FEATURE
Broadcast TECH Clients also have the habit of
getting easily distracted, and the moment you start pressing but- tons and not much happens on the screen, their iPhones come out and you’ve lost their attention. We do the conform and online on the Quan- tel systems. Other facilities move between a Smoke or Avid DS, which is fi ne if no one changes the edit after it’s locked, but that’s not likely. The Pablo is a good all-round
system and Quantel does listen to feedback – that’s why you pay more for it than the cheaper options. And with the group grading and stored shapes and settings available with just one button press, it’s a good choice for The Look.
Top Boy: a hot, saturated palette moved the series on from the usual ‘street’ dramas
TOP BOY Colourist Thomas Urbye Post house The Look Grading system Quantel Pablo
What was your brief? Director Yann Demange and DoP Tat Radcliffe, who I worked with on Dead Set and Criminal Justice, didn’t want the cold, desaturated, miser- able look that is usual for London ‘street’ dramas. Instead, they wanted high contrast and strong colours to give the series a distinct look; we wanted it to look beautiful, to enhance the spring sunlight and to give the whole series a magical, hot and saturated palette.
How did you achieve it? I was adjusting hues within the sky and backgrounds to create a Tech- nicolor feel, dialling in warm tones into the dark areas of the image, and cyan into the highlights, while maintaining natural skin tones. That’s not to say that we didn’t have some scenes that were darker and more foreboding, but
24 | Broadcast TECH | January/February 2012
‘Having the same look throughout a series limits the
visual style’ Thomas Urbye
all this made it visually interesting, with a diverse colour palette. Most productions and colourists maintain the same look throughout a whole series, which I feel limits the visual style and the storytelling. There were moments of violence but also lots of moments of tender- ness in the series, which allowed me, Tat and Yann to create a new look and colour palette for each scene. Combined with the 2.40 crop, anyone watching just the fi rst few minutes would have felt it was something very different to the usual standard bright, clean video look of UK TV drama. It’s my best work to date.
Why do you use Pablo? The Neo panel on the Quantel Pablo (left) is a joy to use and my clients always comment on the speed at which I add shapes, settings and whizz through the programme. For me, any time press- ing buttons to access various menus is time wasted in the suite and this is very common in other grading systems.
Which cameras do you like working with?
I love working with the Alexa – which is good because nearly all of my clients are shooting with it. The images are cinematic and beautiful and it’s easy to get a nice image out of it. With other cameras, even with the Red Epic, I fi nd I have to get into more detail with curves and it’s not such an enjoyable experi- ence. I have also found Arri to be as interested in the work I do with its footage as it is in the DoPs that shoot with it.
What reference monitor did you use? I love the Projection Design Cineo 32 projector. New clients walk into the suite and are confused that we’re using a projector, but to my mind it has all the qualities my clients and I need. It accurately hits Rec 709 so I’m very happy that it matches any- thing a monitor could represent and everyone in the room sees the same image and colourimetry. It’s more than three metres wide
so all our standards are exacting – small monitors let the colourist get away with bad match grading. It also makes my clients feel their project is being taken seriously on a large screen, and the fi nal result should surpass anything graded on a small-to-medium-sized monitor.
www.broadcastnow.co.uk/technology
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