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The director, Sean Thompson, wanted a warm sensual look for the spot, with a sense of gold permeating throughout. The colour reference that Sean had in mind for this was the desert fight scene from Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott. The challenge was to get all of the footage looking as though it was during the ‘magic hour’, when for example the opening of the commercial was shot at midday. Also, even though we went for a heavy golden look, I had to make sure it looked clean and sleek at the same time. LUTs The spot was shot on Alexa with anamorphic lenses, and graded on DaVinci Resolve. I sometimes use LUTs in my grade because that gives the picture more depth and make it look more cinematic, less digital. If utilising LUTs, I like to blend them through, so that I’m left with maybe only 5 or 10 percent of the intensity of the LUT. READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about LUTs I find that with all the digital cameras nowadays everything is very flat, especially the skin tones, so I'm using certain LUTs that help the skin tone (giving it more colour and volume). Set your levels right One of the first rules when you train as a colourist is to set your levels right. When I first started grading, about 14 years ago when obviously we were working predominantly on film, the first step in a grade was 'Neg matching'. Meaning you would bring your neg's RGB levels to a correct point in the whites and blacks (with no crushing and no clipping). That would allow you to start with a balanced picture. An exception being when certain coloured filters or lights were used. The same still applies today, only that when working with a digital picture rather than film, it can be trickier because sometimes the footage that we get is not straight from the camera and it might have been already compressed into a QT prores, therefore not having all the range to work with. This is why it is always important to provide your colourist with RAW files, allowing the maximum range within which to work. When working on the RED or RAW files, etc, I sometimes use the camera settings option in Resolve to change the exposure or get more info in the blacks or highlights. Then, I use the primary colour corrector to set the levels right. And yes, it's very important to start the grade with a good balanced picture because it is the only way you can get the most out of the picture (and know what your limitations are as well). The golden look After I set my picture balance right, I start working on the look that the director and the DOP aim for. With this particular film ‘Legacy’, it was all about the golden sunset look. I like to work on the overall picture, and I find that this way the look is more natural, not so 'Instagram'. Having said that, on the Legacy film I selected the highlights and added a touch of warmth in them, as I was trying to recreate the warm late afternoon summer sun. I also used few subtle vignettes throughout, to make the picture look a bit more cosy and ad more depth. I kept a good healthy contrast that complements the lovely anamorphic flares from the camera. To help enhance the cinematic look I also added a touch of grain in the picture. I find that it's always great to add some texture into the clean digital images. In general, I use the vectors and qualifiers a lot, also lots of windows, the contrast and the amazing midtone detail both in the DaVinci Resolve primaries. Skin tones I like to start working towards a look in small steps, as I find it very important to keep good skin tones in my grades. With a golden look this can be a bit tricky, as in order to create it you need to find a fine balance of yellows and reds. I find that with a lot of digital cameras, skin can often look really grey and flat, so I like to add colour and some depth into the skin. I think that one of the most important things is to always having good skin tones and ensuring that they work with the rest of the picture. Basically if the picture is lit with a blue light, I think its fine to have cool skin tones, it looks natural. The briefs are different for different brands and types of films, from the translucid skins of high fashion models to the nice peachy skins of pampers babies. One colour that always creeps into the skin tones is green and I find that it is a very delicate balance of removing that and not making it look too magenta. Colour influences perception, sometimes in an obvious manner and sometimes in far subtler and unexpected ways. Fundamentally, what we’re always contending with are levels of hue, saturation, lift, gamma and gain. The balance of these and their effect can on a subjective level be quite finite but there are some accepted and proven conventions to the psychology of colour, that as individuals all of us generally adhere to, in so much as eliciting similar emotional responses; bright & warm equals happy, cold equals sad. Colour can be used to associate a positive or negative tone, make us hungry, encourage feelings of calmness or energy, etc. Clever advertising and marketing executives are of course aware of this. When you’re an established colourist and working at a certain level, it’s all about the fine details. Nowadays with a plethora of apps and software available it’s not too tricky to add a funky look to a picture but in my opinion if a grade looks as though it was done on an app, there’s not much value to it. I always try to stay true to what the cinematographer had in mind when he shot the film, and go from there. I would also say that it is very important to be interested in cinematography and photography in general. To continue to learn and be inspired. The technical side is a large part of the craft, it is important to have a thorough understanding of the pipeline, which will give you confidence in handling any job. Social and communication skills are also very important. Simona Cristea All images and clips copyright © 2016 Cake Group / Dark Energy

I was introduced to Oblivion at the marketing stage, and I worked on the movie trailer with director Joseph Kosinski and the DP, Claudio Miranda. It was the perfect scenario because a trailer is a mini version of the movie. It saved us a lot of time that we were mostly able to set and agree on these looks before we got to the movie. Creating a look is mostly about listening to the creative ideas the film-makers bring into a session. Most of the time they have an idea of what they want but I often do look development to give them different versions. For Oblivion, Joe and Claudio had a pretty good idea of what they wanted. The overall look for the film was somewhat dictated by the environment where it takes place. We consciously left the contrast soft and the color at a more normal saturation level in hopes the viewer would relate to it as if it were closer to real life. Working with EXR The film was shot on the Sony F65 and finished in EXR. I color corrected on a Lustre using a Float Conversion LUT. Learning and working with the EXR file was a technical challenge, as the EXR file utilizes a wider code value than the Lustre could work with without a Float LUT. The Float LUT brought the outside code value back into range so I could color correct it. This was not very well communicated so there was a bit of trial and error. In addition to the Float LUT, I color corrected using a viewing LUT designed by the Technicolor Color Science team. The viewing LUT gives some density to the image as a starting point for grading so the color corrector doesn't have to work so hard to create a basic picture. This LUT is also called a "Show LUT". READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about Float Conversion LUT and Viewing LUT I used Linear Architecture mode that gave me the subtle tools of Ped, Gamma, Gain and broke down the image within each of those perimeters. This allowed me the ability to color correct areas in the picture without having to define the area by keying it. There was a very high emphasis on preserving the subtle low and high light detail so I needed tools that allowed me to make subtle adjustments. The log architecture color corrector doesn't define the picture area with as many perimeters, and I find this a little limiting and time consuming when I am trying to do something very detailed. Colorists whose roots go back to film timing are probably more comfortable using the Log tools because it more closely resembles film timing using points of light. Faces and fleshtones In general, I color correct a scene for faces and fleshtone first. I create what feels right and then evaluate the rest of the image. If I make a pleasant fleshtone but the surrounding white walls are now too warm, then I might try making the walls white and then see if the flesh feels appropriate. Color correcting a scene from the raw image is all about trial and error within the layers of luminance and color. Adding color into one area but then needing to take the same color out of another area so the balance is right. The movie has a lot of close up 50mm lens shots in it. There were many occasions where I applied a bit of softening to faces to ease back the detail in the flesh. I also applied some sharpening to the eyes. The emphasis on the shots was directly on the eyes. Integrating the CGI The Technicolor Color Science team developed a workflow within the different VFX houses, and Integrating the CGI with the organic photography actually started well before I started the movie. The viewing environment the VFX artist was working in matched the projected image I was looking at so closely that when I received the VFX for grading there was usually no noticeable difference between the two. For some of the composited images I had mattes created for the different layers in the shot, and this allowed me the ability to color correct a specific object in the frame separate from the rest of the shot. Favorite scenes One of my favorite scenes is when Tom is tied to the chair and Morgan Freeman is sitting in the dark. There's subtle detail in the dark on Morgan's side that is just awesome. The image of Tom in Morgan's glasses is in the photography and is so compelling. Shooting on the Sony F65 and finishing with EXR really enhanced the ability to reproduce detail in the low and high lights. Another scene that stands out in my mind is dinner by candle-light scene. Again, the detail achieved inside a scene with real true black is perfect. The beauty of the soft candle light on the faces was achieved with very little effort. We really worked to retain the soft contrast in the light and have true blacks. One last scene I spent some time on was when Tom and Julia fly the Bubbleship into the radiation zone. A perfect example of using color and density to manipulate the viewers' emotion in the scene. We created a very warm and bright look to manipulate the viewer into believing this environment was indeed a hostile one. If we had left the scene looking like the natural environment with the white sand and comfortable sunlight, the feeling of the hostile environment wouldn't have been achieved and the viewer may not have believed the area to be as dangerous as it was supposed to have been. I think we achieved that but still managed to make it fit into the overall look of the movie. Mike Sowa All images and clips copyright © 2016 United International Pictures

I was first involved with this project when the cinematographer, Dick Pope, was doing some camera tests. He was trying out lenses, aspect ratios and a LUT for dailies. Being a Mike Leigh film, it hadn't even been written at that point. On this film I was more involved with Dick than with Mike although Mike did attend. The idea was to evoke Turner's paintings without going into pastiche. The "Turner palette" Our inspiration was Turner's paintings themselves. In particular his use of colour and light, which is one of the most remarkable things about them. It was about finding a Turner "feel" and learning from his work. Pete Marsden, the DIT, had some very interesting work with sampling the colours from various Turner paintings and used them to create a "Turner palette" which we referred to. DOWNLOAD: Turner colour palette, created by Pete Marsden We also took a look at some of Turner's original colour tests in the Tate too. It's all browns and yellows, but always with some blue to balance the image. So those kind of things informed everything in the look development process, from production design through photography and into the grade. Having said that, the blue/yellow thing is just a stylistic thing Turner used. I don't do any of that highlights yellow/shadows blue thing and neither did Turner really, it's more areas of the frame, especially skies. Turner's most famous painting "The Fighting Temeraire" is a prime example. There's a contemporary cartoon of Turner with a big bucket of yellow paint, and there's a lot of yellow in both the paintings and the film, but it's not ALL yellow. There's nothing wrong with "all yellow" of course, I did it quite a bit in "Hellboy 2", grades are all about what's most appropriate for the film in hand. Grading technique Mr Turner was graded in Log-C and Baselight's film grade tool is my standard grade tool for this kind of work. It's simple, precise, and natural. All the other firepower is to get you out of trouble. Printer lights do the work, as they have done since the dawn of cinema. I grade for the skintones first, that's almost always the subject of the image. I grade the skintones to look right for the specific lighting environment. Then everything just falls in line. Our eyes and brains are most adjusted to recognising skintone. We can tell instantly if skintone is wrong, but not so much the colour of the walls. Generally, I approach grades as if they're photochemical grades as if you had nothing else except printer lights. No windows, no keys, just exposure. Windows are just a tool, that those work on a shot by shot basis, where necessary. I only use a key or window if I can't get there with the overall grade, and even then it's just to complement the primary grade. Ideally, I wouldn't use any windows at all. Grade it like that and you're halfway there. Keeping a period feel The biggest challenge grading the film was probably keeping a period feel. Although Dick did a lot of great work with lenses and light, it's still shot on the Alexa and exhibited digitally which inherently feels a little "modern". So we had to be careful nothing felt too pristine or polished yet still had impact and beauty. This was about watching contrast and the general feel of the images. Contrast and perceived sharpness are very closely linked. A grading system like Baselight can also do simple comps, that can be immensely powerful. In the scene where our people are experimenting with a prism, we had a great flare from the sunlight on one angle, but it wasn't so pronounced in another. We stole the flare from the flarey shot, tracked and comped it over the non-flarey shot and added a little light shaft cutting through the air. We did quite a lot with soft keys on highlights which run alongside the lenses and smoke Dick used. This is just printer lights, no blurring or softening. The "defuse" tool in Baselight does a similar thing and can be very useful. "This doesn't look like our movie" I feel that speed is absolutely crucial to a grade in a feature film like this. I did try to get a first run at the movie done in the first couple of days, like an assembly edit, and then let the film evolve from there. Colour adaptivity is both your enemy and your friend, but you can only truly see what its effects are when you play the film back and see it as a whole and feel how everything flows together. There needs to be some kind of continuity throughout the piece, but you can mix it up if it's appropriate for the story. I often use the phrase "this doesn't look like our movie" Adam Inglis All images and clips copyright © 2016 Thin Man Films Ltd / SF Norge AS

I was introduced to The Man From U.N.C.L.E during pre-shoot tests by long time collaborator DP and friend, John Mathieson BSC. He was put in control of creating the MFU look. We analyzed each scene with the overall style and the atmosphere his funky lenses created in mind. We worked together to come up with something we both liked for each scene.The look of the movie was inspired by the Sixties colourful Kodachrome feel: saturated colours but never 'digital', and natural, healthy skin tones. Guy Ritchie commented and approved during the final grade process. Film print emulation look Both John and myself prefer the film print emulation look as a base, so we took the Alexa 3k RAW Log file and applied a bespoke LUT. I had tweaked and developed this LUT over the course of the last few years to emulate in tone and curve exactly what an original negative print would achieve. It creates a healthy starting point to work with the images. When using an LUT it's important not to be afraid of the harsh contrast that can occur in some scenes. It’s perfectly natural! First pass From that starting point, I concentrate on the overall look and matching up each scene. I mainly use just printer light controls to maintain consistency and to avoid betraying the film look too early. Everything then has a numerical value so you know if you are moving away from the natural filmic look. The LUT is specifically designed to match an original neg print in terms of the relationship between shadows, mids and highs. If I adjust the gamma, for example, I am breaking this natural relationship. If I do, I set myself limits so that I lose that natural film look. The Resolve will display a value to every control so you can see how much each end of the curve has been adjusted. I also tend to keep a little yellow in highlights and maintain a film white at the top end of the curve. This reduces any digital look immensely. On shows shot digitally, I simply grab or key the very top end of the highlights and bend them down to remove the very bright top end that appears when using a film LUT. Film naturally has a nicer, gentler curve at the very top end. It not only helps on an aesthetic level but also helps retain a tiny bit of dynamic range detail that otherwise would have been lost. Second pass After the initial first matching pass, we review and compare how well the film is working in different areas. We get into more secondary colour correction on scenes that need a little extra help. With each review, the changes should get smaller and less frequent. We also pick out relatively minor parts of the image to give it that final polish. I prefer to keep things as simple as possible for as long as I can, so I stick to various window shapes rather than keying if possible. Keying on the big screen has to be perfect or it can cause technical issues such as boiling or noisy images which is a big no-no for me. I don't want to compromise the quality of the image in any way. I tend to stick to printer lights, curves and windows for the most part. This gives the closest result I can find to the photochemical image we have loved for generations. Skin tones are the key to my grading. They are often the only real reference we have when looking at a scene for the first time. In one of the evening interior scenes, we decided to lose the nicely saturated colours. We went for a more tobacco/sepia feel which seemed to make sense in that particular environment. I initially matched this scene up using normal saturation and colours, but then I changed the feel by reducing saturation overall and playing with the balance. I tried to keep the scene naturally lit and not overtly graded in appearance. The night boat scene was a tricky sequence. It had a mix of day for night, real night, underwater footage, multiple camera formats, VFX, split screens, the lot! Getting that whole scene to match and be believable was tough. At the end, we did apply a low level of film grain on top of the image throughout. The start of the movie has some shots filmed on a Super 8mm camera. We had to match in the shots around them by adding saturation in primary colours and turning up the grain level. After the first scene, we reduced the grain accordingly and (hopefully) invisibly. Paul Ensby All images and clips copyright © 2016 SF Norge AS

I was introduced to the job midway through the post phase. It was at the point where all the plates had been shot, the edit had been locked and the VFX teams at The Mill had spent a few weeks working on the droplets. The main groundwork had been laid and it was getting to a good point. It was really nice for me to be introduced at this stage as I could come in with fresh eyes and see it as a blank canvas. I could come in and offer some new ideas on how the grade should look. Johnny Green is a wonderful director who has worked on so many great projects. He knows what he wants. I was grading with the agency Brothers & Sisters in London and he was viewing my output in NY, using our remote grading connection. The main thing Johnny wanted was a feeling of awe and magic: a grade that could compliment the visuals. Golden Hour look At the start we weren’t sure whether to go for a warm look or cool but as the VFX evolved it was clear that a warmer grade would be best suited to this piece. It looked higher caliber, more magical and premium. A cooler look actually worked better with Sky’s brand (clean whites) but we decided it played down the film and chose a nice Golden Hour look. There are some stand-out images when I think of Golden Hour. In particular I love William Egglestone’s shot of girl stirring a cocktail drink on the plane. There’s a light that’s coming in from the window shining on the orange drink. It creates an orange light that spills down on the passenger tray. I think it’s a beautiful golden orange hue, one I always think of for a warm palette. The colour compliments so well against the glasses monochromatic grey shadow. For me, colour is about a feeling of something that triggers a memory. Something I always try to do when I work. Once we went for that golden look it was starting to work. When you hit that sweet spot everything falls into place. The base layer The first balance is incredibly important. In the Baselight we call it the layer 1. For me, if the contrast and colour balance are nailed in this layer all other layers after should enhance the image instead of correcting the mistakes that were made in your first layer. Keep it simple, something that I was always taught and would recommend to any aspiring colourist. Sometimes less is more. Nothing beats a clean precise well-balanced image. There are so many tools out there on different grading platforms. It can be quite discouraging because there is always the danger of overdoing an approach when it can be done in a simpler way. Crushing the blacks too much or clipping the whites should not be done in the base layer. Keep your image clean. It’s the foundation of colour grading, something I always see in the greatest colourist. From an organized standpoint, it puts the colourist in a much better stead for the rest of the session. It makes applying grades to other shots much more manageable. It’s a cleaner layout and much more relaxing when you’re with clients and can provide quick results. In this commercial, the base layer had the main look but we did as much as we could to enhance every shot in the next layers. I love to use power windows to enhance/contract specific areas and draw you in to what is important in the shot. Tracking has been a revelation to the modern colourist. The ability to enhance moving objects with ease has been a game changer. I love to key specific parts of the image. Whether that being the shadows and highlight or specific hues. A hue shift can change the look of a shot without adjusting the contrast. I love to blend in grain stocks into my image if the clients are feeling it. I think it can add some extra texture to a digital image. The most important thing in the shot I saw this really interesting video when I was first getting into colour. They managed to track eye movements and recorded what part of the image people were looking at. What struck me was there were many of objects with minimal meaning that people would be drawn to. People were missing the parts of the shot they should be looking at. I remember one scene where a guy walks into a dark room. For the most part, people were looking at his face. However as soon as he passes a lamp people’s eye movement looked at the lamp! Instead of the intense look on his face. Ever since then I wanted to use all the tools I could to help over-look the things that are less interesting and draw you to the things that are most important in the shot. Every shot in this sequence has a golden nugget and that was something I wanted to enhance as much as possible: the highlight glint on the racing drivers eye, the shine reflected on the book, and the waves of droplets exploding up the stairs. I used power windows to draw the viewers eyes to specific areas, key certain hues of the droplets and shifting the colour a few percent, add depth to the shadows and highlights to define separation. If I can fulfill the director’s vision, enhance the what DoP shot and add something to the droplets my job is complete. Develop your own aesthetic style I love collecting photography/film stills and other colourists’ grades that I can always study. I have no shame in looking at other people’s images and seeing what they do. It’s the best way to learn and help develop your own aesthetic style. I always want to inspire my clients and transform their picture into something stunning. I think if a client can see you really care and want to give them the very best possible it’s a great attribute to have. As a colourist it's important to study the visual aesthetic of what makes a great image. You need to have passion in what you do, and love looking at images. Challenge yourself. It’s important to always treat yourself as a student, always be willing to experiment and try new things. Find a great mentor. Someone who can help teach you the fundamentals. Keep practicing. Practice is incredibly important if you want to be a successful colourist. It just won’t happen overnight. So, saying that, you need patience. With patience and practice come experience and nothing can beat experience. I think enthusiasm and confidence in your own ability is a great quality as well. Politeness will go a long way. Matt Osborne All images and clips copyright © 2016 Biscuit/Brothers & Sisters

I came on board with the production in early 2014, and I met with George Miller, the director, and talked about what the look could be like. It was amazing to get such an open brief which was essentially "it should be saturated and graphic, and the night scenes should be blue". The main reason for this is quite interesting. George has been watching 30 years of other post-apocalyptic films and noticed that they all use the same bleached and de-saturated look. We knew we didn't want to make yet another film like that, so we had to find a way to make it saturated and rich. The other aspect was to keep each frame as graphic as possible. When it came to the night scenes, we experimented with silvery looks and photo-realistic looks but found that the graphic rich blue night look was the best option for the film. Grit in the image I watched all the original films again before starting just to get some grounding of the series. The one thing I was very conscious of was to make sure there was some sort of "grit" to the image. We didn't want to make an overly plastic or fake looking saturated image, there needed to be some sort of rawness in the look as well. In general, one of the aspects of the look was to apply a lot of sharpness. We liked how it made the image look sharp and how it often brought out some grit in the image. Each shot was sharpened independently and often we sharpened just certain parts of the frame more than others to help draw attention to specific areas. Because the film mostly takes place out on the desert road, we knew it could get visually boring very quickly. Which is again the reason for going with a rich colourful palette. Watching 2 hours of de-saturated desert tones would be dull. Once there was a rough cut of the film, we looked at the scenes and worked out how we could break up the visuals to create some variety in looks and also how to differentiate the landscapes and story points. Every time I worked on a shot, I kept saying to myself "make it look like a graphic novel". The basic balance The film was shot on the Arri Alexa in Raw. We used an LUT to convert the C-Log into P3 colour space, which also had a bit of a film emulation baked into it. We had someone from Deluxe provide several options for LUTs which we chose after testing. The Alexa camera has such great dynamic range which was amazing for a film like this, as I was very rarely struggling to find detail in a shot. With most of the shots we did a basic balance using printer lights first, then we jumped into video-style grading tools after that. I always worked under the LUT, but used traditional video tools such as lift, gamma, and gain. I also used some soft keys to add contrast to certain parts of the image which helped retain detail in extremes. READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about LUTs Eye scan Every shot in the film has been worked quite hard in the grade. George is big on what he's phrased "eye-scan". The audience should not have to search the frame to know what's important in the image. We would shape each shot so your eye knew where to look and you saw the important story points in any given frame. We used standard techniques like vignettes or shading parts of the frame down to draw your eye to what's important. The overall experience should be smooth and even though levels may be changing across cuts, the idea is that you shouldn't notice it. For each look in the film, I made sure there was a connection between them. Whether it was a contrast level or a saturation level, the scenes needed to flow. Whenever I'd work on a scene, I'd always go back and watch the scenes with audio to make sure I wasn't missing anything important and that it flowed across the cut. The looks and expressions of the actors Like with any film, the main objective is to match the skin tones of the characters across the cuts. On a few occasions, we would help out an actor who might have had a pimple or something on that shoot day. The film was shot over 6 months, so it's quite normal to see blemishes appear across the cut. We simply tracked their face and smoothed out the skin to remove the acne. We also spent a lot of time on the eyes of the characters. There's very little dialogue in the film, and a lot of the performances come from the looks and expressions of the actors. The human brain focuses about 80% attention on a character's eyes, so we wanted to make sure they were clear and vivid in every shot. I essentially rotoscoped every eyeball in the film and added contrast and sharpness to them. This made the eyes vivid and helped draw your attention to their performances. The night scenes are 95% completely blue, so it obviously affects the skin tones as well. I kept 5% of the original colour in the scenes and occasionally we pushed a colour for story reasons such as some blood or a green plant. Day-For-Night One of the toughest parts of Fury Road for me was working out the right look for the Day-For-Night. The incredible Cinematographer, John Seale and VFX Supervisor, Andrew Jackson had worked out a technique of shooting 2 stops over-exposed on the day shoot. The theory behind this is quite simple. With an over-exposed image (without clipping highlights), we can expose the shot back down in the colour suite, grade the image to create the Night Blue look. Then we can selectively bring out any detail from the shadows that we wish, with virtually no noise. This enabled me to create very graphic contrasty images with detail exactly where I wanted it, and a fall off into shadows where I didn't want it. Almost every D4N shot was basically roto'd and had the sky replaced to create the look. It took a few months of fiddly work, but I think the look is different and graphic. Challenge with the interior driving shots One of the other trickier elements of the film was grading the interior driving shots. As you can imagine, shooting in the bright desert sun, if you expose for the dark interior of the car, then the background outside the window is severely over-exposed. We wanted to always retain detail and saturation both inside the car and outside the car. This meant a lot of keying and detailed shape work to keep both sides of the exposure looking rich and saturated. For the most part, I approached shapes in 2 ways. The first was to use very soft shapes as a way to shade and shape the image. The second was to do very precise shapes which usually required a lot of tracking and roto'ing, such as eyeballs. The redemption scene There's a scene in the film called "redemption". It's a scene where Max comes up with a plan and presents it to the other characters. They all discuss the plan and decide to go ahead with it. However, it's a dangerous plan, and they don't know if it will work or not. For this scene, we wanted to break away from the standard blue skies that we had seen in the other action scenes previously. Instead, we changed all the skies in the colour suite to a slightly stormy looking sky. The characters are lit in full sunlight, but there's a stormy environment behind them. The idea behind this was to create a mood where you're not sure if it's going to be a nice day or a bad weather day. Helping to create an emotion with the audience that compliments the story of whether the plan will work or not. This meant that for every shot in the scene, we needed to replace the sky with a new stormy sky, one for each angle the camera faces. The ability to replace skies in Baselight is amazing. It's fast and interactive, so George is able to see instantly and can frame it how ever he wants, or switch it out at the drop of a hat. On a technical level, it meant that every sky needed to be tracked to the background of the shot and put behind the characters which required a lot of detail work, but it was worth it in the end. VFX If there's a tool on the Baselight, then chances are I used it on this film. Everything from keying, curves, printer lights, shapes, sharpening, lens flares, blurs etc. The grading stacks are quite large on this film. I also like to keep every change in its own layer so I can control it separately and disable it if necessary. I also worked very closely with VFX on this film. There are actually a lot of VFX shots in the movie, from basic wire rig removal to CG backgrounds and of course the Toxic Storm. We were able to get mattes with every VFX shot so I was able to control specific areas of the image that were comped. For example, if there's a green screen shot of Max and the background is comped it, then it is hugely beneficial to have the matte for Max so I can adjust him independently to the background. It saves a lot of time. Eric Whipp All images and clips copyright © 2016 Warner Bros. Pictures

I started working on the film during previews. Previews can often be a quick process where you don’t have a lot of time to grade and you're using dailies as the starting point. And in that, you can get a good sense of what the filmmakers have been looking at for a few months in editorial. You can also get a feel for how the edit drives the grade and what special sequence treatments may be needed with respect to flashbacks or point-of-view moments (McCall vision in the case of Equalizer). As a finishing colorist, doing the previews lets you see the film’s evolution and gives you a head start on thinking through your approach when the time comes for finishing. Inspiration The film was photographed by Mauro Fiore, so of course, it was captured beautifully. Much of the “look” of the film was really inspired by wardrobe, set design, lighting, and narrative tone. To be honest, I believe that looks for films should really be derivative of those things rather than an overlayed idea of a colorist. That being said, I believe my role or contribution is to assimilate all of those things into a point of view that drives the grade and enhances the photography. The film was shot on the Alexa, with some selected bits on the Phantom. All footage was unified to Log-C in the Baselight and I graded thru a modified print emulation LUT. READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about LUTs Grading technique When working with features I’ll typically start out with Log controls, doing overall printer-light type color and exposure work for the first touch. Then I’ll get into LGG when pushing contrast. More subtle grading happens with Log controls. I’ll leave keys as the last resort for most situations - I don’t like to use them if I don’t really need to. I’ll mostly use targeted curve grading to swing hues or tweak saturation. That being said, there are of course times when I do qualify with keys, either via HSV or 3D keys. Sometimes, I’ll also use luma keys to help slow down energetic windows for example, maybe g-matted to protect what else is in the frame. I’ll generally find a grade setup methodology that’s appropriate for a film and use that throughout. That could be a base grade correction followed by subtle Log corrections. Another film setup could be that plus a highlight desat and a more aggressive LGG grade, for example. These setups, for me at least, are contingent on the viewing LUT and if I’m constraining primaries or not, and they can vary wildly from style to style. Skin tones in mixed-lighting scenarios Managing skin tones in mixed-lighting scenarios is often tricky, and it is really where feel comes into play as a colorist. Literal matches from shot to shot may not be the appropriate thing to do based on the color temperature environment of the scene. My approach is to match the environment and the frame as a whole, and then see if the skin tone is complimentary and matching the world around it. If not, then a quick window or hue shift is available to clean things up if necessary. Color correcting dark scenes At the end of the film, there’s a scene in the big-box hardware store. Once McCall turns off the main lights, the hunt is on and Teddy and his men are picked one by one. From the moment the lights went off, I transitioned into a grade style which rode the bottom end of shadow detail but maintained pings of light to avoid muddying up the image. We wanted to see the action - the violence and expressions but maintain near blackness. I relied on exposure controls to set up the base pass, then added some mid-crush to keep things down but maintain the highlights. Also, I utilized the shadows control to nuance the tone of the image where it was visibly black but still feeling the environment. After those overall manipulations, I added windows to knock back areas of the frame we wanted to de-emphasize and to also bring out key details in faces or hands - adding shape to the frame and to ensure readability of the subtle expressions of Denzel. VFX I had worked closely with the VFX guys during VFX reviews and notes, and have done a few films with them so I had a very good relationship with the company. For a few sequences which were shot day-int blue screen for night interior, I had set FG/BG exposure ratios via alpha channels to then go back to VFX for the compositors as a grade reference for the sequences. Then, during finish, I had alpha channels in the event we needed to massage comps a bit for continuity or further garbage-matte isolation. I have a background in VFX, and so have a good understanding and respect for their work. That said, the last thing I want is to rely on alpha-channel grading to swing color around and potentially break excellent compositing. It’s best to communicate grade intent early on and use the alphas in finish for subtle polishing. I’d have to say the biggest technical challenge with this film was integrating the Phantom high-speed footage into the hero Alexa footage. The Phantom was used with great effect for super-slow motion shots of explosions and such. And so integrating the lower-dynamic range footage of the explosions into the other footage took a little tweaking. Douglas Delaney All images and clips copyright © 2016 United International Pictures

The DP, Mike Bove reached out to me initially. We had collaborated on commercial work earlier and have been friends for years now and this was his first feature. He sent over a few scenes to see if I would be interested and I was on board right away, both intrigued by the visuals he’d captured but also the performances. Those familiar with the movie will remember the brief conversation between John and Danny when John pulls alongside Danny’s car. Simple shot reverse shot and the performances draw you in. I was hooked just from watching that scene. Two distinct looks Steven, the director really wanted this movie to be two different story lines that collide at the end, so we worked to create two complimentary looks that both worked within the same world. Each look was unique but didn’t feel disjointed and they have a shared softness. Mike provided some initial frames but we really built up these looks together over the course of a few ‘set looks’ sessions. Trying a few things and settling on the right amount of separation between the two looks. Chicago look The Chicago, rom-com story-line is cool and clean, really taking a nod from the urban environments and textures. I put some slight color in the low-low shadows, but true black for the most part stayed black. Anywhere that had blue tones I shifted toward cyan. A little bit of cyan in the darks helps to separate out brick, skin, dirt etc., and this is very obvious in these Chicago Office scenes. The Wisconsin look The Wisconsin, murder mystery, has a sandy and dusty, softer quality but is still contrasty, playing off the look of the surroundings. Cyan in the shadows is also present in this scene on the steering wheel and dashboard. Going a little cyan helps the frame from going too completely warm-washed which I wanted to avoid . In some of the Wisconsin shots, I keyed the skin tones and used the Resolve's mid-tone detail to help separate the actors from their environments and make them pop. Because of that, the actors were prone to get a little grungy with this look, a little smoothing of the skin in some close-ups also went a long way. Matching footage The movie was primarily shot on Alexa in 2K with Cook mini-S4 lenses, but they also used some Canon C300's for car mounts and smaller spaces. Typically, Alexa and C300 shots tend to play well together because their gamma curves are related, but many of the C300 shots were done on different days and with drastically different weather than the Alexa shots. The main challenge was to turn the gray, overcast days in Chicago that was shot on C300 into sunnier days to match the 1st Unit principal work that was shot on Alexa. These are examples of bright, sunny, and nice skies shot on Alexa. This next shot was a pick-up shot that was done on C300. I needed to correct the curve to match the Alexa but I also needed to create the appearance of a sunny day because it was shot on a cloudy day. It was a lot of work in bringing the low mids and the mids up substantially while keep the high mids and highlights at the same level so that everything opened up without just blowing out the background. It’s a fine line for this sort of thing but it worked really well. Contrast ratios are key Similarly, many of the car mount shots of the road were shot on different days with the C300 camera. It was important to bend the curves and put contrast and exposure in a place consistent with what it’s cut with regardless of when or how it was shot. Contrast ratios are key, and we can do a great deal in color with changing contrast and exposure but it’s still paramount that the DP gets their ratios relatively where they want them. We can compensate for specifics like eye lights and fill with windows and keys but the closer they are naturally, the exponentially faster it is to get it exactly where they want it. Log grading When the cameras were all matched, the shots were balanced, and the contrast was placed, I moved on to secondary manipulation and Log Grading for finesse mostly in the shadows. Log Grading in Resolve or Film Grading in Baselight has a finer curve of where lows/mids/highs are affecting so it allows us greater precision. Affecting lows in video or primaries will affect 0 IRE 100% and 100 IRE 0% so it’s affecting all the way from the darkest point of the image on up to the brightest and slowly feathering how much it’s affecting. By contrast, affecting lows in Log or Film Grade will affect 0 IRE 100% and roughly 50 IRE 0% so it feathers off much faster allowing for more precise control of the lows. By working in Log Grade for shadow finesse I can push subtle tones into the shadows and just the shadows without it spilling too far into the mids and up. I also put a good amount of work with keying and shaping the sky, particularly as the time of day plays an important role in moving the story along. I shaped the skies using vignettes and I burned down portions of the sky to draw the eye and created some more interesting patterns that weren’t so open and flat. Sharpening the grain layer I worked under a custom LUT based on a Fuji stock and added and overlaid a 400T Kodak Cinegrain stock. Actually, I sharpened the grain and not the image itself to dial in the texture I wanted. Sharpening the image sharpens everything whereas sharpening the grain, helped pronounce the grain a bit more without just making the grain larger. Alternatively, choosing a different grain stock resulted in a more or less “chunky” grain so this kept the grain structure while dialing in how noticeable it was. Tyler Roth

The concept of bringing Audrey Hepburn™ back to life in CG form came about several years before the ad went into production. When we found out Daniel Kleinman was confirmed as Director and that the project had the green light we were all very excited and the team headed off to the Amalfi Coast to shoot. From a Colour perspective, our ultimate vision was to create an authentic, Technicolor-esque print look. The 3D team had amassed many films and images in preparation for the shoot and I was able to grab key scenes of daytime exteriors which helped me to create the final look of the film. I considered a number of films of the period as reference including Charade, My Fair Lady, and Breakfast at Tiffany's. There were a number of elements that inspired me in these films: rich contrast, deep colour – sometimes so separated it almost forms block colour, at its most extreme. Film Pipeline DOP Joost Van Gelder shot the film in ArriRaw format on the Alexa Studio camera, giving Daniel the ability to reframe the 4/3 image. We decided to employ a ‘film’ pipeline, i.e. working on visual effects on the raw, adding the grade on the final comped pictures. This workflow enabled our 3D team to work floating point to the raw and allowed me the benefit of working with alphas at the back end. We had an initial grading session using DataLab-conformed Log-C conforms, which ultimately were superseded with conforms from Hiero, from which I got linear EXRs. I fed LUTs through for the nuts and bolts of the grade, omitting windows, complicated keys, and other effects such as softening and grain, which would be considered at the end of the final grade session. I considered Kodak and Fuji LUTs early on, but quickly decided I'd go LUT-free as there was too much remapping of primaries required, which I wanted to remain pure. The basics of grading 20-odd years ago, in a linear neg-up workflow, the initial correction was a primary balance. The concept of CPD scans was something employed in later years, so setting the correct exposure and white balance of the negative was of paramount importance. Ensuring the optimum light through the negative and balancing the exposure would minimise the amount of grain, marking the starting point from which to begin the creative grading process. Since neg scans became CPD, and, generally speaking, digital material comes in various guises of Log, the concept of base balance is no longer as important – particularly in the fast-paced world of commercials. Grading sessions have become shorter and clients generally want to start seeing the desired look early in a session. I will always stress, however, to any aspiring grader, that it is key to learn the basics of grading – namely to set the balance of a scene, rather than focusing on the creative business of pushing in looks. Theoretically, a scene of perfectly-balanced shots could have the same correction added to each and maintain a good level of consistency. Having said that my everyday use of FilmGrade and in particular exposure, has changed somewhat. I will on occasion skip the initial balance, create a look, and then when applying that look to a darker, cooler shot insert a layer and re-expose and re-white balance into the grade. Grading techniques Back to the ad, however, and the Amalfi Coast: I looked to create rich contrast and colour, with a nod to a projection print. I wanted detail in the highlights and the shadows to be deep, but ever so slightly lifted. The lumination of the primary colours, in general, was to be low, but I sought vibrancy in some of the reds, especially in the flowers. Grain and dirt were to be added, but these had to be black, not white, and the level needed to be present but not overpowering. I looked at introducing colour seepage (magenta) into the shadows, and to strengthen the grain, but we ultimately didn't want to go so far as to create a ‘worn’ print – it simply needed to feel more like the original. I used FilmGrade, Curves, VideoGrade (clipping the signal), and finally through pivot points to roll contrast levels back. I also used Hueshift at the top of my stack to bring density into primaries that were magnified through the rest of the grading stack. I requested alphas for the bus, umbrellas, and even the yellow piping on the bus seats, which gave me full control to further heighten the block colours. Final touches were made in Nuke. The grain and softness I had used as a guide were removed by me and re-added, whilst black dirt, a little instability, and a slight chromatic aberration was added in the highlights. Visions and nuances The biggest challenge that I faced, technically, was the fluctuation of light; however, it was also critical to deliver a picture that fulfilled the vision of all of those involved on this incredibly complex and challenging spot. Working with the talented creative team at AMV, as well as Director Daniel Kleinman, there were many visions and nuances to consider – plus, of course, I wanted to stay faithful to the amazing work of VFX Supervisors William Bartlett and Simon French at Framestore. The end result certainly delivered, with all parties happy with the film’s look – a roaring success, from my Colourist’s perspective. A project like ‘Chauffeur’, for me, relies on feelings and memories as much as direct reference material. The VHS pirate copy of The Warriors I remember seeing, way back when, looks nothing like the recent DVD that I watched. Let’s not even touch on the image quality of the tank-like TV I watched it on, that’s another conversation entirely! Colour often goes deeper than rods and cones; a grade is a personal response offered by the individual artist. The skill of the Colourist is in absorbing the collective feelings around a piece and translating them into visuals, giving images the greatest resonance possible to be felt and enjoyed by the greatest number. Steffan Perry All images and clips copyright © 2013 Audrey Hepburn™, Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti.

This 9-part series for ITV continues in series 5 in the 1920s, portraying the life of The Grantham family. From the outset, my main objective was to give Downton Abbey a unique, vibrant, cinematic and filmic look. I wanted to ignore and stay away from many period dramas where the look can sometimes be quite desaturated and drab with low contrast and washes of brown sepia tones in the palette. The look of Downton Abbey is highly stylised with high contrast and strong vibrant colours, textures, hues, and tones. The overall objective was to embrace the rich mood and atmosphere of the landscapes, locations, and design of the series, creating a heightened but yet real feel. The series was shot on Alexa, and I started the color work by manipulating the Alexa Prores 444 files in Nucoda Film-Master. I also used Sapphire plug-ins to achieve flares, glares, glows, glints, and other visual effects. Matching scenes The contrast between life upstairs in the home, and in the servant and kitchen areas is quite intentional, with obvious colour contrasts in the drawing rooms and in the library compared to the servants' quarters. There were many challenges grading Downton Abbey. An example of this is matching all the scenes that are shot in Highclere Castle with the servants' quarters and attic bedrooms that were filmed at a set built at Ealing Studios in London. Creating depth and texture in these sets without compromising light on the actors in these spaces can be very difficult especially when the scene may have various actors positioned in front of windows which must look like the Yorkshire countryside. Beauty work In scenes with multiple characters composed in the frame, I had to pay special attention to making each actor, especially the females, as beautiful and cosmetically flawless as possible. This work involved separating and masking each character, adding individual treatment as generally skin tones and complexions can be quite varied on the original. Using the Nucoda Filmaster, I could quickly utilise the infinite amount of layers and keys with tracking in order to grade and cosmetically perfect each character individually in every scene. Attention to making sure skin tones were flawless and bright but never flat could be done through layering whilst keeping the backgrounds darker and giving the image more depth. In addition, I used soft focus and keys to iron out lines and imperfections. The end result is an intention of flawless and beautiful skin without looking like it's been airbrushed. Differential focus In series 1, I used many defocus effects to create a shallow depth of field using differential focus. This effect I used also around the same time when I started working on Wallander. I backed off using this effect in series 2 as I felt that it started to be over-used on TV shows, which is something in my 30 years of grading I realise is a natural thing to happen. A look is created and adored and then done to death by everyone, but such is life and that's why it's such a subjective art form. I am very proud of my work on this series as I believe the grade blends beautifully with the narrative. I have graded Downton Abbey since the first series and feel the look and grade of the show have grown and developed and evolved beautifully. It took me 170 hours per series of grading time with additional time before filming commenced for camera and lighting tests. Aidan Farrell All images and clips copyright © 2016 Carnival Pictures

I was introduced to The Grand Budapest Hotel after the shoot was done, and after dailies, but early enough to establish looks for the film that would matter to VFX. Wes Anderson had a vision that included creating different palettes for different time periods in the movie. For the 30s, he wanted a less saturated look with light pinks and deep reds and purples, for the 60s a warmer, golden feel with rich yellows, golds and greens, and for present day, a more neutral palette. He also wanted to create a look based on old photochrome images from the early 1900s. He directed me to an online photochrome library from the Library of Congress. These looks would bookend the film. It was a very collaborative process with Wes, we did spend a lot of time exploring different looks together. He would tell me what he wanted and I would do it, then give him different ideas of my own as we went along. The production design helped us choose colors to accentuate in each time period. Grading technique Grand Budapest Hotel was shot entirely on film. Each time period had a different aspect ratio, so we fit all 3 (2.40, 1.85, 4x3) all into a common canvas of 1.85. My starting point was the original scan, with a film emulation LUT in line, since we were grading in P3. My father, Mitchell Bogdanowicz, was the color scientist that designed the LUTs for this show. Mitch also designed several LUTs that gave a beautiful look of old photochrome. READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about LUTs I used mainly lift, gamma, and gain to balance the shots and to create good color separation. I always use the term "balanced" image, which refers to literally taking away elements of color correction when something is added. My basic color theory is that if you add a strong element to the image (for example, contrast or saturation), then you need to take something else away. So, a high contrast image will feel more balanced if it has lower saturation. If it has high saturation it starts to look too forced. Another example could also be using power windows to "balance" an image. If one side of the frame is full of people or subjects, darkening the other side of the frame will bring more weight, which can balance the frame composition wise. If the color takes you out of the story, then I haven't accomplished my goal of helping to tell the story and direct the audience with my tools. I also made sure we had solid blacks to really keep the film look strong. I tried to keep it as simple and elegant as possible, as a lot of intricate tools can be eliminated if the base image is strong. Creating depth In the funicular scene with the monk, the mountains were all composited into the background. Wes wanted the background to be slightly warmer than the foreground, to create depth. It's a very subtle color shift, which makes for very delicate color grading, but it worked very well. We used alpha channel mattes to help isolate the foreground and background throughout the scene, but I also had to draw power windows to further define where we wanted warm and cool tones in addition to the mattes. The day for dusk scenes is another example where we combined VFX and color correction. I used alpha channel mattes supplied by the VFX house to isolate the practical lamps to make them glow. Then I darkened the scene to make it feel like dusk. I used power windows to darken areas that felt too bright, like the skies. Generally, I use power windows to isolate different parts of the image. Sometimes I combine keys inside of windows. For this movie, I combined keys with alpha channel mattes quite often. We also used the softening/sharpening tools to accentuate depth in VFX I also usually keep lots of color separation in skin tones, and I love a nice, rich, skin tone that fits in with the lighting of the scene. The tone is almost always justified by the surrounding light, but sometimes I make them a bit brighter to help guide the audience to the characters. I feel it's very important to keep skin tone consistent throughout a scene since the audience is focused on the faces... Usually. Jill Bogdanowicz All images and clips copyright © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Norway

I was first introduced to the show when the script had been written and sent through to me. Director Tom Shankland wanted me to understand the timeline between the abduction in 2006 and the present day search with Tony and how it needed to be an obvious visual transformation yet not over stylised. Once I read the script it was very clear that our main objective was to establish a clear transition through time, and the challenge was to find a way to communicate this via the colour grade, despite the fact that both periods are of a similar era. 35mm vs Red Epic The brief from Tom and DOP Olë Bratt Birkeland was to represent the transition in time in an “obvious but subtle” way, whilst avoiding a super saturated or high contrast bleached look; it needed to be much more delicate than that. Olë and I carried out extensive tests before the shoot, where we looked at various options to successfully differentiate between 2006 & 2014. We looked at the comparison between 35mm and the Red Epic to see if we could use these in combination with each other or stick with one format. We were all pleased with how the two compared as there is always an organic feel to 35mm that adds an emotional depth that’s not always possible with digital formats. The desired effect was for the audience to connect with Tony’s emotional journey and it was important to retain this throughout. Additionally, the 35mm added a richness and texture to the skin that the Red was missing. After much exploration and comparison of the options, we both felt confident that the desired emotional connection and the subtle representation of different time periods would be achievable with some complex grade work. After the first test Olë also had some ideas about how to achieve the same results with filters, so with some more shots in the can, we tested again, but this time with just the Red and with the combination of filters, lenses and lighting, and from this point, we felt we were making constructive progress towards achieving the initial brief. Grading technique When we began working on the grade, we loaded Olë’s LUT and used this as a reference to create our own custom curve in the Nucoda, which provided me with a greater scope for adjustment and allowed a natural roll off to the highlights. After creating our initial LUT which set the shot in a great starting place I mainly used the LGG (lift gamma gain) controls in the Nucoda to balance each shot. Olë shot some of the scenes using the Reds HDRX setting so that he wouldn’t have to sacrifice any detail in either the black or the whites to achieve the look we were after; which was ultimately to keep it all feeling natural and real. This was an additional tool that helped me shape some of the scenes. For the most part, the main objective of the show was achieved by applying a warm golden feel with less contrast for 2006 then a cooler look with more contrast for 2014. The main challenge was that the main time periods also featured scenes set at different times of day. The grade needed to be sympathetic to this and it was essential to retain both the feeling of warmth for 2006, even at night time, and the cool crispness of 2014 at midday. In some of the scenes, we had to ensure we were preserving the intensity of the drama whilst remaining true to the look of each time period. We approached these scenes with the same palettes of warmth and coolness respectively. At relevant points, we used the blacks to cool off the darker areas, whilst keeping a warmth to the mid-tones and highlights. As the edits evolved some of the shots were re-arranged within their scenes, therefore deviating from the original script, and these needed to be re-worked entirely in order to modify the time of day. Working with the 4K Red Raw files and adjusting the ISO and Kelvin level made this process a lot easier, giving me more opportunity to be creative with the colour temperature and contrast. The scenes that happen in 2006 were shot with very strong natural exterior light that can be particularly harsh on facial detail. To help aid a more youthful look with the actors in these scenes. I used an isolation of the skin’s mid-tones combined with a shape to generate garbage matte. Then using the Gamma control to subtly flatten the contrast it added a slight softness to the skin detail without resorting to blur tools. Exterior boat scene The missing was always aiming for a natural feel to the grade but there was one opportunity to push away from this when we are in the mind of Vincent’s mum. These scenes take place on a boat out at sea in an exotic location. This was a real opportunity to push the colour palette away from what we had been working on. For these scenes, Olë wanted to push the colour palette and create an enriched feeling. I used Brightness Regions and Colour Curves in combination with blending tools, to push in complementary colours which added a stronger sense of saturation without the need to over crank the chroma and introduce noise Pool scene Two of my favourite scenes to grade comprised of one of the shortest that needed time to pass quickly and one of the longest scenes that needed to add more progression to the time passing to make the scene work. The short scene is when Tony is in the pool with Oliver before he goes missing. This scene needed to start in the early evening and finish at dusk within 5 shots. The scene starts with Tony and Oliver in the pool and this needed a golden feel to it. I didn’t want to add a blanket wash to the shots as I wanted the shadows to have a coolness as the night was drawing in and adding a colour wash would have made this scene look false. I used a Luma key to isolate just the mid-tones I then used colour curves to push yellow into the image. This keeps the black looking natural and the highlight unaffected by a colour cast. As the scene progressed I strengthen this effect until the scene ended with sun down. Interior boat scene The second scene was the murder on the boat. This scene was shot mid-afternoon but after the edit changed from the original script this scene needed to happen towards the late evening. For some of the shots in the scene I adjusted the Kelvin level in the Red Raw settings and ISO to darken the shots down to bring the mid to top end of the image down to a closing evening feel. I then duplicated the shot and composited it over the top with a black isolation so I could adjust the ISO at a different level fundamentally creating my own HDR image. When the scene settled in the boat interior I used a combination of ISO adjustment, kelvin temperature, shapes and tracking to create the feeling of night. Tom had the great idea of subtitling highlighting and isolating particular yellow items in reference to Oliver’s scarf that would be peppered through the narrative timeline like a trail of breadcrumbs visualising teasing and hinting to us Oliver’s story. With this idea for the ‘’visual yellow accents’’ peppered through the scenes. I needed to be very subtle so that it carried throughout the drama timeline from 2006 to 2014 whenever possible. It was very important that we pushed this where we could. This was harder to do during the 2014 scenes due to the cooler palette. For this, I used Hue curves to reduce all the other Hues allowing the yellow to pop without the need for extra saturation which would lose detail in the yellow objects and compromise the natural feel. This also meant that I wasn’t constantly trying to pull isolations, shapes and tracking ultimately reducing the grading time. Ross Baker www.halopost.com All images and clips copyright © Company Pictures

I was introduced quite early on in the process, while they were still shooting, so I had an opportunity to talk with DP, Ben Smithard about some of his ideas for the look. I'd also been sent the script to read, which isn't always essential but I find it very useful as it helps to get into the emotion and flow of a film, that may not always be obvious from the visuals. Ben was very thorough with his research, and with the main subject being an icon such as Marilyn Monroe we had plenty of visual references from photography books and her different films. The film actually centres on a specific period of her life when she came over to the UK to shoot "The Prince and the Showgirl", and certain scenes were recreated, so we had almost the perfect reference with that. We were keen to keep the bulk of the film feeling fairly light hearted, and I was very fortunate to have some beautiful looking shots as a great starting point (always makes the colourist's job a lot easier, and more rewarding than having to fight the material). Technicolor look for the "shooting of the film" scenes We had two main looks. One for the scenes with Marilyn and her relationship with Colin, and the other that involved the "shooting of the film". What we tried to achieve was to create a slightly different look for the "shooting of the film" parts when Marilyn was on set and base it on the actual film. The look obviously continued when the on-screen camera stopped rolling, and this helped narratively to separate the "on screen/on set" Marilyn with the side that most people aren't familiar with. I wanted to try and recreate, or at least pay homage to the technicolor look, so I tried to work out the best way to address that. To try and dissect what I did, I balanced the shot and separated the image into 3 channels (RGB) so that I had 3 elements to work with. Each element was oversaturated to a different level. Another layer then desaturated the overall image, and then the image was tweaked back again. The advantage of oversaturating, and then desaturating everything, was that you could oversaturate to intentionally distress the colours. The desaturation brought it back in line, but you were left with a slightly limited palette downstream. Grading technique I don't always stick to rigid primary and secondary grading per se in my grades, I may balance a shot and give it a look in a single correction if that gets me to where I need to be. Other films may require primary balances purely to make sense of what I want to achieve. For Marilyn, we went through a few iterations of the grade, so tweaks and adjustments were added on top of some sequences to achieve the look. I usually use a combination of tools for the final grade. There are some looks you can't get from purely using lift, gamma, gain, so Log grading and printer lights come into their own and provide the toolset to make fine adjustments and tweaks. I find that I frequently use a lot of subtle windows to help draw the eye to specific areas. If somewhere is too hot and we want to be looking in the other direction, I'll knock it back, perhaps track it to the shot, and bring the eye back to where we want it. Sometimes important objects in a scene were keyed to highlight them a little bit more. In one scene, the character that is played by Dame Judi Dench, hands Colin (Eddie Redmayne) a red scarf. This was exaggerated in subsequent shots just to reiterate it. In a few other scenes, a CG perfume bottle was added, so attention was made to highlight that, yet not make it dominate the shot. I always like to separate out the highlights if I can, and use multiple tools to do that, either a luma key on the top end highlights or Log grading the high range (I found the Log grading helped to keep the highlights cleaner and they had a nicer roll off). The important thing is having control of the highlights, it's very easy to blow them out, but they should feel organic or they risk looking too digital. From natural brown to blue eyes Being a film about Marilyn Monroe, and the icon she was, we had to really make her shine when the scene called for it. Some scenes were almost treated like a commercial, in the sense of fine detail and our approach to the look. One very specific treatment we did across the film was to turn Michelle Williams' eyes from natural brown to blue in the grade. We did this in conjunction with our VFX department, and they created eye mattes on around 300 shots for me, as well as a fill to get the eyes blue. However, as we were still working on the grade, the plates they were using weren't final, so still required to be match-graded in. In other shots, I did a hue rotation, and then lift gamma gain to fine tune the correction - it was important to be able to do this with the live grade to adjust if it went too far or looked strange. It's a tricky adjustment because you know that the client wants to see blue eyes, but you have to be very careful not to overdo it and make her look like an alien or something, because in certain lighting someone with naturally blue eyes may look to have a different colour anyway. We sat through multiple passes of the film purely looking at her eyes, and as the grade evolved we had to keep checking and updating these elements, making sure everything matched. Faces are an another important part of a shot. Matching skin tones is critical (the viewer is generally following a face as they are talking), so it's very important to have a good match throughout a scene. I generally set a look for a few camera setups, wide, medium and the close-ups of the main characters, then keep a reference frame for each and match throughout the scene. Obviously, things happen throughout a scene that might affect them, like lighting change (deliberate or not), moving around an area, interacting with objects or light, pick up shots (these could have a completely different feel) or shots from a different camera format. Finishing the grade Most things are possible with the right time and budget, and I suppose you never really finish a grade, you just run out of time or money. But one aspect of this film that was challenging from a "sign off" point of view was the "blue eye" fixes. When you are drawn to looking for a problem in a shot, you can always find something wrong. A good way of getting an impartial view on these types of issues (and to stop yourself going around in circles), is to ask a colleague not involved directly with the project and not tell them what I want them to look for in a shot, and ask them if there is anything odd to them. If they spot it after a few viewings, then more work is needed! Lee Clappison All images and clips copyright © Trademark Films Ltd

The war between Germany and Denmark in 1864 was a landmark in Danish history. In addition to the huge reduction in land size, it's the general opinion that the Danish self-perception still is characterized by the war and the events that followed after the defeat. The project "1864" was produced by Miso Film for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation and delivered both as an eight-hour TV mini-series and a feature film. With funding from 10 partners and the Danish government, the approximately €30 mill project became a reality. The script was written by Director Ole Bornedal, Torben Bech, Jesper Nicolai Christiansen and Tom Buk-Swienty. It was based on Tom Buk-Swienty's books "Slægtebænk Dybbøl" and "Dommedag Als". The conform, grading and mastering were provided by Nordisk Film Shortcut Copenhagen. The project was shot on Arri Alexa and I worked on the ProRes files using Autodesk Lustre. The grading suite was equipped with a Dolby PRM4220 monitor, and the feature was graded with a Christie projector. Contrast Dan Laustsen was the DOP for both the feature and the TV mini-series, and he creates images that look like paintings. I'm fascinated by the way he arranges, composes and paints with the light. There were never crushed blacks or burned out skies and the contrast was generally in the midtones. With the Arri LUT creator, he created two LUTs that were used on set for dailies and as the base for final grading. His keyword for the general look was to desaturate the images to almost black and white and give them a high contrast. To create contrast, I usually use a standard Log-to-Lin LUT or experiment with different film look LUTs. A big disadvantage working with Lustre is that it's not possible to grade before the LUT, so for some shots, I created a Log-to-Lin conversion in Curves instead and used a Luma Key to keep the highlights as Log C. I find that the contrast in midtones is too flat just using Lift, Gamma, and Gain. However, in very dark scenes or under exposed shots, I find that not to use any LUTs gives the best result. When needed, I sometimes created contrast by tracking shapes in a person's face, darkening one side and brightening the other. Very few shots had sharpening applied to faces and we didn't use any noise reduction or grain. The look for the battlefield war sequences was blue and desaturated and I applied a soft vignette at the end. Using primaries, fixed vectors, and soft shapes is sufficient for creating a desaturated look. The trickiest part was matching contrast levels, both from shot to shot but also within one shot, due to different amounts of smoke. Generally, I try to achieve the desired look without keying. When the war ended we went for a slightly more saturated and warm look to strike a more hopeful tone. Thomas Therchilsen All images and clips copyright © 2016 Miso Film / Danmarks Radio (DR)

I only got involved with this film during the post-production process. I was assigned the project through my employee, Technicolor, in London and met the DP, David Tattershall a few weeks before we were due to grade. David had brought some images on his laptop that he took on the shoot. This gave me an early insight into what he wanted to do in the grade and we discussed the look we wanted to go for. I personally enjoy playing with the different natural colours that this kind of production design gives us. Wonderful natural light, lavish costumes and gorgeous set designs gave us a lovely base to work from. Although this show was shot digital, my general technique was to aim for a classic film look. Grading technique We graded from ARRIRAW Log files and added a proprietary LUT that I trimmed based on the latest Kodak film stock made. This became a favourite of mine and I subsequently used it on other projects. The contrast curve and saturation mirror 35mm film nicely. READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about LUTs I enjoy working with the filmic Log toolset. This way I keep the natural balance of colours throughout the shadows, mids and highlights on the first pass. My first pass is always kept very simple, using Log printer lights, saturation and subtle contrast tweaks. From there I review, take notes and prepare for the second pass which involves a lot more secondary work. Add to that, any kind of mix of hue, sat, curves, keying, windowing etc. whatever is needed, really. I try not to overcomplicate the grade unnecessarily but using windows can be incredibly helpful in making the image more interesting or lifting areas which otherwise would be lost. Mostly, we tried to keep the general look rich and lush but obviously certain scenes lent themselves to be a colder or darker palette. I always try and ensure we have achieved the right balance throughout the beginning, middle, and end of the film in terms of colour and light. Often, we need to review the whole film a couple of times through the process to know we have achieved the correct overall feel. Fantasy sequence Only during the fantasy sequence in the final tragic scene did we introduce an unnatural colour scheme and defocused the edges of the image for effect. The reason was to tell the audience the scene was a ‘flash forward’ in time. Here, I would accentuate a particular colour whilst removing other colours from the palette – creating more of an unnatural wash – far different to anything else in the movie. The director was also looking to introduce more camera movement to a lot of scenes and in this final scene, we often introduced a subtle camera push in or out to make the shots a little more dramatic. This was a very important moment in the movie so we spent a lot of time making this scene just right. Balcony scene In the famous balcony scene at night, we were keeping a natural darkness whilst introducing power windows to help train the eye into the correct areas of the frame which is an important skill to master. A combination of cool moonlight and warm candlelight is always a nice look and this scene looks beautiful. The first point of reference We tried to keep natural flesh tones whilst saturating the overall colour to make the image shine. Skin tones are literally the first point of reference for every scene. I always try and keep these consistent and they are an excellent barometer of how the scene wants to naturally look like from the shoot. I start on the 'master' shot of each scene - grab a still and constantly reference to this to match skin and other colours. I try not to mess too much with skin if I want to keep it natural looking. I’d rather set the tone of the shot using the skin and deal with any colour issues that arise around that separately. I’m also not a huge fan of keying but I use it when I have no other option. I’d rather get there using cleaner Log or sat curve controls. I enjoy the challenge of doing subtle beauty fixes around eyes using a window with slight blur or lifting contrast. Also, if a shot is soft I tend to avoid sharpening the whole image but just concentrate on the actual part of the image we want in focus. Paul Ensby All images and clips copyright © 2016 Amber Entertainment

In order to reflex the hedonistic and flamboyant times of the 1920s and the characters depicted in The Great Gatsby, a super saturated and excessive look for the film was desired. Costume and Production Designer Catherine Martin worked closely with the DI team on the look of the film. Those sessions stand out as a career highlight. She has an incredible eye. She was insistent on more and more colour separation. At the time my thoughts were “there is no more”! But sure enough, with each pass the depth of the image improved. You really felt as if could fall into the picture. Catherine Martin won two Oscars for the film. While grading, I am very focused on the task at hand and prefer to work without distractions. I don’t like to have music playing and I’m not much of a talker in the suite. I’m asking myself, - Is this grade telling the story? How can I make it better? What’s the main focus? What needs to stand out? Can I improve the colour separation/colour contrast etc? Can I enhance the lighting anymore? Simple grade stack It’s easy for a timeline to become unmanageable on a high-end feature due to re-edits and the wait for final VFX; therefore, I stick to a simple grade stack at the start. I believe in keeping the images close to how they are shot and as close to their natural state as possible. All images reach a point at which they look their best. My aim is to find this point. I use edge gradients for shading and simple windows for pushing areas towards and away from the viewer. Later in the grade, I may do extra treatment for example using sharpen with a window to draw attention to certain aspects of the picture such as an actors eyes. Flashback scenes Catherine Martin showed me an amazing book of hand-tinted photographs to reference for the flashback scenes when Daisy and Gatsby first met. I researched early film stocks and worked with Richard Kirk at Filmlight to generate a bespoke LUT which emulated the panchromatic stock of the period. This gave me an interesting base by swinging the density of the colours around, particularly the red. READ: Mitch Bogdanowicz about LUTs After this, I set about making lots of shapes outlining objects and tracking them. I coloured the shapes to look like the kind of colours in the hand-tinted references. A little translucent and pastel. For example, for Daisy, I made the hair more golden, enhanced her blue eyes and tracked little pink kidney shapes onto her cheekbones. I also added some T800 scanned grain and mixed in an old fashioned flashing projector effect which I found online. Moving through the scenes Matching scenes is a fundamental part of grading and the reason I keep moving forward on my timeline. The film will eventually find its place and its natural flow. As our eyes are constantly re-calibrating I prefer to keep moving through the scenes. It’s important to keep comparing scenes and remain on task. I prefer to do global adjustments in the final days of a DI, usually adjusting brightness and contrast between the scenes. Looking at stills sequentially can be useful. Stereo grading The film was shot in 3D on RED Epic cameras using a split beam. One eyes image is captured through a mirror and is softer and less bright. First of all, you grade the 2D version using the hero (higher quality) eye as the base. The images from the second eye are then matched to the first and then the same grade is applied down-stream. Grading in stereo is difficult on the eyes as you are also checking and correcting convergence issues. Technically you have a much lower light level to work with in Stereo projection and also a colour cast offset to correct from the glasses. For creative adjustments, just like in 2D, certain colours reach your eyes quicker. Red, for example, is closer in depth than cooler colours like greens and blues. This actually works well naturally as landscapes tend to have cooler tones so warmer skin tones will sit forward. With Gatsby’s riot of colours some tweaking was needed. Stereo is wonderfully immersive. I think you are more easily able to trigger strong emotional responses from an audience in stereo than in 2D, the catch is the stereo has to be flawless. I’ve only ever seen perfect stereo projected in a professional environment or a well-run cinema. I live in the countryside so by the time it gets to my local picture house the quality is lost along with the magic and it can distract from the story. However, good colour control will help transcend projection issues. Vanessa Taylor IMDB All images and clips copyright © Warner Bros. Pictures / SF Norge AS