

Once Pawel, Ari and I were all in the room together for the DI using Baselight, the work centered around crafting the story through colour, ensuring the palette developed through the film, and devoting time to accentuate little details.

Colour is such a large part of the storytelling. Each chapter of Beau’s journey has a unique palette, so the viewer feels like they’re on a journey too. I think it’s incredibly fun to watch from that perspective.”

William Kjarval Løkken (freelance), Post Republic, Berlin:

War Sailor (dir. Gunnar Vikene, DP Sturla Brandth Grøvlen DFF)

“Long before principal photography began, I was contacted by Sturla, who had heard about a presentation I gave on film emulation. His objective was to craft an aesthetic that transports the audience back to the late 1930s and early ‘40s. To begin this process, I developed a specialised film-emulation LUT, that would enable him and the crew to preview the final look on-set and allow adjustments to the lighting and set design.

Then it was journey of a discovery. Sturla conducted tests using different filmstocks, lenses and exposures. After several rounds of tests, screenings and grading sessions we decided that the warmth of 250D stock was well-suited for the film. We also liked what printing to 2383 colour print did to the colours and the spatial characteristics of the image.

We then put together a studio shoot and shot colour charts on both ARRI Alexa and film, in various lighting conditions and exposures, as well as some vivid colour patches on a bright display to capture the outer gamut. Cinelab provided scans and contact prints on 2383. All this resulted in 10,716 colour patches, which I used to interpolate a set of shooting LUTs for Sturla and Gunnar. We decided to build a slight pull into the LUTs, to help avoid underexposure.

Prior to commencing the colour sessions, we discussed ways we could improve the shooting LUTs. We wanted to reduce the contrast in order to see more into the shadows and highlights. Also, some of the colour traits from the print were a bit intense in some scenes. As with any film emulation, there is the issue of metameric failure: the more accurate your film emulation is to a specific target, the further you get away from the camera’s natural colour rendition.

Based on our conversations, I spent the initial days of the grading process, at The Post Republic in Berlin, reconstructing the colour model, using a handful of hero shots from the film for reference. The final show-LUT I rendered had a lot of the characteristics of 250D printed to 2383, with a reduction in contrast and saturation. I also went slightly back towards the Alexa’s natural colour reproduction, but maintained the warm whitepoint.

Fortunately, both Sturla and Gunnar approved of the new LUT.

Colour grading was done on DaVinci Resolve and I tried to work in a way that mimicked a photochemical workflow. A lot of the colouring was about finding the mood that felt right for each scene, working mostly with tone and density, and using tools somewhat similar to printer lights. I also spent time correcting lens inconsistencies (those Baltar lenses have some tint to them), and worked a bit on weather/time of year corrections.

We spent three weeks grading, including the final pass on VFX shots. VFX were done in ACES since the VFX company, Automatik, had better results with fire simulation. We received the VFX shots back as EXR image sequences in ACES AP0 linear, which we converted back to LogC. Overall, this was a fantastic collaboration with Sturla and Gunnar, we shared a similar vision and always wanted to go in the same direction.”

Sam Daley, Light Iron, NYC: Succession S4

The fourth and final season of the hit HBO drama Succession, all shot on 35mm Kodak celluloid film, brings to a close the internecine power struggles of the wealthy Roy family. Sam Daley, senior colourist at Light Iron, the post-production creative services division of Panavision, has been involved with the series since the pilot episode, when he worked with DP Andrij Parekh ASC to help establish the show’s flashed-film look.

Returning after the pilot to colour seasons two through to four, Daley has collaborated with series cinematographers Patrick Capone ASC, Christopher Norr ASC and Katelin Arizmendi.

“I’m very proud of our work on this show,” Daley says. “We always wanted to preserve what was captured on film in the final grade. My goal has been to find the drama that’s inherent in the frame, never to force it artificially. If an image captured on celluloid is over-manipulated, it can lose its authenticity and endup feeling like a digital file.”

Based at Light Iron’s New York facility, Daley grades using DaVinci Resolve. “We use a proprietary film print emulation LUT in the grade to maintain the show’s analogue look, as if the negative is printed and then telecined for broadcast. Succession was the only remaining episodic to shoot primarily on film. I hope it’s not the last.”