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DPS AND COLORISTS www.postmagazine.com 34 POST MAY 2016 on The Leftovers since the pilot. "I love that we've had the same colorist for three years," says Grady. "Todd was doing the show before I did; I met him at Chainsaw. His collaboration is huge. He really under- stands the show. I feel that shooting the show is the first draft and color correction is like a rewrite we collaborate on togeth- er. It's the best of what I did plus what the story still needs." According to Grady, series co-cre- ator Lindelof likes to say that "everyone is a leftover," so "controlled flaws" are part of the show's look. "We use multi- ple cameras which don't always match perfectly; we do jump cuts and make jarring edits. We shoot an episode in 10 days, and shooting is often handheld. We attempt to be as natural as we can with the lighting. We embrace flares and out of focus — all the old 'accidents' we used to fix. We go contrasty too and play with darkness. This show has more art than most commerce does today." Grady shoots on Arri Alexa; Shannon Cook is the DIT on-set in Austin. The DP uses two or three LUTs to give a base- line look, "but we don't go nuts with them," he says. "We go back and look at Raw all the time." The Garvey family's move from New York to Texas shifted the show's color palette from cooler, more monochro- matic to "a little more colorful," says Grady. "This season, the color will evolve again," he promises. Chainsaw sister company Bling — all part of the Sim Group — does the dailies for The Leftovers. Bochner works off Apple ProRes 4:4:4:4 Arri Log C files on his Resolve system. The colorist likes to have conversa- tions with Grady before the season starts "to talk looks and changes," he says. "Then when Michael is shooting, we'll talk or text to make sure I'm on the same Throughout my career as a colorist, I have established some great relationships with some amazingly talented directors of photography. A colorist's level of interaction depends on the project. Often with commercials, by the time we're in the post process, most DPs have already moved on to another project, but with longer-form narratives, a colorist may have the opportunity to work closely with the director and director of photography. Relationships that are formed and built — especially with the DP — facilitate and strengthen the techniques of the colorist that are incorporated for "painting on the screen." Once a colorist has established a relationship with a DP, we have a better sense of what they're going for when a new project goes through, and I might try out some tests based on what we've done together before. Whether we've worked together before or not, it's always great to get communication going early on in the process, so that we have more latitude with the imagery. It's better for us to be working together in concert to push an image to its limits rather than dealing with the limits of what was captured in-camera. The beauty in establishing a relation- ship and trust with a DP is the energizing feeling that you're embracing an image's fullest potential together. How can we make this piece the best we can? I understand the turn-around for projects can be tight, and that deadlines seem to creep up out of nowhere; but knowing ahead of time, creating that con- versation space in advance or having that common understanding of where the film is going to go visually certainly helps the process. In addition to trust, com- munication is paramount to a successful collaboration between a colorist and DP. I've recently had the pleasure of building a relationship with Jared Levy of Navigate. Jared is an exceptionally talented director and DP with vision- ary ideas, technical moxie, eloquent persona and great attention to detail to subtle nuances. We first worked together on his short documentary, Updating Philosophies (cinematography by Justin Hamilton) that followed Cern, an artist crafting murals in Brooklyn. While we didn't have the opportunity to discuss the project prior to production, Jared was great at communicating his vision for this film. We started with a look that evoked the saturation and contrast of street art, but after thorough exploration, decided to dial down to a less gritty approach while maintaining the vividness of the colors the artist used for his murals. It was a communicative and collaborative process, and I think that shows in the quality of the final image. I asked Jared about his perspective on the relationship between DP and col- orist, and he says, "As a director and DP, the color grade can be one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire process. Most often there is a feeling of relief at having reached picture lock and an excitement in bringing the images to their full potential. As with every step in the film's creation, collaboration is key when multiple people need to contribute to a final outcome. Every image or scene poses it's own challenges and a colorist's mix of technical ability combined with his artistry make all the difference." Artistry is the reason most of us came to post in the first place. We were all inspired by something — in my case, painting. But filmmaking, unlike painting, is a collective experience. And that's one of the most fascinating, and important, aspects of the process. PAINTING ON THE SCREEN BY PHIL CHOE, COLORIST NICE SHOES, NEW YORK Choe (inset) worked on the doc Updating Philosophies. Michael Grady (inset, left) and Todd Bochner (inset, right) are DP and colorist on HBO's The Leftovers.