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www.postmagazine.com 24 POST MAY 2017 he bond between a colorist and cinematog- rapher is an artistic partnership, which both ensures that the DP's on-set vision is accu- rately reflected on the screen and provides oppor- tunities to expand that vision in the DI suite. Veteran colorist/DP teams have delivered some of the most highly regarded motion pictures (and TV shows) of the past year; we can't wait to see what they do together next. Here's a look at a few of the industry's leading teams. COLORIST ANTHONY RAFFAELE & DP VITTORIO STORARO Anthony Raffaele, senior DI colorist at Technicolor- PostWorks, New York (www.postworks.com), has forged a strong partnership with Vittorio Storaro, ASC, a triple Academy Award-winner (Apocalypse Now, Reds, The Last Emperor) and Woody Allen's current cinematographer of choice. Although Raffaele was the dailies colorist for Allen's Blue Jasmine, he met Storaro during 4K projection tests for Café Society, Allen's 1930s Hollywood-New York romantic comedy and the di- rector's first digital feature. The colorist and DP hit it off, and Raffaele ended up coloring both the dailies and the final for Café Society, which Storaro shot on a Sony F65 CineAlta 4K camera. "Vittorio wants you to do the dailies, so you know the film by the time you do the DI — you've seen the look and feel of the film evolve from the initial ideas," says Raffaele. "I love the process of working soup-to-nuts: getting the script, talking and talking about the look — it helps you know what 'much warmer' and 'cool and contrasty' mean. That only comes out through experience with one another." Storaro says in Italy, "It is normal to use the colorist through the entire film. I think that the collaboration between the cinematographer and colorist is one of the main visual and technical re- lations that a cinematographer can have during a film. It is important to present to a colorist my cin- ematography visual concept from the beginning, so he can follow the dailies according to those ideas and, in collaboration with the DIT, prepare the first digital print following the different visual parts of the cinematography. This pre-pro and production experience is valuable when we arrive at the DI. The colorist already knows every single step that we did together." Raffaele flew to Los Angeles to begin the dailies. Storaro met him with a binder he had created for the film. "Every scene had a floor plan, swatches, photo references," says Raffaele. "His key points were a brighter luminance palette for a golden Hollywood sunset feel and a cleaner pure white with an elevated color palette when the hero returns to the Bronx." Storaro used a standard LUT to create "mini looks that he could tweak on-set," Raffaele ex- plains. The colorist did fine keying, windowing and resizing on the dailies, "so when we got to the DI, a lot of the work was already done. We'd all sit together on Saturday to watch the dailies; every- one would discuss what looked good, what we needed to reprint, what to strive for in the DI." After the picture locked, Raffaele returned to Technicolor-PostWorks for the DI with Storaro and Simone d'Arcangelo, his DIT. The colorist performed the DI in 4K XYZ on his FilmLight Baselight system, delivering standard HD Rec. 709 passes, pan-and- scan and an HDR master. "What's great about Vittorio is that he's very open to ideas, and he explains his thought pro- cesses to you, which is a great gift," says Raffaele. "He's not only my mentor, he's really a teacher." "In my opinion, it is essential to have a colorist, like Anthony, who can translate my theoretical ideas in a visual form," says Storaro. "He knows Baselight so well that in learning my visual concepts, he can show me very fast the resulting image on screen. Sometimes Anthony's interpretation can be differ- ent from my original one, and often I can discover another way to visualize my idea — and why not? It might also be better. This is collaboration." When Storaro wanted a "very strong, almost Technicolor look for Café Society," the colorist created a three-strip look in the initial grading which he merged for an extra-saturated feel that "creatively mimicked the Technicolor process," Raffaele explains. The colorist and cinematographer are now partnering on Allen's upcoming drama, Wonder Wheel, set in a 1950s Coney Island amusement park. They decided to use the beta version of FilmLight's Prelight On-Set, a new Mac OS X application de- signed to allow DPs and other creatives to author, apply and modify looks on-set and extend them into post. "Prelight gives us a lot more latitude," says Raffaele. "With Prelight, we've been able to build in certain film looks Vittorio would like to use, such as flash negative and positive. I created the looks here and Simone finessed them on set with Vittorio to mimic the processes Vittorio wanted to use. With Prelight, many of the DI tools of Baselight are now available for use in production." T Cafe Society features a strong, "almost Technicolor look."