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May 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 31 POST MAY 2018 DP/COLORIST RELATIONSHIP Peterson says he's "always wanted to be involved with color timing. It's an absolutely vital stage, the only way to make sure your work looks the way you intended it to." He was lucky that the circumstances of his last two series enabled him to participate with Bochner at Sim Los Angeles. "I alternated episodes of Desperate Housewives with several other cine- matographers so I had the time to come in, and I've worked in town all these years," in close proximity to post. Peterson shot the first seven seasons of Desperate Housewives on film, switching to digital for the final year. "I used one or two LUTs then applied the color we knew we wanted in the color suite; the speed at which we had to shoot made this the most practical way to work," he explains. For Jane the Virgin, the satirical telenove- la set in Miami, Peterson uses an Arri Alexa outfitted with Panavision lenses. There's no DIT on set, and he applies the LUT he feels appropriate for the scene. "The art direction and costuming are very colorful so we try not to push the saturated colors, the primary colors that are there," Peterson says. "I bring in a lot of sun streaming through windows, and we shoot exteriors in Long Beach [California], which has often been a stand-in for Miami and has a Miami vibe to it." "I'm a big fan of the notion that a show should be shot the way you want the end product to look, and that's true of Jane the Virgin," says Bochner. "'Jane' has a very Latin flair, warm and inviting with a rich, sun-drenched palette. In the color suite, we take things to the next level and make the show look perfect for TV." "Our cast is largely Latino, so I do a lot in lighting to enhance skin tones," Peterson notes. "Our big source of lighting has the advan- tage of making the cast look really beautiful and luminous but the disadvantage of spilling out onto the set more than we'd like. So Todd builds some vignettes before I get to the color suite to enhance the scene and draw viewers' eyes to our cast." Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve has long been Bochner's color grading tool of choice; he uses Resolve on Linux. "Resolve has grown im- mensely," he says. "It really has unlimited tools and the tracking is great — we utilize it a lot for faces." Peterson regards Bochner as his "creative partner" on the shows he's done. "When I heard that Todd was able to do Jane the Virgin my heart sang," he reports. "And he's fun too! You don't want to spend hours in the color suite with someone you don't like." Bochner says, "It's a privilege to get to work together in this fashion. Time and location often work against the DP participating locally in col- or. They have often moved on to other projects, and many are out of town. In these cases we'll use various avenues to achieve the same results. Live grading and other methods allow us to involve the DP even when they're unavailable to grade in person. "It's very valuable that Lowell knows every- thing we can do in the color suite, how we can push things and try new stuff," he adds. "Embracing the color process takes his vision to another level." Lowell Peterson Todd Bochner Jane the Virgin is color graded at Sim LA. The series is shot on Arri Alexa cameras.

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