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WEB SERIES www.postmagazine.com 24 POST SEPTEMBER 2018 exciting filmmakers working today." Levin notes that, "a single-director, 10-episode project was like a long movie for Cary [Fukunaga has directed the feature films Jane Eyre, Sin Nombre and Beasts of No Nation]. But the Netflix 4K HDR requirement was new for someone who's a bit of a film purist. It took some exploration with DP Darren Lew and finishing colorist Steve Bodner at Light Iron to test Panavision's new DXL camera and vintage anamorphic lenses and design the look of the show and the intricate lighting effects in the main science lab set." Fukunaga opted to use LiveGrain and a film weave sampled from an actual 35mm film print and applied with VFX "to give a highly customized film look" to the digital cinematography. "It was a key tool in the finishing process," says Levin. "LiveGrain plus a very subtle film weave made Cary feel confi- dent that HDR could match his film sensibility." "The DXL was a fun trip in prepro; we were al- most guinea pigs for what the new camera's sensor could capture," reports Mick Aniceto. "Cary figured out a color cycle for the LED ceiling lights in the lab set that would coincide with different story points as the subjects take different pills. We discovered that the camera couldn't capture one very particular shade of green light that Cary wanted so Darren, Steve (Bodner) and Panavision got together and found a LUT to use at the dailies level, then later Steve could create custom curves to massage and adjust the color. That successful work-around ulti- mately achieved the green that Cary wanted." The dailies, offline editing and finishing were consolidated at Light Iron's New York City facili- ty. LA-based composer Dan Romer also set up at Light Iron. Sound design was by Mariusz Glabinski with dialogue/ADR/sound supervision by Alexa Zimmerman. The show was mixed at Technicolor- PostWorks by Martin Czembor. Music supervisors were Sue Jacobs and Jackie Mulhearn. Editors Pete Beaudreau and Tim Streeto cut DNxHD 36 files on Avid V.8.8.3. "Some episodes stayed close to the script while others were rejiggered in editorial with rewrites and a few additional shooting days," says Levin. "Cary reviewed rough cuts while he was shooting, but when production wrapped he took on an active role with the editors." Ilia Mokhtareizadeh was the show's lead VFX supervisor and was on set to brainstorm with Fukunaga about what could be captured in-camera and what needed to be augmented in VFX. "Cary always wants to shoot practically if possible," says Levin, "and then extensive digital effects are added to what was filmed." VFX vendors includ- ed Raynault in Montreal, Phosphene and Alkemy-X in New York, Blind Pig in London/New York, Axis Animation in the UK, plus various freelance VFX artists. Filmmaker Ray Tintori created the drug trial's "orientation video" with Charlex in Episode 2. "In theory you can do so much more in HDR with its resolution and wider color gamut, but it kind of works against you when you want an old-school film look," notes Aniceto. "It takes a lot of artistry to make shots look degraded and less technologi- cally sophisticated, as Cary wanted here. It's pretty difficult to make something look 'bad' in the HDR world, but when we told the vendors that's what we wanted they did it." The dailies LUT served as a "good jumping off point" for Bodner's color grading on Resolve, he says. "Steve and Cary approached every episode differently, adjusting LiveGrain depending on the stories. We used to pay someone to remove film dirt and now we pay someone to add it back in! It's a very time consuming process, but it enhances and elevates the photography and the stories." In his color passes "Steve used custom curves to create the subtle filmic nuances tailored to each story and their different times and places," says Aniceto. "The series was conformed in Resolve as well for a seamless workflow." Final color and finishing were done in both 4K HDR and SDR. Dan Romer, who had composed the score for Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation, wrote "a gorgeous orchestral score for Maniac that's genre-specific by episode yet unified in theme," says Levin. "It's de- signed thematically and by the characters' emotion- al arcs over 10 episodes." Sound design was "folded in early to the direc- tor's cut," she explains. "Cary wanted the sound de- sign rooted more in organic elements than science fiction, even for the show's more fictitious realities." Light Iron delivered 4K HDR and SDR masters to Netflix and Paramount TV along with 16-bit .dpx sequences in the camera's Log color space for futureproofing. "Maniac was so different from anything Cary has done before, and he's always setting a new high bar for himself and for us as collaborators," notes Levin. "That's why it's so exciting to keep working with him." Final color and finishing for Maniac were done in both 4K HDR and SDR. Maniac's post producer Levin. Post associate producer Aniceto.