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"It was just really gorgeous," adds Bateman of the sequence. "It was warm, so there was a matter of warming up the mid-tones and then darkening the reds and giving them a Kodachrome-red look. There were sort of big set pieces that were important, like there was a Coca- Cola sign that had a red in it, and there were a few other red pops in the scene. They were actually dark and dropped down in luminance, and (were) given this really sort of rusty, vintage feel, which was really effective. And in the skies, with counterpoint, it didn't feel too sepia toned. It didn't feel too washy. There was a little bit of blue bit coolness through those skies that cut through the warmth in a really lovely way and balanced it." Bateman also points to young Elvis' signature piercing blue eyes. "The real guy was known to have gorgeous blue eyes," she states. "So that also cut through the warmth in a really lovely way. And it all just came together beautifully. That had also been shot with that 'color black & white' feel, so there wasn't too much there in terms of bold and big colors that we had to turn back. It all had a gorgeous, muted tone to it to begin with…It was very much that stark palette to begin with, and it was a matter of just constraining and refining that." For the final color, Bjørge and Bateman worked with what they described as a 'semi-locked' edit. "Certain scenes are way more locked than other scenes, but it sort of evolves," Bjørge explains. "We had a good amount of coloring time on this movie, so the edit did change a little bit here and there. Obviously, the (visual) effects kept drop- ping in throughout." Bjørge spent three weeks with cinema- tographer Walker last September, doing an initial color pass on the entire movie. The color team then picked up again in February and continued worked through mid-April to complete it. "There was one really stand-out ses- sion for me," recalls Bateman, referring to a remote session she and Bjørge had with Luhrmann, who was at Warner Bros. in Los Angeles. "We were able to do live session with Baz while he was in LA in the theater, and Kim was off site, so he was he was streaming," she explains. "He was able to hear Baz's responses as we were watch- ing the same download. I could just hear the sound in the theater — it was a big music moment — and Baz in the ear going, 'Wow!'" The Post Lounge is headquartered in Brisbane, with additional facilities in Sydney and Melbourne. For this proj- ect, the work took place in Sydney and Brisbane, as well as Miami at Gold Coast, where the editors and VFX teams were working. There, they configured a 4K the- ater with a with a Christie projector. "All the assistant editors and editors, and Baz and CM, they were all at the Gold Coast," recalls Bjørge. "So we actually moved down to the Gold Coast for part of the DI because it was more convenient just being there. Baz and CM could just walk in when they had a free schedule and look at the picture in the theater." The final push, Bjørge notes, took place in Sydney. All of The Post Lounge's loca- tions have formal grading theaters with 4K projectors and DaVinci Resolve. "We had a couple of other color- ists who helped out at different points as well," recalls Bateman. "That was Candace Mars Williamson and also Brett Manson. We had a really great support team and we made use of the collabo- ration mode with that as well. We had Marcus Newman, Baro Lee and Neer Shelter…We had Sylvia Warmer during the final color, but during dailies color, Kait Bennett helped to keep that process happening correctly, making sure we had the right versions for everything and making sure we had everything in." Again, Bateman points to the impor- tance of DaVinci Resolve's collaboration features. "I don't think we would have been able to work without it, especially on this film because it was all about collaboration with two colorists and other colorists who came on to help us." In this case, The Post Lounge's grading theater had a dual setup, featuring a projector and OLED monitor, allowing both Bjørge and Bateman to work side- by side. "One of us would be working with the projector as the output, and the other one would be working with an OLED as the output," Bateman explains. "We would swap between us, depend- ing on what scene we're doing, because obviously the projector looks a bit different than an OLED," adds Bjørge. "It worked really well. Just being in the same room and being able to say, 'Hey, what do you think about this?' And just looked up and go, 'Yeah, it looks great!' And then we move on." www.postmagazine.com 23 POST JULY/AUG 2022 Elvis was shot with Arri's Alexa 65. Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve was used for grading. The Post Lounge handled dailies and final color. Gordon Parks' early color photography provided inspiration.